i873«] Limits of our Coal Supply. 363 



to be worthy of our beginning, the moral and intellectual 

 dignity of industry must be formally acknowledged and syste- 

 matically sustained and advanced. Hitherto, we have been 

 the first and the foremost in utilising the fossil forces which 

 the miner has unearthed ; hereafter we must in like manner 

 avail ourselves of the living forces the philosopher has re- 

 vealed. Science must become as familiar among all classes of 

 Englishmen as their household fuel. The youth of England 

 must be trained to observe, generalise, and investigate the 

 phenomena and forces of the world outside themselves ; and 

 also those moral forces within themselves, upon the right or 

 wrong government of which the success or failure, the 

 happiness or misery of their lives will depend. 



With such teaching and training the future generations 

 of England will make the best and most economical use 

 of their coal while it lasts, and will still advance in 

 material and moral prosperity in spite of its progressive 

 exhaustion. 



VII. ON THE INTRODUCTION OF GENERA AND 

 SPECIES IN GEOLOGICAL TIME.* 



By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., 



Principal of McGill University, President of the Natural 

 History Society of Montreal. 



tHERE can be no doubt that the theory of evolution, 

 more especially that phase of it which is advocated 

 by Darwin, has greatly extended its influence, espe- 

 cially among young English and American naturalists, 

 within the few past years. We now constantly see reference 

 made to these theories, as if they were established principles, 

 applicable without question to the explanation of observed 

 facl:s, while classifications notoriously based on these 

 views, and in themselves untrue to nature, have gained cur- 

 rency in popular articles and even in text-books. In this 

 way young people are being trained to be evolutionists 

 without being aware of it, and will come to regard nature 

 wholly through this medium. So strong is this tendency, 

 more especially in England, that there is reason to fear that 

 natural history will be prostituted to the service of a shallow 

 philosophy, and that our old Baconian mode of viewing 



* Forming portions of the President's Annual Address. 



