stamens, yielded larger, stronger flowers than the stigmas of high styles fertilized from high stamens, and of course than short forms interbred.

This fact shows that the tendency of a species is to maintain an average type, and not to branch off into permanent exaggerated or stunted varieties.

Mr. DAVID HOWARD said: When we use the word evolution it

is most important to be sure what we mean. Darwin was understood-rightly or wrongly-to teach that evolution was the result of accident; but if evolution is the result of law, or, as this most interesting paper suggests, of an adaptive power inherent in life, we may well argue that a law involves a lawgiver and that the power of adaptation in living tissue is a form of creative energy that requires a Creator to explain it.

The illustrations of this adaptive power are most interesting, and throw great light on many points in a most complex question. I am not a botanist, but I have had to study the formation of medicinal substances in plants. A very difficult problem-why do only a few species of cinchonæ contain quinine? What benefit does it serve in the life of the tree? Seeds grown in England in hothouses grow into healthy plants, the bark of which contains but little quinine, cuttings from these taken to the Nilghiris give trees with a rich yield. By careful selection and suitable environment bark is obtained giving over ten per cent. of the dry weight, but the quinine, much or little, does not seem to affect the health of the tree.

Mr. S. COLLETT said: Mr. Chairman, before making a brief comment upon Professor Henslow's paper, I should like, if it is not out of order, to propose that a message of sympathy be sent from this Meeting to our friend Lieut.-Col. Mackinlay, who, since his lecture before this Institute only a month ago, has undergone a very serious operation, from which, for some time, his life was almost despaired of. He is now, it is hoped, slowly recovering. And, although the Committee have doubtless sent a communication to him from themselves, I think it would be nice if a message of loving sympathy were sent him from this Meeting.

As to the paper before us, I am sure we must all feel that from many points of view it is a most masterly and interesting lecture. The only point, however, to which I wish to call brief attention is

the statement in para. 3, p. 248, that "the conviction of the truth of the doctrine of evolution of all living beings, including man has been incontestably and permanently established."

Now, sir, I confess my surprise that the Professor should have made such a statement as that. I should have thought that whatever his personal views might be he would have known that the doctrine of the evolution of man is one of the most uncertain and unproved of theories ever propounded!

What is evolution? Here is what Sir Oliver Lodge says, and I suppose he is one of the greatest authorities of the day :

'Taught by science, we learn that there has been no fall of man ; there has been a rise. Through an ape-like ancestry, back through a tadpole and fish-like ancestry, away to the early beginnings of life, the origin of man is being traced."

Or, to use the words of two other modern professors, "It must be granted a primeval germ, originating it does not know how some primitive protoplasts gliding in a quiet pool . . proceeding through unthinkable millions of years

emerging

as man, at a moderate estimate, half-a-million years ago! That is the doctrine of the evolution of man as taught by its greatest exponents!

Now the question is: Is this theory "incontestably and permanently established," as the Professor declares it to be? Let us see.

No less an authority than Professor Tyndall said: "Those who hold the doctrine of evolution are by no means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data!" While Professor J. A. Thomson, of Aberdeen University, and Professor Patrick Geddes, of Edinburgh University (to whom I have already referred)-both of them strong evolutionists-when writing an article in defence of evolution in a book recently published, entitled Ideals of Science and Faith, actually make this pitiable confession in answer to the question, "How man came":"We do not know whence he emerged nor do we know how man arose it must be admitted that the factors of the evolution of man partake largely of the nature of may-be's, which have no permanent position in science." And an article in the Times Literary Supplement of June 9th, 1905, referring to a number of professors who have written on the subject of evolution said, "Never was seen such a mêlée. The humour of it is that they all claim to represent 'science.' . . . Yet

for

it would puzzle them to point to a theological battlefield exhibiting more uncertainty, obscurity, dissension, assumption, and fallacy than their own. For the plain truth is that, though some agree in this and that, there is not a single point in which all agree. Battling for evolution they have torn it to pieces; nothing is left -nothing at all, on their showing, save a few fragments strewn about the arena."

Therefore, sir, I, for one, hope I may be allowed to say emphatically that I do not believe in the theory of the evolution of man-partly on account of what I have already said, but also because (although I am aware that our evolutionist friends deny it) it is in my judgment so entirely opposed to the inspired record given to us in the Word of God as to the origin of man, viz., that "God created man in His Own Image, in the Image of God created He him: male and female created He them," Genesis i, 27.

Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD wrote:

The chief merits of the paper are (in my judgment) its successful exposure of the fallacy of Darwinism and its insistence upon the directive character of "that mysterious something" called "Life." Life itself, and, therefore, also its directivity, are doubtless attributable to spiritual action. As we are reminded (on p. 249), our gratitude is due to the inventor of this useful word "Directivity"— a word which has come to stay, and is likely to soon take its place in dictionaries, a word which is welcomed by many scientists besides Bergson as standing for the true explanation of natural facts.

The author, like evolutionists generally, occasionally permits himself to make assumptions more bold than accurate. On p. 248 he says, "I assume that everyone here present is a believer in evolution." A reference to our Transactions may show him that he has made a mistake.

The arguments brought forward in support of evolution seem very feeble. On p. 249 occurs the startling announcement that "spontaneous adaptability to changed conditions of life" is the origin of species. If we look for some proof of this, we read (p. 252) that an inland plant grown near the sea may become fleshy, and a seaside plant grown inland may become thin-leaved; and it is seriously said that the changes may be sufficient to warrant the plant being called a new species. But if, with Buffon, we define a species as "a constant succession of individuals similar to, and

capable of reproducing, each other," the change of environment produces not a new species but a new variety only. Some years ago, at University College, I was listening to the author as he pointed out that a change of environment may modify size and form, but does not affect specific differences; and he gave as an instance the American cacti, which, when grown in Africa, remain of the same species, although modified in size and appearance. On p. 253 we learn that Mr. G. Bentham finds "no well-marked differences between any of the ninety genera of asteroidea." It would be interesting to know on what system of classification that gentleman proceeds in calling such groups "genera," when they are obviously not so. The author quotes Darwin's opinion (p. 253) that changed conditions of life may produce a "new sub-variety." A "new sub-variety," however, is a different thing from a new species; and the cause of true science would not be advanced by calling it by the same name.

On p. 249 (paragraphs 1 and 2) we read that "plants of no relationship whatever," living in the same or similar environment tend, through the influence of the environment, to become alike. Is not this inconsistent with the statement that the environment has caused those great and striking differences which mark off species from one another? The several geological strata which, in Sedgwick's time (p. 253), revealed distinct series of fossils and distinct species which had lived side by side, makes the same revelation to-day, and tells us that Sedgwick was right in believing in a succession of separate creative acts.

We shall all, I am sure, join in thanking the able author for a most interesting paper.

Mr. W. WOODS SMYTH: While congratulating the Victoria Institute upon receiving a paper accepting evolution in any form, I beg to offer the following criticisms:

(1) Professor Henslow appears to have changed his position. He used to make much of "Divine Directivity," now it is the "Directivity of Life." Any theory of directivity which goes beyond the dowry of attributes bestowed upon life at the beginning is entirely unscientific.

(2) The idea that species have originated through one or two factors alone is opposed to all the evidence possess.

we

(3) When we consider the influence of artificial selection, exercised by man, in producing varieties so diverse as to resemble even different genera; and when we remember that organisms in a transition state, before they reached finished forms, were in a much more plastic state; and we then take into account that natural selection is much more potent than artificial selection; to say that natural selection exercised no influence in the production of species is absolutely untenable.

It is quite true that natural selection alone cannot produce species of organisms, but it is an important factor in their production. No more can its antitype in the spiritual realm, namely, election, of itself produce a Christian, but it is an important factor in his production.

The LECTURER, in reply to the more extended remarks set forth above, now writes:

I thank Dr. Irving especially for so cordially accepting my position. The only point he questions is my meaning of "man." As he rightly says, I intentionally confined myself to the scientific side of the problem of evolution. This asserts that man (Homo sapiens) rose from some line of the mammalia; such a belief is based on purely scientific inductions. But how he acquired his vastly superior mental, moral and spiritual attributes is a question which would have carried me far beyond the limits of my paper. I purposely avoided it, as it transcends the sphere of natural science.

Mr. Sutton has supplied me with a great number of questions, to which I will reply as briefly as possible. Evolution, perhaps, cannot be better defined than by the old expression of the sixties"Descent with modification." To which may now be added, in Darwin's words, its meaning of definite results or variations, by means of a response in the organism to changed conditions of life. These may be relatively permanent or not at all.

It seems to be assumed by some persons that evolution necessarily implies progress or development from lower to higher forms or structures. This is not quite correct. Palæontology proves that, what were adult forms in earlier days are often now represented by the embryonic stages of modern beings, e.g., amphibia were the "highest " vertebrates in the Coal period represented now by our newt and others. There were no frogs and toads, but the