PREFA TOR Y NOTE. 



which Professor Yirchow's oration has met with, in his 

 own and in this country ; for it owes that reception, not 

 to the undoubted literary and scientific merits which 

 it possesses, but to an imputed righteousness for which, 

 so far as I can discern, it offers no foundation. 

 It is supposed to be a recantation ; I can find no 

 word in it which, if strictly construed, is inconsistent 

 with the most extreme of those opinions which are 

 commonly attributed to its author. It is supposed to 

 be a deadly blow to the doctrine of evolution ; but, 

 though I certainly hold by that doctrine with some 

 tenacity, I am able, ex animo, to subscribe to every 

 important general proposition which its author lays 

 down. 



In commencing his address, Virchow adverts to the 

 complete freedom of investigation and publication in 

 regard to scientific questions which obtains in Ger- 

 many ; he points out the obligation which lies upon 

 men of science, even if for no better reason than the 

 maintenance of this state of things, to exhibit a due 

 sense of the responsibility which attaches to their 

 speaking and writing, and he dwells on the necessity of 

 drawing a clear line of demarcation between those pro- 

 positions which they have a fair right to regard as estab- 

 lished truths, and those which they know to be only more 

 or less well-founded speculations. Is any one prepared 

 to deny that this is the first great commandment of the 



