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I scarcely feel myself justified, while reviewing the local progress of natural science during the past year, in introducing general considerations; but as all faithful students must surely endeavour to contribute their inductions towards the erection of the grand superstructure of system, it is impossible but that we have all been deeply interested in the views which, with so much learning and ability, have been recently put forth 0n the origin and classification of species. I allude particularly to the work of Mr. Darwin on the "Origin of Species," and to Agassiz's "Essay on Classification." The view of Mr. Agassiz, which he had already propounded in his larger American work, being, that there are six grand centres of creation, Palearctic, Nearctic, African, Indian, South American, and Australian. The principle of Mr. Darwin being, that all existent types are divergences from one common origin, brought about by time and circumstances. With some limitations, these two views do not appear to be altogether irreconcilable, though we shall probably pause for clearer demonstration, before either is generally accepted in its entirety. Time is Mr. Darwin's grand postulate. If Archimedes asked for pou sto, and he would move the world, so Mr. Darwin asks for time, and he will produce an Anthropoid ape from a Palaeozoic fish.

Lucid and charming as is Mr. Darwin's style, and novel as are his arguments, his conclusions are by no means new. Long since Lamarck broached his development theory, that the various forms of animal life had been formed through different e.g, that a bird feeding by the water's edge gradually, through stretching its neck, had elongated it into the heron's. But his crude theory had been committed to the limbo of forgotten things, when the world was startled, a few years since, by the appearance of the "Vestiges of Creation." That shallow work, sustained by nothing but the most unsupported hypotheses, soon dropped out of notice. Its basis was, that "the creation of life, wherever it takes place, is a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles are produced." "All animated beings, from the simplest and oldest, up to the highest and most recent, are the

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results—first, of an inherent impulse in the forms of life to advance in definite times, through grades of organisation terminating in the highest Dicotyledons and Mammalia; secondly, of external physical circumstances, operating and re-acting upon the central impulse to produce the requisite peculiarities of exterior organisation." Such flimsy speculations were soon shattered by the sledge-hammers of Professor Sedgwick and other geologists, and meanwhile the subject had dropped from notice till Mr. Wollaston published his interesting work on the "Variation of Species," and two years since, Messrs Darwin and Wallace, in their communications to the Linnaean Society, advanced views which prepared us for Mr. Darwin's recent work. The style is fascinating, the candour and frankness with which objections are stated must disarm declamation, and yet I must confess to having been somewhat startled by Mr. Darwin's conclusion, that "organsin a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor has the organ in a fully developed state." " I believe," says he, " that animals have descended from, at most, only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or a lesser number." "Analogy would lead me one step further—viz., to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless, all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction." m Therefore, I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some primordial form, into which life was first breathed." Mr. Darwin predicts, from this tremendous conclusion, that classification will prove to be merely a series of genealogies. To support his theory, he argues from the natural variations which occur in our present forms, and enters upon natural selection, the struggle for existence, hybridism, instinct, embryology, and geographical distribution and geological succession, and lays much stress 011 the imperfection of the geologic record. I cannot help thinking that he draws very largely upon the inference from ignorance, and sometimes forgets that we need a second instance to begin an induction. Still, his work is the

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result of long-continued thought and labour, directed by a naturalist of extended attainments and remarkable ability, to consolidate a theory which has some facts on which to rest. Some of his postulates we must allow. All organic beings are liable to vary in some degree, and tend to transmit such variations to their offspring. All, at the same time, tend to increase at a very rapid rate, and their increase is kept in check by the incessant competition of other individuals of the same species, or that of individuals of other species, or by injurious physicial conditions. Whatever variation occurs among the individuals of any species of animals or plants which is advantageous for their existence, will give these individuals an advantage over their fellows, and will be probably inherited by their offspring. It is thus that Mr. Darwin assumes all species to have originated.

I feel tempted to say a few words on this, especially, as before the publication of Mr. Darwin's work, I had expressed this opinion in a paper published in the " Ibis," as to many species of birds which I should rather term local varieties. But Mr. Darwin maintains that the distinction between species and varieties is an arbitrary one; and he challenges his opponents to say wherein the difference consists. That many naturalists, the Germans especially, have needlessly multiplied species, I freely own; and, moreover, that we frequently apply the term species, for convenience sake, to forms which, at the same time, we are perfectly aware are in reality only varieties. But yet I humbly conceive that the distinction may be a very real one, though we may not always be able to draw the line. Has Mr. Darwin forgotten the old fallacy of the last straw which breaks the camel's back ? And yet we know there is such a thing as an overload. Our author, in a somewhat triumphant tone, quotes the instance of the grouse, and alleges the difference of opinion among naturalists as to the specific distinction between Scotch and willow grouse. But here, I believe, no sound naturalist would assert a specific distinction, though the local races be different. Generally speaking, I conceive that there would be no difficulty in the differentiation of species, as an hereditary organism, distinguishable from all others, which either will not hybridize, or of which the hybrids are

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sterile. That there may be exyeptions is what we should naturally expect, in every case of a general rule. Now, Mr. Darwin admits that he does not know of any thoroughly authenticated cases of perfectly fertile hybrids, but has reason to believe that one or two, as Phasianus colchicus, and torquatus, are perfectly fertile. But here he assumes a specific distinction, which naturalists have long since rejected. For torquatus has been generally acknowledged to be but the local variety of China. I cannot venture to enter upon the cases of plants, which he adduces; but his summary is, that in all other respects, excluding fertility, there is a close resemblance between hybrids and mongrels, and thus his conclusion is, that there is no fundamental distinction between species and varieties. I cannot but think that here he concedes the whole argument to his opponents. The case of domestic animals, especially pigeons, is adduced by him in support of his view, and he appeals to us whether, did we not know to the contrary, we should not unhesitatingly have put down the varieties of domestic pigeons as species. I should reply that, when we had ascertained their mutual fertility, and their tendency to return to the original type of the rock-dove, which he admits, we should not have done so. " But," says Mr. Darwin, what man can do for his own purposes, nature, operating by the laws of natural selection, could do if granted a period of sufficient length, as the eeons of geology." This is certainly true as an hypothesis, but does it not need more corroborative evidence, while our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound?

Yet such power would Mr. Darwin assign to this process of natural selection, that he maintains the wing of the bat, the leg of the horse, and the claw of the lobster, to be all inherited varieties from the same progenitor. We have been accustomed to attribute these to unity of type. " But," says he, « on my theory, unity of type is explained by unity of descent." Rather, one might reply, in the words of Professor Owen, " the recognition of an ideal exemplar for the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed before man appeared, for the Divine mind that planned the archetype also foreknew all its modifications." Mr. Darwin frankly admits

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the difficulty which the various instincts present to his theory; and his attempt to show that the instinct of the hive-bee may have been a gradually-acquired habit, is not the least curious and preposterous chapter of his ingenious work.

To the hypothesis of the gradual and continued transmission of life from one species to some other form widely different in structure, geology opposes the records preserved in the organic remains of each successive formation. To remove this difficulty, Mr. Darwin has spared no skill and labour for the establishment, first, of the imperfections of the geologic record; and, secondly, of the enormous lapse of time to be allowed for the deposition of each formation, and for the intervals between them. In order to this, he assumes Professor Ramsay's estimate of the thickness of the British fossiliferous strata at 72,584 feet, or nearly 13J miles. But it seems scarcely fair to take the maximum thickness of each individual deposit in different localities, and sum them for a single total. No geologist maintains the thickness of the fossiliferous strata to be in any one place 13 miles. There may be limits even to the length of geologic eras. The Ganges has been computed to pour annually into the sea a sediment sufficient to cover 5,000 square miles for a depth of half an inch. The Amazon, without a delta, must be depositing a far greater mass annually in the depths of the ocean.

Again, he assumes 300,000,000 years for the denudation of the Weald, supposing the action the water to have been continuous. I think there are considerations which will modify this huge demand on Mr. Darwin's grand reserve of geologic time. First, he does not calculate that the sea would eat away both sides of the Weald at once. This reduces his estimate one-half. Secondly, he assumes that the sea would eat into cliffs 500 feet in height, at the rate of an inch in a century, i. e., that it would work at the rate of a yard in 22 years against a cliff one yard in height. But here he has assumed that the underlying strata would afford the same resistance as the superficial chalk, and he seems altogether to have forgotten the undermining power of the sea's action. Let any observer take the Permian coast of Durham, and watch the excavating power of the waves, and he must indeed multiply

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Mr. Darwin'iMWular Bih. The higiie&t clMft are worn do\1% often with greater rapidity than the lower. The sea would work against the perpendicular faccs of chalk. We know that, at Whitburn, the whole camping ground of the Sunderland volunteers, during the late war, has been, in forty years, completely absorbed. The same process continues. At Castle Eden, there are portions of the Black Hall rocks which, in the memory of persons now living, were connected with the mainland, which are now 150 yards below high-water mark. Surely Reculver and Richborough, in Kent, Beachy Head, in Sussex, the parishes Consimpta per 3fare, in Norfolk, might have induced Mr. Darwin to modify his demands on time.

But now he comes to the great difficulty—which he very frankly confesses—that the fossiliferous strata afford him no evidence, and that there are sudden appearances of whole groups of allied species in the various formations, which continues without variation to the close of the epoch. He observes, " that when the same species occur at the bottom, middle, and top of a formation, the probability is that they have not lived on the same spot during the whole period of deposition; but have disappeared and re-appeared, perhaps many times, during the same geological period. So that, if such species were to undergo a considerable amount of modification during any one geological period, a section would not probably include all the five intermediate gradations which must, on my theory, have existed between them, but abrupt, though perhaps very slight change of form." This does appear to me a petitio principii, and an argument from ignorance.

In the career of hypothesis, we come upon a yet more startling assumption. In the Silurian rocks, we find remains at least as distinct from each other as those now obtained on our coasts, and two genera of Molluscs, which are still represented in our fauna. It has been observed that, in order to account for this, Mr. Darwin does not hesitate to plunge back into the eons of past time, and to point to a period as far remote from the earliest known Paleozoic rocks as these are from our era. Not knowing where to find a shred of evidence, for the existence of this enormous

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mass of pre-Silurian formations, a new hypothesis is produced, certainly ingenious, but, to our minds, in the highest degree improbable. Mr. Darwin fairly admits that his case is difficult, but tries to satisfy the inquirer by the assurance, that his witnesses are all drowned. " The present continents and oceans," he tells us," have existed pretty much where they now do, ever since the deposition of the oldest fossiliferous beds; but, before that epoch, other continents existed in the area now filled by oceans. From their waste, formations were formed in the adjoining seas. "The older continents, formed of formations older than any known to us, may now all be in a metamorphosed condition, or may lie buried under the ocean." And in those formations, one after another, throughout millions of ages, the successive forms of the primitive fauna and flora were silently entombed, but no eleva- tory forces, no volcano, terrestrial or submarine, throughout the countless ages that have since elapsed, have ever brought a " single fragment of those buried continents to the light of clay." We shall probably prefer to accept the geologic evidence, so far as it goes, imperfect though it be, than to invent so vast a pre-geologie world.

It is scarcely an answer to reply, that metamorphic action, in the Cambrian and Silurian rocks, has obliterated the traces of the progenitors of living power. What is preserved may be surely accepted, quantum valeat, as evidence of the predominant types, and if a Zostera could be preserved in the Silurian, and a Crustacean (Cyclophthalmus Bucklancli). in the coal measures, there seems no reason why other forms as fragile should not have remained had they abounded. Our induction is very imperfect ; but, in the present state of our knowledge, it would seem safer to tread on it than to venture forth in the rudderless bark of pure hypothesis. So far as our induction has yet gone, we can only trace a few of the existing forms up to a certain point, and there they cease. Down to a certain point the extinct forms exhibit all their specific peculiarities, and there they disappear for ever. So far our geologic museums tell of the commencement and end of species, of their first and their last

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days,4)ut eria&it no genealogies of diPelopments. Till they do this, I should certainly feel hesitation ere I accepted the doctrine of Mr. Darwin and Topsy, and " speck'd I was not made, but growed."

Mr. Darwin has escaped much criticism by declining to have anything to do with the origin of the primary mental powers, any more than with that of life itself; and there is only one allusion to the antiquity of man, in which he remarks that Mr. Horner's researches have rendered it in some degree probable that man, sufficiently civilized to have manufactured pottery, existed in the valley of the Nile 13,000 or 14,000 years ago. It is an unfortunate remark, to say the least, as Mr. Horner's discovery was upset by the discovery of a Roman tile below his much vaunted pottery. Even supposing Mr. Horner's theory had not received this cruel blow, it might have been enough to observe, that he omitted two points in his calculations; 1st, That when the delta was further up the country, the deposit there would be annually thicker than at present; and, 2nd, That a piece of pottery would naturally work clown in soft water-permeated sediment below the surface on which it was first cast forth.

His strongest argument for hereditary descent seems to me to be the fact of the succession of the same types in the same areas during the Tertiary period. Here geology supplies the evidence. And we must explain it, either by the theory of generation in one spot, with subsequent migration, or by that of Agassiz—different centres of creation. It is presumptuous to pretend to decide; but, for my own part, the doctrine of Agassiz, with some modification, does seem to me the most reasonable. By modification, I mean that to assume simultaneous creation, or the repetition of the creation of forms of birds, e.g., and plants, which could migrate to separate regions, and are almost, or altogether identical, is unnecessary. Nor need we accept the doctrine of the immutability of species, against the evidence that species do vary under artificial selection, and therefore might, and probably would do so under the process of natural selection. It seems, in the present state of science, impossible to treat either doctrine as proved or provable.

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But there is one element which I cannot eliminate from the consideration, and that is, the historic record of Scripture. There are limits which human reason cannot overpass; but I do not believe that the application of Scripture, as an external authority, ought to be brought to bear, so as to check philosophical investigation. Had Mr. Darwin, or any one else, attempted to prove that the moral, intellectual, or spiritual faculties of man have been gradually developed by the working of natural causes, or the operation of matter upon matter, I should, at the outset, reject all consideration of the theory, as beyond the province of reason, and within that of revelation. No conceivable amount of evidence from the structural affinities of plants or animals, could have the slightest bearings on our convictions as to the origin of conscience, or the Supreme Being, or the immortality of the soul. But Mr. Darwin has carefully avoided this. Still, there does seem to be an anxious desire to shift back and back to the origin of life, and to attribute it to secondary causes. Yet still behind each cause others lie concealed, until, in the order of causation, we are at length led back to that Final One, with which alone the mind can be thoroughly content. " The strain of music from the rich lyre of science flows on, rich and sweet, full and harmonious, but never reaches a close. No cadence is heard with which the intellectual ear can feel satisfied."* It is not the province of Scripture to teach natural, but moral truth, and no one fact of natural science has Scripture ever taught. Scripture, therefore, speaks according to the appearance of things; and in so doing, makes no sacrifice, as some have pretended, to human ignorance and prejudice. Some deductions of science may appear at first sight startling, because contrary to our commonly received interpretations, not because contrary to Scripture itself. So the discoveries of Galileo appeared 300 years ago. So did the proved existence of extinct creatures, and of death upon the earth before the fall, appear 20 years ago. So, to some, do the arguments for the limited extent of the Noachian deluge appear to-day. But, when we search the Scriptures, we find that these demonstrated truths of geology no more contravene the test of

* "Inductive Philosophy."

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God's Word, than did the demonstration of the solar system. For why ? Scripture does not profess to be a cosmogony, or account of the original erection of the material universe. Its object was only to tell man his history, his origin and fall, and to draw his mind to his Redeemer. The only cosmogony is in Genesis i. 1, "created" In the whole of the rest of the account the word, as every Hebrew scholar knows, is simply " did" or "formed." And thus criticism rises up and teaches us to harmonize Scripture and Science. It is the same as to the universality of the deluge. The strongest term, " the hills that were under the whole heavens," is used elsewhere when the context shows that only Palestine and its immediate neighbourhood could be implied.

In like manner, we may rest calmly assured, that however the now vexed question, of the origin of species, ultimately be decided by science, all proved facts will be found, like their predecessors, in perfect accordance with Scripture. The two have never yet been found at variance, though they have often been charged with being so. The great truths of the one—the origin of man, the origin of evil, the promise of a Saviour—science never had discovered; and with those revealed truths, are mixed up statements respecting the condition of the earth. The language of that record was fixed thousands of years ago, while science was in its infancy. Meanwhile it has been opening the book of nature, and of late years has been rapidly turning over its countless leaves. Is itto be wondered at that the immature deductions of science have sometimes appeared to contradict Scripture, while those settled results, on which all are agreed, have only tended to confirm and illustrate the sacred volume. Let us then pursue the investigation of nature in an unbiassed and truth-seeking spirit, but let us lay our conclusions reverently at the feet of revelation, and see how they harmonise. The pursuit of natural science is more than a luxury, it is a duty. " To live in ignorance of the history and material laws of the universe of which he forms a part, is a libel on that commanding gift with which God has endowed man, rendering him pre-eminent above the rest of His creatures. The progress of science is the setting forth of the

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greatness and wisdom of the Creator in His works." Let us then push on—let us not shrink from investigating nature in her most recondite arcana—let us state our difficulties in the broadest, frankest manner. God's revealed, and His natural truth, can never be at variance: it is scientifically unphilosophical, it is theologically mischievous to imagine so. Let us read both books with unwearied perseverance, and with truthful criticism, and so, while drinking the pure draughts of nature's lore, we shall be led " from nature up to nature's God."

Gentlemen, I fear that my lengthened remarks have savoured more of the study than of the field, but the field has been so exhausted by my predecessors, that I have been driven, per force, in-doors. I have to congratulate the Club on the unprecedented accession of fifty-seven new members within the past year, not, however, unaccompanied by the mournful duty, of recording old companions in the walks of science removed by the hand of death, and among these Mr. John Storey, Corr. M. B. S., L.andE., our secretary from 1849 to 1857. He contributed a paper to our " Transactions," in 1851, on the " Plants occurring within five miles of Newcastle," and most of our volumes are enriched by his botanical notes. The preparation of a " Catalogue of the Flora of the two Counties " had been entrusted to Mr. Storey, and he had collected a vast amount of valuable information for this object; but ill health, and other occupations, prevented him from completing this task, which, we yet trust, Mr. D. Oliver may find leisure to accomplish.