if you were, the misconceptions and
misunderstandings prevalent even among naturalists on these matters
would make it desirable that I should take the course I now propose to
take,--that I should start from the beginning,--that I should endeavour
to point out what is the existing state of the organic world,--that I
should point out its past condition,--that I should state what is the
precise nature of the undertaking which Mr. Darwin has taken in hand;
that I should endeavour to show you what are the only methods by which
that undertaking can be brought to an issue, and to point out to you how
far the author of the work in question has satisfied those conditions,
how far he has not satisfied them, how far they are satisfiable by man,
and how far they are not satisfiable by man.

To-night, in taking up the first part of this question, I shall
endeavour to put before you a sort of broad notion of our knowledge of
the condition of the living world. There are many ways of doing this. I
might deal with it pictorially and graphically. Following the example of
Humboldt in his "Aspects of Nature", I might endeavour to point out the
infinite variety of organic life in every mode of its existence, with
reference to the variations of climate and the like; and such an attempt
would be fraught with interest to us all; but considering the subject
before us, such a course would not be that best calculated to assist us.
In an argument of this kind we must go further and dig deeper into the
matter; we must endeavour to look into the foundations of living Nature,
if I may so say, and discover the principles involved in some of her
most secret operations. I propose, therefore, in the first place, to
take some ordinary animal with which you are all familiar, and, by
easily comprehensible and obvious examples drawn from it, to show what
are the kind of problems which living beings in general lay before us;
and I shall then show you that the same problems are laid open to us by
all kinds of living beings. But first, let me say in what sense I have
used the words "organic nature." In speaking of the causes which lead
to our present knowledge of organic nature, I have used it almost as an
equivalent of the word "living," and for this reason,--that in almost
all living beings you can distinguish several distinct portions set
apart to do particular things and work in a particular way. These are
termed "organs," and the whole together is called "o