646 Proceedings. 



Mr. Tanner said he did not think the question of Darwinism could 

 be discussed without the display of a considerable amount of feeling. He 

 did not think Sir W. Buller's remarks at the opening were intended to 

 hurt any one's feelings. 



Mr. R. Pharazyn thought the paper a most interesting one. He 

 thought it was quite possible to convince people that the Darwinian 

 theory was sound. He agreed generally with the views expressed in the 

 paper. 



General Schaw took the author's views on the subject, which were 

 opposed to his own, as merely a friendly attack. He did not think Sir 

 W. Buller had brought forward sufficient evidence to prove the views he 

 advanced. He himself was a believer in evolution, but only as far as 

 theory was supported by facts. There was no evidence of steps leading 

 up to the development referred to by Sir Walter Buller ; we had not yet 

 got hold of the whole facts of the case; there was still something required 

 in addition to Darwin's views to make the matter plain — some great laws, 

 as yet unknown, in obedience to which new types of life had appeared. 



Sir W. Buller, in reply, said it was hardly necessary to disclaim 

 any intention of reflecting offensively on the President or any member of 

 the Society. The common-sense of those present would bear him out in 

 that. The President had, in his inaugural address, thrown down the 

 gauntlet, and openly invited discussion. He had seized the first oppor- 

 tunity of meeting that challenge, and he hoped that both the President 

 and Mr. Maskell were prepared to fight for their views. For his own 

 part, he would always be ready to combat to the utmost of his power 

 doctrines which he regarded as unorthodox in the light of modern science. 

 Had he sat silently by and allowed such views as those he had criticized 

 to go forth in our Transactions unchallenged he would have felt self-con- 

 victed of moral cowardice. His duty to a society which had honoured him 

 by election to the presidential chair four times over, his duty to science, and 

 his duty to the memory of the great a.nd good Darwin, who twenty years 

 ago had been one of his (Sir Walter's) proposers for the Royal Society, all 

 required that he should speak out with no uncertain sound. He added 

 that the President, in the explanatory observations he had made that 

 evening, following the lines of his former address, had opened up new 

 debatable ground ; but the hour was too late to admit of anything further 

 being said on the subject. 



Sir James Hector drew attention to a series of most inter- 

 esting photographs of Earotonga, kindly exhibited by His 

 Excellency the Governor, Lord Glasgow (who was present) ; 

 also some moa-bones found by Mr. Donne in the Wairarapa 



district. 



Thibd Meeting : 11th July, 1894. 

 Mr. W. M. Maskell in the chair. 



Neiv Members.— Bev. C. S. Ogg, Mr. H. P. Hanify, Mr. 

 H. N. McLeod, and Dr. Adams. 



Papers. — 1. " The Humist Doctrine of Causation in its 

 Eelation to Modern Agnosticism," by W. W. Carlile, M.A. 

 (Printed in Mind, vol. iv., No. 13.) 



Abstract. — The following are the subjects dealt with in 

 this paper : — Part I. : (1.) The Criterion of Truth in Philoso- 



