12 THE PRESENT CONDITION 



to point out what is the existing state of the organic world, 

 that I should point out its past condition, that I should 

 stale what is the precise nature of the undertaking which 

 Mr. Darwin has taken in hand ; that I should endeavour 

 to show you what are the only methods by which that 

 undertaking can l>e brought to an issue, and to point out 

 to you how far the author of the work in question has 

 ed those conditions, how far he has not satisfied 

 them, how far they are satisfiable by man, and how far they 

 are not satistlable by man. 



To-night, in taking up the first part of this question, 

 I shall endeavour to put before you a sort of broad notion 

 of our knowledge of the condition of the living world. 

 There are many ways of doing this. I might deal with it 

 pictorially and graphically. Following the example of 

 Humboldt in his Aspects of Nature, I might endeavour 

 to point out the infinite variety of organic life in every 

 mode of its existence, with reference to the variations of 

 climate and the like ; and such an attempt would be 

 fraught with interest to us all ; but considering the subject 

 before us, such a course would not be that best calculated 

 to assist us. In an argument of this kind we must go 

 further and dig deeper into the matter ; we must endeavour 

 to look into the foundations of living Nature, if I may so say, 

 and discover the principlef involved in some of her most 

 secret operations. I propose, therefore, in the first place, 

 to take some ordinary animal with which you are all 

 familiar, and, by easily comprehensible and obvious 

 pies drawn from it, to show what are the kind of 

 problems which living beings in general lay before us ; and 

 I shall then show you that the same problems are laid open 

 to us by all kinds of living beings. But, first, let me say 

 in what sense I have used the words " organic nature." 

 In speaking of the causes which lead to our present know- 

 siiic nature, I have used it almost as an 

 equivalent of the word "living," and for this reason, 

 that in almost all living beings you can distinguish several 

 distinct portions set apart to do particular things and 

 work in a particular way. These are termed "organs," 

 and the whole together is called " organic." And as it is 

 universally characterislir of them, this term "organic" 

 very conveniently employed to denote the whole 

 of living nature, the whole of the plant world, and the 

 whole of the animal world. 



