It is the misfortune of those who study that branch of science which our President has done so much to advance—I mean the science of living things—that they are not able, in the midst of a vast assembly, [1] to render visible to all eyes the actual phenomena to which their inquiries are directed. Whilst the physicist and the chemist are able to make evident to the senses of a great meeting the very things of which they have to tell, the zoologist cannot hope ever to share with those who form his

“ Die Phantasie ist ein unentbehrliches Gut; denn sie ist es, durch welche neue Combinationen zur Veranlassung wichtiger Entdeckungen gemacht werden. Die Kraft der Unterscheidung des isolirenden Verstandes sowohl, als der erweiternden und zum allgemeinen strebenden Phantasie sind dem Naturforscher in einem harmonischen Wechselwirken nothwendig. Durch Störung dieses Gleichgewichts wird der Naturforscher von der Phantasie zu Träumereien hingerissen, während diese Gabe den talentvollen Naturforsche

To many persons the conclusion that man is the naturally modified descendant of ape-like ancestors appears to be destructive of the belief in an immortal soul, and in the teachings of Christianity; and accordingly they either reject Darwinism altogether, or claim for man a special exemption from the mode of origin admitted for other animals. It seems worth while, in order to secure a calm and unprejudiced consideration for the teachings of Darwinism, to point out to such persons that, as a matte

A very important form of degeneration, not touched on in the text, is that exhibited in the Mexican axolotl, where the larval form of a Salamander develops generative organs, and is arrested in its further progress to the adult parental form. It is not possible to class this with the other phenomena which I have enumerated as Degeneration, since there is no modification of an adult structure, but simple arrest, and retention of the larval structure in all its completeness. I should call the phen

The term (degeneration of language) includes two very distinct things; the one is degeneration of grammatical form, the other degeneration of the language as an instrument of thought. The former is a far commoner phenomenon than the latter, and, in fact, whilst actually degenerating so far as grammatical complexity is concerned, a language may be at the same time becoming more and more serviceable, or more and more perfect as an organ having a particular function. The decay of useless inflexions