That is a matter which rarely enters into the minds of those who go easily and carelessly through life. Even the general superintendent of the Academy of Science and Pugilism here in Erin Prairie, the hotbed of a free and untrammeled, robust democracy, does not stop to think of the midnight and other kinds of oil that I have consumed in order to fill myself full of information and to soak my porous mind with thought. Even the O'Reilly College of this place, with its strong mental faculty, has not informed itself fully relative to the great effort necessary before a lecturer may speak clearly, accurately and exhaustingly of evolution. And yet, here in this place, where education is rampant, and the idea is patted on the back, as I may say; here in Erin Prairie, where progress and some other sentiments are written on everything; here where I am addressing you to-night for $2 and feed for my horse, I met a little child with a bright and cheerful smile, who did not know that evolution consisted in a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. So you see that you never know where ignorance lurks. The hydra-headed upas tree and bete noir of self-acting progress, is such ignorance as that, lurking in the very shadow of magnificent educational institutions and hard words of great cast. Nothing can be more disagreeable to the scientist than a bete noir. Nothing gives him greater satisfaction than to chase it up a tree or mash it between two shingles. For this reason, as I said, it gives me great pleasure to address you on the subject of evolution, and to go into details in speaking of it. I could go on for hours as I have been doing, delighting you with the intricacies and peculiarities of evolution, but I must desist. It would please me to do so, and you would no doubt remain patiently and listen, but your business might suffer while you were away, and so I will close, but I hope that anyone now within the sound of my voice, and in whose breast a sudden hunger for more light on this great subject may have sprung up, will feel perfectly free to call on me and ask me about it or immerse himself in the numerous tomes that I have collected from friends, and which relate to this matter. In closing I wish to say that I have made no statements in this paper relative to evolution which I am not prepared to prove; and, if anything, I have been over-conservative. For that reason I say now, that the person who doubts a single fact as I have given it to-night, bearing upon the great subject of evolution, will have to do so over my dumb remains.