88 ANNIVEESARr ADDKESS 



After treating of cold-blooded animals and plants in the same 

 way, he adds : — 



" Shall we then say that the vegetable living filament was origi- 

 nally different from that of each tribe of animals above described ? 

 And that the productive living filament of each of those tribes was 

 different originally from the other ? Or, as the earth and ocean 

 were probably peopled with vegetable productions long before the 

 existence of animals, and many families of these animals long before 

 other families of them, shall wo conjecture that one and the same 

 kind of living filaments is and has been the cause of all organic 

 life?" 



Herr Krause has lately published a critical essay on the writings 

 of Erasmus Darwin, and thinks that he ought to be accredited as 

 the real author of the doctrine of evolution in its modern form. 



Lamarck's views are better known to naturalists. They culmi- 

 nated in his famous work, ' Philosophie Zoologique,' which was 

 published in 1809. He believed in the successive creation of 

 Species, but not in their extinction ; and he conjectured (t. ii, 

 pp. 456-462) that by means of direct or spontaneous generation 

 the most simply organised animalcules were originally produced, 

 " et que de ceux-ci sout provenus successivement tous les autres 

 animaux," — that worms became insects ; insects became crustaceans, 

 annelids, and molluscs ; molluscs became fishes ; fishes became 

 reptiles ; reptiles became birds ; and ultimately birds were trans- 

 muted into aquatic and terrestrial mammals. These strange con- 

 ceits were always and strenuously opposed by Cuvier, and may now 

 be considered obsolete. 



Half a century later (1859) appeared 'The Origin of Species by 

 Means of Natural Selection.' It was the result of long and careful 

 observation, and is written in much more readable English than the 

 work of the author's ancestor. I will now give some extracts, 

 which relate to the subject before us, taken from the last edition 

 of 1878. 



Page 409. — After mentioning the absence of strata beneath the 

 Cambrian formation, the author says : " That the geological record 

 is imperfect all will admit ; but that it is imperfect to the degree 

 required by our theory, few will be inclined to admit. If we look 

 to long-enough intervals of time, geology plainly declares that 

 species have all changed ; and they have changed in the manner 

 required by the theory, for they have changed slowly and in a 

 graduated manner." 



Page 417. — The paragraph as to the imperfection of the geological 

 record is too long to quote in its entirety, but it states that " The 



