My dear Darwin,—

I was delighted to hear yesterday at the Athenæum that the Council had decided that you were to have the Copley medal, for when it was not awarded to you last year I felt that its value had been much lowered,¹ and in my indignation at the want of courage implied in their hesitation, I sympathised with a friend who has long held that these medals do more harm than good, which, however, I have always been unwilling to believe.

In the present instance it is of more than usual importance, not in a purely scientific point of view, for your reputation cannot be the least raised by it in the minds of those whose opinions you care for, or who are capable of judging for themselves as to the merits of such a book as the ‘Origin,’ but because an honour openly conferred by an old chartered institution acts on the outsiders and helps to increase that stock of moral courage which is so small still, though it has grown sensibly in the last few years. Huxley² alarmed me by telling me a few days ago that some of the older members of the Council were afraid of crowning anything so unorthodox as the ‘Origin.’³ But if they were so, they had the good sense to draw in their horns.

Believe me ever affectionately yours, | Charles Lyell