150 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OP NATURAL SCIENCE. 
falsely deem that such a profession gives them a claim to 
be ranked as men of advanced opinions; there are on the 
other side many who in utter ignorance denounce these 
views because such denunciation is thought to stamp them 
as safe and sound. There are many men who have never 
weighed or even read the arguments in support of the 
views, and who are utterly unfitted to read them with un¬ 
biassed judgment, who denounce them as tending to raze 
the very foundations of morality and religion. Men very 
frequently contend with great eagerness for what they 
regard as the cause of truth, when they are in fact contend¬ 
ing only for the worn-out garment in which truth was once 
arrayed. The cause of morality and religion rests on 
truth, and that cause can never be strengthened by beliefs 
which are based on error. They are mistaken, though 
well-meaning, defenders of the bulwarks of that sacred 
cause who deem that she can thus be buttressed. Having 
truth for her foundation, she derives strength from every 
fresh discovery whereby truth is brought to light. Of the 
attempts of evolutionists to show how instinct, habit, 
reason, and conscience arise—how they attempt to show 
that the highest mental powers and the highest products 
of mental power all proceed from the nerve-energy stored 
up within the cells of the nerve-centres, we have not time 
even to speak. The idea of evolution existed away in the 
distant past, and its past and future have frequently 
formed the theme of poets. Our own Poet Laureate, in 
an exquisite poem, published long before the doctrine of 
evolution had a footing in the scientific world, speaks of a 
being that shall, when 
Moved through life of lower phase 
Result in man, be born and think, 
And act and love, a closer link 
Betwixt us and the crowning race 
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand 
Is Nature, like an open book ; 
No longer half-akin to brute, 
For all we thought and loved and did. 
And hoped, and suffered, is but seed 
Of what in them is flower aud fruit. 
Yes, there is truth in the anticipation of our poets. I be¬ 
lieve from high teaching in evolution in the spiritual world. 
As dead matter in the physical world was inspired with 
the breath of life, so in the spiritual world, I am told, that 
that which was dead was quickened. In the spiritual 
world there is the bitter struggle to maintain this life— 
there is the survival of the fittest—there is the development 
from a lowly beginning to a state whose gloi'y it has not 
entered into the heart of man here to conceive. While we 
listen to jeers, and denunciations, and anathemas uttered 
against Darwin and his system, this at least we may safely 
say, that the account of the origin and progress of the 
spiritual life, as described in Scripture, is analogous to 
what the doctrine of evolution, properly considered, teaches 
was the case in the life which we see in the animated world 
around us. 
March 6th, 1884. 
ANNUAL MEETING. 
Colonel Drummond Hat, C.M.Z.S., President, 
in the Chair. 
NEW MEMBERS. 
The following were elected:—• 
As Ordinary Members. Mr W. Westwood, Princes 
Street; and Rev. A. Campbell, Free Church, Errol. 
4s Corresponding Member. Mr E. P. Ramsay, F.L.S., 
Curator of the Australian Museum, Sydney. 
4s Associates. Mr Laidlaw, gamekeeper, Castle Menzies; 
and Mr Macdonald, gamekeeper, Rannoch Lodge, in ac¬ 
knowledgment of their many contributions to the Perth¬ 
shire Collection. 
The following were nominated:—Miss Mercer, Miss 
Louisa Mercer, and Miss Charlotte Mercer, Balcraig; 
and Mr R. S. Trotter, 2 Tay Street. 
DONATIONS. 
The following were intimated:— 
For Index Collection, Stem of araucaria, from Deacons’ 
Court of Free West Church. 
For Perthshire Collection, Star-fish, from Mr Henderson, 
Dundee ; salmon fry, from Mr Lumsden, Superintendent 
of Tay Fisheries; one otter, one mountain hare, one 
brown owl, one goosander, and five snow buntings, from 
Mr Macdonald, gamekeeper, Rannoch Lodge; several 
crossbills, from Mr M‘Gregor, Ladywell; two crossbills, 
from Sir Robert Moncreiffe, Bart. ; buzzard and four 
rabbits, from Mr Macdonald, Rannoch Lodge ; magpies, 
from Mr T. Roy, Craigclowan ; velvet scoter, from Mr T. 
Marshall, Stanley; crossbills, from Mr M‘Leish; merganser 
(stuffed), from Mr J. Lorimer, birdstufier, King Street; 
garnets, from Dr Buist ; a number of shells of Helix 
I memoralis L., collected near Almondbank, and represent- 
