10 
selection, or the struggle for existence, gives 
rise to various organic changes, still we at 
present know not why like should produce 
like, why acquired characteristics in the parent 
should be produced in the offspring. Re- 
production itself is still an enigma. We know 
not why organism should have this nisus 
formativus, or why the acquired habit or 
exceptional quality of the parent should re- 
appear in the offspring. If we are satisfied 
that continuity is a law of nature, 
the true expression of the action 
of Almighty power, then we should 
cease to look for special interventions of 
creative power in changes which are difficult 
to understand, because, being removed from 
us in point of time, their concomitants are 
lost ; we should endeavor from the relics to 
evoke their history, and when we find a gap 
not try to bridge it over by a miracle. 
Philosophy ought to have no likes or dislikes, 
truth is her only aim ; but if a glow of ad- 
miration be permitted to a physical inquirer, 
“ to my mind,” says Mr. Grove, “ a far more 
exquisite sense of the beautiful is conveyed by 
the orderly development, by the necessary 
inter-relation and inter-action of each element 
of the Cosmos, and by the conviction that a 
bullet falling to the ground changes the 
dynamical condition of the universe, than can 
be conveyed by mysteries, by convulsions, or 
by cataclysms.” The sense of the understand- 
ing is to the educated more gratifying than 
the love of the marvellous, though the latter 
need never be wanting to the nature-seeker. 
This doctrine of continuity is not solely ap- 
plicable to physical inquiries. Our language, 
our social institutions, our laws and consti- 
tution, are the growth of time, the product of 
slow adaptations arising from continuous 
struggles. Practical experience has taught us 
to improve rather than to re-model ; we follow 
the law of nature, and avoid cataclysms. 
Whence, adds the President, does the con- 
viction arise that each material form bears in 
itself the records of its past history ? Is it 
not from this belief in continuity ? As 
science advances our power of reading, this 
history improves and is extended. Saturn’s 
ring may help us to a knowledge of how our 
solar system developed itself, for it as surely 
contains that history as the rock with its im- 
bedded organisms contains the record of its 
own formation. 
The above is, I hope, a tolerably correct con- 
densation of the address delivered on the 22nd 
of August last, by the distinguished lawyer and 
philosopher to the brilliant assembly which 
thronged around him at the New Theatre, Not- 
tingham. This society will not now expect or 
desire from me minute commentaries on an ad- 
dress which, if it does not contain a proof, still 
less a demonstration, of the hypothesis of con- 
tinuity, at all events does contain striking 
illustrations of the hypothesis, drawn from 
great and varied sources of know^dge. The 
question arises whether the supposed continuity 
extends to the organic world, and whether 
organism exist on the planetary bodies. The 
conjectures, founded on analogy, which have 
arisen on this subject do not seem to have 
secured the universal assent of the authorities, 
nor has the telescope, or the spectrum analysis, 
a3 yet decided the question. Is any other 
species of evidence attainable, and may the 
meteorites possibly be the bearers of infor- 
mation respecting the organisms of worlds from 
which they have been severed ? A meteorite 
which fell near Alais, in France, on March 15, 
1806. was examined by Berzelius in 1834. He 
found it remarkable as containing au organic 
carbon compound, soluble in water, which 
turned brown on heating, deposited a black 
carbonaceous mass, and burned without resi- 
due. In 1860, Wohler discovered traces of a 
crystallizable hydro-carbon, soluble in alcohol 
and ether, in two meteorites, one of which fell 
at Kaba, in Hungary, on April 15, 1857, and 
the other at Bokkevelde, in South Africa, on 
October 13, 1838. The fact, thus undoubtedly 
proved, of the existence in these two meteorites 
of crystallizable carbon compounds, which in 
terrestrial matter are solely the results of vital 
action, rendered a further confirmation of the 
existence of organic matter in the Alai3 
meteorite of special interest, and accordingly 
Professor Roscoe, I suppose in 1862 or 1863, 
experimented upon a fragment of it which Mr. 
Greg, of Manchester, placed him in possession 
of. He found that the Alais meteorite con- 
tains at least a half per cent, of a crystallizable 
hydrocarbon. A remark of Professor Roscoe 
seems to render it doubtful whether the hydro- 
carbon was anorganic product. To judge by 
the melting point it may be analogous to a min- 
eral wax called konlite. Not having been able 
to refer to Sir David Brewster’s observations, 
made many years ago, on the substances to be 
detected in crystals, I am at present unable 
to say whether they would favor the notion 
that the hydro-carbon in question is a mineral 
product. The mere fact of the hydro-carbon 
permeating the meteorite would not perhaps 
be conclusive against its being an organic pro- 
duct. At the launching of the Great Eastern, 
water is said to have been forced, undecom- 
posed, through a considerable thickness of iron, 
and the sort of exudation which takes place on 
the exterior of large guns, after a certain 
amount of firing, may afford another illustra- 
tion of the mode in which one substance may 
be forced into another, without suffering de- 
composition, by a certain amount of pressure or 
heat. It is to be remarked that the Alais 
meteorite was not coated with the ordinary 
black pellicle, but a white efflorescence, which, 
covered the surface, consisted mainly of 
sulphate of magnesium. It is also to be noticed,, 
that the conditions under which meteorites fall 
are not invariable. A meteorite fell on the 
