52 PROFESSOR DUNS ON THE 



developments that have taken place in what we see around us to the mere 

 theory of natural selection, brouj^ht about by physical personal influences ; 

 for, in the sentence quoted from Darwin by the author of the paper, "natural 

 selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every varia- 

 tion, even the slightest ; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding 

 up all that is good ; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever 

 opportunity offers," — Darwin would actually seem to make a pe7-son of 

 natural selection. To read such a passage is, it seems to me, to see the 

 absurdity of it; and I think we owe our best thanks to the author of 

 the paper for having brought forward, with so much effect for the 

 purpose he had in view, so many important and significant points. I 

 agree with what was said by the author of the paper when he stated that 

 the system of evolution did not seem to apply to anything but the animate 

 creation. If the inanimate objects of creation be the work of an 

 Almighty wisdom, why, it may be asked, should we exclude the power 

 and wisdom of the Almighty from the advancement of the animate creation? 

 To do this is not philosophy, nor the love of wisdom in its widest sense. 

 There can be little doubt but that Darwin was carried away by hia 

 wonderful knowledge of facts and his fanciful theory, which, from time to 

 time, he admitted to be a theory, but which he still put forward as if it 

 were a series of ascertained facts. 



Mr. J. Hassell. — After I had perused Dr. Duns' paper I marked a portion 

 of the paragraph, just referred to, on the third page of the paper; because 

 it occurred to me that if that is what we are to understand by natural 

 selection, — namely, the impersonation of non-entity — we are asked to 

 accept a remarkably unscientific doctrine. I then turned to Professor 

 Tyndall, to see what he said upon the subject, what facts he had to pre- 

 sent, and what conclusions he drew from those facts. As I have already 

 said in this room, while I am willing to sit at the feet of Huxley to learn 

 the facts of physiology, or at the feet of Tyndall to acquire those of physical 

 science, yet, when they come to draw their inferences, I reserve my right 

 as an independent thinker, and use my own judgment. In his celebrated 

 Belfast Address, Professor Tyndall says : " Natural selection acts as the 

 preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each 

 profitable to the preserved being." Now, Professor Wallace says it is the 

 fundamental doctrine of evolution that all changes of form and structure, 

 all increase in the size of an organ or in its complexity, all great speciali- 

 sations of the physiological divisions of nature, can only be brought about 

 in 80 far as they are for the good of the being so modified. Well, if 

 this be so, then I say the hypothesis of evolution must, of necessity, 

 fall to the ground. As for myself, I cannot admit even that amount of 

 evolution which one speaker would seem to wish me to accept. Let 

 us take an example. According to the doctrine of evolution, there was 

 a time when there were no animals living on the dry land — when there 

 were no air-breathing creatures, all of them being aquatic. How came it, we 

 may ask, that these aquatic creatures became air-breathing animals ? One 



