2 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vil^. 



currency iu popular articles and even in text-books. In this way 

 young people are being trained to be evolutionists without being 

 aware of it, and will come to regard nature wholly through this 

 medium. So strong is this tendency, more especially in Eng- 

 land, that there is reason to fear that natural history will be 

 prostituted to the service of a shallow philosophy, and that our 

 old Baconian mode of viewing nature will be quite reversed, so 

 that instead of studying facts in order to arrive at general princi- 

 ples, we shall return to the mediaeval plan of setting up dogmas 

 based on authority only, or on metaphysical considerations of 

 the most flimsy character, and forcibly twisting nature into con- 

 formity with their requirements. Thus " advanced" views in 

 science lend themselves to the destruction of science, and to a re- 

 turn to semi-barbarism. 



In these circumstances, the only resource of the true natu- 

 ralist is an appeal to the careful study of groups of animals and 

 plants in their succession in geological time. I have, myself, 

 endeavoured to apply this test in my recent report on the De- 

 vonian and Silurian flora of Canada, and have shown that the 

 succession of Devonian and Carboniferous plants does not seem 

 explicable on the theory of derivation. Still more recently, iu a 

 memoir on the Post-pliocene deposits of Canada, now in course of 

 publication in the Canadian MataruUsf, I have by a close and 

 detailed comparison of the numerous species of shells found em- 

 bedded in our clays and gravels, with tliose living in the Grulf of 

 St. Lawrence and on the coasts of Labrador and G-reenland, 

 shown, that it is impossible to suppose that any changes of the 

 nature of evolution were in progress ; but on the contrary, that 

 all these species have remained the same, even in their varietal 

 changes, from the post-pliocene period until now. Thus the in- 

 ference is that these species must have been introduced in some 

 abrupt manner, and that their variations have been within nar- 

 row limits and not progressive. This is the more remarkable, 

 since great changes of level and of climate have occurred, and 

 many species have been obliged to change their geographical dis- 

 tribution, but have not been forced to vary more widely than in 

 the Post-pliocene period itself. 



FiiCts of this kind will attract little attention in comparison 

 with the bold and attractive speculations of men who can launch 

 their opinions from the vantage ground of London journals; but 

 their giadual accumulation must some day sweep away the fabric 



