306 
ADDRESS BY W. R. HUGHES 
and lie was quite sure that the members would all join 
with him in heartily congratulating Mr. Herbert Spencer on 
the steady progress of his great work, and hoping that he 
may live to see its completion. Mr. Hughes then said : 
I venture here to take the liberty of correcting a miscon¬ 
ception. I am quite sure that it is not necessary to do so to 
the members of this section, but it will give them the oppor¬ 
tunity to make the correction in their circle, and my remarks 
may perhaps be reported publicly. In an address delivered 
by the retiring President of the Birmingham Philosophical 
Society to the members on this day last week he chose for 
his theme the extremely appropriate and well-timed subject, 
“ The progress of the doctrine of Evolution.” No one in 
Birmingham is in greater sympathy with this subject, and 
no one is capable of handling it from certain aspects more 
efficiently than my friend, Mr. Lawson Tait; moreover, he 
is not only an able but a generous-minded man, and a lover 
of fair play. I own I must confess to a considerable amount 
of surprise and regret at reading in the Birmingham Daily Post 
of the 9tli instant a report of that address in these words, 
which I cannot pass unnoticed:—“ His (Mr. Lawson Tait’s) 
discourse consisted of an interesting review of the develop¬ 
ment of scientific knowledge during the last twenty-five years, 
and more especially of the manner in which corroboration 
had been furnished of the Darwinian theory of Evolution.” 
It will be perceived that the above extract is in the third 
person, and therefore I am unavoidably prevented from using 
Mr. Lawson Tait’s exact words, but I am open to correction 
if I have misread them, hut I do not think I have ; and 
moreover the subsequent matter reported in the Daily Post 
contains internal evidence that the above quotation from 
Mr. Lawson Tait’s address is right in spirit if not in letter. 
What I take serious exception to is the omission of the 
mention of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s name in connection with 
the doctrine of Evolution. His very existence is apparently 
ignored, for his name does not appear once in the newspaper 
report. I hope it may not be so when the address is published 
in extenso. Every student of Evolution knows, or should know, 
if he cares to have before him all the facts, that the 
illustrious Charles Darwin applied to animals and plants the 
hypothesis of the natural selection of favourable variations 
as the main factor in the 'process of Organic Evolution. 
On the other hand Mr. Herbert Spencer’s formula of 
Evolution in general, expressed the transformation going on 
everywhere throughout the Cosmos; and he applied the 
ultimate physical laws by which the transformation is caused, 
