268 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
President would exercise the despotic power which belonged to him in 
preventing the paper which he had just read from being in any way 
mutilated in passing through the press. 
The President then read his Annual Address (see p. 129), con- 
cluding with the exhibition of a number of transparencies, which he 
explained seriatim. 
Prof. Bell was sure they would agree with him that a vote of thanks 
should be moved for the very instructive and entertaining address to 
which they had just listened, leaving them, as it did, so much to think 
about, and presenting to them in an original manner a view which was 
gaining considerable credit with the naturalists of to-day. The matter 
to which the President had directed their attention had passed through 
several stages, and the ultimate result was that the natural objects of 
their studies had become too much obscured, and the difference 
between the field naturalist and the cabinet naturalist far too great. 
The study of the science of natural history began with Linnaeus, who 
gave them a system of nomenclature and method of classification, and 
there was no doubt that the method which he adopted was so complete 
and perfect that it had been found practically impossible to improve 
upon it. Then came the age of Cuvier and Kichard Owen, in which 
people got so interested in the bones and teeth that they seemed quite to 
forget the true study of the forms from which those bones or those 
teeth were derived. After this came the age of Von Baer and his 
followers, people who knew so much about eggs, but so little about what 
the creature was from which the egg came — people who got an egg, but 
what it was to produce or whether it came from a reptile or a guinea- 
pig were matters on which they seemed unable to be certain. After 
these came Darwin and that so-called Darwinism which had been used 
as a means for weaving phytogenies by Germans and others ; and now 
they seemed to be reaching a period when there was arising a truer 
Darwinism, and there was still a class of naturalists who were able to 
follow its leadings. What Darwin did for this portion of his followers, 
what the President was himself doing in the lines which he had taken, 
what was being done at Naples and at our own marine zoological station, 
would, he believed, give a great impetus in a true direction to these 
studies, and would put them in touch again with those who were so 
fond of nature that they wanted to know the truth about her. He 
believed, therefore, that a time had come when zoology could no longer 
be defined as interesting to those who were interested in the study of 
words. Books were not without their uses, and in connection with the 
subject brought before them it was undoubtedly as necessary to have 
a book as to have the natural forms. The President and Mr. Gosse 
had given them one sort of book ; might they not hope that the address 
to which they had been listening indicated that the President would also 
provide them with the other ? 
Mr. Glaisher said he had much pleasure indeed in seconding the vote 
of thanks which had been proposed by Prof. Bell to be given to the 
President for his very admirable address of that evening. When the 
latter gave his first address to their Society he thought he passed the 
highest compliment upon their transactions by such a contribution to 
them, and now, at the end of his second year of office, he had not only 
