THE WOMBAT. 



predominates over repair, as in old age, and the individual 

 withers until at last life is no longer possible. In old age the 

 failure of the tissues is always apparent ; the teeth fall out, 

 the eye grows dim, and the brain fails to perceive. " It is sad 

 indeed when the brain perishes before the body," says Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes ; "a child once more among his toys, but 

 whose to-morrows come hungry and not full-handed. We 

 must all become as little children if we live long enough, but 

 how blank an existence the wrinkled infant must carry into 

 the kingdom of heaven if the Power that gave him memory 

 does not repeat the miracle by restoring it." 



However, it is seen life is no passive condition ; its sur- 

 roundings call forth ceaseless activity, and so the struggle 

 goes on throughout the ages ; it is one of the great factors 

 which have determined the course of evolution. The long 

 struggle from the very dawn of life up to man himself has 

 been a struggle for existence. No better and simpler plan for 

 observing tnis can be adopted than experimenting in yeast 

 fermentation ; the influence of environment can be readily 

 observed, and in every case the experimentalist is brought 

 face to face with the doctrine of the " survival of the fittest." 



Be it known that artificial experiments with living germs 

 or bacteria have produced differences as great as those which 

 are held to separate one species from another, and these, with 

 many other similar facts, throw considerable light on the 

 much-vexed question of the " origin of species." 



Natural history regards every product of nature as one 

 which has had a history. We no longer look at an organic 

 being as a savage looks at a ship — as something beyond his 

 power of comprehension ; we recognise every complex struc- 

 ture and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances 

 each useful to the possessor, just as we look at any machine 

 as the result of combined labour, reason, and experience, and 

 even blunders on the part of workmen ; for nature must have 

 made many blunders before she produced such harmonious 

 results. How interesting the study of natural history thus 

 becomes, dealing with the whole history of the universe, so 

 that we find after all the world is " fair to see " for those who 

 have the eyes to discover its beauty. The habits and move- 

 ments of climbing plants furnish an admirable example of the 

 singular adaptation of the plant world, illustrating as they do 

 the peculiar similarity in the development of plants to that 

 of animals. It has, as I presume you are aware, been vaguely 

 asserted that plants are distinguished from animals by not 

 having the power of movement ; yet plants do acquire that 

 power, but only when it is of some advantage to them. We 

 see how high a plant may rise in the scale of organisation 



