grated, water, air all round, warmed and illuminated by a brilliant sun, ready to become a garden. Did grass and trees and flowers spring into existence, in all the fulness of ripe beauty, by a fiat of Creative Power? or did vegetation, growing up from seed sown, spread and multiply over the whole earth? Science is bound, by the everlasting law of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can fairly be presented to it. If a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary course of nature, can be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power. When a lava stream flows down the sides of Vesuvius or Etna it quickly cools and becomes solid; and after a few weeks or years it teems with vegetable and animal life, which for it originated by the transport of seed and ova and by the migration of individual living creatures. When a volcanic island springs up from the sea, and after a few years is found clothed with vegetation, we do not hesitate to assume that seed has been wafted to it through the air, or floated to it on rafts. Is it not possible, and if possible, is it not probable, that the beginning of vegetable life on the earth is to be similarly explained? Every year thousands, probably millions, of fragments of solid matter fall upon the earth -whence came these fragments? What is the previous history of any one of them? Was it created in the beginning of time an amorphous mass? This idea is so unacceptable that, tacitly or explicitly, all men discard it. It is often assumed that all, and it is certain that some, meteoric stones are fragments which had been broken off from greater masses and launched free into space. It is as sure that collisions must occur between great masses moving through space as it is that ships, steered without intelligence directed to prevent collision, could not cross and recross the Atlantic for thousands of years with immunity from collisions. When two great masses come into collision in space it is certain that a large part of each is melted; but it seems also quite certain that in many cases a large quantity of débris must be shot forth in all directions, much of which may have experienced no greater violence than individual pieces of rock experience in a land-slip or in blasting by gunpowder. Should the time. when this earth comes into collision with any other body, comparable in dimensions to itself, be when it is still clothed as at present with vegetation, many great and small fragments carrying seed and living plants and animals would undoubtedly be scattered through space. Hence and because we all confidently believe that

there are at present, and have been from time immemorial, many worlds of life besides our own, we must regard it as probable in the highest degree that there are countless seed-bearing meteoric stones moving about through space. If at the present instant no life existed upon this earth, one such stone falling upon it might, by what we blindly call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered with vegetation. I am fully conscious of the many scientific objections which may be urged against this hypothesis, but I believe them to be all answerable. I have already taxed your patience too severely to allow me to think of discussing any of them on the present occasion. The hypothesis that life originated on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may seem wild and visionary; all I maintain is that this is not unscientific.

8. THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

From the Earth stocked with such vegetation as it could receive meteorically, to the Earth teeming with all the endless variety of plants and animals which now inhabit it, the step is prodigious; yet, according to the doctrine of continuity, most ably laid before the Association by a predecessor in this chair (Mr. Grove), all creatures now living on earth have proceeded by orderly evolution from some such origin. Darwin concludes his great work on 'The Origin of Species' with the following words :-" It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us." "There is grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved." With the feeling expressed in these two sentences I most cordially sympathize. I have omitted two sentences which come between them, describing briefly the hypothesis of "the origin of species by natural selection," because I have always felt that this hypothesis does not contain the true theory of evolution, if evolution there has been, VOL. VI.

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No. 2.

in biology. Sir John Herschel, in expressing a favourable judgment on the hypothesis of zoological evolution, with, however, some reservation in respect to the origin of man, objected to the doctrine of natural selection, that it was too like the Laputan method of making books, and that it did not sufficiently take into account a continually guiding and controlling intelligence. This seems to me a most valuable and instructive criticism. I feel profoundly convinced that the argument of design has been greatly too much lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. Reaction against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on Paley's 'Natural Theology,' has, I believe, had a temporary effect in turning attention from the solid and irrefragable argument so well put forward in that excellent old book. But overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all round us, and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler.

The Biological Section was presided over by Prof. Allan Thompson, who delivered the following address:

I must content myself with endeavouring to express to you some of the ideas which arise in my mind in looking back from the present upon the state of Biological science at the time, forty years since, when the meetings of the British Association commenced-a period which I am tempted to particularise from its happening to coincide very nearly with the time at which I began my career as a public teacher in one of the departments of biology in this city. In the few remarks which I shall make, it will be my object to show the prodigious advance which has taken place not only in the knowledge of our subject as a whole, but also in the ascertained relation of its parts to each other, and in the place which this kind of knowledge has gained in the estimation of the educated part of the community, and the consequent increase in the freedom with which the search after truth is now asserted in this as in other departments of science. And first, in connection with the distribution of the various subjects which are included under this section, I may remark that the general title under which the whole section D has met since 1866, viz, Biology,

seems to be advantageous both from its convenience, and as tending to promote the great consolidation of our science, and a juster appreciation of the relation of its several parts. It may be that looking merely to the derivation of the term, it is strictly more nearly synonymous with physiology in the sense in which that word has been for a long time employed, and therefore designating the science of life, rather than the description of the living beings. in which it is manifested. But until a better or more comprehensive term be found we may accept that of biology under the general definition of "the science of life and of living beings," or as comprehending the history of the whole range of organic nature-vegetable as well as animal. The propriety of the adoption of such a general term is further shown by a glance at the changes which the title and distribution of the subordinate departments of this section have undergone during the period of the existence of the Association.

HISTORY OF THE SECTION.

During the first four years of this period the Section met under the combined designation of Zoology and Botany, Physiology and Anatomy-words sufficiently clearly indicating the scope of its subjects of investigation. In the next ten years a connection with Medicine was recognised by the establishment of a subsection or department of Medical Science, in which, however, scientific anatomy and physiology formed the most prominent topics, though not to the exclusion of more strictly medical and surgical or professional subjects. During the next decade, or from the year 1845, we find along with Zoology and Botany a sub-section of physiology, and in several years of the same time along with the latter a separate department of Ethnology. But in the eleven years which extended from 1855 to 1865, the branch of Ethnology was associated with Geography in Section F. And more recently, or since the arrangement which was commenced in 1866, the section Biology has included, with some slight variation, the whole of its subjects in three departments. Under one of these are brought all investigations in Anatomy and Physiology of a general kind, thus embracing the whole range of these sciences when without special application. A second of these sub-sections has been occupied with the extensive subjects of Botany and Zoology; while the third has been devoted to the subject of Anthropology, in which all researches having a special reference.

to the structure and functions or life history of man have been received and discussed. Such I understand to be the arrangement under which we shall meet on this occasion. At the conclusion of my remarks, therefore, the sub-section for Anatomy and Physiology will remain with me in this room; while the sub-section of Zoology and Botany, on the one hand, and of Anthropology on the other, will adjourn to the apartments which have been provided for them respectively.

ANTHROPOLOGY.

With regard to the position of Anthropology. as including Ethnology, and comprehending the whole natural history of man, there may be still some differences of opinion, according to the point of view from which its phenomena are regarded as by some they may be viewed chiefly in relation to the bodily stucture and function of individuals or numbers of men; or as by others they may be considered more directly with reference to their national character and history, and the affinities of languages and customs; or by a third set of inquirers, who are inclined to devote their principal attention to the facts and views bearing upon the origin of man and his relation to animals. As the first and third of these sets of topics entirely belong to Biology, and as those parts of the second set which do not properly fall under that branch may with propriety find a place under Geography or Statistics, I feel inclined to adhere to the distinct recognition of a sub-section-Anthropology, in its present form; and I think that the suitableness of this arrangement is apparent, from the nature and number of the communications properly falling under such a sub-section which have been received under the last distribution of the subjects.

CONDITION OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH.

The beneficial influence of the British Association in promoting biological research is made apparent by the number and importance of the reports on various subjects, as well as of the communications to the sections. Of the latter, the number received annually has been nearly doubled in the course of the last twenty years. Nor can it be doubted that this influence has been materially assisted by the contributions in money made by the Association in aid of various biological investigations; for it appears that out of the whole sum of nearly £34,500 contributed by the Association to the promotion of scientific research, about