i7o INSECTS AND HEREDITY 



Note. — The following statement formed part of the general introduc- 

 tion to the Anniversary Address. The importance of the subject, and 

 the very insufficient attention as yet directed to it, are my excuse for 

 reproducing it in the present volume. 



Before I proceed to the subject of my address there is 

 one important point upon which I feel bound to warn not 

 only this Society, but other Scientific Societies as well. 

 I refer to the enduring qualities of the paper on which 

 scientific publications are often printed, and still more 

 emphatically the ' paper ' on which they are often illus- 

 trated. I allude especially to the so-called ' art papers', 

 assuredly named on the principle ' ut lucus a non lucendo'. 

 The opaque, white, polished surface, which yields the 

 most successful ' half-tone ' and ' three-colour ' printings, 

 is at present only possible by means of a veneer of china- 

 clay. Dust it is, and we are assured by experts that not 

 many years will pass by before it succumbs to the fate 

 which the highest authority tells us is in store for dust. 

 For the purposes of advertisement, this is no disadvan- 

 tage : the cynic may even maintain that the writings of the 

 present day are, to the great benefit of the human race, 

 recorded upon a fitting medium. But cynicism has no part 

 in science, and every Fellow of this Society will agree that 

 an age producing scientific records which cannot be made 

 to endure, is an age to be rightly scorned by the genera- 

 tions of the future, — scorned as one that sunk to the 

 lowest level of production, that, intellectually, owing its 

 very existence to the noble standard reached by days yet 

 earlier, took the benefits, and deliberately or carelessly 

 neglected in like manner to assist its successors. 



We have only to reflect upon the paramount importance 

 of tradition in order to realize the weight of our responsi- 

 bilities. Lloyd Morgan, discussing the trend of human 

 development, speaks of a ' transference of evolution from 

 the individual to the environment', which ' may leave the 

 faculty of the race at a standstill, while the achievements 

 of the race are progressing by leaps and bounds.' 1 Or, 

 again, he contrasts the progressive evolution of the 

 intellectual and moral edifice of society with the cessation 



1 Habit and Instinct, London, 1896, p. 340. 



