The Idea of Evolution. 257 



16th January, 1003, 



Chairman — The President. 

 New Member.— iMr J. R. Thompson, chemist, Dumfries. 



I.— The Idea of Evolution, and Possible Fields of Work 



FOR British Botanists. 

 By Professor G. F. Scott-Elliot, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., etc., being 



his presidential address. 



Professor Scott-Elliot said it seemed that the most interest- 

 ing subject one could take would be that of evolution. If they 

 took it in the right spirit, these wider ideas of science gave you a 

 clue by which you can find your way through all minor depart- 

 ments. Such a science as botany, for instance, was generally 

 divided up into little abstract sciences in which workers are 

 without sympathy, in fact generally did not understand what 

 their neighbours in the other compartments were doing; but 

 with a proper idea of evolution, you could bring the whole of 

 these workers into one continuous scheme. 'The general course 

 of the subject of evolution was most easily shown by a very 

 simple diagram. It advanced in a series of 'waves, followed by 

 a dip. The first tidal wave was the work of Charles Darwin, 

 which swept away all the accumulated rubbish of the middle 

 ages, and left the ground clear for future workers. Darwin might 

 be considered as the accumulation of a whole series of other 

 people. Next came the sinking portion— the trough of the 

 wave, chiefly due to theological and metaphisical objections— 

 not strictly scientific at all— which sprang from a total miscon- 

 ception of Darwin's position. It was the cruelty, the barbarism 

 of rooting out the unfit, which shocked the easv-going people 

 of i860; but by a curious confusion of ideas thev blamed 

 Darwin for the fact that he pointed out. Darwin was not 

 responsible for the cruelty; he only pointed out the fact that 

 It existed. Of course there was no foolish sentimentality about 

 Nature, and there should not be any in business of any sort. 

 But one of the fatal defects in this world was that for anythingi 

 dear and precious you had to pay heavily. You could not ge*! 

 over that unfortunate arrangement of the world however you 

 tried to do so. The next point was what was wrapped up in 



