THE PKESIDEyx's ADDRESS. 179 



of iDerceiving scientific truth and its actual acquirement together 

 involve a large amount of moral discij^line ; and it is nothing but 

 daily and hourly contact with those whose intellects are unduly 

 bowed down by the business of mere money-getting that the gratifi- 

 cations aiforded to a mind thus taught are lessened. 



How different is the case with those of our clerical friends or 

 ministers who do not cultivate scientific tastes. Taking an average 

 pastor, what is the net result of his collegiate career ? The educa- 

 tional environment has of necessity exercised its differentiating 

 power, and in cases where natural amiability has not operated to 

 lessen the divergence, he stands quite apart as a highly specialised 

 individual, sometimes so painfully so as to be quite unapproachable. 

 If, for example, in conversation, the bent of your mind should 

 suggest comment on a recent scientific discovery, see what difficul- 

 ties you would have to encounter. You refer to the record, let us 

 say, of an eclipse of the sun on one of the Assyrian tablets ; unfor- 

 tunately, that is likely to throw doubt on his ordinarily received 

 chronology. You change about, and speak perhaps of a remarkable 

 fossil recently discovered in the lowest palaeozoic strata ; it must have 

 lived eons and eons of years gone by, and therefore (contrary 

 to his notions) enables you to affirm that death occurred millions 

 of years before the appearance of the race of man. One step further, 

 and you venture to remark upon the " evidence as to man's place in 

 Nature," his alleged antiquity, and the distinguishing characters 

 between the lowermost types of the human race and those of the 

 anthropomoriDhous apes. Well, now, you are not necessitated to 

 believe all that has been said or written upon this subject ; but 

 certain it is that the pastor, unless he be of the Canon Kings- 

 ley type — happily increasing in numbers and influence every year — 

 will by this time have classed you with those dangerous individuals, 

 geologists and the like, who are of all men to be avoided. Mean- 

 while, the conversation has become restrained and without much 

 further ceremony you respectfully bid each other adieu. In plain 

 terms, the results of scientific discovery do not accord with his 

 views, and he entertains a profound suspicion as to the safety of 

 your evolutionary doctrines. 



A few words more. I think it one of the chief glories of biologi- 

 cal or Natural History Science that it affords the most readily 

 accessible means of invigorating the mind, at the same time that it 

 regulates the moral and intellectual process. The carefulness, 



