142 REPORT 1861. 



assured that the discussion on the subject at the last Meeting of the Association 

 had never been sm-passed in the interest it excited or in the talent which it called 

 forth. Indeed, the work had divided the scientific world into two gTeat sections ; 

 Darwinite and anti-Dai-winite were almost the badges of opposite parties. Professor 

 Owen, Professor Sedgwick, and Mr. Hopkins had given to the new theory a decided 

 opposition ; Sir Charles Lyell, Professor Huxley, and Dr. Hooker had given to it a 

 support more or less decided. All who took an interest in the subject had a right to 

 inquire whether the theory — whatever might be thought of its details — had been 

 logically brought foi-wai'd. The province of logic was not to discover new facts, 

 but to decide whether facts were legitimately used to establish that which it was 

 pretended they proved. It was constantly alleged that Mr. Darwin was illogical ; 

 that he had not followed the Baconian method. The ' Quarterly Re-\aew ' assured 

 ns that Mr. Danvin had not followed in the steps of Newton and of Kepler ; but 

 nothing was more easy than to make such charges, which often only concealed pre- 

 tentious assumptions of scientific knowledge. It was more pertinent to inquire — 

 What is the method of solution of which such a problem admits ? He insisted that 

 if ever solved it could only be by a method analogous to that attempted by IMi'. 

 Darwin. It coidd only be solved in this way : — An hypothesis, resting upon more 

 or less perfect induction, must be started ; from that hj^othesis certain deductions 

 must be da-awn ; these deductions must be tried, by seeing whether they would 

 explain the phenomena of nature, and they must be verified hj seeing whether they 

 agreed with what can be observed in natm-e. If this explanation and verification 

 was complete, the hj-pothesis was advanced from an unproved to the position of a 

 proved and established theory. The Bishop of Oxford last year said that the theory 

 was so absm'd that no scientific man coidd for a moment think that it was in any 

 degi-ee worth considering. But Dr. Hooker, than whom a more eminent authority 

 could not bo quoted, at once disposed of the Bishop by saying, that as he believed 

 the theory worth considering, he ought to " apologise for addressing the meeting as 

 a man of no scientific autliority." Dr. Hooker added that he knew of the theory 

 five years before ; that, at first, no one more opposed it ; but five years' devotion to 

 natiu'al history had convinced him that the theory was worthy of the most careful 

 consideration and examination. Mr. Darwin, with the most perfect candour, ex- 

 plained in his work that his theoiy did not yet explain all the facts of nature ; but 

 it must not be supposed that his twenty years' laboiu* had done nothing to advance the 

 ends of science. Mr. Dai-win had strictly followed the rules of the deductive method 

 as laid down by John Stewart Mill. AVhen Kepler inferred his law of the connexion 

 between the major axis of the planets and the times of their revolution, he so in- 

 ferred fi'om observation, which he could strictly verify by mathematical calciUation. 

 The origin of species does not admit of such a verification. In chemistry there was 

 much more power of proof or verification by experiment than was possible in phy- 

 siology ; so with other sciences. When laws of nature cannot be discovered by 

 experiment, we are obliged to go to deductive reasoning. Newton had only an 

 hj'pothesis, and not a theory, as to the law of gi'avitation ; the law he first tried 

 was an incoiTect one. He tiied again ; and then, as Professor Whewell said, by a 

 tentative process he discovered the correct law. Mr. Darwin had told him (the 

 speaker) that his hj-pothesis was not at once suggested to him. He foimd in his 

 studies that there was something wanted to explain many of the observed pheno- 

 mena ; years passed, and at length his h_y])othesis was very indirectly suggested — 

 for he said that it came from reading Malthus's 'Essay on Population.' Twenty 

 years of unremitting labour he had devoted to the endeavour to verify the conclu- 

 sions which might be deduced from this hjqwthesis by the facts observaljle in nature. 

 He believed that Mr. Darwin's second work, for which the author had acciunulated 

 a gi-eat mass of knowledge, would prove beyond doubt that no one could have been 

 a more conscientious or laborious observer than he had been. Newton coidd verify 

 his hypothesis by the simplest experiment — he had but to drop a stone from a tower 

 and to note the time occupied in its descent. But the problem of the origin of spe- 

 cies is concerned with an epoch of time associated with geological epochs ; there- 

 fore experiment could only be made during so short a time, that nothing more could 

 be obtained than an argiiment resting on a, comparatively speaking, unsatisfactory 

 analogy. Darwin had been able to show that by a system of artificial natural selec- 



