[FIRST LECTURE.] 

 ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE. 



MY BROTHERS : The subject on which I am to 

 address you this morning, and the three mornings 

 that follow, is one of considerable complexity and 

 difficulty. I do not apologise to you for th e difficulty 

 of my theme. When we meet here in our Anniver- 

 sary Meeting, we meet as students and not simply 

 as superficial men and women of the world. We try 

 to prepare ourselves, by study, for the exchange of 

 thought which in these gatherings takes place, and 

 although the subject is a difficult one, although it is 

 not possible to make it clear and intelligible without 

 the use of certain technical terms, yet, to the student 

 technical terms being precise are really the easiest 

 to understand, and inasmuch as, in a great majority 

 at least, we are students, I who speak, and you who 

 listen, we may be content to treat the subject in a 

 -somewhat formal and technical way. Roughly, my 

 outline is this. I want to lay before you an intelli- 

 gible conception of evolution, taking it on its two 

 sides, that of the evolving life and that of the 



