British Association, 403 



firmed by all observation. The remains of animals, plants, and 

 man found in those earliest records of the human race — the 

 Egyptian catacombs, all spoke of their identity with existing 

 forms, and of the irresistible tendency of organized beings to 

 assume an unalterable character. The line between man and 

 the lower animals was distinct: there was no tendency on the 

 part of the lower animals to become the self-conscious intelligent 

 being, man; or in man lo degenerate and lose the high charac- 

 teristics of his mind and intelligence. All experiments had 

 failed to show any tendency in one animal to assume the form of 

 the other. In the great case of the pigeons quoted by Mr. Dar- 

 win, he admitted that no sooner were these animals set free than 

 they returned to their primitive type. Everywhere sterility at- 

 tended hybridism, as was seen in the closely-allied forms of the 

 horse and the ass. Mr. Darwin's conclusions were an hypothesis, 

 raised most unphilosophically to the dignity of a causal theory. 

 He was glad to know that the greatest names in science were 

 opposed to this theory which he believed to be opposed to the 

 interests of science and humanity. — Prof. Huxley defended Mr. 

 Darwin's theory from the charge of its being merely an hypo- 

 thesis. He said, it was an explanation of phenomena in Natural 

 History, as the undulating theory was of the phenomena of light. 

 No one objected to that theory because an undulation of light 

 had never been arrestee! and measured. Darwin's theory was an 

 explanation of facts ; and his book was full of new facts, all bear- 

 ing on his theory. Without asserting that every part of the 

 theory had been confirmed, he maintained that it was the best 

 explanation of the origin of species which had yei been offered. 

 With regard to the psychological distinction between man and 

 animals ; man himself was once a monad — a mere atom, and no 

 body could say at what moment in the history of his develop- 

 ment he became consciously intelligent. The question was not 

 so much one of a transmutation or transition of species, as of the 

 production of forms which became ]>ermanent. Thus the short- 

 legged sheep of America were not produced gradually, but ori- 

 ginated in the birth of an original parent of the whole stock, 

 which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection. 

 — Admiral FitzRoy regretted the publication of Mr. Darwin's 

 book, and denied Prof. Huxley's statement, that it was a logical 

 arrangement of facts. — Dr. Beale pointed out some of the diffi- 

 culties with which the Darwinian theory had to deal, more espe- 



