inclined to teach that all that is marvellous, all that is beautiful in 

 this wonderful world of ours is simply the effect of what we may 

 call the unguided forces of nature. Now, I believe that all must, 

 and will allow that variations in living beings which benefit the 

 owner are likely to be perpetuated, and that the fittest for the 

 battle of life are likely to survive, and that in this way many won- 

 derful changes in the descendants of animals and plants may be 

 accounted for ; but these laws do not reach far enough to explain 

 away what I believe is a self-evident fact — that such a wonderful 

 skeleton as that, is evidence of design, and of a guiding Hand, and 

 that Hand belonging to one Almighty and all-wise. It is so 

 important now-a-days to have some firm basis, for even the most 

 elementary of Theological beliefs, viz., that there is an Almighty and 

 all-wise Creator, that I do beg of you when observing these beautiful 

 natural objects so marvellously adapted to their purposes, to think 

 a little deeper, and recognise that chance variations perpetuated by 

 their helpfulness to the owner, will not, cannot, displace the evidence 

 of design as seen even in such a humble organism as this beautiful 

 sponge, Eupleotella, or Venus Flower Basket. 



The paper was well illustrated by diagrams and microscopic 

 preparations. A good collection of modern and fossil sponges was 

 also on the table. 



December I^Ith, 1886. 



There was a good attendance of members in the Council Chamber, 

 the President in the chair, and the Secretary read the following 

 paper on 



DEGEADED FOEMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



I have no doubt most of my audience are familiar with Charles 

 Kingsley's " Water Babies," and that they remember, recorded 

 therein, "The History of the Great and Famous Nation of the 

 Doasyoulikes," who through their refusal to perform the part 

 allotted to them in Nature, gradually lost all their endowments as 

 human beings, and sank from bad to worse, until their last sur- 

 viving descendant was shot by Paul du Chaillu in the African 

 forest — a sad but instructive example of Degeneration, a history 

 full of truth, as all Kingsley's writings are. 



For, whether we study the histories of ancient and modern 

 empires, or whether we interest ourselves in the Ufe histories of our 



