But the _actions_ which result from our ideas may properly be so
treated, because it is only by patient thought and work that new
ideas, if good and true, become adapted and utilised; while if
untrue, or if not adequately presented to the world, they are
rejected or forgotten.

I therefore accept the crowning honour you have conferred on me
to-day, not for the happy chance through which I became an
independent originator of the doctrine of "survival of the
fittest," but as a too liberal recognition by you of the moderate
amount of time and work I have given to explain and elucidate the
theory, to point out some novel applications of it, and (I hope I
may add) for my attempts to extend those applications, even in
directions which somewhat diverged from those accepted by my
honoured friend and teacher Charles Darwin.

Sir Joseph Hooker was now called upon by the President to receive the
Darwin-Wallace Medal. In acknowledging the honour that had been paid
him, he said:

No thesis or subject was vouchsafed to me by the Council, but,
having gratefully accepted the honour, I was bound to find one for
myself. It soon dawned upon me that the object sought by my
selection might have been that, considering the intimate terms
upon which Mr. Darwin extended to me his friendship, I could from
my memory contribute to the knowledge of some important events in
his career. It having been intimated to me that this was in a
measure true, I have selected as such an event one germane to this
Celebration and also engraven on my memory, namely, the
considerations which determined Mr. Darwin to assent to the course
which Sir Charles Lyell and myself had suggested to him, that of
presenting to the Society, in one communication, his own and Mr.
Wallace's theories on the effect of variation and the struggle for
existence on the evolution of species.

You have all read Francis Darwin's fascinating work as editor of
his father's "Life and Letters," where you will find (Vol. II., p.
116) a letter addressed, on the 18th of June, 1858, to Sir Charles
Lyell by Mr. Darwin, who states that he had on that day received a
communication from Mr. Wallace written from the Celebes Islands
requesting that it might be sent to him (Sir Charles).

In a covering letter Mr. Darwin pointed out that the enclosure
containe