6f 



But from amidst these grounds for congratulation there 

 looms out, but too distinctly, a fact of an opposite kind — a 

 fact which does not affect us alone, but the responsibility for 

 which is shared, I fear, by the entire nation. I would not 

 for a moment be deemed capable of unduly depreciating the 

 systematic study of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, to 

 which as Englishmen we are so addicted. On the con- 

 trary, I know too well that such studies are essential to us ; 

 they constitute the indispensable foundations upon which 

 those who aim at erecting loftier edifices must build. But 

 whilst making this admission in the most unreserved manner, 

 I cannot hide from myself, or from you, the fact that there 

 are yet higher subjects of thought and research than those 

 involved in the discrimination of genera and species, or in 

 the study of the systematic positions which objects should 

 occupy in the human classifications. It is eminently charac- 

 teristic of the present age that men have become alive to this 

 truth ; hence we find them in various parts of the world 

 grappling with the loftiest of problems. The sneers with 

 which "Peter Pindar" saluted Sir Joseph Banks for impaling 

 butterflies and boiling fleas are no longer possible. Goethe, 

 Oken, and Owen have stimulated us to the study of animal 

 and vegetable homologies ; Darwin has removed many of 

 the difficulties that beset the Lamar ckian ideas respecting 

 the origin of species ; by sending us along what I believe to 

 be the right track he has opened the way to new lines of 

 enquiry so vast as to demand the greatest of intellects to 

 trace their ultimate ramifications and to reach the grand 

 generalisations towards which they will finally conduct us. 

 Then there is the wide field of detailed physiological research, 

 in which so much has already been done, but so much of 

 which is yet uncultivated. We are surrounded one very hand 

 by myriads of plants and animals of whose life-history we 

 know little, but which invite our study. To this end we 

 must make the microscope our primaiy instrument, with the 



