After the discussion on Mr. White’s paper, the following paper was 
read by the Secretary in the regrettable absence of the author :— 
THE ABNORMAL CONDITIONS OF WATER; AS 
EVIDENCE OF DESIGN IN NATURE. By Professor 
Epwarp Hutt, LL.D., F.R.S. ( Vice-President). 
W* are every day brought face to face with phenomena of 
which we are unable to understand the origin and 
cause, and can only reason on their effects. An instructive and 
closely reasoned paper was read before the Society recently on 
the origin of species,* but I fear it left us very much in the 
same position as did Darwin’s celebrated essay, dealing with 
the same subject; in this case, however, the difficulty was to 
define what was meant by ‘a species,’ while Darwin, if I 
recollect right, assumes the existence of species. 
The phenomena of nature may be conveniently arranged 
under two heads; those which are normal, and those which 
are abnormal, or appear to be so. The former are accepted by 
us without question, and we have theories to account for them 
which appear satisfactory when tested by experience. Thus 
when the apple falls from the tree to the ground, we say it is 
merely the effect of the law of gravitation by which all movable 
bodies fall in the direction of the centre of the earth; this is 
supposed to have suggested to Newton the question which gave 
rise to the discovery of the great universal law: that all bodies 
attract each other in proportion to their mass, and inversely 
as the square of the distance. This seems very simple to us 
now that it has been demonstrated by the great mathema- 
* By Rev. John Gerard on February 7th, 1910. 
