president's addbess. 27 



mechanism transmitted by heredity, the better. The loss of instinct is 

 what permits and necessitates the education of the receptive brain.' 



' We are thus led to the view that it is liardly possible for a theory to 

 be further from the truth than that expressed by George H. Lewes and 

 adopted by George Romanes, namely, that instincts are due to "lapsed" 

 intelligence. The fact is tliat there is no community between the 

 mechanisms of instinct and the mechanisms of intelligence, and that the 

 latter are later in the history of the development of the brain than the 

 former, and can only develop in proportion as the former become feeble 

 and defective.' ^ 



Darioini^m. — Under the title ' Darwinism ' it is convenient to desig- 

 nate the various work of biologists tending to establish, develop, or 

 modify Mr. Darwin's great theory of the origin of species. In looking 

 back over twenty-five years it seems to me that we must say that the 

 conclusions of Darwin as to the origin of species by the survival of 

 selected races in the struggle for existence are more firmly established 

 than ever. And this because there have been many attempts to gravely 

 tamper with essential parts of the fabric as he left it, and even to sub- 

 stitute conceptions for those which he endeavoured to establish, at 

 variance with his conclusions. These attempts must, I think, be con- 

 sidered as having failed. A great deal of valuable work has been done in 

 consequence ; for honest criticism, based on observation and experiment, 

 leads to further investigation, and is the legitimate and natural mode of 

 increase of scientific knowledge. Amongst the attempts to seriously 

 modify Darwin's doctrine may be cited that to assign a great and leading 

 importance to Lamarck's theory as to the transmission by inheritance of 

 newly ' acquired ' characters, due chiefly to American palaeontologists and 

 to the venerated defender of such views, who has now closed his long life 

 of great work, JNIr. Herbert Spencer ; that to attribute leading import- 

 ance to the action of physiological congruity and incongruity in selective 

 breeding, which was put forward by another able writer and naturalist 

 who has now passed from among us, Dr. George Romanes ; further, the 

 views of de Vries jis to discontinuity in the origin of new species, sup- 

 ported by the valuable work of Mr. Bateson on discontinuous variation ; 

 and lastly, the attempt to assign a great and general importance to the 

 facts ascertained many years ago by the Abbe Mendel as to the cross- 

 breeding of varieties and the frequent production (in regard to certain 

 characters in certain cases) of pure strains rather than of breeds com- 

 bining the characters of both parents. On the other hand we have the 

 splendid series of observations and writings of August Weismann, who 

 has, in the opinion of the majority of those who study this subject, 

 rendered the Lamarckian theory of the origin and transmission of nev/ 

 characters altogether untenable, and has, besides, furnished a most 



' From the Jubilee volume oC the Son. <lc Biol, of Paris, 1S00. Roprinte'l in 

 jYafiire, vol. Ixi., 1900, pp. f.24, 625. 



