8 
Scientific Progress of the Past Year . [January, 
By way of contrast to the work with which we have been 
engaged, we cannot help referring to a review article which 
has recently appeared on the other side of the Atlantic. 
We have already glanced, in passing, at the attempts made 
to find the germs of modern discoveries and speculations in 
very unlikely regions. At one time it was the fashion to 
declare that the philosophers and the poets of classical anti- 
quity had anticipated all our most valuable ideas. Next 
came a rage for extracting systems of science from Hebrew 
roots by dint of high pressure philology, somewhat as soups 
of doubtful value may be obtained from old bones by the aid 
of Papin’s digester. The latest mania is for seekmg out 
chemical, physical, or biological truths in the writings of 
A Ibertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. Augustine. 
Indeed St. Augustine is declared to have been an Evo- 
lutionist. ,, , , . j 
The article professes to deal with “ Malthusianism and 
Darwinism.” In opposition to the former we are told that 
the lower races of man die out in contact with civilisation, 
and thus make room for their superiors. But as against 
the Darwinians we learn, on the contrary, that it is not the 
higher, but the lower forms that survive. This, we think, 
is very like self-refutation. 
II. SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS OF THE PAST 
YEAR. 
By William Spottiswoode, D.C.L., LL.D. 
( Being a Condensed Report of the Presidential A ddress delivered 
at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society , on Monday , 
December i, 1879.) 
\|Wn the spring it is our duty to eleCt into the Royal Society 
Gjk our annual complement of new Fellows, and at our 
early summer meetings we admit to our ranks the 
young and vigorous in the career of Science. But in the 
autumn, or fall, as on the other side of the Atlantic it is so 
aptly termed, it is our custom to recount the names of those 
who have dropped from our list. Some of these have fallen 
in a plenitude of years, and in maturity of mind ; otheis in 
