50 PIIOCEEDIXGS OF THE 



with tlie outbi-ealv at JMi^lboiirne in 1'J14 wlien iiatiiraliftts were 

 invited to contemplate the whole process of or<i;anic evolution as 

 ii procedure from tlie infinitely comjjlex to what by comparison 

 is absurdly simi)le, — from a Protozoon which contained within it 

 the material ^erms of all that has been and all that might have 

 been, and, added to these, first the controlling mechanisms which 

 ])revented such germs from developing, and then, implied in the 

 last, some mechanism determiin'ng tlie order of their release— from 

 all this" to man himself, a mere jack-in-the-box, or rather a com- 

 bination of jack-in-the-boxes, which, before their lids sprang open, 

 were handed down through the ages, — just one bundle made up 

 out of the inHnite variety of tinislied goods that poui'ed forth, alt 

 securely packed, from that illimitable warehouse — the unicellular 

 ancestor! Assuredly he who would suggest this will, in his own 

 words, "be wise to base his faith frankly on the impregnable rock 

 of supei'stition " *. 



And now that my term of office has come to an end I wish to 

 express my gratitude to my brother officers and to the members 

 of Councils and of the Society who have made my task so easy 

 and so pleasant — to the Treasurer, the Botanical Secretary and 

 1-he General Secretary, who bad long been in office when I was 

 first elected and have been my kind and sympathetic colleagues 

 and friends for four years. 1 desire to thank Professor Bourne 

 >vho gave me kind help as Zoological Secretary until he was 

 obligetl to resign in answer to bis countrv's call. We mourn and 

 zoological science mourns the loss of Dr. Assheton who would 

 have been his successor, and of Professor Minchin who held the 

 post for a few short months. And finally I wish to thank 

 my kind friend Mr. Goodrich the present Zoological Secretary 

 who happily will continue to give his help to my distinguished 

 successor. 



And here I would speak in few words of Raphael Mekhda, not 

 a Pellow of our Society but with us in spirit and one of the band 

 of friends — Darwin, Wallace, Bates, Pritz Miiller, and Trimen — 

 who have revolutionised, and largely by means of the Liiniean 

 Societv, the sciences that are grouped together under the general 

 term Natural History. [And as 1 am revising the manuscript of 

 this address for publication tlie last survivor Eoland Trimen has 

 passed from among us, so that in under three years we have lost 

 two out of the three authors whose great monographs, published 

 in our Transactions about fifty years ago, laid the foundations of 

 the study of Mimicry in insects.] 



How different would have been the feelings with which you 

 would have attended this meeting and with Mhicli J should have 

 addressed you, if the happy conditions of the first half of my 

 term of office had been prolonged to the end. But this was not 

 to be ; and my debt is all the deeper for the helpful and kindly 

 sviupathy which we have received. But I do not wish to dwell 



* lieport Brtthh Associafion, 1914, p. 11. 



