Huxley’s own view of such scientific honours as medals and diplomas was that they should be employed to stimulate for the future rather than to reward for the past; and delighted as he was at the poetic justice of these two awards, this justice once satisfied, he let his opinion be known that thenceforward the Darwin Medal ought to be given only to younger men.  But when this year he found the Darwin Medal awarded to himself “for his researches in biology and his long association with Charles Darwin,” he could not but be touched and gratified by this mark of appreciation from his fellow-workers in science, this association in one more scientific record with old allies and true friends—­to “have his niche in the Pantheon” next to Hooker and near to Darwin.

It was a rare instance of the fitness of things that the three men who had done most to develop and to defend Darwin’s ideas should live to stand first in the list of the Darwin medalists; and Huxley felt this to be a natural closing of a chapter in his life, a fitting occasion on which to bid farewell to public life in the world of science.  Almost at the same moment another chapter in science reached its completion in the “coming of age” of “Nature”, a journal which, when scientific interests at large had grown stronger, had succeeded in realising his own earlier efforts to found a scientific organ, and with which he had always been closely associated.

As mentioned above, he wrote for the November number an introductory article called “Past and Present,” comparing the state of scientific thought of the day with that of twenty-five years before, when the journal was first started.  To celebrate the occasion, a dinner was to be held this same month of all who had been associated with “Nature”, and this Huxley meant to attend, as well as the more important anniversary dinner of the Royal Society on St. Andrew’s Day.]

I have promised [he writes on November 6 to Sir M. Foster] to go to the “Nature” dinner if I possibly can.  Indeed I should be sorry to be away.  As to the Royal Society nothing short of being confined to bed will stop me.  And I shall be good for a few words after dinner.

Thereafter I hope not to appear again on any stage.

[His letter about the medal expresses his feelings as to the award.]

Hodeslea, November 2, 1894.

My dear Foster,

Didn’t I tell the P.R.S., Secretaries, Treasurer, and all the Fellows thereof, when I spoke about Hooker years ago, that thenceforth the Darwin Medal was to be given to the young, and not to useless old extinct volcanoes?  I ought to be very angry with you all for coolly ignoring my wise counsels.

But whether it is vanity or something a good deal better, I am not.  One gets chill old age, and it is very pleasant to be warmed up unexpectedly even against one’s injunctions.  Moreover, my wife is very pleased, not to say jubilant; and if I were made Archbishop of Canterbury I should not be able to convince her that my services to Theology were hardly of the sort to be rewarded in that fashion.