preachers of the day testified to the pure and earnest love of truth which characterized the life and labours of Mr. Darwin. Canon Prothero described him as "the greatest man of science of his day, but so entirely a stranger to intellectual pride and arrogance that he stated with the utmost modesty opinions of the truth of which he was himself convinced, but which he was aware could not be universally agreeable or acceptable." Canon Barry referred to Mr. Darwin as a leader of scientific thought, showing that the fruitful doctrine of evolution, with which his name would always be associated, lent itself as readily to the old promise of God as to more modern but less complete explanations of the universe. Canon Liddon observed that, when Darwin's books on the " Origin of Species" and on the "Descent of Man" first appeared, they were largely regarded by religious men as containing a theory necessarily hostile to religion, but a closer study had greatly modified any such impression. "It is seen," he said, "that whether the creative activity of God is manifested through catastrophes-as the phrase goes-or in progressive evolution, it is still his creative activity, and the really great questions beyond remain untouched.”

During forty years past, living in comparative retirement at his country residence in Kent, Mr. Darwin steadfastly pursued his experimental researches, and from time to time published their results, with those of his profound and comprehensive speculations, till he has gradually won the assent of all well-informed persons to a few grand principles concerning the development of specific forms of organic life. His theory of the origin of species, vegetable and animal, referred them to the operation of a general law of nature in the universal struggle of living organisms for subsistence, and in the competition for opportunities of reproducing their kind tending to the survival of the fittest types, and to the modification of their progeny in the course of successive generations by more and more distinctive peculiarities growing up in those organs or features which aided most effectually in the preservation of the race. Individual types of exceptional vigour, and with particular adaptation to surrounding circumstances, would thus become the progenitors of distinct species.

In his famous book, which appeared in 1859, Mr. Darwin formally announced his view of natural history. He says: “I cannot doubt that the theory of descent, with modification, embraces all the members of the same class. I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number." He seems to have looked forward even to a higher generalization, for he goes on to say that "analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype; but this inference is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether or not it be accepted. The case is different with the members of each great class, as the Vertebrata, the Articulata, &c., for here we have distinct evidence that all have descended from a single parent." Darwin concludes his treatise in these impressive words :-" From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving-namely, the production of the higher animals,—directly follows. 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."

In his treatise on the "Origin of Species," from which the foregoing quotations are copied, Darwin had not actually expressed his views as to the ancestry of man, though he had left them to be very clearly inferred. He says: "It seemed to me sufficient to indicate that, by this work, light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history," for this implied that man must be included with other organic beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearance on this earth. But in his work on the "Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex," which was published in 1871, Darwin expressly dealt with this most interesting question. He presented man as co-descendant with the catarrhine or" down-nostrilled" monkeys from a hairy quadruped furnished

with a tail and pointed ears, and probably a climber of trees. Nay, he traced back the chain of descent until he found, as the progenitor of all the vertebrate animals, some aquatic creature, hermaphrodite, provided with gills, and with brain, heart, and other organs imperfectly developed. The treatise concludes by remarking what are the hopes which the advance of the human race in past ages seems fairly to justify. He says: "We are not, however, concerned with hopes or fears, but only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it." "I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man, with all his noble qualities—with sympathy, which feels for the most debased-with benevolence, which extends not only to other men, but to the humblest living creature with his god-like intellect, which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system-with all those exalted powers, man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."

After the publication of his first great work, Darwin continued to gather evidence tending to strengthen his theory. In 1862 he published his remarkable work on "Fertilization of Orchids," and in 1867 his "Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants." In 1872 Mr. Darwin published "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals"; in 1875, "Insectivorous Plants"; in 1876, "Cross and Self-fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom"; and in 1877, "Different forms of Flowers in Plants of the same Species." Only last year appeared his work upon Earthworms, in which he traced the operations of worms in gradually covering the surface of the globe with a layer of mould, and showed the wonders produced by the operations of these insignificant creatures.

Mr. Darwin, having inherited a good private fortune, engaged in no business or profession, but devoted his whole life to natural science. And here I may mention how it came about that he visited Australia When a naturalist was to be chosen to accompany the surveying expedition of her Majesty's ship "Beagle" in 1831, Darwin was recommended to Captain Fitzroy and the

Lords of the Admiralty by the then Professor of Botany at Cambridge. He sailed with that expedition on the 27th of December, 1831, and returned to England in October, 1836, having made a scientific circumnavigation of the globe. On returning to England Darwin published a "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History" of the various countries he had visited, in addition to numerous papers on various scientific subjects.

Mr. Darwin's conclusions as to the future of New South Wales, after crossing the Blue Mountains and going as far as Bathurst, are worth recording, as those of a keen observer who visited the Colony nearly half a century ago. He says: "The rapid prosperity and future prospects of this Colony are to me, not understanding these subjects, very puzzling. The two main exports are wool and whale oil, and to both of these productions there is a limit. The country is totally unfit for canals, therefore there is not a very distant point beyond which the land carriage of wool will not repay the expense of shearing and tending sheep. Pasture everywhere is so thin that settlers have already pushed far into the interior. Moreover, the country further inland becomes extremely poor; agriculture, on account of the droughts, can never succeed on an extended scale; therefore, so far as I can see, Australia must ultimately depend upon being the centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere, and perhaps on her future manufactories. Possessing coal, she always has the moving power at hand. From the habitable country extending along the coast, and from her English extraction, she is sure to be a maritime nation. I formerly imagined that Australia would rise to be as grand and powerful a country as North America, but now it appears to me that such future grandeur is rather problematical.” Before his lamented death, no doubt, Darwin had seen cause to modify his early impressions, and to recognize the gigantic strides made by Australia towards the achievement of a national greatness second only to the North American Republic to which he referred.

As bearing on the interesting theory propounded by the Rev. J. Tenison-Woods, in his paper on the Geology of the Hawkesbury Sandstone, to which I have alluded, I should like to quote Mr. Darwin's impressions on visiting the remarkable scenes presented to his observation in crossing the Blue Mountains. He says: "The first impression, on seeing the correspondence of the horizontal strata on each side of these valleys and great amphitheatrical depressions, is that they have been hollowed out, like other valleys, by the action of water; but when one reflects on the enormous amount of stone which on this view must have been removed through mere gorges or chasms, one is led to ask whether these spaces may not have subsided. But considering the form of the irregularly branching valleys, and of the narrow promontories projecting into them from the platforms, we are compelled to abandon this notion. To attribute these hollows to the present alluvial action would be preposterous, nor does the drainage from the summit-level always fall, as is remarked, near the Weatherboard into the head of these valleys, but into one side of their bay-like recesses. Some of the inhabitants remarked to me that they never viewed one of these bay-like recesses, with the headlands receding on both hands, without being struck with their resemblance to a bold sea-coast. This is certainly the case. Moreover, on the present coast of New South Wales, the numerous fine widely-branching harbours, which are generally connected with the sea by a narrow mouth worn through the sandstone coast cliffs, varying from one mile in width to a quarter of a mile, present a likeness, though on a miniature scale, to the great valleys of the interior. But then immediately occurs the startling difficulty, why has the sea worn out these great though circumscribed depressions on a wide platform, and left mere gorges at the openings, through which the whole vast amount of triturated matter must have been carried away? The only light I can throw upon this enigma is by remarking that banks of the most irregular forms appear to be now forming in some seas, as in parts of the West Indies and in the Red Sea, and that their sides are exceedingly steep. Such banks, I have been led to suppose, have been