420 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



then, I have never advocated the introduction of the 

 theory of evolution into our schools. I should even be 

 disposed to resist its introduction before its meaning had 

 been better understood and its utility more fully recog- 

 nized than it is now by the great body of the community. 

 The theory ought, I think, to bide its time until the free 

 conflict of discovery, argument, and opinion has won for 

 it this recognition. A necessary condition here, however, 

 is that free discussion should not be prevented, either by 

 the ferocity of reviewers or the arm of the law; otherwise, 

 as I said before, the work of social preparation cannot go 

 on. On this count, then, I claim acquittal, being for the 

 moment on the side of Virchow. 



Besides the duties of the chair, which 1 have been 

 privileged to occupy in London for more than a quarter 

 of a century, and which never involved a word on my 

 part, pro or con, in reference to the theory of evolution, 

 I have had the honor of addressing audiences in Liver- 

 pool, Belfast, and Birmingham; and in these addresses the 

 theory of evolution, and the connected doctrine of spon- 

 taneous generation, have been more or less touched upon. 

 Let us now examine whether in my references I have de- 

 parted from the views of Virchow or not. 



In the Liverpool discourse, after speaking of the theory 

 of evolution when applied to the primitive condition of 

 matter, as belonging to "the dim twilight of conjecture," 

 and affirming that "the certainty of experimental inquiry 

 is here shut out," I sketch the nebular theory as enunci- 

 ated by Kant and Laplace, and afterward proceed thus: 

 "Accepting some such view of the construction of our 

 system as probable, a desire immediately arises to connect 

 the present life of our planet with the past. We wish to 



