LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



MR VICE-CHANCELLOR, 



THE subject which, by your command, I have 

 the gratification of bringing before the notice of 

 the University of Cambridge, is not offered as new, 

 though, in consequence of being at the present time 

 subjected to that scrutiny which always arises on 

 the production of new evidence, it wears a somewhat 

 novel aspect. For certainly the history of life is a 

 theme which can never have been absent from the 

 mind of a contemplative naturalist. It never can 

 have been absent, because in all the classifications, 

 in all the systems by which we vainly task ourselves 

 to represent the divine idea of nature, we have inva- 

 riably looked for a beginning, a progress, and a pos- 

 sible end. Standing by the stream of life, we have 

 surveyed the variations in its course, and appealed 

 to history and experience, for the data which might 

 guide us to a right view of its incessant fluctuations, 

 and its recurring uniformities. \Ye have thus found 

 all nature, organic and inorganic, to be harmoniously 

 combined in mutual dependence; the worlds of 

 R. L. B 



