374 the president's address. 



years of age, but he became a religious enthusiast some years 

 before his ultimate breakdown, and, like his fellow-worker Stenson, 

 was, I fear, insane for some years before his death, which took 

 place in 1680. 



Boerhaave fortunately became possessed of all his best manu- 

 scripts, and incorporated them with his earlier work, and the whole 

 were published under the title of " Bybel der Natuure," in the 

 Leyden edition of 1737 in parallel columns of Latin and Dutch. 



There is only one fact which forbids me to recommend this work 

 to you for perusal : it is that eighteenth century Latin is not 

 generally considered entertaining reading. 



With regard to the book itself, I regard it as a most wonderful 

 record of patient research, tinged, of course, with the pious teleology 

 which was in vogue at that period ; and vastly important from a 

 historic point of view. In some of the later researches there is, 

 however, I think, evidence of the impending disaster which appears 

 to have shattered his great intellect. 



If any be inclined to regard the classification of insects, in which 

 class snails and bivalve molluscs are included, proposed by Swam- 

 merdam as little better than chaos, it must be conceded that he 

 founded that classification upon true principles — the developmental 

 history of the individual. It must be remembered that Linnaeus 

 was not born, his " Systema Nature" appeared in 1735, more than 

 half a century after the death of Swammerdam. The " Systema" 

 was followed by the works of Fabricius, 1775, and De Geer, 1776, 

 who elaborated the classification of the great Swede, but it was not 

 until the beginning of the nineteenth century that a fairly complete 

 classification of insects was attempted — the work of Savigny and 

 Latreille. 



It was, however, by the labours of Swammerdam and Keaumur 

 that the generalizations of later workers became possible. Classi- 

 fication requires a more or less complete knowledge of external form, 

 internal structure, and developmental history. So the teleology 

 of the earlier writers, even of those of the present century, may ap- 

 pear to some of us as childish speculations. Yet the mechanical 

 adaptation of means to ends was the touchstone, so to speak, of 

 truth, even in my younger days. Evolution and the relations of 

 organisms by descent were unknown factors amongst all but a few. 

 Lamarck's arguments were regarded as atheistic, and were so 

 strained that they carried no conviction. " The Vestiges of 



