INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 15 



I have already referred to several great generalisations 

 Avhich have exercised a po^yerflll influence in advancing 

 science during the period I marked out for review ; but^ so 

 far as influencing the general current of thought^ and 

 almost entirely revolutionising the prevalent notions of 

 scientific workers in every department of knowledge^ the 

 most potent factor of the period has been the establish- 

 ment of what has been termed " the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion." The simple conception of the relation of all 

 created things by the bond of continuous inheritance has 

 given life to the dead bones of an accumulated mass of 

 observed facts, each valuable in itself, but, as a whole, 

 breaking down by its own weight. Before this master-key 

 was provided by the lucid instruction of Darwin and Wal- 

 lace, it was beyond the power of the human mind to grasp 

 and use in biological research the great wealth of minute 

 anatomical and physiological details. The previous ideas 

 of tlie independent creation of each species of animal and 

 jjlant in a little Garden of Eden of its own inust appear 

 puerile and absurd to the young naturalists of the present 

 day ; but in my own College days to have expressed any 

 doubt on the subject would have involved a sure and certain 

 pluck from the examiner. 



I remember well that I first obtained a copy of Darwin's 

 "Origin of Species" in San Francisco when on my way 

 home from a three years' sojourn among the Red Indians 

 in the Rocky Mountains. Having heard nothing of the 

 controversies, I received the teaching with enthusiasm, and 

 felt very mucli surprised on returning to my ahna mater 

 to find that I was treated as a heretic and backslider. 

 Nowadays it is diflieult to realise what all the fuss and 

 fierce controversy was about ; and the rising school of 

 naturalists have much cause for congratulation that they 

 can start fair on a well-assured logical basis of thought, 

 and steer clear of the many complicated and purely ideal 

 systems which were formerly in vogue for explaining the 

 intentions of the Creator and for torturing unfortunate 

 students. The doctrine of evolution is the single-minded 

 acceptance of the invariability of cause and effect in the 



