more widely than is generally supposed. Observers belonging to a country or district where any particular hue is rare, will be found usually to exaggerate the prevalence of that hue among the people whom they observe. Thus Worsaae, coming from Denmark, where black hair is rare, talks of the dark hair of the southern English, while Frenchmen almost always think and speak of us as a blond-haired people. It will not do, therefore, to reason from a collation of the observations of several persons, as is often done in this matter of hair-colour, unless indeed some such plan as Broca's has been adopted, for reproducing accurate ideas as to the facts.

To resume. We have in the Wallons a population which may be roughly described as long-headed, long-faced, and darkhaired. To the east of them, in the Rhineland, are the Germans, broad-headed, and comparatively light-haired. To the north and north-east the Flemings, Hollanders, Frisians, and Westphalians, all light-haired, and tending on the whole to be broadheaded, such tendency, however, being less marked in the Frisians, and perhaps in the Flemings, than in the others. To the south-west, in the plain-country of northern France, is a people much like to the Wallons in colour and frame of body, and probably also in form of head. But as we proceed westward to the Seine and beyond it, the hair lightens while the Norman impress strengthens. I need not enter into the subject of the distribution of hair colour on this side of the channel.

I regard the Wallons, then, and their hilly, wooded, and difficult country, as a Kimric or Belgic cliff, against which the tide of advancing Germanism has beaten with small effect, while it has swept with comparatively little resistance over the lowlands of Flanders and Alsace, and penetrated into Normandy and Lorraine. I look upon the colour of the hair as a tolerably good index of the proportion of German or Scandinavian blood, inasmuch as it seems to lighten wherever that proportion increases, in France as well as in England or Ireland.

It would be uncandid, however, to omit mention of certain points which seem to favour the view of Professor Huxley, who thinks the Kelts, Belgæ or Kimri, were the first wave of this Germanic tide, and a fair-haired people. The late Prof. Spring of Liège, with whom I discussed the physical type of the Wallons, spoke of them, so far as I can recollect, as long-headed, with oblique eyebrows, high cheek-bones, prominent brows, and angular chins; but he did not recognise the long face and aquiline nose as a part of the true Wallon type, and when I drew his attention to some faces which displayed my Wallon type very strongly, he said they were doubtless common, but he thought they were due to a Germanic cross. This I could not agree with, as to my

eye they were utterly un-German. But I must confess that I have seen faces in Friesland and in West Flanders (though not in the Rhineland), which were, except in colour, something like those of my hatchet-faced Wallons, though not quite so strongly marked. The nearest approach, then, that I can make to Professor Huxley's theory is as follows:-I think it possible that the Wallons, together with the population of the greater part of France, may have been constituted as a race by the crossing of a dark, round-headed Ligurian breed with a fair long-headed one, nearly allied to the modern Frisians, of whom the Cimbri of Roman history may have been the rear-guard. Such a hypothesis as this would dovetail very fairly with some of Mr. Pike's notions about British ethnology. But as the settlement in Gaul of this hypothetical xanthous Keltic or Kimric people must have been very ancient, I do not think the solution of the muchvexed question of the complexion of the Gauls would be at all assisted by the adoption of this view. Either changes of climate and habits have altered the Wallons and other Belgic Gauls from fair to dark-haired, since the days of Strabo and Ammianus; or else they were then, as now, in the main a darkhaired people. I confess that I am still more inclined towards the latter opinion than the former.

The meeting then separated.

FEB. 19TH, 1872.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. THE Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed.

The following new members were announced: CHRISTOPHER BOWLEY, Esq., Cirencester; RICHARD JOSEPH NUNN, Esq., M.D., Savannah, Georgia, United States of America; EDWARD HARRIS, Esq., Rydal Villa, Longton Grove, Sydenham; JOHN EDWARD PRICE, Esq., F.S.A., 53, Beresford Road, Highbury, N.; and JAMES PEDDIE STEELE, Esq., M.D., B.A., 13, Charlotte Street, Buckingham Gate, S.W.

The following presents were announced, and the thanks of the meeting voted to the respective donors:

FOR THE LIBRARY.

From the ACADEMY.-Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der

Wissenschaften. Philos. -Histor. Classe, 66 Band, Heft 2 and 3; ditto, 67 Band, Heft 1, 2, and 3; ditto, 68 Band, Heft 1. Math.-Naturw., 1870, 1 Abth., Heft 8, 9, and 10; 2 Abth., Heft 9 and 10; 1871, 1 Abth., Heft 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; 2 Abth., Heft 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, Almanach 1871.

From the SOCIETY.-Proceedings of the Liverpool Architectural and Archæological Society, 1871.

From the ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF CHRISTIANIA.-Beretning om Sundhedstilstanden og Medicinalforholdene I Norge, 1867; Tabeller over de Spedalske I Norge, 1 Aaret, 1869; Bidrag til Lymphekjertlernes normale og pathologiske Anatomi, by G. Armauer Hansen; Generalberetning fra Gaustad Sindsspgeasyl for Aaret, 1869.

From the SOCIETY.—Bulletin de la Société Impériale des Naturalistes de Moscou, 1 and 2.

From the AUTHOR.-Man, contemplated Physically, Morally, Intellectually, and Spiritually. No. 1. By J. W. Jackson, Esq. From the Rev. W. W. NEWBOULD.-Bibliotheca Psychologica. By Dr. Gräke.

From the AUTHOR.-La Race Prussienne. By M. L. A. de Quatrefages.

The following paper was read:

STRICTURES on DARWINISM. By H. H. HOWORTH. PART I.— ON FERTILITY AND STERILITY.

AMONG those who have advanced the cause of science by hard and indefatigable work there are few that can compare with Mr. Darwin; whether we consider the number of new facts he has collected, the bold and ingenious theory he has developed, or the scrupulous candour, and fairness, and sobriety of his arguments, we are all, I hope, agreed in honouring his name as a Nestor among naturalists. We are all also agreed, I hope, in the opinion that the discussion raised in Mr. Darwin's works on the "Origin of Species" is a purely scientific question in which we have nothing to do with religion, which is not to be decided by prejudices, nor by fanaticism, but which must stand or fall by its inherent truthfulness or error.

With perfect consistency and fairness Mr. Darwin has not shrunk from applying his theory to man as well as to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. If it be true of the latter, as Mr. Wallace and others hold that it is, I can see nothing but prejudice which can exclude its operation from the former, and this being so it becomes a question of vital interest to the students of our science, and not only so, but our science probably furnishes more valuable material for the solution of the problem than all the rest put together.

As I have been taken to task elsewhere for not stating the

theory of Mr. Darwin correctly, I must begin with an exposition of the opinions I mean to controvert.

I take the general theory of Evolution to be based on these propositions. No two individual objects in creation are alike, they all vary more or less from one another. If we arrange the whole in a series according to their affinity to one another we shall have a graduated series in which the variation between individuals, and the variation between classes, is one of degree, and not of kind, and if we give time and a variety of surrounding circumstances, the same causes which are competent to produce the slightest variation, may gradually produce the greatest. This law, when applied to the varieties of life, offers us the simple conclusion that all may have been derived from a common ancestor, and if we extend the analogy of individuals of one family to families of one class, and classes of one kingdom, we shall be driven to the conclusion that they not only might have been so descended, but that they actually were so. I say this may or may not be true; it underlies the whole Darwinian position, and is tacitly allowed and taken for granted by Mr. Darwin's philosophy.

Mr. Darwin's is a more particular and more limited form of this general law. In order that I may be saved from all formal questions I will put the issue as it has been put by Darwin himself in the preface to the last edition of his great book. He says then (page 4): "In the next chapter the struggle for Existence among all organic beings throughout the world which inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of their increase, will be treated of. This is the doctrine of Malthus applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as consequently there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself under the complex, and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected."

In a few words, Mr. Darwin's theory is the old-fashioned theory of Malthus pressed to its utmost limits, and is shortly, that in the struggle for existence that is going on everywhere, the weak elements go to the wall, and are gradually eliminated while the strong prevail and survive. And the question of strength or weakness is not tested solely by physical vigour, but by all the circumstances which give any type a better or a worse chance of contending with the difficulties of the struggle for life.

If Mr. Darwin had been content with this general assertion his theory would have been well described by the phrase "Sur

vival of the Fittest" to which some Darwinians are partial, which may mean much or little. As it stands it is simply an identical expression. That those forms of life survive which are best fitted to survive is a truism which the philosophy of the most opposite schools would willingly adopt, for it is equivalent to saying that white is white and grey is grey.

But Mr. Darwin deals with more than this mystical phraseology, and it is easy to find an issue with him.

Having laid down his abstract proposition he proceeds to apply it to a number of cases, and it is in this concrete form that I propose to examine it. To-day I shall be content to criticize one only of its factors-namely, that physical vigour, health and strength, in the struggle for existence, have a tendency to prevail to the exclusion and eradication of weakness and debility. The bold paradox I mean to prove is that the reverse is true of the majority of cases. It will be seen at once

that this paradox is the same in substance as that maintained by Mr. Doubleday in his true "Law of Population," London, 1853, a work written in answer to Malthus.

The doctrine of Malthus, to which I shall confine myself, is that in which it is maintained that Population is stationary or decreasing where food is scarce and life precarious, and that it abounds where the opposite conditions prevail, or in other words that if you starve a people, pinch them in clothing, etc., they will not increase in numbers, but gradually decrease, while if you feed them well, and house them well, your census returns will be very creditable.

We will begin by examining the general law, which is not limited in its application to man.

To begin with the vegetable world, the gardener is a good empirical philosopher. In his experience of cultivated plants he has learnt many laws which escape the field naturalist, and as one of the main objects of his profession is to make his plants bear as many flowers, and as much fruit as possible, he has probably accumulated many facts which illustrate our position. The gardener then tells us that when a tree is barren in nine cases out of ten it is so because its growth is too vigorous, and it is making too much wood, and that the surest way of making it bear more fruit is to stint it in food or water, or to injure its health, etc., and the methods adopted are very various. One way is by pruning the roots very hard, a method especially efficacious with the pear and the fig, another is to prune the branches very hard, which is generally adopted with all kinds of plants which are wanted to bloom. Another, which is a proverbial remedy in the orchard, is to ring the trees, that is, to cut a ring out of the bark so as to stop the flow of sap. Another,