16 



J. MORISON : ADDRESS- 



simultaneously the doctrine of Evolution by means of Natviral 

 Selection, which is now held in some form or other practically" by 

 all scientific men of the present day. 



The principle underlying? the theory of Natural Selection is this. 

 The descendants of all living organisms tend to vary from their 

 progenitors in some limited degree. Each creature differs from 

 its parents to some slight extent. Sometimes these variations 

 are to the benefit of the offspring, and sometimes they are not 

 advantageous. Those organisms in which the variations are 

 beneficial have an advantage over the others in the struggle for 

 existence, and this tends to their survival and reproduction. 

 Repeated variations of this kind in process of time modify the 

 organism materially, and after many generations what we call 

 a new species is the final result. The teaching of Darwin is that 

 though natural selection is the principal agent in evolution, other 

 influences, such as use and disuse of parts, sexual selection, etc., 

 play an important part in the modification of pre-existing types. 

 But evolution, in the widest sense of the word, teaches, not 

 only that all living organisms, however complex in type and 

 different in character, are derived from the lowest and most 

 simple forms of life, but also the derivation of all the various 

 bodies throughout the universe, the earth and the planets, the 

 sim and all the innumerable host of stars which gem the firmament 

 of heaven, from simpler and perhaps less complex forms of 

 matter. Nay, more, it teaches us that the materials of which 

 those bodies are composed, the very elements themselves, are the 

 products of a process of evolution. 



I will not go into the question of what 'matter is ; whether it is 

 really and veritably a separate entity ; whether, as some have 

 supposed, it is identical with electricity or energy (certain it is 

 that matter as we know it appears to be inseparal)ly connected 

 with energy) ; or whether the ultimate atoms or corpuscles of 

 which it is composed are merely vortices or whirls in the lumini- 

 ferous ether, a perfect fluid which pervades the whole universe. 

 Herbert Spencer thus defines Evolution : " Throughout the 

 universe in general and in detail there is an unceasing redistri- 

 bution of matter and motion. This redistribution constitutes 

 evolution when there is a predominant integration of matter and 

 dissipation of motion, and constitutes dissolution [or devolution] 

 when there is a predominant absorption (or assumption) of 

 motion and disintegration of matter." This statement is thus 

 amplified and explained by Proctor : " This constant change in 

 the distribution of matter and motion results in some cases in 



