CARDIFF NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY. 
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fills almost to choking the rivers of New Zealand, and so on. Mr. 
Darwin’s book contains the most interesting instances of this prolific 
and excessive reproduction. This fact, viz., excessive reproduction, 
is one of the bases of Darwin’s theory. The other is equally simple, 
certain, and obvious, viz., that all organic beings differ more or less 
from their progenitors. For instance, out of millions of human beings, 
there is seldom one so like another that they cannot be distinguished. 
Now a necessary consequence of these two undoubted facts, viz., the 
excessive reproduction of individuals and their continuous variation, 
must cause a struggle for life, ending in an extinction of the weakest— 
thus leading to a constant modification of all organic beings from one 
generation to another. These positions are so demonstrably true, that 
one is now inclined to wonder how they could ever have been doubted. 
It is, however, a significant and instructive fact, that not only were 
these conclusions reached with difficulty, and reluctantly accepted, but 
they are still received with doubt and misgiving by those who have not 
considered the subject. It affords another instance to be added to the 
many which history furnishes of the unwillingness or inability of the 
human mind fo^accept a new view or a new idea which strays from 
‘•the even roadway of public opinion.” Soon after the establishment 
of this society I prepared a paper on Darwinism, but, at the earnest 
request of some of the^members, I withdrew it, as it was feared that 
the advocacy of such a daring inroad upon current beliefs would imperil 
the existence of our young society. Since then we have had the 
satisfaction of hearing Darwinism acknowledged and advocated by one 
of our most eminent lecturers—himself a minister of the Gospel, and 
even from a local pulpit. What a remarkable change in 16 
years ! There are many indications which go to show that this theory, 
like so many others, received at first with mingled.derision and alarm, 
will eventually become one of the commonplaces of ordinary belief. 
Darwinism is, however, only one phase of the still wider theory of 
evolution. It is, in fact, the theory of evolution applied to Biology, 
just as Malthusianism is Darwinism applied to human beings. The 
theory of evolution, as propounded by Herbert Spencer, is a still more 
wonderful product of the human intellect than Darwinism;[ but it is 
perhaps more difficult to grasp, and, therefore, less widely appreciated. 
I am inclined to think that in the next age Spencer’s name will stand 
higher even than that of Darwin. We know that Spencer preceded 
Darwin in the enunciation of the all-embracing principle of evolution, 
and that he has worked it out with a wider grasp of its necessary 
consequences. “ The First Principles” of Spencer, and “The Origin 
of Species” of Darwin, will hereafter rank in the annals of science 
with Bacon’s “Instauratio Magna” and Newton’s “Principia.” It is 
interesting to note the different ways in which this theory of evolution 
is presented in these two books. Broadly, it may be said that Darwin 
proves his principle by inductive reasoning, and Spencer by deductive 
reasoning. Darwin laboriously and patiently accumulates instances, 
the result of a life of continuous and accurate observation, from which 
