1866. | The President's Addvress. 525 
through eons of time have divaricated, and produced on the one hand 
a species A, and on the other a species Z ; the changes here have been 
so great that we should never expect directly to reproduce an 
intermediate between A and Z. A and B on the one hand, and 
Y and Z on the other, might reproduce ; but to regain the original 
type, M, we must not only retrocede through all the imtermediates, 
but must have similar circumstances recalled in an inverse order 
at each phase of retrogression—conditions which it is obviously 
impossible to fulfil. But there was another difficulty in the way of 
tracing a given organism to its parent form, which from our con- 
ventional mode of tracing genealogies, was never looked upon in its 
proper light. This was well illustrated by the speaker: Where 
were we to look, said he, for the remote ancestor of a given form ? 
Each of us, supposing none of our progenitors to have intermarried 
with relatives, would have had, at or about the period of the 
Norman Conquest, upwards of a hundred million direct ancestors 
‘of that generation. Let anyone assume that one of his ancestors 
at that time was a Moor, another a Celt, a third a Laplander, and 
that these three were preserved while all the others were lost, he 
would never recognize either of them as his ancestor, he would only 
have the one hundred-millionth of the blood of each of them, and 
as far as they were concerned there would be no perceptible sign 
of identity of race. From the long-contmued conventional habit 
of tracing pedigrees through the male ancestor, we forgot, im 
talking of progenitors, that each individual had a mother as well as 
a father ; and there was no reason to suppose that he had in him less 
of the blood of the one than of the other. 
In indicating a few of the broad arguments on this subject, the 
speaker explained, that if he appeared to lean to the view that the 
successive changes in organic beings did not take place by sudden 
leaps, it was from no want of an impartial feeling; but if the facts 
were stronger in fayour of one theory than another, it would be an 
affectation of impartiality to make the balance appear equipoised. 
Perhaps the most convincing argument in favour of continuity, 
which could be presented to a doubting mind, would be the difficulty 
it would feel in representing to itself any per saltwm act of nature. 
We were forced by experience, though often unconsciously, to believe 
in continuity as to all effects now taking place, and the fair question 
was, Did the newly-proposed view remove more difficulties, require 
fewer assumptions, and present more consistency with observed 
facts than that which it sought to supersede? If so, the philosopher 
would adopt it, and the world would follow the philosopher—after 
many days. 
In summing up this part of the argument, the speaker concluded 
by saying, that if we were satisfied that continuity was a law of nature, 
the true expression of the action of Almighty Power, then, though 
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