22 MUSEUM ORGANISATION i 



only such as the ordinary visitor can understand and profit by, 

 and the collection for students being so arranged as to afford 

 every facility for examination and research. The improve- 

 ments that can be made in detail in both departments are 

 endless, and to enter further into their consideration would 

 lead me far beyond the limits of this address. Happily, as I 

 said before, the subject is receiving much attention. 



I would willingly dwell longer upon it indeed I feel that 

 I have only been able to touch slightly and superficially upon 

 many questions of practical interest, well worthy of more 

 detailed consideration ; but time warns me that I must be 

 bringing this discourse to a close, and I have still said nothing 

 in reference to subjects upon which you may expect some 

 words on this occasion. I mean those great problems con- 

 cerning the laws which regulate the evolution of organic 

 beings, problems which agitate the minds of all biologists of 

 the present day, and the solution of which is watched with 

 keen interest by a far wider circle a circle, in fact, coincident 

 with the intelligence and education of the world. Several 

 communications connected with these problems will be brought 

 before the sectional meetings during the next few days, and we 

 shall have the advantage of hearing them discussed by some 

 of those who, by virtue of their special attention to and full 

 knowledge of these subjects, are most competent to speak with 

 authority. It is therefore for me rather delicate ground to 

 tread upon, especially at the close of a discourse mainly devoted 

 to another question. I will, however, briefly point out the 

 nature of the problems and the lines which the endeavour to 

 solve them will probably take, without attempting to anticipate 

 the details which you will doubtless hear most fully and ably 

 stated elsewhere. 



I think I may safely premise that few, if any, original 

 workers at any branch of biology appear now to entertain 

 serious doubt about the general truth of the doctrine that 

 all existing forms of life have been derived from other 

 forms by a natural process of descent with modification, and 

 it is generally acknowledged that to the records of the past 

 history of life upon the earth we must look for the actual 

 confirmation of the truth of a doctrine which accords so 



