ixx. REPORT 1866. 



physically arrived ou this earth. Whence did he come ? did ho fall from tho 

 sky (i. e. from the interplanetary space) ? did he rise moulded out of a mass 

 of amorphous earth or rock ? did he appear out of the cleft of a tree ? If he 

 had no antecedent progenitors, some such beginning must be assigned to 

 him." I know of no scientific writer who has, since the discoveries of 

 geology have become familiar, ventured to present in intelligible terms any 

 definite notion of how such an event could have occurred : those who do not 

 adopt some view of continuity are content to say God willed it ; but would it 

 not be more reverent and more philosophical to inquire by observation and 

 eSperimeut, and to reason from induction and analogy, as to the probabilities 

 of such frequent miraculous interventions ? 



I know I am touching on delicate ground, and that a long time may elapse 

 before that calm inquiry after truth which it is the object of associations like 

 this to promote can be fully attained ; but I trust that the members of this 

 body are sufficiently free from prejudice, whatever their opinions may be, to 

 admit an inquiry into the general question whether what we term species 

 are and have been rigidly limited, and have at numerous periods been created 

 complete and unchangeable, or whether, iji some mode or other, they have not 

 gradually and indefinitely varied, and whether the changes due to the infiu- 

 ence of surrounding circumstances, to efforts to accommodate themselves to 

 surroiTuding changes, to what is called natural selection, or to the necessity 

 of yielding to superior force in the struggle for existence, as maintained by 

 our illustrious countryman Darwin, have not so modified organisms as to 

 enable them to exist under changed conditions. I am not goijig to put for- 

 ward any theory of my own, I am not going to argue in support of any 

 special theoiy, but having endeavoured to show how, as science advances, 

 the continiiity of natural phenomena becomes more apparent, it would be 

 cowardice not to present some of the main arguments for and against con- 

 tinuity as applied to the history of organic beings. 



As Ave detect no such phenomenon as the creation or spontaneous genera- 

 tion of vegetables and animals which are large enough for the eye to see 

 without instrumental assistance, as we have long ceased to expect to find a 

 Plesiosaurus spontaneously generated in our fish-pond, or a Pterodactjdc in 

 our pheasant-cover, the field of this class of research has become identified 

 with the field of the microscope, and at each new phase the investigation has 

 passed from a larger to a smaller class of organisms. The question whether 

 among the smallest and apparently the most elementary forms of organic 

 life the phenomenon of spontaneous generation obtains, has recently formed 

 the subject of careful experiment and animated discussion in France, If it 

 could be found that organisms of a complex character were generated with- 

 out progenitors out of amorphous matter, it might reasonably be argued that 

 a similar mode of creation might obtain in regard to larger organisms. 

 Although we see no such phenomenon as the formation of an animal such as 

 an elephant, or a tree such as an oak, excepting from a parent which 

 resembles it, yet if the microscope revealed to ns organisms, smaller but 

 equally complex, so formed without having been reproduced, it would render 

 it not improbable that such might have been the case with larger organic 

 beings. The controversy between M. Pasteur and M. Pouchct has led to a 

 very close investigation of this subject, and the general opinion is that when 

 such precautions are taken as exclude from the substance submitted to 

 experiment all possibility of germs from the atmosphere being introduced, 

 as by passing the air which is to support the life of the animalculse through 

 tubes heated to redness and other precautions, no formation of organisms 



