﻿ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXxili 



But in order to keep myself within due bounds, I confined my re- 

 marks on that occasion to the revolutions of the inorganic world, 

 reserving for the present opportunity a comparison of the organic 

 creation in ancient and modern times, and a consideration of the 

 light thrown by Palaeontology on the laws which govern the fluc- 

 tuations of the living 'inhabitants of the globe. 



It is not my intention to discuss now the popular theory, or rather 

 hypothesis, which refers all the varieties of animal and vegetable 

 forms and attributes, which we call species, to transmutation, or to 

 changes taking place slowly in the course of ages, analogous to those 

 which are brought about in a shorter time by fcetal development, or 

 the growth and improvement of the embryo into the adult individual. 

 These views I have uniformly opposed, for twenty years, and the 

 favour which they have acquired of late, with the general public, in 

 consequence of the eloquent pleading of the anonymous author of the 

 * Vestiges of Creation,' has been more than counterbalanced by the 

 refutation which it has called forth in the works of Owen, Sedgwick, 

 and Hugh Miller. But there is another doctrine adopted with more 

 or less confidence by the eminent authorities above cited, and others 

 of equal note, according to which a gradual development in the scale 

 of being, both animal and vegetable, from the earliest periods to our 

 own time, can be deduced from palseontological evidence. This theory 

 is clearly stated in several parts of a luminous disquisition forming 

 the Preface to a recently published 5th edition of Professor Sedg- 

 wick's Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge. "There are traces," 

 he says, " among the old deposits of the earth of an organic progres- 

 sion among the successive forms of life. They are to be seen in the ab- 

 sence of mammalia in the older, and their very rare appearance in the 

 newer secondary groups ; in the diffusion of warm-blooded quadrupeds 

 (frequently of unknown genera) in the older tertiary system, and in 

 their great abundance (and frequently of known genera) in the upper 

 portions of the same series ; and lastly, in the recent appearance of 

 man on the surface of the earth." (p. xliv.) " This historical deve- 

 lopment," continues the same author, "of the forms and functions 

 of organic life during successive epochs seems to mark a gradual 

 evolution of creative power, manifested by a gradual ascent towards 

 a higher type of being." — Ibid. p. cliv. "But the elevation of the 

 fauna of successive periods was not made by transmutation, but by 

 vol.. vn. d 



