240 
president’s address. 
appeared in the Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological 
Society. Mr. Beacall has added many new localities for some 
of the rarer plants found in the county ; and. lastly, to advert 
to an altogether different branch of natural science, I may 
mention that Mr. Beckwith has been publishing a very able 
and interesting series of papers in relation to the birds of 
Shropshire, giving much valuable information as to their habits 
and their natural history. 
III.—The third and last subject which I have proposed for 
consideration—The Work of Charles Darwin and its Influence 
on Modern Science—is one which I most deeply feel would 
tax the powers of a much more able pen than mine. But in a 
town distinguished as the birthplace of so remarkable a man, 
and on an occasion like the present, when we are assembled 
to share, in however humble a degree, in the great work to 
which his life was devoted, it seems as if some tribute to his 
memory and some notice of that work were called for. From 
the time that, early in my life, I read Humboldt’s “ Cosmos” 
and “ The Vestiges of Creation,” two books which then 
attracted a good deal of attention, I have been much impressed 
with the conviction that the belief then, and even still so 
commonly prevalent in sudden, spasmodic, isolated acts of 
creation, as the means by which organised beings have from 
time to time appeared on this earth must ultimately be modified 
or abandoned, and that some account, consistent with the 
general laws which govern the rest of the universe, must 
inevitably take its place. The first of these books unfolded 
the sublime conception of the nebular hypothesis, whereby 
our solar system, as well as the myriad orbs which spangle the 
heavens, are shown to have been evolved from primordial matter 
in a state of extreme tenuity, and spread through inconceivably 
vast tracts of space; and the latter seemed to give a not 
unreasonable account of the process whereby successive 
generations of living beings might become modified in virtue 
of the conditions which surrounded them, and thus give rise 
to species and varieties. Besides, had not Newton revolutionised 
astronomy and physical science, putting to flight for ever the 
empiric and fanciful theories of the schoolmen ? Was it 
unreasonable to expect that another Newton might arise to reduce 
the complex and mysterious phenomena of organic life to a de¬ 
finite system, and prove that they move onwards in obedience to 
laws not less distinct and unalterable ? That master mind at 
last appeared in the person of the illustrious Darwin. It is 
true, indeed, that from very early times thoughts strangely 
similar or leading up to the theory which he has propounded 
have been expressed by other writers. One of the most 
