LECTUKE I. 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE. 



When it was my duty to consider what subject I 

 would select for the six lectures which I shall now 

 have the pleasure of delivering to you, it occurred to 

 me that I could not do better than endeavour to put 

 before you in a true light, or in what I might perhaps 

 with more modesty call, that which I conceive myself 

 to be the true light, the position of a book which has 

 been more praised and more abused, perhaps, than 

 any book which has appeared for some years ; — I mean 

 Mr. Darwin's work on the " Origin of Species." That 

 work, I doubt not, many of you have read ; for I know 

 the inquiring spirit which is rife among you. At any 

 rate, all of you will have heard of it, — some by one kind 

 of report and some by another kind of report ; the 

 attention of all and the curiosity of all have been prob- 

 ably more or less excited on the subject of that work. 

 All I can do, and all I shall attempt to do, is to put 

 before you that kind of judgment which has been 

 formed by a man, who, of course, is liable to judge 

 erroneously ; but at any rate, of one whose business 

 and profession it is to form judgments upon questions 

 of this nature. 



