of Man, which fully treats of selection in relation to sex. The scientist who saw all nature at strife, saw her also in moods of love. The nightingale sings, the turtle-dove coos, the katydid babbles, the pigeon nestles close, the cricket chirps in the amorous dusk, the widow-bird spreads its caudal plumes, the butterfly shakes its brilliant wings, the sea-scorpion swims to the spawning-bed, the crocodile splashes in the little lagoon, the black-cock dances in eager passion, the starling flies to its waiting mate, the turkey struts with distended wattles, the night-jar makes a booming noise, the wood-pecker strikes a sonorous branch, the bustard rises with hurried flapping, the bower-bird builds its courting-home, the peacock extends its gorgeous train, the pheasant displays its splendid frills, the eared-seal carries its willing bride, the musk-deer emits a pleasant odor, the lion tosses its jubate mane, the linnet distends its rosy breast, the draco glides thru the sweetened air,— all in spring-time, all for love. Look at this; here is the Origin of Species, the book that changed the world, by causing its intellectual channels to flow in different courses than it had hitherto followed. The works of Darwin! You stand before the accumulated knowledge of all the ages. A thousand discoveries are within these covers. Think how deep and often that noble brow has been contracted with thought. Is the topic too vast? Does its immensity balk the mind? Then think of this one theme: From a chattering ape of the forest, swinging from branch to branch by its prehensile tail, to the scientific Darwin in his studio, writing on the Geological Succession of Organic Beings!

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Father of Paleontology showed - by fossil remains that a series of different animal species had succeeded each other in the various stages of the earth's existence. Naturally, the question arose: What caused the extinction of the older species, and what gave rise to the later ones? Linné and Cuvier and nearly all others solved this problem by the catastrophic theory.

They claimed that overwhelming periodic cataclysms swept over the globe, wiped out every living creature, and then entirely new beings were specially created. It was a series of wholesale destructions and wholesale re-buildings. The Architect of the Universe grew dissatisfied with his work, and, therefore, threw away his old blocks and commenced to build anew.

A few intellects were too clear to be entangled in these mythological meshes. Some were keen enough to see that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are descended from pre-existing ones.

To Buffon belongs the high honor of first scientifically discussing the origin of species by development. But Buffon lived in the priest-pested age of Louis XV, when the Bastille cast its shadow on the brain of every thinker. And Buffon often thought of the chains that eat out the flesh, and the dungeons which the sun cannot find, and then he ended his arguments thus: 'But no; it is certain from revelation that every species was directly created by a separate fiat.' (Yet Galileo-like, he must have murmured, Eppur Si Muove!)

In the same land was born Lamarck, a genius cast in more daring mold, who openly proclaimed his conviction that all species, including man, were descended by modification from primordial forms.

Men began to recall that Kant, in his cosmical conception, had said something of development.

Then three stars brightened the scientific sky,— Goethe, Erasmus Darwin and Geoffroy St Hilaire.

Next came the American Dr Wells, who recognized the operation of the principle in the distribution of the human

race.

Dean Herbert and Professor Graut saw a twinkle of the coming dawn.

A little later, Patrick Matthew, building far better than he knew, wrote a book on Naval Timber, the appendix of which contained a brief but complete account of the doctrine of natural selection!

Von Buch in the Canaries, and Wollaston in Madeira were coming to the conclusion that varieties may be gradually changed into species.

Every Sunday afternoon, in the spacious halls of his great museum, a German professor walked to and fro, his hands behind his back, buried in thought. A favorite pupil sat in the angle of the window, skilfully drawing the skulls of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fishes. Master,' asked the boy, 'must not all these vertebrates, with their identity in internal skeleton, in spite of all their external differences, have come originally from a common form?' 'Ah,' answered Johannes Müller, as he looked at young Ernst Haeckel, if we only knew that! If ever you solve that riddle, you will have accomplished a supreme work.'

Lyell caught a glimpse of the truth. Oaken was re-studying Lamarck. Bates wandered thru the Brazilian forests, and on the gossamer wings of the tropical butterflies read the tale of evolution.

To Treviranus, Haldeman, Horner, d'Halloy, Owen, Freke, Naudin, Keyserling, Schaaffhausen, Baden-Powell, Isidore St Hilaire, to these, nature whispered the same secret.

Lecoq the botanist, and Von Baer the zoologist, heard it. Wallace sat under the Malayan palm-trees, and the lazy breezes bore him a similar story. Spencer wrote on the theme and Huxley lectured.

The scientific atmosphere grew tense. Much thinking was done, but the theory of evolution remained in an unsatisfactory state. There were many scattered bricks, but no stately temple. The thoughtful ones worked by day and prayed by night, O curtain, that hidest the unknown, when wilt thou be drawn aside?

On November 24th, 1859, as if in answer to this cry, a light pierced the gloom, and the world has been illumined since. That light was Darwin's Origin of Species.

A score and seven years ago, the body of Darwin,- borne by two dukes, two sirs and a belted earl-was laid at rest

in Westminster Abbey, next the ashes of the mighty Newton. A fitting honor, and yet a vain one, for when the altars and architraves of the great Abbey rock and reel, when its lighted and vaulted ambulatory becomes the abode of the bats, when its murals and mosaics are destroyed, when its twisted columns and its spiral bands totter in despair, when its effigies of angels and its monuments of royalties are obliterated, when the cloisters and the chapter-houses tumble in a heap, when its pointed towers and projecting transepts embrace the lowly dust, the illustrious and immortal name of Charles Darwin will still be a living force. Only when the race of man ceases to search for truth, can the lustre of that name grow dim.

One hundred years ago, Darwin was born. To-day the entire intellectual world salutes him with homage. Not with the roaring of guns, but with the throbbing of brains and beating of hearts. Of all the men who ever lived it is perhaps impossible to find another who was so world-famous and so modest. An Alexander conquers a few kingdoms from barbarian subjects, and henceforth considers himself a god. A Horace writes verses which gain admiration, and he follows this by another poem boasting that he has reared unto himself a monument more enduring than brass. But a Darwin wrests secret after secret from the breast of nature, he explains what was never explained before, and at the last he simply says: Ignoramus, In Hoc Signo Laboremus.

But in spite of his excessive gentleness he was absolutely independent, and when the cause of his beloved science was at stake, he could easily stand against all without flinching. His work was great, and so is his reward. Let anyone now think in a pre-Darwinian manner, and he becomes as much an anomaly as one who should seek for the magic stone that transmutes baser metals into gold. Within his own lifetime his name was turned into an adjective, and a thousand Darwinian writers were filling libraries with books on Darwinism. Succeeding generations have continued the worthy and wel

come task, and to-day on his centenary, his grave is the greenest in all the world. Tall men from the ends of the earth have garlanded him with wreaths that do not fade, and laurels that never die.

Among these glorious bay-trees I cast this little chaplet. It is small, and its merit scant, but every leaf of it was interwoven with veneration. It will not bloom like other coronals, tho it was love that brought it forth. Accept, accept it, O Saint of Science, for I too know thee as the wonder and the glory of the universe!