“ Charles Darwin has, perhaps, borne the flag of science farther, certainly he has planted its standard more deeply, than any Englishman since Newton. He has done more than extend the boundaries of science, he has established new centres whence annexations of fresh and fruitful truths are sure continually to be made. The Abbey has its orators and Ministers who have convinced reluctant senates and swayed nations. Not one of them all has wielded a power over man and their intelligences more complete than that which for the last twenty-three years has emanated from a simple country house in Kent. ”

“ The whole civilized world has arrogated a right to extol and lament Darwin with a sense almost of appropriation of his work and his genius which would sting the heart of England could England reproach itself, as happily it cannot, with shortcomings in its tribute of affection. ”

“ Popular enthusiasm loves to link a lofty name with material associations. It buries the objects of its worship at Westminster that it may remind itself not so much of their works s how and in what circumstances they accomplished them. The career of Charles Darwin eludes the grasp of personal curiosity as much of personal enmity. ”

“ If toil for humanity be the test of rightful acceptance in the British Campo Santo, half a century of loving labour in the cause of truth bears unanswerable witness for him. If unanimity of recognition be a condition of admittance to a distinction which should be awarded freely and frankly if at all, none in the army of renowned dead at Westminster can boast a more absolute and universal assent. ”

“ It is still less possible to predict that a larger law may not sooner or later embrace and merge that of evolution itself. But it is no rash assertion that the facts must survive, and something more than the facts, which Darwin spent his happy life in collecting. ”

“ Sometimes the movement which conveys the dead to their historic sepulchre is less a continuation of the honour paid in life than a spasm of remorse for its meagreness. A generation not rarely testifies to its tardy discovery that it had a prophet in its midst by the self-accusing splendour of funeral solemnities. ”

“ Layout 2When a celebrated Englishman dies the world is accustomed to hear a loud demand that his body shall be buried at Westminster Abbey. The illustrious writer, the general, the statesman, has commonly been surrounded in life by a band of admirers. They compare him dead with famous occupants of the Minster, and insist that his achievements equal theirs. Entombment in Westminster Abbey has become a standard by which great men's great deeds and their vitality are measured. ”

“ The horizon he beheld may widen or contract; no increase in the facilities for observing nature or enlargement of the range of physical knowledge is likely to disprove the value of his method, or render it possible to view some departments of nature except under the aspect in which they revealed themselves to him. ”