The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1882-12-05 00:00:00

"DARWIN AND HIS WORK."

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LECTURN BY PROFESSOR RAY LANKESTER,
F.lt S.

Darwin's work, and his much maligned evolution
theory, which only • few years ago shocked and
horrified the people of the country, but which now
form one of the most important enquiries 01 modern
days, were most learnedly dealt with at the Town
Hall, on Monday evening by Professor Hay Lesekeetar,
PALS., is • lecture given under the ampler of the
Dorchester Lecture Society. Under favourable
dremostences such • lecture would undoubtedly _ have
filled the room, but owing to the miserably cold and
wet weather many dared not venture out even for
Darwin. Still there was • good attendance, compris-
isgrbar gentry of the town and neighbourhood.
dash wait occupied by the Rev. T. Ittomme-
Wanier, who in introducing the lecturer, said he
could have wished very much that someone mere con-
versant with scientific matters would have been
pressed to introduce the professor to the Dorchester
Society; and had they only been able to
'in • little lower notice, by a they
he had in his
band, he was able to esswe the society that Mr.
Mandl-Pleydell„ well-known as a gentleman versed
In geology, would have been in the chair to introduce
the leaned Professor to the meeting that evening.
Be believed it was some time sines they had had
before the society any scientific subject, and the com-
mas. thought they should endeavour to secure •
redly good lecturer, and that the subject should be
one M' general Interest, and they trusted that the
subject which had been @eland for that
night's lecture, "Darwin and His Work," would
be iaWeeding to the audience collected to bear
Professor Lank/der. It was not long ago that the
wow of Darwin was upon the tongue, one might
almost sey, of millions of people in various parts of
the world, though • good satiny very likely were not
very well acquainted with either what he had done
precisely or what his particular theory was. A good
many silly notions had been abroad with regard to the
theory, and only quite recently he had heard • vay
curious little Illustration of it. Two people were
on the subject, and the one said "Darwin I
ratint, seen to know the Darwinian theory—that man
I. descended from the monks" and the perion to
whom this observation was addressed at once said
" Well, and I don't think he is very far wrong so far
as some people are concerned,"—(leughter)—and on
looking at the first speaker one could re how the
observation was drawn op to the second, for there was
• very strong likeness. (Laughter.) That was the
eon of silly notion that had gone abroad with regard
to Darwinism. Without detaining the audience he
would like to say there was one of a rather serious
kind that was abroad, and that was with regard to the
fact that Darwin was opposed to whet was celled
revelation, and that his theory was in direct
antagonism to what they learnt in revelation. But
Darwin most distinctly says he never considered it to
been, and we knew very well that after his death s very
eminent bishop, and one who had never been suspected
of being the least unsound, bore his testimony to the
value of the work he had done, and did not for one
moment consider that any of us should be otherwise
than proud that in England we gave Darwin • resting.
caws, and honoured him as we did, by laying his
remains in Westminster Abbby. (Applause.)
Professor Lsgestrimt, in c tmmencing his lecture,
remarked on the uncommon difficulty of bringing for-
ward this subject. It was difficult to those who bad
studied Darwin's writings to make known his theory,
the real nature of his life's work, and the result to
which it led; at the same time the brief space of at
hoar, or as hour and a hdf, was utterly Inadequate to
place belong those who had not studied natural history.
ath.orydestlnedtocommandlfl future ages the attention
of mankind, and guide their thoughts in every branch
of philosophy. Darwin's name would remain for ever
In the history of knowledge beside that of Newton.
and it was one of the chief glories of Englishmen that
their race should have produced these two great
thinkers and reformers of science. Hs bore personal
testimony to his worth, as a man who in his old age,
full of honours and glory, and recognized throughout
the civilized world as the greatest thinker of his cen-
tury, yet retained the simple-minded manners of the
child and the fresh keen enthusiasm of youth. He
could speak, am one who had known him Ire to face
and seen him at work, of his tender-heartedness, and
• kindliness which led him to abstain from all con-
troversy, when oftentimes unfairly attacked. The
writings which Charles Darwin had given to the world
and his especial theory were remarkable, and, he might
eer,more Immadlately important than that of Newton,
because it gave them a new view of themselves am liv-
ing beings, and drew out the history and origin of men
es well as of all other living things. The Professor
shly recommended his hearers at once to read
Darwin's chief books—" The Origin of Species" and the
"Descent of Man." lie then gave • brief sketch of
Darwin's life. He was the son of a successful medical
tioner, horn at Shrewsbury, his grandfather
Wiiam
a naturalist of no small merit. life studied at
Bdial h, Isri, and at Cambridge from lffirf to 1831,
and here he was much thrown with Professor T.
B. Henslowe. the professor of botany at the Univer-
sity. and from him he obtained much t f the ground.
work of his knowledge. In 1531, immediately
due he obtained his degree„ he started on
his voyage in the Beagle, lie went at his
own expense, for neither thee nor at any future time
did be receive any aid or encoursgement from the en-
lightened British government. It was to this voyage
many of Darwin's fertile ideas were to be traced. He
was away five years and had written • delightful
account of the wonderful scenes he visited. Six years
after he reamed home, when he married, and being
pageami of ample fortune he settled on an estate
at Down, in Kent, where he lived for 40 years, and
where he wrote those books which had been immortal-
bed. In 1869 be published the "Origin of Specie.,"
the result of unremitting _ labour. Darwin was
especially happy and chafed under all circumstances,
though he was a constant sufferer from a very severe
form of dyspepsia. He devoted himself almost con.
Usually to reading and writing. and lived to see two
of his five sons take an active part In carrying on
scientific investigations with him, awl recognized as
contributors to sakeitifio knowledge. One striking
feature In Darwin's writings wax, they were written for
and read by the p.n.& public. His mind was sl clear,
his style so unaffected, his enthusiasm so fascinating
that he never seemed to be • profoundly learned
eareant. In cadet to appreciate the theory they mud
finit of all know what there was in its place before be
wrote. Many men and women who were now growls'
zaghwould not be able to understand what people
t of the origin of living beings, before Darwin.
But the work Darwin set himself to achieve
wee to show the world that the various kinds
of living things had been gradually produced
by natural causer The new which he (the
professor) first remembered on this subject was
that every kind of living thing had been m.o.:stay
rads out of nothing, and placed on the world by the
Creator, end left to multiply after its kind. It was
to be essentially a pert of true religious
=6sd;accordingly no one ventured to look closely into
the facts. But now they knew it was not so. They
were no longer forbidden by religion to look into these
matters (at any rate in England), for at the present
time they had eminent disciples of Darwin who were
of the English Church. The professor then
clergymen •
touched on the doctrines of Kant, Laplace, and
Lyell, in relation to the earth's crust, remarking that
50 years ago Lyell removed all necessity for the suppo-
sition of miraculous or sudden acts of creation in regard
to the history of the earth's crust. These eminent men
endeavoured to show that the crust of the earth was
developed by the continuous action of natural causes,
and Darwin, thinking over these matters, was strongly
led to believe that living things, like everything else,
had come into existence by the long-continued action
of natural causes. Before Darwin and Lyell, at the
end of the last century, the French naturalist
Lamarck had started the theory of descent by trans-
mutation, but this doctrine of progressive development
was, so far, Wended with Darwin, but it failed to
obtain many believers, because Lamarck and other
greet writers could not suggest a satisfactory explan-
air@ of the way in which the progress from the
simpler forms of existence to the later forme was
brought about. For their theory it was necessary to
ammo that some mysterious agency, some guiding
power, was always at work; in fact that each change
was no less than • minutia, and something apart from
ateral causes; yet there were strong prohabilitles in
favour of the doctrine of descent. The doctrine of
descent by transmutation WM probable became by it
the nada, of extinct animals were explained. The
Professor passed on to speak of the gradual develop-
ment of some of the animal., from their earliest
stages—the rabbit, frog, the lancelet, all formed from
• conned, of microscopic character, and he showed
how the same changes took place in regard to man.
The doctrine of develqintent by gradual change warn
sew dessonetratecl,for Darwin had misdeed probability
a ratter of conviction in his book, " Odell of
BreiliZ; is which he showed that this change we/
not brought about, but wee emstinually being
brought about, by natural caner. Iffie argued thus—
Natural onuses have produced geological chaense In the
P. lad still are 'and if natural mums have preload
new species and kinds of animals and plants in the
pad, Wes IS it to be expected they ars doing so at
Bet gligliNni time. An example was to be found in the
adds of plants and aniewle IA the present time. Mr.
Derwin found this to be specially so is the operation')
of breeders, who made it their
daihusinesstioist: or
porpstado new kinds of re which
mew build for thole our dam Qs a

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