140 Evolution of Animal Life. 



This seems to me unfortunate ; perhaps because it shuts me 

 out from those wide generalizations which are so much easier 

 for both speaker and hearer than the patient study of de- 

 tails. Some one has said that any smart young man, Avith 

 pen, ink, and paper, can compose a scheme of cosmogony 

 in two hours. Something like this was done by Poe, in his 

 essay, "Eureka," stating a theory of the universe which, 

 he said, must be true because it was so beautiful. The 

 trouble with such arguments is, that we are not able to 

 say what is beautiful until we have discovered what is 

 true. Still, they have a wonderful charm for us. I think 

 the very general acceptance of the philosophy of Evolution 

 which has come about within the last twenty-five years has 

 been largely due to the perception of its beauty, as a har- 

 monious and comprehensive arrangement of all phenomena. 

 And if I were only permitted to traverse the table to-night 

 vertically, instead of horizontally, I should feel much more 

 certain of entertaining, if not instructing you. In fact, 

 there is no telling how brilliant would be the address I am 

 not going to make ! Let me smother my regrets and awak- 

 en yours, as I come humbly down to the horizontal method, 

 and confine myself to my theme : the evolution of animal 

 life. 



Under this title, I do not understand that the origin of 

 animal life by evolution from plant-life, or the origin of 

 the organic by evolution from the inorganic, is meant, al- 

 though a strict construction might require that meaning. 

 In such a sense, little could be said except in demonstration 

 of ignorance. Until a sharp dividing line between plants 

 and animals can be established, it is not likely that we can 

 philosophize to much purpose as to whether and how that 

 line was crossed by evolution. And as to the doctrine of 

 abiogenesis, or the spontaneous generation of organic life, 

 its truth has neither been proved by trustworthy experi- 

 ments nor disproved by the failure of such experiments. 

 Nor does that failure discredit in any degree the philosophy 

 of evolution. Indeed, Professor LeConte, one of the latest 

 and most lucid of writers on this subject, deduces from his 

 second fundamental law of evolution the corollary, that if 

 spontaneous generation ever took place, it necessarily can- 

 not be possible now. To this extent, I do not follow him. 

 It is sufficient here, however, to point out that the origin 



