PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 15 



and that she only forms these latter directly, that is, only 

 these first sketches of organization that have been designated 

 by the expression spontaneous generation; 



3d. That these first outlines of the animal and of the plant 

 formed at suitable places and under appropriate circumstances, 

 and possessing the attributes of incipient life and organic 

 movement, have themselves little by little developed organs 

 and in time multiplied these as well as parts ; 



4th. That the power of growth in each part of the organ- 

 ized body being inherent in the first effects of life, it has given 

 rise to the different modes of nuiltiplication and reproduction 

 of individuals, and that in this way the progress acquired in 

 organization and in the form and diversity of parts has been 

 preserved ; 



5th. That by the aid of sufficient time, of circumstances 

 which have been necessarily favorable, of the changes which 

 all points on the surface of the globe have successively under- 

 gone in their condition; in a word, by the power which new 

 situations and new habits possess to modify the organs of bodies 

 and of life, all the organisms that now exist have been insensi- 

 bly formed such as we see them ; 



6th. Finally, that under the influence of such an order of 

 things, living bodies having undergone each of the changes, 

 greater or less, in their structure and in their parts, what is 

 called species thus insensibly and successively brought about 

 among them has only a relative constancy in its character and 

 cannot be as ancient as Nature herself." * 



It will be seen that both the mutability and the transmuta- 

 tion of species are distinctly formulated. But in order to make 



this more clear he elsewhere says : 



* 



*Op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 81-83. 



