] 20 J. HOPKINSOIH" ANNIVERSAET ADDRESS : 



chief knowledge of the habits of earthworms is derived from 

 Darwiu's work on ' The Formation of Vegetable Mould through 

 the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits.' 



But these contributions to zoology sink into the shade imder 

 the brilliant light thrown upon the science by the great truth 

 which Darwin revealed. Mr. Romanes says : ' ' The influence 

 which our great naturalist has exerted upon zoology is un- 

 questionably greater than that which has been exerted by any 

 other individual. . . . No labourer in the field of science has ever 

 plodded more patiently through masses of small detail ; no master- 

 mind on the highest elevation of philosophy has ever grasped 

 more world-transforming truth. ... Of very few men in the 

 history of our race can it be said that they not only enlarged 

 science, but changed it, — not only added facts to the growing 

 structure of natural knowledge, but profoundly modified the basal 

 conception upon which the whole structure rested ; and of no 

 one can this be said with more truth than it can be said of 

 Darwin." 



Anthropology and Psychology are scarcely within the province 

 of our Society, and it will therefore suffice to say that Darwin has 

 so completely transformed our conception of both these sciences, 

 the former by his ' Descent of Man,' and the latter by his 

 ' Expression of the Emotions,' that all who write upon these 

 subjects after the publication of his works must perforce treat 

 them in a totally different manner from that in which they had 

 ever been treated before. 



Beyond the limits of the scientific world, nine persons, perhaps, 

 out of every ten, only think of Darwin as the originator of the 

 notiou that man has been developed from the anthropoid apes, the 

 evolution of man, as well as of the lower animals, being due to 

 the development of organs by use and tlie atrophy of organs by 

 disuse. This is the view which Lamarck expounded half a cen- 

 t'lry before Darwin published his views on evolution. So far 

 from its being due to, or even entertained by Darwin, he nowhere 

 states that he believes man to be a modified ape, but that man 

 and the ape have had a common ancestor, a view, moreover, which 

 does not appear in the ' Origin of Species,' but only in his more 

 recent work on the ' Descent of Man,' and which may still be left 

 out of consideration in judging of his theory of natural selection. 

 Whether, also, modifications arise from the use and disuse of organs, 

 is a question which may be disputed without affecting the validity 

 of his theory. It is but one of many ways by which may be 

 brought about deviations capable of transmission by inheritance. 



