424 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



that they be requested to co-operate with any other committees ap- 

 pointed for a similar purpose. 



Professor Agassiz mentioned the fact that Smelts ( Osmenis 

 viridescens) were about sixty years ago introduced into Ja- 

 maica Pond, and that they still exist there in a thriving con- 

 dition. 



A desultory discussion ensued upon some questions rela- 

 tive to the inheritance of acquired habits, and the reversion 

 of feral animals to the original state, in which Professors 

 Bowen, Agassiz, Wyman, Gray, and Dr. Kneeland took 

 part. 



On motion of Professor Bowen, it was voted that the spe- 

 cial meeting appointed for the 22d of May be held on Tues- 

 day, the first day of May. 



Four hundred and eiglity-second meeting. 



May 1, 1860. — Special Meeting. 



The Vice-President in the chair. 



Professor Gray resumed the discussion upon the questions 

 mooted at the preceding meetings, in a rejoinder to Professor 

 Bovven's last remarks. 



Premising that he had never accepted the Darwinian theory of the 

 origin of the species as anything more than a legitimate hypothesis, 

 just beginning to stand its trial, and that he had been occupied only 

 in the endeavor to expose and rebut what he thought inconclusive or 

 irrelevant arguments here brought against it, Professor Gray defended 

 and illustrated the positions he had before taken. He maintained that 

 no thoughtful theistic philosopher, and least of all, Professor Bowen, 

 could be justified in charging that a theory of the diversification of spe- 

 cies through variation and natural selection was incompatible with final 

 causes or purpose ; that the argument for design from structure and 

 adaptation, in the case of any animal, say a dog, took all its validity 

 from the consideration of the animal itself, wholly irrespective of its 

 origin, — was as valid in the instance of an individual dog produced by 



