THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 379 
No one who narrowly scrutinizes the intellectual influences of our 
own day can fail to see that that of science is one of the most impor. 
tant. One scientific speculation, that of Charles Darwin on the 
origin of species, has within less than a quarter of a century com- 
pletely revolutionized the world of thought. The frequency with 
which such words and phrases as, development, evolution, survival of 
the fittest, struggle for existence, etc., are now used in our newspapers 
and in ordinary conversation, is perhaps the most striking proof of 
the extent to which the world generally has been unconsciously 
influenced by him. Nearly all the leading scientific men of the age 
are Darwinians ; the only exceptions are a few of the older men who 
still keep their heads above the advancing tide. This theory seems 
to strike at the belief in personal immortality and the other founda- 
tions of morals and religion ; and some writers, notably Mr. Goldwin 
Smith, have given expression to the opinion that a day of moral un- 
settlement and consequent deterioration of hunan conduct is approach- 
ing. They would reécho what Tennyson has expressed in Jn 
Memoriam. 
I trust I have not wasted breath : 
I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with death. 
Not only cunning casts in clay : 
Let science prove we are, and then 
What matters science unto men, 
At least to me? I wouid not stay. 
Let him, the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action like the greater ape, 
But I was born to other things. 
Such lamentations appear to have little effect upon the advance of 
evolutionist views. Like some necromancer whose spells have evoked 
a spirit which he cannot lay, the activity of the human intellect has 
developed a system of beliefs with regard to the material universe that 
seems to threaten the very foundations of society, and we can do 
nothing but look on. Yet I, for one, have no serious apprehensions. 
I believe 
That somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
The presence of the religious and moral elements in man is at least 
as much a fact as the links of resemblance that establish a relation 
