28 president's address. 



instructive, if not tinally conclusive, theory or ujechanical schenife of the 

 phenomena of Heredity in his book ' The Germ -plasm.' Professor Karl 

 Pearson and the late Professor Weldon — the latter so early in life and 

 so recently lost to us^iave, with the finest courage and enthusiasm in 

 the face of an enormous and difiScult task, determined to bring the facts 

 of variation and heredity into the solid form of statistical statement, and 

 have organised, and largely advanced in, this branch of investigation, 

 which they have termed ' Biometrics.' Many naturalists throughout the 

 world have made it the main object of their collecting and breeding of 

 insects, birds, and plants, to test Darwin's generalisations and to expand 

 the work of Wallace in the same direction. A delightful fact in this 

 survey is that we find Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace (who fifty years ago 

 conceived the same theory as that more fully stated by Darwin) 

 actively working and publishing some of the most convincing and 

 valuable works on Darwinism. He is still alive and not merely well, but 

 pursuing his work with vigour and ability. It was chiefly through his 

 researches on insects in South America and the Malay Islands that Mr. 

 Wallace was led to the Darwinian theory ; and there is no doubt that the 

 study of insects, especially of butterflies, is still one of the most prolific 

 fields in which new facts can be gathered in support of Darwin and new 

 views on the subject tested. Prominent amongst naturalists in this line 

 of research has been and is Edward Poulton of Oxford, who has handed 

 on to the study of entomology throughout the woi-ld the impetus of the 

 Darwinian theory. I must here also name a writer who, though unknown 

 in our laboratories and museums, seems to me to have rendered very 

 valuable service in later years to the testing of Darwin's doctrines and to 

 the bringing of a great class of organic phenomena within the cognisance 

 of those naturalists who are especially occupied with the problems of 

 Variation and Heredity. I mean Dr. Archdall Reid, who has with keen 

 logic made use of the immense accumulation of matei-ial which is in the 

 hands of medical men, and has pointed out the urgent importance of 

 increased use by Darwinian investigators of the facts as to the variation 

 and heredity of that unique animal, man, unique in his abundance, his 

 reproductive activity, and his power of assisting his investigator by his 

 own record. There are more observations about the variation and heredity 

 of man and the conditions attendant upon individual instances than with 

 regard to any other animal. Medical men need only to grasp clearly the 

 questions at present under discussion in order to be able to furnish with 

 ease data absolutely invaluable in quantity and quality. Dr. Archdall 

 Reid has in two original books full of insight and new suggestions, the 

 ' Present Evolution of Man ' and ' Principles of Heredity,' shown a new 

 path for investigators to follow. 



The attempt to resuscitate Lamarck's views on the inheritance of 

 acquired ^ characters has been met not only by the demand for the 



' I use the term ' acquired ' v/itliout prejudice in thp sense givgn to that word by 

 XAm^rck hiiiiBelf . 



