LIXXEAX SOCIETY OF LOXDOX. 



45 



tlu'ough which the adult may be supposed to liave passed during 

 the geological ages. In all these stages the embryo has itself been 

 subject to specialisation. 1 think that where Dr. Gaskell errs is 

 in laying too much stress on many details of the recapitulation 

 hypothesis. Some of his resemblances I can conceive might be 

 due to convergent or adaptive evolution, acting upon lines almost 

 infinitely long before the common ancestor is reached. Yet there 

 remains such a mass of hard analogy, borne out too by the most 

 careful physiological and morphological investigation, a mass 

 which cannot be put forward — or even a tithe of it put forward — 

 by the exponents of any other view, that one is inclined to doubt 

 the presence of adaptive evolution at all in this cose. Although I 

 should feel it to be "non-proven," I cannot but regard it as by far 

 the most striking view of the origin of Vertebrates that has yet 

 been expounded. 



Morphologists must carefully consider whether they may 7iot be 

 holding on to shibboleths, and wilfully blinding their eyes to the 

 great mass of facts, many largely physiological, which has in 

 recent years been accumulated. Is it not just as necessarv for 

 the zoologist, who wishes to consider these great questions, to be 

 a physiologist as it is for the latter to be a morphologist ? If it is 

 desired to prove Dr. Gaskell's hypothesis wrong, his points must 

 be taken fact by fact to see where they lead — as indeed barristers 

 do with evidence in our courts. If it is desired to prove some 

 other theory right, it must likewise be taken fact by fact, and no 

 one can, as some try to do at present, consider the natui'e of any 

 beast without any examination nito its nurture. 



The Eev. T. E. E. Stebbixg, F.E.S., F.L.S., said : Mr. President, 

 may I be allowed for a few moments to intervene on behalf of 

 those among us who may describe themselves as the know-nothino- 

 section of the audience, persons not a few who are committed to 

 neither side in ihe controversy? When we return home and our 

 friends gleefully enquire, " What then has been decided as to the 

 Origin of Vez'tebrates ?," so far we seem to have no reply readv 

 except that the disputants agreed on one single point, namely, 

 that their opponents were all in the wrong. It occurs to me to 

 illustrate the position by propounding another enigma. What is 

 the origin ot arguments ? Take an example. Suppose a company 

 in which some pedantic ai'ithmetician asserts that two and three 

 invariably make five. To those who like myself easily fall in 

 with, the views of the last speaker, the statement appears incon- 

 trovertible. But in some brains any positive declaration at once 

 sets up what may be called an intellectual wriggle. This process 

 soon enables the contradictory person to point out that two and 

 three sometimes make six and sometimes minus one or plus one 

 as well as two-thirds of one or one and a half. Since one opera- 

 tion in arithmetic is as good as another, if not a great deal better 

 it follows that two and three do not invariably make five ; far from 

 it. Thus the wriggling of the brain originates argument. 



