2 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



the occasion seems apt for considering certain morphological questions 

 that present themselves in this eighth decade since the ' Origin of Species ' 

 was published. 



The word ' Morphology ' was applied by Goethe in 1817, in a general 

 sense, to the study of form. Though a pre-Darwinian, he showed rare 

 foresight in insisting that the living form is only momentarily stable, 

 never permanent. But years elapsed before that instability of form of 

 living things, which he clearly saw, became the very focus of evolutionary 

 theory. Even Goethe's prophetic gaze was blurred by the hazy imaginings 

 of Idealistic Philosophy. The clarifying mind of Schleiden resolved that 

 mist by resort to naked fact. In 1845 he stoutly asserted that the history 

 of development is the true foundation for all insight into living form. 

 This opened the way for a host of workers, who patiently observed and 

 compared the facts of individual development, particularly in plants of 

 low organisation. By them the field was prepared for the magic touch 

 of Darwin ; and, in the enthusiastic words of Sachs, ' the theory of descent 

 had only to accept what genetic morphology had actually brought to view.' 



The effect of that theory should have been to sweep aside all Idealistic 

 Morphology based on the higher forms, and to rivet attention upon 

 organisms low in the scale. It was the habit of starting comparison from 

 the highest state of organisation that was the fundamental error of the 

 idealistic nature-philosophers ; even now traces of it still persist. An 

 illuminating alternative was presented by that noble passage with which 

 the ' Origin of Species ' ends. Speaking of his theory, Darwin wrote : 

 ' There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having 

 been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or into one ; 

 and that — from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and 

 most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.' He forecast from the 

 application of his theory that ' our classifications will come to be, as far 

 as they can be so made, genealogies ; and they will then truly give what 

 may be called the plan of creation.' 



Whether there was only one original form of life or many is still an 

 open question. Nevertheless, among the welter of organisms rightly held 

 as primitive, the Flagellata may with some degree of reason be named as 

 combining in their motile and sedentary stages respectively the animal 

 and vegetable characters. They suggest a sort of starting-point from which 

 the two kingdoms might have diverged. The probability of their common 

 origin is strong ; but the divergence must have been early, each taking 



