86 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XV. 



have arisen in the same manner. In fact, these divisions 

 are mere categories of human thought, and have no existence 

 in nature. 



The plseontologists are rapidly filling up the gaps between 

 the higher groups, and for the evidence of the embryologists 

 I must refer you to Romanes on u The Darwinian Theory." 



I cannot, however, agree with the late Professor Romanes 

 that we can rest content with this theory because it is 

 demonstrated, although not proved as a scientific fact ; nor 

 that when the theory has been raised to such a level of 

 probability it stands on the same basis as the fully ascertained 

 facts of science. We cannot absolutely say from whence 

 the varieties of our money cowries have come, or what their 

 future history will be, but if you take up the "Nautical 

 Almanac " you can see every eclipse of Jupiter's moons given 

 to the fraction of a second, three years hence ; and if an 

 astronomer chose to take the necessary trouble he could 

 give you a Jupiter moon-eclipse time table for any number 

 of years past or any number of years to come. No such 

 evidence as this. Professor Romanes said, can ever possibly 

 be given for any form of the Darwinian theory ; but I prefer 

 the dictum of the great Physiologist Claude Bernard, " that 

 we have no right to put any bounds to the possibilities 

 of human discoveries." 



It is for this reason that I have brought the foregoing 

 examples of " Wallacian woods," as they occur in Ceylon, 

 before the Society. I confess Wallace's theory seems to me 

 perfectly satisfactory, and sufficient to account for the 

 origin of the countless forms of animals and plants now 

 inhabiting the earth. But if this theory is true, these 

 useless variations must be accompanied by other changes — a 

 principle known as the " correlation of growth " — before 

 they can form true physiological species, that is to say, 

 species incapable of interbreeding. 



Now, in such a case as the money cowry it is surely in the 

 power of anatomists to show whether the variations of the 



