670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rible paradoxes of that generation are now the commonplaces of school- 

 boys. At present the locus of disturbance is to be found in the Bio- 

 logical Section, and more particularly in the anthropological department 

 of that section. History repeats itself, and precisely the same terrible 

 apprehensions which were expressed by the aborigines of the Geologi- 

 cal Section, in long far-back time, is at present expressed by those who 

 attend our deliberations. The world is coming to an end, the basis of 

 morality is being shaken, and I don't know what is not to happen, if 

 certain conclusions which appear probable are to be verified. Well, 

 now, whoever may be here thirty years hence I certainly cannot 

 but, depend upon it, whoever may be speaking at the meeting of this 

 department of the British Association thirty years hence will find, 

 exactly as the members of the Geological Section have found, on look- 

 ing back thirty years, that the very paradoxes and conclusions, and 

 other horrible things that are now thought to be going to shake the 

 foundations of the world, will by that time have become parts of every- 

 day knowledge and will be taught in our schools as accepted truth, and 

 nobody will be one whit the worse. 



The considerations which I think it desirable to put before you, in 

 order to show the foundations of the conclusions at which I have very 

 confidently arrived, are of two kinds. The first is a reason based en- 

 tirely upon philosophical considerations, namely, this: that the region 

 of pure physical science, and the region of those questions which 

 specially interest ordinary humanity, are apart, and that the conclu- 

 sions reached in the one have no direct effect in the other. If you ac- 

 quaint yourself with the history of philosophy, and with the endless 

 variations of human opinion therein recorded, you will find that there 

 is not a single one of those speculative difficulties which at the present 

 time torment many minds as being the direct product of scientific 

 thought which is not as old as the times of Greek philosophy, and 

 which did not then exist as strongly and as clearly as they do now, 

 though they arose out of arguments based upon merely philosophical 

 ideas. Whoever admits these two things as everybody who looks about 

 him must do whoever takes into account the existence of evil in this 

 world and the law of causation has before him all the difficulties that 

 can be raised by any form of scientific speculation. And these two 

 difficulties have been occupying the minds of men ever since man began 

 to think. The other consideration I have to put before you is that, 

 whatever may be the results at which physical science as applied to 

 man shall arrive, those results are inevitable I mean that they arise 

 out of the necessary progress of scientific thought as applied to man. 

 You all, I hope, had the opportunity of hearing the excellent address 

 which was given by our president yesterday, in which he traced out the 

 marvelous progress of our knowledge of the higher animals which has 

 been effected since the time of Linnaeus. It is no exaggeration to say 

 that at this present time the merest tyro knows a thousand times as 



