F 15 
‘¢ DARWINISM.” 
Mr. C. Jecxs then delivered a lecture on the above subject. 
He said he believed that Mr. Darwin was a man of retiring, un- 
assuming habits, with a great aversion to what was called publicity. 
He was gifted, however, with a great amount of perseverance, an 
amazing power of observation, and an unwearied patience—the 
result of which, after many years of labour, had been the produc- 
tion of his celebrated theory of ‘‘ The origin of species by natural 
selection.’”’ His theory was contrary to the generally received 
opinions of mankind upon the subject, and Mr. Darwin had met 
with a great amount of misrepresentation, vituperation, and abuse. 
Inquiring into the true meaning of the theory, he remarked that in 
the first place it implied no unnecessary development, but merely as- 
serted, or rather suggested, that under certain favourable conditions 
if one variety of life, whether vegetable or animal, possessed any 
advantage over another, it would, as a general rule, tend to be pro- 
pagated more extensively, and that the more favoured variety would 
increase and flourish by reason. of the law of natural selection, 
which, as it were, picked out any ‘species more favoured than 
another, and tended to perpetuate its existence, till in course of 
time and under long-continued favourable conditions, and the 
_ peculiar adaptability to surrounding circumstances, as climate, food, 
&c., which occasionally happens with both plants and animals, these 
advantages became more or less fixed and permanent, and species 
was the result. Thus, supposing all the above-named conditions to 
exist to a sufficient degree at any one time and place, that variety 
which was best able to avail itself of them would probably succeed 
in establishing itself, while others, not so fortunate, would in course 
of time become extinct. Each stage of progress, however, in the 
favoured variety would be marked by a certain degree of advance- 
ment, owing to what was called the law of heredity, or the law by 
virtue of which the progeny of a plant or animal tended to inherit 
those advantages possessed by its parents. This tendency existed 
in an ever-increasing ratio—i.e., supposing the parents to possess 
certain advantages, the progeny would possess not only the same 
advantages, but, to a certain extent, a tendency to greater ones. 
It was supposed that if one form of life gave rise to a number of 
descendants, the progeny of each of these might, in course of time, 
be so much modified by natural selection, while still preserving 
more or less likeness to its original progenitor, and so many tran- 
sitional links would be missing, that any form of life now existing 
could scarcely be said to have descended from any one progenitor. 
And as these transitional forms, constituting the missing links, 
were themselves liable to a constant variation, or even extinction, 
by reason, probably, of the battle of life which they had to wage 
with other allied forms, it could not be wondered at that there were 
