to be the model of the primitive Apostolic church; and there, I am told, he would open the Bible and expound the Scriptures with a benign tenderness, and childlike simplicity, and depth of personal experience, which would have astonished, had it not so gravely impressed, his hearers. Strange to say, some of the last of these loving expositions of God's Holy Word were ministered in this very town less than four years ago.

For MICHAEL FARADAY it were incongruous to erect a statue of marble, or of bronze. His name is inscribed upon the imperishable truths which his genius brought to light. Do you, who listen, thank God who giveth such grace to man. Let us, who survive him, and who knew him—and all who knew him, knew him as a friend-let us, by imitating his gentle bearing, his truthful speech, his noiseless perseverance, his peaceful simplicity of life, endeavour to hand down the image of his character to the generation that succeeds us. In him was exhibited the truth of that Divine Philosophy of the Gospel of Christ, in which it is written:

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK: FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH.

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART: FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY NATURAL SELECTION.

I HAVE taken the liberty of expressing my admiration of Mr Grove's philosophical acumen in grouping together the plan and operations of nature under one felicitous term. He is, I am sure, far too candid-in his address to the British Association; he has travelled over far too wide a field, and he is too conscious of the difficulties attending physical researches, not to be prepared for objections to at least some of his remarks.

He appears to have accepted the Darwinian Hypothesis as explaining the origin of that Continuity which undoubtedly exists in the natural world. I, for one, am unable to accept that Hypothesis in its length and breadth without great reserve. As an illustration of the general nature of the objections which I entertain, I will take an instance from that branch of physics with which it is my lot to be most familiar-the Optical Structure of the Human Eye. From the cornea to the retina the eye is an Optical Instrument. But what an Instrument! The computation of the curves and distances of the refracting surfaces in this instrument, and the assigning of the proper law of density for the several layers in its principal lens, would require the application of a mathematical analysis, such as I hesitate not to say was never yet possessed by a human geometer. The mechanism required for instantaneously changing the forms

and distances, and in one instance the magnitude, of its component parts, would require a handicraft such as never yet was possessed by a human mechanic. I say nothing of the chemistry required for the composition of the several constituent media. I presume Mr Darwin would admit that this description is not exaggerated. Now let us attend to the process of "natural selection," by which this marvellous organ is said to have come into being. "I can see,” says Mr Darwin*, “no very great difficulty (not more than in the case of many other structures) in believing that natural selection has converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, merely coated with pigment and invested by transparent membranes, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the great Articulate Class."

But the true question is not merely' how came this apparatus to be coated with a non-reflecting pigment, simultaneously invested with a transparent membrane, though the chances are enormously against any such accidental (?) concurrence of the two conditions; but there is another question behind all this, viz. how came it that the nerve with its non-reflecting pigment was so constructed as to be exactly fitted to convey the vibrations of the strange elastic luminiferous ether which happened to surround it? Here are four conditions of things each utterly independent of the others, viz. the nerve, then its non-reflecting coating, then a transparent medium investing it, then a most remarkable ether surrounding the whole, the concurrence of all four being essential to the production of vision, nevertheless we are to believe that all these adjustments and adaptations are accidentally made, retained and handed down by inheritance. If there be not evidence here of the selecting, arranging, controlling power of mind, will, forethought, contrivance, then I feel that I have no evidence for the existence of the individuality of my own being.

And next comes the mode after which this simple apparatus of the coated nerve, by insensible additions Origin of Species, edit. 1, pp. 188, 189.

*

gradually but accidentally made, is said to be converted "We ought in imaginatransparent tissue with a

at length into the eye of man. tion to take a thick layer of nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. Further, we must suppose that there is a power always intently watching each slightly accidental alteration in the transparent layers, and carefully selecting each alteration which, under varied circumstances, may, in any way, or in any degree, tend to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; and each to be preserved till a better be produced, and then the old ones to be destroyed. Let this process go on for millions on millions of years. Now we must here ask, What is this "power always intently watching each slightly accidental alteration"? A few lines further down in Mr Darwin's page we read: "NATURAL SELECTION will pick out with unerring skill each improvement." But what is this "Natural Selection"? We must here take Mr Darwin's own definition: "This preservation of favourable variations, and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection*."

Now to me there appear three objections, which indispose me to accept the above description of the processes by which the human eye could have been formed, and I will state them as succinctly as I can. First, consistently with such knowledge of optical combinations as I happen to possess, I cannot understand how, by any series of accidental variations, so complicated a structure as an eye could possibly have been successively improved. The chances of any accidental variation in such an instrument being an improvement are small indeed. Suppose, for instance, one of the surfaces of the crystalline lens of the eye of a creature, possessing Origin of Species, p. 81.

a crystalline and cornea, to be accidentally altered, then I say, that unless the form of the other surface is simultaneously altered, in one only way out of millions of possible ways, the eye would not be optically improved. An alteration also in the two surfaces of the crystalline lens, whether accidental or otherwise, would involve a definite alteration in the form of the cornea, or in the distance of its surface from the centre of the crystalline lens, in order that the eye may be optically better. All these alterations must be simultaneous and definite in amount, and these definite amounts must coexist in obedience to an extremely complicated law. To my apprehension then, that so complex an instrument as an eye should undergo a succession of millions of improvements, by means of a succession of millions of accidental alterations, is not less improbable, than if all the letters in the "Origin of Species were placed in a box, and on being shaken and poured out millions on millions of times, they should at last come out together in the order in which they occur in that fascinating and, in general, highly philosophical work.

But my objections do not stop here. The improvement of an organ must be an improvement relative to the new circumstances by which the organ is surrounded. Suppose, then, that an eye is altered for the better in relation to one set of circumstances under which it is placed. By-and-bye there arise a second set of circumstances, and the eye is again, by Natural Selection, altered and improved relatively to the second set of circumstances. What is there to make the second set of circumstances such that the second improvement (relative to them) shall be an improvement or progress in the direction of the ultimate goal of the human eye? Why should not the second improvement be a retrogression away from the ultimate organ now possessed by man, and necessary to his well-being? But all this suiting of the succession of circumstances is to go on, not once or twice, but millions on millions of times. If this be so, then not only must there be a BIAS in the order of the