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properties of the different kinds of matter, and the determination of the 
conditions of their action, we can give no other account than that the 
Creator willed them to be so.'’* 
The Chairman (Rev. R. Thornton, D.D., in place of Mr. J. E. Howard, 
F.R.S.). — As I am now occupying the Chair in place of Mr. Howard, I may 
be expected to supplement what he has said with a few remarks. I confess 
I am one of those somewhat amphibious animals of whom Mr. Howard seems 
to have so great a detestation — those who are a little inclined towards the 
doctrine of evolution, not as it is taught by Dr. Haeckel, but as under 
certain restrictions. It is a matter of indifference to me, so long as I 
believe in one Supreme Intelligence, whether it pleased Him to carry out 
the work of creation by way of evolution or development, or otherwise. 
Given a Divine cause for development, and I am satisfied with the theory ; 
but there is an old axiom which I learnt in my early studies of mediaeval 
philosophy, ex nihilo nihil fit ; nothing can come out of nothing. I confess 
I have been surprised, on referring to the works of evolutionists, to find how 
entirely they set that old principle at naught. They as good as tell us that 
the best way to get something is to have nothing, and it would doubtless be 
a most satisfactory thing in the matter of finance if it were so. (Laughter.) 
But how do they put the proposition ? They say, we want to account for 
the existence of life. Where do we seek for it ? Not in something living, 
but in something which has had no life. We want a high organization: 
whence do we get it ? From protoplasm or bathybius. We want intellect : 
where do we go for it ? To the germs of intellect in the unintellectual ape, 
or to a still less intellectual source. I am wholly at a loss to understand 
how they can speak of something brought out of nothing. And there is 
another difficulty, which I think the able author of this paper might make 
some remarks upon : the evolutionists have not attempted to account for 
the whole of the phenomena of life which exhibit themselves. They do not 
account for the processes of degradation which we constantly see around us. 
The phenomenon of degradation is not an uncommon one ; and yet, although 
the evolutionists tell us of the persistence of species, which they say were 
formed, and have reached their present condition, by the survival of the 
fittest, they have not in any way endeavoured to account for the degradation 
that has taken place. They can hardly call the degradation of species the 
survival of the fittest. Whether they will reply that degradation fits a 
degraded state I do not know ; but the point is one that is certainly very 
difficult to understand. I do not think there have been any objections 
made to this paper ; on the contrary, it appears to me that all the remarks 
which have been made, have been in its favour. 
Mr. Hassell. — If the meeting will bear with me a little longer, I 
have to show it one or two diagrams of those creatures which, we are 
assured, are the true ancestors of man, and which we are called upon by 
* Manual of Physiology, including Physiological Anatomy, p. 13. 
