ADDRESS BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION 

 OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL COL- 

 LEGES AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS 1 



Gentlemen of the Association: — The great apostle 

 of German materialism was wont to say in his lectures: 

 "Miracles, gentlemen, are like pills, to be swallowed, not 

 chewed." He was dealing with the supernatural and what 

 is contrary to natural law. But in the vast realm of Nature 

 and the investigation of her phenomena, the miracles daily 

 performed before our eyes can not be carelessly disposed 

 of in a moment, swallowed without consideration. The un- 

 rolling of the leaf, the budding of the flower, the maturing 

 of the perfect fruit, the wonderful adaptation of parts to 

 specific ends, the differentiation of various organs, as the 

 filaments of certain plants for tactile organs, the lobes for 

 capturing insects, and the glands of secretion and absorp- 

 tion — all these require the most careful and patient 

 observation. All natural phenomena have their physical 

 and natural causes, and to find out these underlying 

 causes is often a morsel of the toughest kind, to be turned 

 and returned, again and again, before the final act of 

 deglutition takes place and we are prepared to hazard 

 an opinion. And these adaptations of nature are as 

 countless as the sands upon the shore, each one in itself 



1 Address delivered at Washington, D.C., August 12, 1891, on taking 

 the chair as President of the Association. 



