286 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



expect from your two Vice-Presidents, and from the chairman of the 

 Chemical Subsection, addresses on the progress made during the past 

 year, restrain me from invading their peculiar fields of labor, by 

 alludinof to scientific work which has been accomplished since our last 

 meeting. While delicacy forbids me from so doing, I am equally 

 debarred from repeating to you the brief sketch I endeavored to give 

 at a former meeting,' of the history and present condition of entomol- 

 ogy in the United States, 



But it has appeared to me that a few thoughts, which have im- 

 pressed themselves on my mind, touching the future results to be 

 obtained from certain classes of facts, not yet fully developed, on 

 account of the great labor required for their proper comparison, may 

 not be without value. Even if the facts be not new to you, I hope to 

 be able, with your kind attention, to present them in such way as to 

 be suggestive of the work yet to be done. 



It has been perhaps said, or at least it has been often thought, that 

 the first mention of the doctrine of evolution, as now admitted to 

 a greater or less degree by every thinking man, is found in Ecclesi- 

 . astes i, 9 : 



" The thing that hath been, is that which shall be : and that which is done, is 

 that which shall be done : and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there 

 iuiy thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old 

 time, which was before us." 



Other references to evolutionary views in one form or another 

 occur in the writings of several philosophers of classic times, as you 

 have had recent cause to remember. 



Whether these are to be considered as an expression of a perfect 

 truth in the very imperfect language which was alone intelligible to 

 the nation to whom this sacred book was immediately addressed on 

 the one hand, and the happy guesses of philosophers, who by deep 

 intuition had placed themselves in close sympathy with the material 

 universe, on the other hand, I shall not stop to inquire. The discus- 

 sion would be profitless, for modern science in no w^ay depends for its 

 magnificent triumphs of fact and thought upon any utterances of the 

 ancients. It is the creation of patient, intelligent labor of the last tw^o 

 centuries, and its results can be neither confuted nor confirmed by any 

 thing that was said, thought, or done, at an earlier period. I have 

 merely referred to these indications of doctrines of evolution to recall 

 to your minds that the two great schools of thought, which now 

 divide philosophers, have existed from very remote times. They are, 

 therefore, in their origin, probably independent of correct scientific 

 knowledge. 



You have learned from the geologists, and mostly from those of 



' Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Section 

 xxi. (Portland). 



