PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ROYAL PHYSICAL SOCIETY. 



SESSION CXXXIX. 



I. — Presidential Address, 1909. 



(Read 25th October 1909. Received 31st December 1909.) 



I. Remarks upon Certain Points connected with Evolutionary 



Theory. 



It is inevitable that a Presidential Address to any Biological Society at 

 this time must allude to the great anniversaries which this year marks — 

 the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 

 fiftieth of the publication of the Origin of Sjjecies. 



The occasion has been marked by celebrations all over the civilised 

 world, and the greatest of these celebrations, that at Cambridge, was one 

 which will never be forgotten by anyone who was privileged to take part 

 in it. Probably never in the history of human knowledge has there been 

 gathered together such an assemblage to do honour to the memory of any 

 one purely intellectual worker. 



It is not my intention to devote this address to an estimate or an 

 appreciation of the effect which Darwin's work has had upon the development 

 of the Biological sciences ; this has been done already by heads and hands 

 more skilled than mine — notably in the volume published recently at 

 Cambridge. 1 But there are one or two points in connection with Darwin's 

 field of work to which it seems necessary to devote a few words. 



At the present time as at any time since the publication of the Origin, 

 the great task before the philosophical zoologist is the further working out 

 of the Evolution problem. For continued successful attack on this problem 

 it is above all things necessary to bring to bear upon it the different weapons 

 afforded by research in the various departments of Zoology. In mapping 

 out the path of evolutionary change, Palaeontology, Embryology, and Com- 

 parative Anatomy must each play its part, and with Comparative Anatomy 

 1 Darwin and Modern Science. Edited by A. C. Seward. Cambridge, 1909. 

 VOL. XVIII. A 



