LECTURE I. 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ORGANIC 

 NATURE. 



When it was my duty to consider what subject I 

 would select for the six lectures which I shall now have 

 the pleasure of delivering to you, it occurred to me 

 that I could not do better than endeavour to put before 

 you in a true light, or in what I might perhaps with 

 more modesty call, that which I conceive myself to be 

 the true light, the position of a book which has been 

 more praised and more abused, perhaps, than any 

 book which has appeared for some years; — I mean 

 Mr. Darwin's work on the " Origin of Species." That 

 work, I doubt not, many of you have read ; for I know 

 the inquiring spirit which is rife among you. At auy 

 rate, all of you will have heard of it, — some by one kind 

 of report and some by another kind of report ; the 

 attention of all and the curiosity of all have been pro- 

 bably more or less excited on the subject of that work. 

 All I can do, and all I shall attempt to do, is to put 

 before you that kind of judgment which has been 

 formed by a man, who, of course, is liable to judge 

 erroneously; but at any rate, of one whose business and 

 profession it is to form judgments upon questions of 

 this nature. 



