218 president's address. 



productiveness of certain species, by the total extermination of 

 creatures that were meant to prey upon others. 



I scarcely feel myself justified, while reviewing the local pro- 

 gress of natural science during the past year, in introducing 

 general considerations; but as all faithful students must surely 

 endeavour to contribute their inductions towards the erection of 

 the grand superstructure of system, it is impossible but that we 

 have all been deeply interested in the views which, with so much 

 learning and abilit}^, have been recently put forth on the origin 

 and classification of species. I allude particularly to the work 

 of Mr. Darwin on the " Origin of Species," and to Agassiz's 

 " Essay on Classification." The view of Mr. Agassiz, which he 

 had already propounded in his larger American work, being, that 

 there are six grand centres of creation, Palearctic, Nearctic, African, 

 Indian, South American, and Australian. The principle of Mr. 

 Darwin being, that all existent types are divergences from one 

 common origin, brought about by time and circumstances. With 

 some limitations, these two views do not appear to be altogether 

 irreconcilable, though we shall probably pause for clearer demon- 

 stration, before either is generally accepted in its entirety. Time 

 is Mr. Darwin's grand postulate. If Archimedes asked for pou 

 sto, and he would move the world, so Mr. Darwin asks for time, 

 and he will produce an Anthropoid ape from a Pala30zoic fish. 



Lucid and charming as is Mr. Darwin's style, and novel as are 

 his arguments, his conclusions are by no means new. Long 

 since Lamarck broached his development theory, that the various 

 forms of animal life had been formed through different s^htg, e.g, 

 that a bird feeding by the water's edge gradually, through 

 stretching its neck, had elongated it into the heron's . But his crude 

 theory had been committed to the limbo of forgotten things, when 

 the world was startled, a few years since, by the appearance of 

 the " Vestiges of Creation." That shallow work, sustained by 

 nothing but the most unsupported hypotheses, soon dropped out 

 of notice. Its basis was, that " the creation of life, wherever it 

 takes place, is a chemico-electric operation, by which simple ger- 

 minal vesicles are produced." " All animated beings, from the 

 simplest and oldest, up to the highest and most recent, are the 



