426 Anniversary Address. 



claims to throw upon the puzzling question of the origin and 

 identity of species, but on account of its bearings upon 

 Religion and the Origin of Man. 



I allude, it seems superfluous to remark, to the Evolution 

 Theory, which, having for long been more or less vaguely 

 and intermittently advanced by various scientists, was taken 

 up by Charles Darwin, who made the first truly scientific 

 attempts to deal seriously with the conception, which he 

 developed and made his own to such an extent, that it is 

 now known everywhere as " Darwinism : or the Origin of 

 Species by Natural Selection." 



So engrossing has been this theme, that a more or less in- 

 timate acquaintance with it, may confidently be assumed in 

 the case of many of our members ; none are likely to be 

 entirely uninformed about it, while all are certain to be in- 

 terested in it. 



As far as I am aware, with the exception of a brief allusion 

 in the President's address last year, the subject has not been 

 once mentioned in the literature of our Club, but it surely 

 seems but natural, right, arid proper, that there should appear 

 in our Proceedings some record that we do not altogether 

 ignore so important a matter, which is so intimately con- 

 nected with the study of Natural History, 



There are two ways of accounting for the living world as 

 we see it. The Darwinian System seeks to revolutionise the 

 ancient belief that the first ancestors of every species of 

 animal and plant came direct and fully formed from the 

 hand of the Creator, and claims to show that all forms of life, 

 animal and vegetable, visible and microscopic, that exist, 

 or ever did exist, upon this globe, have been produced or 

 evolved from a very few simple, primordial, created progeni- 

 tors, by a process, carried on through a vast array of ages, of 

 Progressive Development — a process of Natural Selection 

 from slight variations from the parent stock, and " Survival 

 of the fittest " of them. 



Now to attempt, in a few minutes, to deal even in brief 

 with this great subject would be simply impossible, so I 

 shall confine myself, almost entirely, to an aspect of the 



