26 JUNE 1909, Page 19

Mr. Balfour made an admirable speech at the Darwin centenary

dinner at Cambridge on Wednesday. After dwelling on the splendour of Darwin's achievements, which had now become part of the common intellectual heritage of every man of education in every country, Mr. Balfour emphasised his title to fame as a masterly investigator, irrespective of his great generalisations on evolution. lie was proud to have known Darwin personally, and "he was not in the least going beyond the bare truth when. he said that, • quite apart from his great scientific achievements, there never lived a man more worthy of respect and more worthy of love." No misrepresentation had ever disturbed his equanimity or moved him to bitterness. Darwin, in short, possessed that rare combination of first-rate genius with simple goodness of which Scott furnishes the classical example in the world of letters.