ADDRESS, 1 1 



problem as it arose many million years ago. Yet certainly the most 

 conspicuous event in the scientific annals of the last half- century has been 

 the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the ' Origin of Species,' which 

 appeared in 1859. In some respects, in the depth of the impression which 

 it made on scientific thought, and even on the general opinion of the 

 world, its momentous effect can hardly be overstated. But at this dis- 

 tance of time it is possible to see that some of its success has been due to 

 adventitious circumstances. It has had the chance of enlisting among its 

 champions some of the most powerful intellects of our time, and perhaps 

 the still happier fortune of appearing at a moment when it furnished an 

 armoury of weapons to men, who were not scientific, for use in the bitter 

 but transitory polemics of the day. But far the largest part of its 

 accidental advantages was to be found in the remarkable character and 

 qualifications of its author. The equity of judgment, the simple-minded 

 love of truth and the patient devotion to the pursuit of it through years 

 of toil and of other conditions the most unpropitious — these things en- 

 deared to numbers of men everything that came from Charles Darwin 

 apart from its scientific merit or literary charm. And whatever final 

 value may be assigned to his doctrine, nothing can ever detract from the 

 lustre shed upon it by the wealth of his knowledge and the infinite in- 

 genuity of his resource. The intrinsic power of his theory is shown at 

 least in this one respect, that in the department of knowledge with which 

 it is concerned it has effected an entire revolution in the methods of 

 research. Before his time the study of living nature had a tendency to 

 be merely statistical ; since his time it has become predominantly historical. 

 The consideration how an organic body came to be what it is occupies a 

 far larger area in any inquiry now than the mere description of its actual 

 condition ; but this question was not predominant — it may almost be said 

 to have been ignored— in the Botanical and Zoological study of sixty 

 years ago. 



Another lasting and unquestioned effect has resulted from Darwin's 

 work. He has, as a matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine of the im- 

 mutability of species. It has been mainly associated in recent days with 

 the honoured name of Agassiz, but with him has disappeared the last 

 defender of it who could claim the attention of the world. Few now are 

 found to doubt that animals separated by differences far exceeding those 

 that distinguish what we know as species have yet descended from common 

 ancestors. But there is much less agreement as to the extent to which 

 this common descent can be assumed, or the process by which it has come 

 about. Darwin himself believed that all animals were descended from 'at 

 most four or five progenitors ' — adding that ' there was grandeur in the 

 view that life had been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms 

 or one.' Some of his more devoted followers, like Professor Haeckel, were 

 prepared to go a step farther and to contemplate primeval mud as the 

 probable ancestor of the whole fauna and flora of this planet. 



To this extent the Darwinian theory has not effected the conquest of 



