LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LOIfDO>\ XXXV 



if there is some diversity in the extent and nature of the information 

 I have received from different countries, which may prevent any 

 very correct estimate of the comparative progress made in them, it is 

 owing to the questions which I put having heen stated too gene- 

 rally, and, though sent in the same words to my various correspon- 

 dents, having been differently understood by them. In such a 

 review, however, as I am able to prepare, I propose chiefly to con- 

 sider the relative progress made by zoologists and botanists in the 

 methods pursued and the results obtained, — in the first place as to 

 general works common to all countries, and, secondly, as to those 

 which are more particularly worked out in, or more specially relate 

 to, each of the principal states or nations where biological science is 

 pursued, prefacing this review by a few general remarks supplemen- 

 tary to those I laid before you in my first Addi-ess in 1862. 



Since that time systematic biology has to a certain degree been 

 cast into the background by the great impulse given to the more 

 speculative branches of the science by the promulgation of the 

 Darwinian theories. The great thunderbolt had, indeed, been 

 launched, but had not yet produced its full effect. "We systematists, 

 bred up in the doctrine of the fixed immutability of species within 

 positive limits, who had always thought it one great object to ascer- 

 tain what those limits were and by what means species, in their never- 

 ending variations and constant attempts to overstep those limits, were 

 invariably checked and thrown back within their own domain, we 

 might at first have felt disposed to resist the revolutionary tendency 

 of the new doctrines ; but we felt shaken and puzzled. The wide 

 field opened for the exercise of speculative tendencies was soon 

 overrun by numerous aspirants, a cry of contempt was raised against 

 museum zoologists and herbarium botanists, and nothing was 

 allowed to be scientific which was not theoretical or microscopical. 

 But this has been carried, in some instances, too far. If facts 

 without deductions are of little avaU, assumptions without facts are 

 worse than useless. TTieorists in their disputes must bring forth the 



M. von Schrenk of St. Petersburg, for Russia ; Professor Troschel of Bonn for 

 Central Europe ; M. Alois Humbert, through M. de Candolle, for Switzerland ; 

 Sign. d'Achiardi on the part of Dr. Adolfo Savi, who was in attendance at his 

 father's deathbed, for Italy ; M. Decaisne and his zoological colleagues at the 

 Jardin des Plantes (who, in the midst of their severe tribulations, kindly 

 answered my queries during the short interval between the two sieges) for 

 France ; Professor Verrill, through Professor A. Gray, for the United States ; 

 and at home I have most cordially to thank Dr. Sclater, Mi-. Salvin, Mr. Gwyn 

 Jeffreys, Mr. Stainton, Mr. M'Lachlan, and others of our Fellows, who liave 

 ever showed themselves most ready to reply to any questions I have put to them. 



