86 ANNIVEKSAEY ADDRESS 



is exemplified by the following quotation from Boyle, viz. " The 

 spontaneous coagulation of the little saline bodies was preceded by 

 almost innumerable evolutions, which were so various, that the little 

 bodies came to obvert to each other those parts by which they 

 might be best fastened together." This quotation is a specimen of 

 the imaginative science of a great philosopher, who lived and 

 flourished in the seventeenth century. 



I can well understand another meaning of the word, which 

 signifies the natural process of growth or development ; but when 

 it is strained to convey the idea of transmutation, I do not think it 

 is warranted by our present means of information. 



The hypothesis does not seem to have been broached by any of 

 the ancient philosophers ; not even by Plato. His eiOO<i in the 

 Parmenides does not mean the same as our " species," but logically 

 the form of a thing or an idea. I have gone through the wonder- 

 fully laborious and erudite work of Lucretius, ' Be Natura Rerum.^ 

 His views do not agree with those of modern evolutionists. On 

 the contrary, he said in his second book that the first created things 

 were very numerous, and originally moved in the same way as they 

 then did and would continue to do, and that there had been always 

 the same law of genei'ation and increase ; and he thence inferred 

 that the beginnings of all things [cunctarum exordia renmi) widely 

 diffei'ed and were varied by manifold diversities of shape. One of 

 his notions is extremely suggestive, and occurs also in the second 

 book. It refers to the succession of life, and may be applied to the 

 frequent and therefore short periods of sequence in fossiliferous 

 formations. It is contained in these lines : — 



*' Augescunt alice gentea, alice minuimtur, 

 Jnque brevi spatio uiutmitur secia animantiim, 

 Et, quasi cwsores, vitai lampada tradunt." 



I subjoin a literal translation : — 



Some kinds increase, others diminisli, 



And in a short time the races of animals are changed, 



And, like runners, hand over the lamps of life. 



This last line alludes to the pedestrian contest of the lamp-bearers 

 at the Athenian festivals in honour of Vulcan. 



It may be true that Lucretius was not a geologist ; but his 

 speculations are as good as any others that are not based on geology. 



In 1794 Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of our justly 

 celebrated naturalist, Charles Darwin, published his remarkable 

 work, 'Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Life,' and he started 

 the theory which his grandson has so ably developed and expounded. 

 I will give some extracts from his chapter on Generation. 



