ADDRESS. 19 



Biological Science. 

 BotanTj. 



The earliest Rej)orts of the Association which bear on the biological 

 sciences were those I'elating to botany. 



In 1831 the controversy was yet unsettled between the advantages 

 of the Linnean, or Artificial system, as contx-asted with the Natural 

 system of classification. Histology, morphology, and physiological botany, 

 even if born, were in their early infancy. 



Our records show that von Mohl noted cell division in 1835, the 

 presence of chlorophyll corpuscles in 1837 ; and he first described 

 pi'otoplasm in 1846. 



Vast as have been the advances of physiological botany since that 

 time, much of its fundamental principles remain to be worked out, and I 

 trust that the establishment, for the iirst time, of a permanent Section for 

 botany at the present meeting will lead the Association to take a more 

 prominent part than it has hitherto done in the further development of 

 this branch of biological science. 



Animal Physiology. 



In 1831 Cuvier, who during the previous generation had, by the colla- 

 tion of facts followed by careful inductive reasoning, established the 

 plan on which each animal is constructed, was approaching the termina- 

 tion of his long and useful life. He died in 1832 ; but in 1831 Richard 

 Owen was just commencing his anatomical investigations and his brilliant 

 contributions to paleontology. 



The impulse which their labours gave to biological science was 

 reflected in numerous reports and communications, by Owen and others, 

 throughout the early decades of the British Association, until Darwin 

 propounded a theory of evolution which commanded the general assent of 

 the scientific world. For this theory was not absolutely new. But just 

 as Cuvier had shown that each bone in the fabric of an animal affords a 

 clue to the shape and structure of the animal, so Darwin brought harmony 

 into scattered facts, and led us to perceive that the moulding hand of the 

 Creator may have evolved the complicated structures of the organic 

 world from one or moi'e primeval cells. 



Richard Owen did not accept Darwin's theory of evolution, and a 

 large section of the public contested it. I well remember the storm it 

 produced — a storm of praise by my geological colleagues, who accepted 

 the result of investigated facts ; a storm of indignation such as that which 

 would have burned Galileo at the stake from those who were not yet 

 prepared to question the old authorities ; but they diminish daily. 



We are, however, as yet only on the threshold of the doctrine of 

 evolution. Does not each fresh investigation, even into the embryonic 

 stage of the simpler forms of life, suggest fresh problems 1 



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