PROFESSOR TYNDALVS ADDRESS. 67^ 



before you. This largeness of knowledge and readiness of resource 

 render Mr. Darwia the most terrible of antagonists. Accomplished 

 naturalists have leveled heavy and sustained criticisms against him — 

 not always with the view of fairly weighing his theory, but with the 

 express intention of exposing its weak points only. This does not 

 irritate him. He treats every objection with a soberness and thorough- 

 ness which even Bishop Butler might be proud to imitate, surrounding 

 each fact with its appropriate detail, placing it in its proper relations, 

 and usually giving it a significance which, as long as it was kept iso- 

 lated, failed to appear. This is done without a trace of ill-temper. 

 He moves over the subject with the passionless strength of a glacier ; 

 and the grinding of the rocks is not always without a counterpart in 

 the logical pulverization of the objector. But, though, in handling 

 this mighty theme, all passion has been stilled, there is an emotion of 

 the intellect incident to the discernment of new truth which often 

 colors and warms the pages of Mr. Darwin. His success has been 

 great ; and this implies not only the solidity of his work, but the pre- 

 paredness of the public mind for such a revelation. On this head a re- 

 mark of Agassiz impressed me more than any thing else. Sprung from 

 a race of theologians, this celebrated man combated to the last the 

 theory of natural selection. One of the many times I had the pleasure 

 of meeting him in the United States was at Mr. Winthrop's beautiful 

 residence at Brookline, near Boston. Rising from luncheon, we all 

 halted, as if by a common impulse, in front of a window, and continued 

 there a discussion which had been started at table. The maple was in 

 its autumn glory ; and the exquisite beauty of the scene outside seemed, 

 in my case, to interpenetrate without disturbance the intellectual ac- 

 tion. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz turned and said to the gentle- 

 men standing round : " I confess that I was not prepared to see this 

 theory received as it has been by the best intellects of our time. Its 

 success is greater than I could have thought possible." 



In our day great generalizations have been reached. The theory 

 of the origin of species is but one of them. Another, of still wider 

 grasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine of the Conserva- 

 tion of Energy, the ultimate philosophical issues of which are as yet 

 but dimly seen — that doctrine which " binds Xature fast in fate " to an 

 extent not hitherto recognized, exacting from every antecedent its 

 equivalent consequent, from every consequent its equivalent antece- 

 dent, and bringing vital as well as physical phenomena under the do- 

 minion of that law of causal connection which, as far as the human 

 understanding has yet pierced, asserts itself everywhere in Nature. 

 Long in advance of all definite experiment upon the subject, the con- 

 stancy and indestructibility of matter had been affirmed ; and all sub- 

 sequent experience justified the affirmation. Later researches extended 

 the attribute of indestructibility to force. This idea, applied in the 

 first instance to inorganic, rapidly embraced organic Nature. The 



