LINNEAN SOCIETlf OV LONDOX. 2r 



PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 



During last year and this our thoughts have been specially 

 directed to the great revolution in biology accomplished, 50 years 

 ago, by Darwin and Wallace. Last July we held our own 

 celebration, at which I had the high honour of presiding, of the 

 lirst inauguration of the theory in the rooms of our Society. 

 The proceedings on that day were of extraordinary interest, owing, 

 above all, to the contributions of Dr. Wallace himself and of 

 8ir Joseph Hooker. 



Since then, some of ns have taken part in a very charming com- 

 memoration at Oxford, of the Centenary of Dartrin's birth, and 

 now we are all looking forward to the great Jubilee of the ' Origin 

 of Species ' to be celebrated at Cambridge next month. We have 

 already welcomed a harbinger of that important event in the shape 

 of the memorial volume on Darwin and Modern Science. To have 

 been a contributor to this book is a privilege which I value very 

 highly, but it has, like other gratifying things, its drawbacks, 

 which I have felt rather acutely during the preparation of this 

 address. I have thought it natural and appropriate to choose 

 as my subject this year some points in botanical morphology 

 which have a bearing on Darwinian doctrine. But some of the 

 questions on \Ahich I should have wished to speak today have already 

 been dealt with in my contribution to the Darwin memorial 

 volume, and I have found the field of my observations somewhat 

 restricted, if the error of repeating oneself was to be avoided. The 

 subject, however, even within the limits of palreobotany (to which 

 1 shall not wholly confine myself) is sufficiently wide, and I trust 

 that there is still scope for such remarks as may occupy the short 

 time for which I propose to detain you. 



The Darwinian theory of the Origin of Species by Variation 

 and Natural Selection only fulfils its t^ole, in so far as the dis- 

 tinctive characters of organisms are, or have been, adaptive, i. e. 

 beneficial to the species. Purely " morphological " characters (if 

 any such exist) and non-adaptive characters in general are not 

 explained by the Darwinian theory (or only indirectly with the 

 help of correlation). I therefore make no apology for having a 

 good deal to say about adaptations in what follows. I am aware 

 that in some quarters adaptation is out of fashion just now, as was 

 already the case in Darwin's day. In a well-known passage in a 

 letter to Sir W. Thif-elton-Dyer * written in 1880 about adaptations 

 in germinating seeds, Darwin says : " Many of the Germans a.re 

 very contemptuous about making out use of organs ; but they may 

 sneer the souls out of their bodies, and 1 for one shall think it the 

 most interesting part of natural history." 



To save any risk of international complications, it may be well 



* ' More Letters of Charles Darwin,' ii. p. 428. 



