LINNEAN SOCIEir OP LONDON". XCV 



wholly without foundation in facts, yet he indulges in no sweeping 

 denunciations, but treats the question as the most important sub- 

 ject of investigation. One of the instructional lectures given on the 

 voyage out to his young companions contains the following excel- 

 lent passage : — " There is a change to be introduced into our mode 

 of work as compared Avith that of former investigators. When less 

 was known of animals and plants, the discovery of new species was 

 the great object. This has been carried too far, and is now almost 

 the lowest kind of scientific work. The discovery of a new species, 

 as such, does not change a feature in the science of natural history 

 any more than the discovery of a new asteroid changes the character 

 of the problems to be investigated by astronomers. It is merely 

 adding to the enumeration of objects. We should look rather for 

 the fundamental relations among animals ; the number of species 

 we may find is of importance only so far as they explain the distri- 

 bution and limitation of different genera and families, their relations 

 to each other and to the physical conditions in which they live. 

 Out of such investigations there looms up a deeper question for 

 scientific men, the solution of which is to be the most important 

 result of their work in the coming generation. The origin of life is 

 the great question of the day. How did the organic world come to 

 be as it is ? It must be our aim to throw some light on this subject 

 by our present journey." How far the facts collected by the Pro- 

 fessor in this journey answered his hopes of a triumphant refutation 

 of Darwinism docs not appear in the narrative. The principal 

 general results mentioned as connected with biology are : — the evi- 

 dences of a long-continued glacial period preceding the establish- 

 ment of the present races of Brazilian animals and jjlants ; the 

 number of genera aiid si)ecies of fishes, so enormously exceeding all 

 previous expectations; the extremely limited areas the majority of 

 them occupy, without the appearance of any physical conditions 

 limiting those areas ; the absence of genera belonging to temperate 

 regions compensated by representative genera ; the conviction that 

 the physiological and other differences between the different races 

 of men are as great as those which separate distinct species of 

 animals ; and a general conchision that among plants as among 

 animals, at least in some instances, there is a correspondence be- 

 tween the youngest stages of growth in the higher species of a given 

 type and the earliest introduction of that type on earth. 



In the meantime, observations bearing upon the life of species 

 have been multiplied in many darts of the world. When Mr. 



