Prof. Phillipi Adcfress. 477 



This question of development might be safely left to the prudent researches of 

 Physiology and Anatomy, were it not the case that Palseontology furnishes a vast 

 ■range of evidence on the real succession in time of organic stioictures, which on the 

 whole indicate more and more variety and adaptation, and in certain aspects a 

 growing advance in the energies of life. Thus at first only invertebrate animals 

 appear in the catalogues of the inhabitants of the sea, then fishes are added, and 

 reptiles and the higher vertebrata succeed ; man comes at last, to contemplate and 

 in some degree to govern the whole. 



The various hypothetical threads by which many good naturalists hoped to 

 unite the countless facts of biological change into an harmonious system have 

 culminated in Darwinism, which takes for its basis the facts already stated, and 

 proposes to explaiir the analogies of organic structures by reference to a common 

 origin, and their differences to small, mostly congenital, modifications which are 

 integrated in particular directions by external physical conditions, involving a 

 "struggle for existence." Geology is interested in the question of development, 

 and in the particular exposition of it by the great naturalist whose name it bears, 

 because it alone possesses the history of the development in time, and it is to in- 

 conceivably long periods of time, and to the accumulated effect of small but almost 

 infinitely numerous changes in certain directions, that the full effect of the trans- 

 formations is attributed. 



For us, therefore, at present it is to collect with fidelity the evidence which our 

 researches must certainly yield, to trace the relation of forms to time generally and 

 physical conditions locally, to determine the life-periods of species, genera, and 

 families in different regions, to consider the cases of temporary inten-uption and 

 occasional recurrence of races, and how far by uniting the i-esults obtained in 

 different regions the alleged ' ' imperfection of the geological record " can be 

 emedied. 



The share which the British Association has taken in this great work of actually 

 reconstructing the broken forms of ancient life, of repeopling the old land and 

 older sea, of mentally reviving, one may almost say, the long-forgotten past, is 

 considerable, and might with advantage be increased. We ask, and wisely, from 

 time to time, for the combined labour of naturalists and geologists in the prepara- 

 tion of reports on particular classes or families of fossil plants and animals, their 

 true structure and affinities, and their distribution in geological time and geo- 

 graphical space. Some examples of this useful work will, I hope, be presented 

 to this Meeting. Thus have we obtained the aid of Agassiz and Owen, and have 

 welcomed the labours of Forbes, and Morris and Lycett, and Huxley, of Dawkins 

 and Egerton, of Davidson, Duncan, and Wright, of Williamson and Can-uthers 

 and Woodward, and many other eminent persons, whose valuable results have for 

 the most part appeared in other volumes than our own. 



Among these volumes let me in a special manner recall to your attention the 

 priceless gift to Geology which is annually offered by the Palasontographical 

 Society, a gift which might become even richer than it is, if the literary and 

 scientific part of our community were fortunate enough to know what a perpetual 

 treasure they might possess in return for a small annual tribute. The excellent 

 example set and the good work recorded in the Memoirs of the Society referred to 

 have not been without influence on foreign men of science. We shall soon have 

 such Memoirs from France and Italy, Switzerland and Germany, America and 

 Australia ; and I trust the effect of such generous rivalry will be to maintain and 

 increase the spirit of learned research and of original observation which it is our 

 privilege and our duty to foster, to stimulate, and to combine. 



On all the matters, indeed, which have now been brought to your thoughts the 

 one duty of geologists is to collect more and more accurate information ; the one 

 fault to be avoided is the supposition that our work is in any department complete. 

 We should speak modestly of what has been done ; for we have completed 

 nothing, except the extinction of a crowd of errors, and the discovery of right 

 methods of proceeding toward the acquisition of truth. We may speak hopefully 

 of what is to be accomplished ; for the right road is before us. We have taken 

 some steps along it ; others will go beyond us and stand on higher levels. But it 

 will be long before any one can reach the height from which he may be able to 

 survey the whole field of research and collect the results oT ages of labour. 



primaque ab origine mundi 

 Ad sua perpetuum deducere tenipora carmen. 



