210 WALTER KIDD, ESQ., M.D,, F.Z.S., 



Having said so mucli I will not detain the Meeting longer at 

 this stage. I thank Dv. Kidd most heartily for this able and lucid 

 explanation of the subject, and I am sure it is not only a gratifica- 

 tion to us, but it is a great advantage, in the present state of con- 

 troversy, to have such a paper to fall back upon for future reference. 



Professor Orchard. — With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I 

 wish to express my acquiescence in that tribute to Dr. Kidd for 

 his paper which has been so felicitously tendered by Professor 

 Hull. The paper, in my juJgment, is, perhaps, the most valuable 

 on this subject that has ever been brought before this Institiite. 

 The very important point, I think, is that in which Dr. Kidd 

 insists, towards the close of the paper, on the co-adaptation of 

 organisms to their environments and vice versa. 



The paper is indeed eloquent of Teleology and must shatter, in 

 the opinion of all thoughtful people, this much vaunted theory of 

 Evolution. At times one wonders how any one with any logical 

 sense of reasoning could swallow such a theoiy. 



Dr. Kidd has done good service in bringing before us 

 several reasons Avhich no doubt iuive had to do with the ac- 

 ceptance of the theory by many biologists, and others who are 

 not biologists, but who follow blindly in tlieir wake. To Dr. 

 Kidd's reasons I think may be added two more. One is, 

 undoubtedlj', the diversion of the human heart from God, thus 

 causing an inclination to believe in anything that is hostile ta 

 the Bible. Another, as has been so well pointed out b}' the 

 gentleman who spoke first, is this — that this theoi'y is not, 

 apparently, discordant with certain facts. There are certain facts 

 known wdiich do not, of themselves, appear to contradict the theory. 

 That is true ; but the same may be said of every false physical 

 tlieory that has ever been brought forward. The gentleman to 

 whom I have alluded spoke of the vortex theory of Descartes ; that 

 did something, no doubt, to retard the theory of truth. So have 

 other theories in the past, and we shall do well to remiiul ourselves 

 of Huxley's dictum — that if an hypothesis is inconsistent with one 

 known fact that hypothesis should go, and a far greatci- man than 

 Huxley (Sir Isaac Newton) warned us to accept nothing in science 

 but what is proven. 



It is most unfortunate that in what we may call alnio.st the 

 twentieth century there has been a substitution of imagination 

 for scieuc-e. 



