242 Address of John L. LeConte. 
of the coms and present condition of Entomology in the 
United Sta 
But it ae ; pated to me that a few thoughts, which have 
cs a themselves upon my mind, touching the future re- 
sults to be obtained from certain classes of facts not yet fully 
developed on account of the great labor required for their 
proper comparison, may not be without value. Even if the 
facts be not new to you, I sok to be able, with your kind at- 
tention, to present them in such way as to be suggestive of the 
work yet to be done. 
It has been perhaps said, or at least it has been often thought, 
that the first mention of the doctrine of evolu ution, aS now 
admitted to a eas: or less degree by every thinking man, 
is found in Ecclesiastes, i, 9: ‘The thing that hath been is 
that which shall be ; and that which is done is that which shall 
be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there 
anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new? It hath 
been already of old time, which was before us. 
Other references to evolutionary views in one form or another 
occur in the writings of several philosophers of classic times, 
as you have had recent cause to reme mber. 
shall not stop to inquire. e discussion would be profitless, 
for modern science in no way depends for its magnificent 
triumphs of fact and thought upon any utterances of the 
ancients, It is the creation of patient, intelligent labor of the 
last two centuries, and its results can be neither confuted nor 
confirmed by anything that was said, thought or done, at an 
earlier period. I have merely referred to these indications of 
doctrines of evolution to recall to your minds that the two 
reat schools of thought, which now divide philosophers, have 
existed from very remote times. They are, therefore, in their 
origin, Lean in a of correct scientific knowledge 
You have from the geologists, and mostly from 
those of the present century, that the strata of the earth have 
been successively formed from fragments more or less com- 
minuted by mechanical action, more or less altered by chemical 
combination ee molecu ar irammngem ments. ‘These fragments 
