THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA. ARTICLE I. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM NORTH RICE, MIDDLETOWN, CONN. I PROPOSE to call your attention to a hasty review of some phases of the progress made in Science, and particularly in the sciences of Biology and Geology, in the last quarter-century. If I seem unduly egotistical in taking for my theme exactly the period covered by my own professional career, and in beginning my remarks by an autobiographic reference, you must pardon the offence as being due to the elation experienced by reason of the honor, alike unexpected and undeserved, which you have conferred upon me in calling me to the presidential chair. When the next season of College Commencements comes around, it will be exactly a quarter of a century since a little group of students, most of whom are now members of this Society, were assembled in the Biological Laboratory of the Sheffield Scientific School. They had just been reading their graduating theses. The subjects of one of those theses was the "Darwinian Theory of the Origin of Species;" and the writer thereof had, to his own satisfaction 1891. 1 Address of the President, American Society of Naturalists, December, at least, refuted that famous theory. A recent graduate of the school who chanced to be present, showed the young men a photograph of Darwin. It was the first time any of them had seen Darwin's portrait; and, as they looked upon that countenance, in which no admiration for the man's genius and character can prevent the impartial observer from recognizing a certain likeness to a gorilla, and contrasted it with the refined and spirituelle face of their great master, whom they regarded with a reverence almost approaching adoration, one of the young men remarked, "You need only compare the faces of Darwin and Dana to know why one of them is an evolutionist and the other is not." Little did those young men know that, in a few years, not only they themselves, but their great master, would join the ranks of the evolutionists. But those young men were not so stupid nor so ultraconservative as you might suppose. In 1867 Darwin was in the minority. It was then only nine years since the twin papers of Darwin and Wallace had been read before the Linnæan Society; and the epoch-making book, "The Origin of Species," was then only eight years old. The inertia of mind is as significant a force as the inertia of matter; and in those early years the doctrine of Evolution made converts but slowly. In England, Hooker, Huxley, Lubbock, and (with some hesitation) Lyell had already placed themselves on the side of Evolution. Owen occupied a somewhat anomalous position, believing in Evolution, but not believing in any particular theory of Evolution. Natural Selection he claimed to be no discovery; but he claimed that if it was any discovery, he made it himself. Even in England the mass of intelligent public opinion, and probably even of scientific opinion, was adverse to Evolution. In Germany, Hæckel was already leading the mighty host marching with almost fanatical zeal to the war-cry, "Great is Evolution, and Darwin is its prophet;" finding in Darwinism not only their science, but their philosophy, their politics, and their religion. In this country, Evolution found one mighty supporter in Asa Gray, whom, at least now that he has finished his earthly labors, it is no disparagement to others to call the most profoundly philosophic mind among American naturalists. But Gray stood well-nigh alone. The two other great philosophical naturalists who then adorned this country, and one of whom is still spared to us, Agassiz and Dana, were both anti-evolutionists. It was five years later than the date of which we are speaking, that Darwin was rejected as a candidate for membership in the French Academy, by a vote of more than two-thirds; and a distinguished Academician, in giving the reasons for Darwin's rejection, pronounced the "Origin of Species" "a mass of assertions and absolutely gratuitous hypotheses, often evidently fallacious." Elie de Beaumont's oft-quoted phrase, "science mousseuse," is fitly expressive of the contempt with which Darwin's views. were regarded even by many scientific men. Nemesis has dealt rather sternly with the author of that phrase; for it has come to pass that he is chiefly remembered for two thingshis blasphemy against the name of Darwin, and his origination of a theory in regard to mountain elevation which is as cumbersome, false, and sterile, as the theory which he held up to ridicule is simple, true, and fruitful. The revolution of opinion upon the subject of Evolution is certainly the great feature of the history of the last quarter-century. The fingers of one hand will now more than suffice to count all anti-evolutionists who are competent to have an opinion on the subject. The principle of Natural Selection is universally acknowledged to be a most important discovery; though naturalists of the neo-Lamarckian school think its importance has been somewhat overrated, while the ultra-Darwinian school claim more for Natural Selection than Darwin claimed himself. Not a few of us, indeed, believe that the departures in both directions from Darwin's positions have been for the worse;-that, in maintaining the adequacy of Natural Selection to evolve new species by means of fortuitous variation, while conceding nevertheless the possibility of a more direct influence of environment through inheritance of the effects of use and disuse and of other acquired variations, the views of Darwin himself still remain the most accordant with all known facts. But, whatever differences of opinion there may be in regard to the relative efficiency of Natural Selection and other evolutionary forces, all naturalists of the present day would unite in recognizing Darwin as the one great epoch-making name in the history of science since that of Sir Isaac Newton. Together lie the mortal remains of these two great men in Westminster Abbey; and together their names will stand in the history of science-Newton, whose conception of Universal Gravitation gave unity to inorganic nature; Darwin, whose conception of Natural Selection gave unity to organic nature. It is no extravagant praise of Darwin's work to predict that future historians of the intellectual progress of our race will recognize the publication of the "Origin of Species" as the great event in the intellectual history of the nineteenth century. The importance of the intellectual movement which commenced with the publication of the "Origin of Species" depends not alone or chiefly upon the fact that a single great truth in biological science has been established, but upon the fact that the effect of that truth has been to revolutionize scientific thought in general. The whole character of biological science has been changed. From the condition of a merely classificatory science, it has passed into that of a dynamical science. In 1857, Darwin, writing to Wallace, lamented that "very few naturalists care for anything beyond the mere description of species." So completely has the spirit of biological investigation been changed, that at present, fascinated by the countless questions which the evolu tionary view of nature is presenting to our attention on every hand, naturalists are in danger even of despising and neglecting the humble but necessary labors of systematic Botany and Zoology. Nor is it alone in the realm of biological science that the influence of Darwin's great discovery has been felt. There is no department of thought, however remote from the technical study of Biology, which has not felt the profound influence of the new idea. The thought which inspires. and characterizes the whole intellectual life of the closing quarter of the nineteenth century, finds its expression in the word Evolution. Twenty-five years ago Spontaneous Generation was a burning question. The publication of Pasteur's series of papers on fermentation commenced in 1857, and his first paper on febrine was published in 1865. No one doubts to-day that Pasteur's views in regard to the origin of the lowest organisms were right; but then numerous skilful and conscientious observers were experimenting, under what seemed to be similar conditions, with conflicting results. At that time Pasteur's views were hotly contested in his own country by Pouchet. Child, in 1865, had announced the appearance of organisms, after what seemed to be sufficient precautions, for the destruction of germs in the material experimented upon, and the exclusion of atmospheric germs; and claimed that Pasteur's negative results were due to the fact that the latter had employed magnifying powers of no more than 350 diameters, while he himself had used powers of 1,500 diameters. In our own country, Wyman's two series of experiments were published respectively in 1862 and 1867. Amid the conflicting experiments, the general results appeared to be, that, the higher the temperature to which the fluids were subjected, the longer the time in which they were exposed to that high temperature, and the less the quantity of free oxygen present, the less was the likeli |