TKANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDLNBURGH. 



SESSION . LXIII. 



Presidential Address. — Ox the Teaching of Darwin 

 AND Pasteur. 



(Read 10th November 1898.) 



I had intended to give, as an opening address, a paper on 

 the botany of Palestine, but I found it impossible to get 

 the paper ready in time for the opening meeting of the 

 Society. I have therefore put together, some rather dis- 

 cursive remarks, on the teaching of the two great scientists 

 of the latter half of the present century. 



Darwinism is founded on three hypotheses — Heredity, 

 Survival of the fittest, and Fortuitous variation. 



The third, Fortuitous variation, is often misunderstood. 



It has been thought to be opposed to revealed religion. 

 This arises solely from a verbal misconception. 



All the operations of Nature — physical, mental, and 

 moral — are, from a human point of view, the work either 

 of law or of chance. 



Of chance, if Nature's work is quite unintelligible to 

 man ; of law, if it is intelligible or partly intelligible. 



The theist knows that all things, whether they appear 

 to him to be the effect of law or of chance, are equally the 

 work of God ; but to man, the planets seem to revolve 

 round the sun by law, and comets seem to come into the 

 solar system by chance. 



TKANS. BOT. SOC. EDIN. VOL. XXI. K 



