224 American HoiiicaUurai >iociily. 



THE TIIUH EVOLrTION— WHAT IT TEACHES AND WHAT I I' 



DOES NUT TEACH. 



I!Y J. C. RIDPATH, LF^.D., OF INDIANA. 



[Note. — The Secretary regrets his inability to give nacre than a brief 

 synopsis of thi.-< exceedingly interesting lecture. The following is copied 

 from one of the city papers, and will convey only a vague idea of the scope 

 of the lecture.— Secretary.] 



Professor Ridpath, being introduced, said, in substance, that it was nearly 

 thirty years since one of the greatest books of our century was published 

 on the subject of evolution, and since that day about three hundred and 

 twelve volumes had been issued on that subject, with a view to establi.'^hing 

 by proof the hypothesis of the evolution of life as an expre-^sion of the nuAua 

 operandi of those phenomena. 



The natural history of life is a subject which can hardly fail to interest all 

 classes. The man of the orchard and the garden, the man of the shop and 

 farm, the man of the laboratory, must all alike be charmed by the history of 

 those phenomena we call life. 



What, then, is the natural history of life ? what the law and forces which 

 determine its epochs and destiny ? and what, especially, is that universal all- 

 comprehensive phenomenon by which all life, as well as all human institu- 

 tions, has come into its present form of development? The speaker 

 meant, of course, the hypothesis of evolution from the lower into the highest 

 forms of existence. 



He took it that the truest and most general expression of the true law of 

 evolution, as applied to the forms of life we see around. us, was that the life 

 of every species of things in the vegetable and animal kingdom is epito- 

 mized in the life of the individual of that species. The history of every f pe- 

 cies of living organism is summarized in the history of the individuals which 

 compose it. The same process of growth which wc observe in every organic 

 life in its germinal state to its complete development has gone on and still 

 goes on in the species. 



The individual begins in the germ ; the rest of his career is determined 

 by the laws of evolution. His organs expand; he enters the state of con- 

 sciousness ; perhaps from being prone on four feet he rises and walks. He 

 looks about him and beholds the boundary of the natural world. It reacts 

 upon his senses, and he begins to acquaint himself with the laws of his 

 environment. Me discerns the life of infancy in others, and he conjectures 

 that his own was the same. He reasons, imagines, and, perhaps, dreams ; 

 he grows old ; he dies, and the record closes with this — he nas. His life was 

 the life of the species. 



The professor enlarged upon this view. He applied the germinal begin- 

 ning to the earth and the growth of the plant. At one time the earth did 

 not weigh ten pounds, but, like everything regulated by the God of nature > 



