150 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VIU 



just here let me contrast the daring of Darwin with the position 

 assumed by one of the grejit French naturalists of the present 

 day, Prof. Quatrefages, in a recent discourse of his on the phy- 

 sical character of the human race. la referring to the question 

 of the first origin of man, he says distinctly, that in his opinion it 

 is one that belongs not to science ; these questions are treated by 

 theologians and philosophers: "Neither here nor at the Museum 

 am I, nor do I wish to be, either a theologian or a philosopher. 

 I am simply a man of science ; and it is in the name of compara- 

 tive physiology, of botanical and zoological geography, of geology 

 and palaeontology, in the name of the laws which govern man as 

 ■well as animals and plants, that I have always spoken." And 

 studying man as a scientist, he goes on to say : " It is established 

 that man has two grand faculties of which we find not even a 

 trace among animals. He alone has the moral sentiment of good 

 and evil ; he alone believes in a future existence succeeding this 

 natural life ; he alone believes in beings superior to himself, that 

 he has never seen, and that are capable of influencing his life for 

 good or evil ; in other words, man alone is endowed with morality 

 and religion." Our own distinguished naturalist and associate, 

 Prof. Agassiz, reverts to this theory of evolution in the same 

 positive manner, and with such earnestness and warmth as to 

 call forth severe editorial criticisms, and by his speaking of it as 

 a "mere mine of assertions," and " the danger of stretching in- 

 ferences from a few observations to a wide field;" and he is call- 

 ed upon to collect " real observations to disprove the evolution 

 hypothesis." I would here remark, in defence of my distinguish- 

 ed friend, that scientific investigatiou will assume a curious phase 

 when its votaries are required to occupy time in looking up facts, 

 and seriously attempting to disprove any and every hypothesis 

 based upon proof, some of it not even rising to the dignity of cir- 

 cumstantial evidence. 



I now come to the last point to which T wish to call the atten- 

 tion of the members of the Association in the pursuit of their 

 investigations, and the speculations that these give rise to in their 

 minds. Reference has already been made to the tendency of 

 quitting the physical to revel in the metaphysical, which, how- 

 ever, is not peculiar to this age, for it belonged as well to the 

 times of Plato and Aristotle as it does to ours. More special re- 

 ference will be made here to the proclivity of the present epoch 

 among philosophers and theologians to be parading science and 



