There is only one means of estimating our position, only one means of so shaping our conduct that we may with certainty avoid degeneration and keep an onward course. We are as a race more fortunate than our ruined cousins—the degenerate Ascidians. For us it is possible to ascertain what will conduce to our higher development, what will favour our degeneration. To us has been given the power to _know the causes of things_, and by the use of this power it is possible for us to control our destinies. It is for us by ceaseless and ever hopeful labour to try to gain a knowledge of man’s place in the order of nature. When we have gained this fully and minutely, we shall be able by the light of the past to guide ourselves in the future. In proportion as the whole of the past evolution of civilised man, of which we at present perceive the outlines, is assigned to its causes, we and our successors on the globe may expect to be able duly to estimate that which makes for, and that which makes against, the progress of the race. The full and earnest cultivation of Science—the Knowledge of Causes—is that to which we have to look for the protection of our race—even of this English branch of it—from relapse and degeneration. FOOTNOTES [1] These pages formed a discourse delivered before the British Association at Sheffield on the evening of August 22nd, 1879, under the presidency of Professor Allman, LL.D., F.R.S. [2] See Note A. [3] See Note B. [4] Der Ursprung der Wirbelthiere und das Princip des Functionswechsels. Leipzig, 1875. NOTES. A. “Die Phantasie ist ein unentbehrliches Gut; denn sie ist es, durch welche neue Combinationen zur Veranlassung wichtiger Entdeckungen gemacht werden. Die Kraft der Unterscheidung des isolirenden Verstandes sowohl, als der erweiternden und zum allgemeinen strebenden Phantasie sind dem Naturforscher in einem harmonischen Wechselwirken nothwendig. Durch Störung dieses Gleichgewichts wird der Naturforscher von der Phantasie zu Träumereien hingerissen, während diese Gabe den talentvollen Naturforscher von hinreichender Verstandesstärke zu den wichtigsten Entdeckungen führt.”—JOHANNES MÜLLER, _Archiv für Anatomie_, 1834. B. To many persons the conclusion that man is the naturally modified descendant of ape-like ancestors appears to be destructive of the belief in an immortal soul, and in the teachings of Christianity; and accordingly they either reject Darwinism altogether, or claim for man a special exemption from the mode of origin admitted for other animals.