1893.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 55 



ist advanced with his subject, — from the first debased creature, 

 seemingl}' unworthy of the name of Man, with eager eyes watch- 

 ing- the animals about liim, actuated solely with the desire for 

 food, until, having kept step and time with the march of the 

 progressive ages, at length materially and mentall}' equipped, he 

 is able with the eye of faith and finger of instinct to perceive 

 and point out the ways and methods of Creative Power. For 

 the entire universe is ever moving onward and upward ; there is 

 no cessation in the march of development ; advance ! " Go 

 forward !" is and has ever been the divine command. To hesi- 

 tate, to pause, means death, and there can be no retrogression. 

 Type breeding only unto type ends surely in annihilation. To 

 stand still is to cease to exist, to go ever forward from one 

 height to another still higher is the only method for a continued 

 life. Such is the manifest law of Omnipotence, and only that 

 which is capable of a higher development can survive. 



Man — that highest of earthly types — is no exception to this 

 law, but in himself exemplifies its truth and force in the evi- 

 dences of his own existence. The races incapal)le of fartlier 

 advancement become extinct, only those survive which contain 

 Avithin themselves the seeds of continued progress, and which, 

 on looking on their history, can say, 



" I have climbed the snows of Age, and I gazed at a field in tlie Past, 

 Where I sank with the body at times, in the sloughs of a low desire, 

 But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the ]Man is qviiet at last, 



As he stands on the height of his life, with a glimpse of a height that 

 is higher." 



We may not, therefore, as I have already said, judge Audu- 

 bon by the standard of to-day, any more than we ourselves shall 

 be measured l)y that employed by naturalists half a century 

 hence. He was an ornithological artist, not a scientific natur- 

 alist, and no one appreciated this fact, and was more ready to 

 acknowledge it than the simple, frank and enthusiastic author of 

 the Birds of America. He never made pretence to be more than 

 he really was ; he never claimed to anything higher than to be a 

 lover of animals, their faithful illustrator, and the historian of 

 their lives, but in this role he occupies a formost place, and has 

 gained an imperishable name. We must consider him as he 

 struggled and worked in the dawn of the scientific period, in the 

 blaze of whose noonday sun we ourselves live. 



He is most remarkable for his energy and indomitable perse- 

 verance in l)attling against the ditlicidties presented in the ex- 

 ploration of a little known, wild and for the most part un- 

 civilized land, permitting few opportunities, even if he had the 



