OCR Text |
Show LECTURE I. THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE. WHEN it was my duty to consider what subject I ·would select for the six lectures which I shall now have the pleasure of delivering to you, it occurred to me that I could not ~o better than endeavour to put before you in a true light, or in what I 1night perhaps with more n1odesty call, that which I conceive myself to be the true light, the position of a book which has been more praised and more abused, perhaps, than any book which has appeared for some years ;-I mean Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species." That work, I doubt not, many of you have read; for I know the inquiring spirit which is rife among you. At any rate, all of you will have heard of it,-some by one kin cl of report and some by another kind of report; the . attention of all and the curiosity of all have been probably more or less excited on the subject of that work. All I can do, and all I shall attempt to do, is to put before you that kind of judgment which has been formed by a man, who, of course, is liable to judge erroneously; but at any rate, of one whose business and profession it is to form judgments upon questions of this nature . . ' |