146 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. 



in biology. Sir John Herscliel, in expressing a favourable judg- 

 ment on the hj23othesis of zoological evolution, with, however, 

 some reservation in respect to the origin of man, objected to the 

 doctrine of natural selection, that it was too like the Laputan 

 method of making books, and that it did not sufficiently take into 

 account a continually guiding and controlling intelligence. This 

 seems to me a most valuable and instructive criticism. I feel 

 profoundly convinced that the argument of design has been greatly 

 too much lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. Reaction 

 against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to be found, not 

 rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on Paley's 

 ' Natural Theology,' has, I believe, had a temporary effect in 

 turnins; attention from the solid and irrefraoable aro-ument so well 

 put forward in that excellent old book. But overpoweringly 

 strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all round us, 

 and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn 

 us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with 

 irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a 

 free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one 

 ever-actino- Creator and Ruler. 



The Biological Section was presided over by Prof. Allan 

 Thompson, who delivered the following address : — 



I must content myself with endeavouring to express to you 

 some of the ideas which arise in my mind in looking back from 

 the present upon the state of Biological science at the time, forty 

 years since, when the meetings of the British Association com- 

 menced — a period which I am tempted to particularise from its 

 happening to coincide very nearly with the time at which I be- 

 gan my career as a public teacher in one of the departments of 

 biology in this city. In the few remarks which I shall make, it 

 will be my object to show the prodigious advance which has taken 

 place not only in the knowledge of our subject as a whole, but also 

 in the ascertained relation of its parts to each other, and in the 

 place which this kind of knowledge has gained in the estimation of 

 the educated part of the community, and the consequent increase 

 in the freedom with which the search after truth is now asserted in 

 this as in other departments of science. And first, in connection 

 with the distribution of the various subjects which are included 

 under this section, I may remark that the general title under 

 which the whole section D has met since 1866, viz, Biology, 



