THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 45 



them, in any light which has not been turned upon them over and 

 over again ; and that it is even presumptuous in a mere amateur 

 naturalist to dream that he has any chance of doing so : I for one 

 am not under any such delusion. I am fully aware that everything 

 I have to say has been said before, and many times before, by those 

 who could say it far better than I can ; but it has not been said 

 ad nauseam, for that implies that everyone is weary of it, whereas 

 it is the characteristic of this particular subject that it does not pall 

 upon its hearers, and that it still has about it that wonderful 

 attraction which draws men to it as a candle draws the moths : I 

 feel that attraction so strongly that I am not inclined to resist it, 

 but I will rather rely on the existence of a like feeling in my 

 hearers to make my very stale remarks of interest to them. 



You will doubtless before now have concluded that there is only 

 one subject upon which I can possibly speak as I have done, 

 namely that upon which the literature has become so voluminous 

 that in the catalogue of zoological books for sale published by 

 Messrs. Pietzcker, of Trubigen, after the ordinary headings of 

 11 Insecta" " Crustacea" " Vertebrata^ &c, will be found a special 

 division headed " Darwinismus." Now it seems to me that, 

 although I have not anything new to say, we may spend half an 

 hour not disagreeably, nor unprofitably, in reviving our recollec- 

 tions of what has already been said, and of a few of the interesting 

 facts and features with which the whole subject literally bristles. 

 Nor is the present an undesirable time for doing so. It is the 

 general history of important and far-reaching new ideas that they 

 are at first received with surprise and something like amusement ; 

 then with bitter hostility, in spite of which they gradually win 

 their way, if they be sound ; then comes a period of fair considera- 

 tion, when what is good in them becomes more generally acknow- 

 ledged, and their cause is won. After this there arises a danger of 

 a totally different class ; the friends and disciples, through whose 

 exertions the triumph has been obtained, have in the hour of 

 struggle acquired an enthusiasm which is not easily satisfied ; 

 others join them, and the original theory is often pushed far beyond 

 what its originator ever intended. The idea is all- engrossing, 

 everything must bend to it, or be explained by it ; and it is apt to 

 be pushed far beyond its legitimate conclusions. Then, in the 

 minds of many thinking men, comes a revulsion of feeling. Unable 

 to follow the exponents of the new idea in their extreme deductions, 



