THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 49 



a large comb would have least, not most, chance of having descen- 

 dants ; and, again, if the preponderance of males be hurtful why- 

 has not it or the species died out? The last instance was sub- 

 mitted, very doubtfully and tentatively, to the Linnean Society. 

 A botanist, introducing a new fungus which had " a pleasant meaty 

 smell," suggested that there was some reason to suppose that some 

 agarics only germinated after passing through the alimentary 

 canal of animals, and that possibly this smell induced beasts to eat 

 it, which may be true, but at the first blush it scarcely seems 

 apparent why a lion should eat fungi, or why a deer or an ox 

 should be attracted by a meaty smell. At any rate it appears to 

 me that at present these extreme advancements of the Darwinian 

 theory have produced a distinct tendency to recoil from it in the 

 minds of many excellent biologists. 



I have purposely used the popular expression " Darwinian 

 theory," because in the minds of those who are not naturalists it 

 usually includes two things. If we speak to our non-scientific 

 friends we shall probably find that most of them by " Darwinian 

 theory " mean something which Darwin never claimed and never 

 could have claimed, something the idea of which had arisen in 

 men's minds long before Darwin, namely evolution; it is really 

 that, and not Darwin's " survival of the fittest," that is popularly 

 objected to. I need scarcely point out to you that they are totally 

 different things. If a man who had not ever seen a watch or a 

 steam engine suddenly found one in action he would probably con- 

 clude, without much difficulty, that it had been manufactured by 

 man, that it had not grown on a tree, or been formed by crystalliza- 

 tion, but when he came to form a theory as to the precise mode of 

 manufacture he would probably be very far out. In the same way 

 it is quite conceivable that evolution might be correct, but that the 

 beautiful explanation of the mode by which it has been attained, 

 which we owe to Darwin and Wallace, might be erroneous : but the 

 converse will not hold good ; if evolution were a myth the explana- 

 tion would fail of itself. Therefore in considering the Darwinian 

 theory we must necessarily consider evolution first ; but it may 

 fairly be said that it is unnecessary to do this, because probably no 

 biologist of importance now denies the truth of evolution, the sur- 

 viving objection being confined to those who have not paid any 

 attention to the subject, but who think that it is somehow degrad- 

 ing to them to be cousin to a monkey, no matter how many times 



