96 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION D. 



or idealism is necessary to all, and is essential to human progress. 

 As Tansley in his book, "The New Psychology," writes: "If ell 

 religious tradition had been destroyed at any given moment and 

 a new generation brought up in ignorance that it had ever existed, 

 it can scarcely be doubted that a new religion, of substantially the 

 same type, though varying in form according to the epoch, would 

 have appeared." 



The old dogmatic religions have failed; they were not in 

 reality religions. Unfortunately religion and science appeared to 

 quarrel irreparably over Darwin's enunciations some 60 years ago. 

 The clergy are usually educated in lack and ignorance of the prin- 

 ciples of biology, many of them being convinced that a biologist 

 is an "infidel." This can quite easily be altered by the gradual 

 teaching' of animal biology in schools and by making a course in the 

 elements of evolutionary biology a necessary part of of every Univer- 

 sity curriculum. Let this course contain instruction in the character- 

 istics of living matter, a knowledge of the various great groups of 

 animals stated in simple language with a due insistence on en- 

 vironment and habitat, a knowledge of a few simple life-histories 

 (such as of the fly or the frog), a knowledge of Darwin's patient work 

 with pigeons and with earthworms, all simply told, with natural 

 examples in use in every case. The life story of the frog may be 

 used to introduce the recapitulation hypothesis and the idea of 

 evolution. Some of the researches of the great workers at the 

 problem of evolution may be discussed, thereby giving knowledge 

 of the work of Mendel on hybrids, the more recent work of Bateson 

 and Morgan in continuance thereof, the use-inheritance ideas of 

 Lamarck and the recent work of Kamraerer. Perhaps the idea of 

 cells may be inculcated, leading to some idea of chromosomes, the 

 carriers of hereditary characteristics. Whatever is attempted must 

 be graphicallv described and illustrated from life. Examinations 

 and text-books with their dogmatic and uninspiring statements 

 should be used as little as possible. Some of the subjects I have 

 mentioned are not only fascinating but fundamental to living beings. 

 They appeal to the higher mental faculties. They lead unconsciously 

 and gradually to the idea of a First Cause. There is then no longer 

 antagonism between science ancf true religion. The story in the 

 first chapter of Genesis can be looked upon as an allegorical account 

 of geological eoochs, suited in character for understanding bv 

 primitive peoples at first unacquainted with the principles of 

 science. Even the statement in Chapter 2, verse 7, that "God 

 formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his 

 nostrils the breath of life," may be considered as an allegorical 

 statement of a scientific principle. Much speculation has arisen 

 as to the origin of life, as to the character and relationship of the 

 first living substance. I agree from the results of my own researches 

 on Bacteria, Spirochaetes, and lowly Protozoa with the late Pro- 

 fessor Minchin that the primitive substance was probablv 

 chromatin, the stainable, nuclear substance of cells, which in the 

 germ cells carries the hereditary characters. Before cells, as we 

 understand them to-day, with their chromatin and cytoplasm were 



