!96 



NATURE 



\AugUSt 2 2, 1889 



coveries and certain men on the progress of science— but 

 one is forced to bow to facts, and to acknowledge the 

 magnitude of the prodigious impulse given to science 

 by the great English naturalist. But, as Clapar^de would 

 say, there are enfants terribles of evolution — men more 

 anxious to be spoken of than to discover the truth. 



" We must carefully distinguish them from the conscien- 

 tious men of science who investigate precise facts 

 patiently, scrupulously, and laboriously, to deduce from 

 them consequences in support of their theory. Men such 

 as these make science advance surely, whereas the others 

 sometimes compromise the cause. 



" The only thing to oppose to exaggeration, the influence 

 of excessive enthusiasm, is recourse to experiment. To- 

 day, that is the great reform which we feel to be as 

 necessary as those other reforms of whose history I have 

 spoken." 



Before developing this idea, the lecturer spoke of 

 Lamarck, and of the reason why his ideas were not 

 adopted during his lifetime. 



" Of late years people have thought they had re- 

 discovered Lamarck, and have severely blamed the 

 generation of zoologists who neglected for half a century 

 the author of the ' Philosophie Zoologique.' 



" It is true that in the works of Lamarck there are whole 

 pages which contain the theory of transformism com- 

 pletely developed, to which Darwin has added nothing, 

 and which we may say he has but confirmed. 



" But if Lamarck had not the satisfaction during his life- 

 time of seeing his ideas admitted, it was that the minds 

 of zoologists were not sufficiently prepared for them ; 

 it was that he had not the rare good fortune of finding a 

 precise and lucid formula, whose truth is evident, and 

 which is necessarily accepted by all. 



" Some of Lamarck's conceptions of Nature are even 

 difficult to understand, and especially to make clear to 

 others ; and I do not see that even his most ardent ad- 

 mirers have insisted on this portion of his work, and yet 

 it is by no means inconsiderable. 



" We should have been glad to see it more clearly ex- 

 plained than it is in the original, and brought within the 

 comprehension of all, and one wonders why it should 

 never be referred to. 



" For a reformer to succeed, his idea must be striking in 

 brilliancy and precision ; it must master us by its 

 intrinsic seduction. 



" Take Darwin, showing us the struggle for existence 

 taking place everywhere and at every instant, and leading 

 to the selection and survival of the victor. 



" Take Cuvier, who, it was said, reconstructed an extinct 

 animal from a fragment of bone. A statement like this 

 appealed to the imagination of the masses, and he excited 

 the admiration of a whole generation when he compared 

 an organism to an equation of which we may determine 

 the unknown by the known quantities it contains. 



" If Lamarck did not have the success he deserved, it 

 was because of the abstract form he gave to his opinions, 

 and the often naive proofs which he adduced in confirma- 

 tion of his theories at a moment when enthusiasm and 

 popular attention were diverted to another aspect of 

 science. 



" Lamarck was, moreover, regarded as a visionary 

 because he believed in the possibility of forecasting the 

 weather from observations of the atmosphere and of the 

 forms of clouds, and yet who would now blame him for 

 his hopes } 



" Lamarck was a man of genius who foresaw the 

 advances of science on many sides, but who did 

 not possess the faculty of being able to present 

 his ideas in a felicitous form intelligible to his con- 

 temporaries." 



The lecturer then returned to his theme, that experi- 

 mental research in zoology is the need of the hour, and 



proceeded to give some striking examples of the results 

 to which it has led. 



Firstly, he described the alternation of generations in 

 the gall-producing insect, whose two forms were origin- 

 ally known as Biorhiza and Teras. The Biorhiza, a 

 wingless and asexual form, is born from eggs laid in the 

 roots of the oak ; it crawls up to the branches, and there 

 causes the gall excrescence as it lays its unfertilized eggs. 

 From these eggs issue the sexual winged form Teras, 

 which conjugate ; and the female then lays her eggs 

 in the roots of the oak, and from these spring the 

 Biorhizae. 



He then spoke of the strange metamorphoses of a cer- 

 tain insect Sitaris, semi-parasitic on a species of bee, 

 Anthophora, which have been investigated by M. J. H. 

 Fabre, and of those of the lobster. In all these cases, 

 forms supposed to have been different have proved 

 to belong to the life-history of one and the same 

 animal. 



" It is because zoology is at this moment at a critical 

 period, and because of the positive nature of the affirma- 

 tions made by the partisans of transformism, that the 

 methods of the science must be modified, and that 

 besides simply registering the existence of species, we 

 must have constant recourse to the test of experiment. 

 Such is the conclusion at which we logically arrive, and 

 which to-day, I repeat, has become imperative. 



" I have sought to point out to you the considerable 

 part which our country has played in the progress of the 

 natural history of man and of animals during the century 

 which is drawing to a close. 



" I should have wished to speak also of the origin and 

 development of other branches of biology, of comparative 

 and general anatomy, of experimental physiology, an- 

 thropology, and palaeontology. But I think I have said 

 enough to show that I am justified in spurning the re- 

 I proaches and inimical accusations so often made against 

 I us, that France is a country in which scientific work is 

 ^ on the decline, and whose decadence is at hand. 

 i " We open our meeting full of joy in the present, of hope 

 for the future, in presence of the imposing spectacle 

 whose success has but increased since it began in May, 

 ! and which demonstrates the inanity of these accusations. 

 I Let your labours, varied as they are important, prove 

 \ once more, during a year so fertile in pacific manifesta- 

 tions, that we work only for the restoration of our country, 

 \ and that the peace of which others speak much, and perhaps 

 i believe in but little, is the sole preoccupation of all men of 

 I sense, of all who are in earnest in this country of France — 

 ; France whose desire is to remain free and independent, 

 ever animated by the most generous and patriotic of 

 sentiments." 



At the conclusion of M. Lacaze Duthiers' speech, which 

 was most enthusiastically cheered, the Treasurer an- 

 nounced that the receipts for the year had been ^3760, 

 the expenses ^34.80, and that the total capital of the 

 Association amounted to ^33,063. An important legacy 

 of about £7000 had been bequeathed to the Association by 

 M. Girard, for the promotion of researches on prehistoric 

 man. 



The proceedings concluded with a report on last year's 

 rneeting at Oran, and the members then adjourned to the 

 Ecole des Fonts et Chaussees, where the Sectional sittings 

 took place. 



The French Association is subdivided into seventeen 

 Sections and sub-Sections : (i and 2) Mathematics and 

 Astronomy ; (3 and 4) Civil and Military Engineering and 

 Navigation ; (5) Physics ; (6) Chemistry ; (7) Meteorology ; 

 (8) Geology and Mineralogy ; (9) Botany ; (10) Zoology, 

 Anatomy, and Physiology ; (11) Anthropology ; (12) Medical 

 Science ; (13) Agriculture ; (14) Geography ; (15) Political 

 Economy; (16) Pedagogy; (17) Hygiene. 

 An immense number of papers were contributed to the 



