DEGENERATION. 



It is the misfortune of those who study that 

 branch of science which our President has done so 

 much to advance — I mean the science of Hving 

 things — that they are not able, in the midst of 

 a vast assembly,! to render visible to all eyes 

 the actual phenomena to which their inquiries 

 are directed. Whilst the physicist and the chemist 

 are able to make evident to the senses of a great 

 meeting the very things of which they have to 

 tell, the zoologist cannot hope ever to share with 

 those who form his audience the keen pleasure 

 of observing a new or beautiful organism ; he 

 cannot demonstrate by means of actual specimens 

 the delicate arrangements of structure which 



^ These pages formed a discourse delivered before the British Asso- 

 ciation at Slieffield on the evening of August 22nd, 1879, under the 

 presidency of Professor AHman, LL.D., F.R.S. 



xa B 



