124 THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



hope at no greater length than has been sufficient to interest you, 

 some slight account of what I consider the general objects of our 

 Society, and what remains for us to do. We have the whole 

 domain of Ilatural History before us, and in tracing the marvellous 

 inter-connexion of the whole of the phenomena of animated nature, 

 I think we shall feel how wonderful are those links which seem to 

 exist between every variety of living beings. Whether we regard 

 each form of being as the result of special creation, or whether we 

 take the more modern view of development — the theory of their 

 springing from second causes — the whole seems to form one chain : 



" Each moss, 



Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank 

 Important in the plan of Him who framed 

 This scale of heings : holds a rank which lost 

 "Woiild break the chain and leave behind a gap 

 "Which Nature's self would rue." 



The whole fabric testifies indeed to the infinite power of the one 

 First Cause, and we shall, as Milton says, "in contemplation of 

 created things, by steps ascend to God." 



