VIII 

 BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 



(THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



FOR 1870) 



IT has long been the custom for the newly 

 installed President of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science to take advantage of 

 the elevation of the position in which the suffrages 

 of his colleagues had, for the time, placed him, and, 

 casting his eyes around the horizon of the scientific 

 world, to report to them what could be seen from 

 his watch-tower ; in what directions the multitu- 

 dinous divisions of the noble army of the improvers 

 of natural knowledge were marching; what 

 important strongholds of the great enemy of us 

 all, ignorance, had been recently captured; and, 

 also, with due impartiality, to mark where the 

 advanced posts of science had been driven in, or a 

 long-continued siege had made no progress, 



