THE president's ADDRESS. • S57 



it might have beea anticipated, from the general state of opinion in 

 England, that the new hypothesis would there have to work its way 

 through many difficulties which would never occur to those who are 

 imbued with the German transcendental philosophy; and it depends 

 on the light in which we regard that philosophy, whether we are to 

 consider the Germans as enjoying an advantage, or as peculiarly exposed 

 to error. I am obliged to confess that if my reason compelled me to 

 adopt the Darwinian hypothesis, its opposition, as I understand it, to 

 cherished and valued sentiments respecting creative wisdom and good- 

 ness, and a perfect divine plan in nature, would cause me great pain. 

 I do not accept this as any reason for not fairly examining the evidence, 

 since, on the whole and ultimately, truth or knowledge of what really 

 is, can alone benefit ourselves and our race; — false opinions can never 

 be beneficial or desirable; and nothing can more dignify a frail mortal 

 than the earnest, disinterested, unprejudiced pursuit of truth, on as 

 many subjects as possible, even to the latest period of life. Science 

 has its own sphere, and its own means of inquiry; and if we can learn 

 anything with a reasonable degree of assurance, there can be no doubt 

 that we, or those who follow us here, wiil enjoy the benefit. But such 

 a feeling as I have acknowledged on the subject may justifiably quicken 

 our perception of objections or difficulties, render us specially cautious 

 in weighing arguments, and guard us against unsound though brilliant 

 speculative plausibilities. Grant it to be proved that species are modi- 

 fied by time and circumstances, and even that incidental variations of 

 offspring may be permanently preserved, it would be very rash, observ- 

 ing the essential differences of type in the grand divisions of organized 

 beings, and the mutual relations of secondary groups as analogous 

 modifications of each more general type, to affirm either that all beings 

 have arisen by gradual change from a primitive element, or that the 

 changes which do or may take place are merely those which happen to 

 be preserved out of an indefinite number which may arise. Nothing is 

 to me more evident than that both seemingly permanent specific and 

 higher differences, and varieties which have no pretensions to perma- 

 nence, depend on the comparative development of different elements 

 of a common plan, from which it seems to follow both that the non- 

 existence from the commencement of living nature of all the distinct 

 plans of structure, is in the highest degree improbable, and that the 

 tendency of development, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in 

 another, among the same primitive elements, must produce an harmo- 



