232 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



concentrate. . . . Henceforth the study of evolution is in the hands of 

 the cytologist acting in conjunction with the experimental breeder. Every 

 appeal (he says) must ultimately be to the mechanics of cell-division. 

 The cell is a vortex of chemical and molecular change. . . . The study of 

 these vortices is biology, and the place at which we must look for our 

 answer is cell-division.' I would ask you to mark that last word. It is 

 cell-division, not nuclear division ; and earlier in his address we find the 

 pregnant sentences : ' As to what the rest of the cell is doing, apart 

 from the chromosomes, we know little. Perhaps the true specific charac- 

 ters belong to the cytoplasm, but these are only idle speculations.' Such 

 extracts from Bateson's latest public pronouncement may suggest to you 

 what the Section has lost by his death. They show the mind still elastic 

 and perceptive : still both constructive and critical. 



Any address that follows such a tragedy of disappointment as the 

 Section has suffered can only fall short of what we had hoped to hear. 

 Instead of attempting to fill the broad biological rdle that naturally fell 

 to Bateson, I propose to centre my remarks upon three dates when the 

 Association has met in Oxford, viz. 1860, 1894, and 1926. It happens 

 that these dates mark approximately periods of transition in the progress 

 of biological science, and particularly in Botany, 



1860. 



I need not remind you of the fact that the meeting in Oxford of 1860, 

 the year after the publication of the ' Origin of Species,' witnessed the 

 clash between the new view and the oj^positi .n it was certain to arouse. 

 The story has been often told of the aggressive attack and the crushing 

 retort. But it is not sufficiently recognised that, though Huxley bore the 

 first brunt of the fight, a large part in the contest was taken by Hooker. 

 The meeting closed after he had spoken, and in his own words he was 

 ' congratulated and thanked by the blackest coats and the whitest stocks 

 in Oxford.' 



Two generations have passed since the Oxford meeting of 1860 : and 

 still the ' Origin of Species ' holds its place as a great philosophical pro- 

 nouncement. As the methods of research passed into greater detail, 

 the area of fact has been extended through the labours of an ever-growing 

 army of inquirers, and naturally divergences of view have arisen. Some 

 authors appear to demand that for all time the '' Origin ' must cover every 

 new aspect of biological inquiry, or else the whole theory crumbles. That 

 is to demand a prophetic vision for its author. We need not for the 

 moment follow these or other criticisms, but rather recognise that the 

 theory rested essentially on facts of heritable variation, without defining 

 their magnitude, limitations, or origin ; and that it explained a means 

 of their summation so as to produce progressive morphological results. 

 As an index of current opinion on the validity of Darwin's theory as a 

 whole, I would draw your attention to three British works on evolution, 

 all published within the last two years. In 1924 Dr. Scott concludes his 

 volume on ' Extinct Plants and Problems of Evolution ' with the judicious 

 sentence : ' I may venture ... to maintain that a consideration of all the 

 evidence ... is on the whole favourable to the old, truly Darwinian concep- 

 tion of an orderly and gradual evolution without sudden and inexplicable 



