160 DR. H. B. FAXTHAM 



Darwin. Before and After. 



By H. B. Faxtham, M.A. Cantab, D.Sc. Lond., 

 Professor of Zoology, University College, Johannesburg. 



(Public Lecture delivered before the 8. A. Biological 

 Society, in the Town Hall, Pretoria, on 19th March, 

 1920). 



^^The old order changeth, yielding place to new.'' So 

 'v\T^'ote Tennyson, and such the vast majority of mankind 

 believes to be the case. Yet it is far too often overlooked 

 that it is from the ashes of the past that there arises the 

 new life of the present, and that without the experiences 

 of the past, present-day conditions could not obtain. In 

 the world of Nature change is not violent. There is a 

 gradual transition, sometimes by almost imperceptible 

 degrees, between the old and the new. The vast mass 

 of biological facts available at the present day are only 

 available because of the labours of the earlier workers, 

 who, almost without guidance, wrestled with Nature 

 and wrung from her the secrets on which modern science 

 is based. It was not by means of subtle speculations and 

 subtler so])liistries that sucli knowledge was won, nor 

 was it obtained by argumentative criticism of the work 

 of others, nor by the superim})()sing of individual fancies 

 and oi)inions u]M)n otlieis. Bn( it was by direct, search- 

 ing investigati(m and expei-iment, careful observation 

 and correlation of even minutest details and clear^ 

 logical inferences fiom 1 he data llius obtained that Truth 

 Avas made to issue from her well, and appear in all lier 

 beauty for the information of the world. Among those 

 earnest seekers after truth regarding living things, there 

 is hardly one who has made so ])rofound an impression 



