. yi/iTH the/author's compliments. 
 
 A REMARKABLE AMERICAN WORK 
 UPON EVOLUTION AND THE GERM 
 THEORY OF DISEASE, .- - ■ 
 
 BY 
 
 Professor EDWARD B. POULTON, 
 
 VKESLDEST OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY. 
 
 Addresses delivered at the Anniversary Meetings 
 
 of the Linnean Society of London on the 24th of May, 1913, 
 
 and the 25th of May, 1914. 
 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PEINTED BY TAYLOR AiSD rHANCIS, BED LION OOTJET, FIEEI STKEET, 
 
 1913-1914, 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924084820707 
 
[Extracted from the PEOCEEDiJ!fGs of the Linnean Society 
 OF London, Session 1912-13.] 
 
 A REMARKABLE AMERICAN WORK 
 UPON EVOLUTION AND THE GERM 
 THEORY OF DISEASE. 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 
 BEAD BEPOBE THE 
 LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON 
 
 AT THE 
 ANNIVEESAET MEETING, 
 
 Mat 24, 1913, 
 
 BY 
 
 Peopessoe EDWARD B. POULTON. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PEINTED by TAYLOE and PEANOIS, bed HON COITET, FLEET STEEET. 
 
 1913. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF TKB 
 
 PEESIDENTIAL ADDEES8, 1913. 
 
 About two months ago when I was thinking over various possible 
 subjects for this address, there arrived by post — just at_ the 
 psychological moment — an American pamphlet, sent by my friend, 
 our illustrious Eellow, Dr. Alfred Eussel Wallace. Accompanying 
 the pamphlet was the following very kind letter, referring to 
 James Cowles Prichard's * anticipation of modern views on 
 evolution. 
 
 Old Orchard, 
 
 Broadstone, 
 
 Dorset. 
 April 2, 1913. 
 My dear Pouiton, 
 
 About two months ago an American sent me the enclosed 
 booklet, which he had been told was very rai-e and contained au 
 anticipation of Darwinism. 
 
 This it certainly does, but the writer was highly imaginative, 
 and, like all the other anticipators of Darwin, did not perceive 
 the whole scope of his idea. 
 
 His anticipation, however, of diverging lines of descent from 
 a common ancestor and of the transmission of disease germs by 
 means of insects, are perfectly clear and very striking. 
 
 As you yourself made known one of the anticipators of Darwin, 
 whom he himself had overlooked, you are the right person to 
 make this known in any way you think proper. As you have so 
 recently been in America, you might perhaps ascertain from the 
 Librarian of the Public Library in Boston or from some of your 
 biological friends there what is known of the writer and of his 
 subsequent history. 
 
 If the house at Down is ever dedicated to Darwin's memory, 
 it would seem best to preserve this little book there ; if not you 
 can dispose of it as you think best. 
 With best wishes. 
 
 Tours very truly, 
 
 Alfred E. Wallace. 
 
 Eeferring to the last paragraph. Dr. Wallace now agrees with 
 me that the library of the Linnean Society is the most appropriate 
 place for the work. 
 
 The booklet had been sent, on Feb. 6, 1913, as a kind of 90th 
 birthday present to Dr. Wallace, by Mr. B. E.Miller, an American 
 gentleman who has always taken a lively interest in the subject of 
 evolution. In a later letter, dated May 12, Mr. Miller writes to 
 me : — " I remember the bookseller I bought it of saying that it 
 
 * Poulton's Essays on Evolution, Oxford, 1898, p. 173. Prichard's aatici- 
 pation was discovered by the late Dr. Maurice Davis, J.P. 
 
HNNBAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 2"] 
 
 was an old work and had been through many hands ; tbis was in 
 a Mr. W. Davie's book store in either Cleveland or Cincinnati, — 
 one or the other Ohio town, in 1891 or 1892." 
 
 The pamphlet, which appeared to be very old, although in an 
 excellent state of preservation, bore the following words on both 
 cover and title-page. 
 
 SHALL WE HAVE COMMON SENSE 
 
 SOME 
 
 RECENT LECTURES 
 
 WRITTEN AND DBLIVEKJ3D BY 
 
 GEO. W. SLEEPER. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 WM. BENSE, PEINTEE. 
 
 1849. 
 
 The contents entirely bore out Dr. Wallace's words. Sup- 
 posing the work to be genuine, I doubt whether so much of 
 pregnant thought and penetrating imagination has ever before 
 been recorded in so small a compass. The pamphlet measures 
 4 inches in width by just under 5| in height, the printed 
 surface of 32 out of the 36 pages measures 2| inches by 4|. 
 
 a* 
 
2 8 PEOCBBDIN0S or THE 
 
 The remaining 4, being first and last pages, hold fewer lines of 
 print. , The type is far from small and spaced so that a complete 
 page holds 27 lines. 
 
 The pamphlet contains a brief introduction, not included in the 
 36 pages referred to above, and two lectures stated to have been 
 delivered in Boston in 1847, — " The Origin of Life and the advance 
 of civilization," and "The Dangers of the Unseen." 
 
 Within a space thus limited, the ideas in the following 
 pages are propounded. The author's words, except in the con- 
 cluding paragraph of the booklet, are quoted without comment, 
 but I have printed in italics at the head of each section the 
 various subjects with which he deals. I have also inserted a few 
 words in square brackets and added one or two footnotes in order 
 to show the relationship between some of the author's sentences 
 or to make some brief explanation. 
 
 Leciuee I. 
 THE OEIGIN OF LIFE 
 
 AlfD THE ADVANCE OF CITIIIZATION. 
 
 i. The Origin of Life in minute particles scattered through space — a 
 view similar to that brought forward by Arrhenius in 1906. 
 
 " Life owes its faint beginning to primal germs. 
 
 These germs I hold to be infinitesimally minute living atoms 
 pervading the entire terrestrial atmosphere ; and, perhaps, 
 the entity of the Cosmos. 
 
 " Perishable themselves, each is the common carrier of the 
 principle of Life which is indestructible and eternal, . . " 
 (p. 3.) 
 
 ii. Natural Selection, 
 
 "Arranging themselves in strict obedience to dominant 
 Natural laws of which we have but little knowledge, in a 
 vastness of Space of which we have no intelligent conception, 
 and exhibiting an almost unmeasurable minuteness reducing 
 our feeble powers of comprehension to appalled nothingness, 
 these germs are slowly developed, altered and perfected 
 during an immensity of periods of time compared to which 
 the six thousand years of the Bible is but a trifling era— a 
 pebble ou the sea shore ; a tiny star in the Milky Way. 
 
 " These germs of life and the individuals growing out of 
 them, were constantly experiencing change. Weakened by 
 exposure and attack they were only preserved unmodified 
 for a brief (though variable) period by means of the more 
 or less effectual resistance they were able to offer to climatic 
 
LINNEAN SOCIETY OE LONDON. 29 
 
 conditions, changes of food, convulsions and transformations 
 of Nature and the destructive inroads of overpoweringly 
 
 hostile forms of reptile, piscine or animal Life ' 
 
 (p. 4.) _ 
 
 " Primal matter to zoophyte, to crustacean, to fish, to 
 saurian, to mammal and to Man! the inferior forms dis- 
 appearing when their allotted work was done and the 
 improved era no longer warranted their then inutile existence 
 just as the platysoma of the Old Red Sandstone vanished in 
 the Magnesian Limestone ; or else becoming dwarfingly 
 modified previous to extinction : similarly to the diminution 
 of the seventy foot iguanodon into the four foot and perishing- 
 iguana which has outlived the age and environment which 
 called its giant ancestor into being. 
 
 " In this ever recurring disappearance, or modification, of 
 animal and vegetable forms there is nothing strange. Every- 
 where about us we see waged the pitiless battle for life of 
 which it is the inevitable outcome. Just as the dandelion, 
 the plantain and the burdock cKtend their broad leaves o'er 
 the verdure of the meaduw, starving and exhausting the 
 
 grasses around them ; so there is a continual process 
 
 of elimination and substitution going on in the great labora- 
 tories of Nature ; the useless perish, the useful live and 
 improve, although our conception of what is useful and im- 
 proving is often opposed to Nature's. 
 
 " All Geology indicates assured progress by its pre- 
 sentation of higher and higher generations of exalting 
 forms, each remarkably suited to the peculiar age in which 
 it appeared at its best " (pp. 8-10.) 
 
 iii. Eecapitulation. 
 
 " The wonderful progressive presentation of forms ascend- 
 ing from day to day in the scale of organized beings exhibited 
 by our species in the foetal state and remarked by the physi- 
 ologist, is another substantiation of my theory. 
 
 " Man, in the womb, passes through all the embryo forms 
 of the types of the known divisions of animated Nature : first 
 but a germ, he then resembles mollusk, fish, reptile, bird, 
 rodent, ruminant, and batrich *, finally assuming unmistake- 
 able features of the human animal. Thus we see a significant 
 panorama of the momentous changes which occurred in the 
 course of ages displayed in the short space of nine months in 
 the mysterious womb." (p. 8.) 
 
 * Evidently a printer's error for "batraoh " and referring to a 
 fanciful resemblance of the foetal face to that of a frog. 
 
30 PEOCEBDINGS 03? THE 
 
 iv. The antiquity and origin of Man : his development, not from the 
 Anthropoids directly, but, on diverging lines, from an ancient 
 common ancestor. 
 
 " And it is also fabled that all this work of 
 
 Creation occurred but six thousand years ago ! Which 
 Creation, the state of civilization in India and China some 
 five thousand years back, is sufficient to disprove without the 
 abundant aid derived from Greological evidence; all proving 
 an inconceivably ancient history for Man." (p. 2.) 
 
 " Man and the Ape are co-descended from some 
 
 primary type, " (p. 6.) 
 
 Kemembering " that it is not to the higher evolutions of 
 Man nor to the lower * variations of the Monkey that we 
 must look in this matter, but to just the reverse of each." 
 The lecture continues " And then in many respects a 
 striking parallel is observed to exist between the ' lord of 
 creation ' and his Quadrumana relatives the Chimpanzee and 
 the Ourang Otang which clearly establishes the extremely 
 rational view I have advanced and enables us to experience 
 very little difSculty in tracing back these kindred creatures 
 to a remote, an ancient, but a general stock; although exactly 
 what that common forefather was is as likely to forever 
 remain as profound a mystery as the astounding problem of 
 how the beginning of things could take place or the absolute 
 ending of all matter can ever occur ! 
 
 " We have never found any living or fossil link to form a 
 chain between Man and the Ape, nothing to close the gap 
 separating the two related animals like Owen's rhynchosaurus 
 bonds the avines to the saurians, and the pliosaurus unites 
 the pterodactyle to the crocodile. I doubt that any such 
 creature will be discovered; to my mind there never was 
 occasion for its existence : more likely some relic of an, at 
 present, unknown animal proving to be the forerunner of 
 both species, will be exhumed out of the debris of an age 
 immediately antecedent to both : " (pp. 6-8.) 
 
 " I feel assured that skeletons or rock-preserved hairy 
 specimens of this ancestor of the two species will ultimately 
 be excavated from the strata preceding that in which remains 
 
 of Man and of the Monkey have been found, The 
 
 greater perishability and much more restricted production 
 and distribution of the human frame in those remote ages, 
 
 * This and the preceding Ave -worde are so faintly printed as to be 
 almost unrecognisaHe, but it is believed that the reading adopted above 
 is correct. [Since confirmed by reference to a more clearly printed copy 
 kindly lent by Mr. J. F. Sleeper.— E. B. T. Aug. 12, 1913.] 
 
LIWNBAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 31 
 
 together with the very limited extent o£ the exploration of 
 this but recently thrown open field have so far precluded 
 success." (p. 11.) 
 
 V. The germinal origin of characters, and the persistence of germ- 
 life. 
 
 " But our parallel of comparison of Man with the Simians 
 is effectually arrested by a threefold, irremoveable, barrier : 
 the possession of progressive, deductive and inventive Reason; 
 the acquirement of extensible and transmissible Speech ; and 
 the innate knowledge of the formation and use of Tools ; 
 attributes resident solely in the spermatozoa and ovum of the 
 human species, and absolutely inseparable therefrom. So I 
 am spared the unpleasantness of announcing anything so 
 distasteful, to you, as that the monkey was parent or progeny 
 of Man ; thus, this Scylla and Oharybdis being happily 
 steered past, I merely find it necessary to reaffirm my fixed 
 belief in the gradual origination of both from a general 
 parent, each distinct from birth and each preserving that 
 distinctiveness unto the present epoch, modified somewhat, it 
 is true, in the instance of the human individual owing to his 
 germ-endowment with the rudiments of primarily cultivatible 
 and incalculably higher functions." (pp. 10-11.) 
 
 " Spiritualism plays no part in the great drama of this our 
 life. Indeed, the sole phenomenon approaching to such is 
 the departure of the life-germ from a perishing frame but to 
 begin anew in another or an allied form. For nothing is lost 
 in the vast economy of Nature : all things suffer but a 
 transient change of form : thus the life germ resident in Man 
 transmitted to his descendants, goes on existing indefinitely 
 throughout all Time's infinitude of years ; just as his 
 Thoughts, those Genii children of his prolific brain, continue 
 to live on ages and ages after that transitory organ has 
 taiouldered away into the dust of the long ago ; and thus, 
 and only thus, is Man immortal : in the transmission of his 
 germ life and in the eternal perpetuation of his Original 
 Thought." (p. 14.) 
 
 Lecture II. 
 
 THE DANGEE8 OF THE UNSEEN. 
 
 vi. The germ-theory of disease. 
 
 " From observation, thought and deduction, I have con- 
 cluded that earth, air and water are replete with multi- 
 tudinous, infinitesimal, ever active creatures, probably many 
 
32 PEOCBEDINGS O^ THE 
 
 o£ whicli are too minute for our best microscopes to reveal to 
 the sense of sight. These pigmy, insignificant-seeming and 
 yet collectively formidable beings are everywhere at vfovk 
 — born in myriad numbers, propagating and expiring in a 
 brief season, like May-FJies, e'er they hardly have begun to 
 live ; they infect or disinfect the air, alter the nature o£ the 
 soil, and cleanse or contaminate the water. Entering our 
 systems through all of these facile mediums (we inhale on an 
 average about 2800 cubic feet of air through our lungs in the 
 short space of only twentj^ four hours and swallow dust and 
 water in surprising quantities every day of our lives) they 
 soon obtain mastery over our weakened bodies and it is 
 surely their malefiant effects that we behold in the horrid 
 virulence of small-pox, the dreadful malignancy of cancer 
 and the melancholy ravages of consumption. Kings evil, 
 catarrh, malarial and scarlet fever, measles, the putrid sore 
 throat, gangrene, aye, dozens of other catching ails let loose 
 from a cursed Pandora's box among humankind, are simply 
 the direct or indirect results of these almost invisible atoms. 
 " The drop of water we sip, the breath of air we breathe, 
 the particle of dust that finds insidious entrance to our bodies, 
 may be to us the unseen precursor of terrible disease, the 
 unheard knell of fateful doom, the silent forerunner of early, 
 torturing, ghastly death." (pp. 24-25.) 
 
 " May not soils owe their fertility or sterility, their 
 
 adaptability or impracticability to the unseen workings of 
 these Genii of the Little ? May not water, also, derive many 
 of its properties, beneficial or injurious as they may happen 
 to be, from its teeming contents of microscopical life ? We 
 already know (from Bruce, the traveller,) that the natives of 
 far away Abyssinia are infested with parasite Worms through 
 the agency of the water they drink — may not many diseases 
 of the guts originate from germs more minute than these 
 pernicious Larvse?" (p. 35.) 
 
 vii. Spontaneous generation.' 
 
 " I have repeated most of these interesting experiments 
 [of Spallanzani and Schwann] and in addition to these have 
 made many more of my own devising 
 
 "From them I find that Schwann is, in the main, correct ; 
 but further note that the close sealing he has recourse to is 
 unnecessary, merely stuffing the mouth of the containing 
 vessel with cotton wool will answer the same purpose ; that 
 of a germ barrier, as the most elaborate sealing if the heated 
 wool is held in a forceps. 
 
LIOTTBAN SOCIETY OP LONDON. 33 
 
 " A hood dipping into quicksilver answers excellently. 
 Yet mere filtration is inadequate. 
 
 "I am now certain that this much talked o£ spontaneous 
 generation is hirgely a delusion and that if the phenomenon 
 ever does take place it is only exhibited under extremely 
 
 unusual conditions and in most extraordinary cases " 
 
 (pp. 27-28.) 
 
 viii. Cultivation from a diphtheritic throat. 
 
 " I have placed some of the matter containing certain o£ 
 what I have found to be the minute beings causing the 
 putrid sore throat in the common calves foot jelly so familiar 
 to all of you and covered this with a bell jar standing in 
 quicksilver ; jelly, jar and metal all being strongly heated — 
 thus, as you can readily understand, completely excluding 
 any other germs. In three days, these particular germs had 
 amazingly multiplied as rounded jointed grains in wavy- 
 clusters, and each little portion of the jelly when placed in 
 pieces of fresh jelly was capable of plentifully propagating 
 them in the new material which, in turn, produced them in 
 others — and so on. 
 
 " I was curious to see how they would adapt themselves 
 to human blood : to avoid the red color I let some venous 
 stand quietly, having skimmed off some crust ; and drew 
 away the greenish yellow watery serum from the cruor and 
 heated it for some hours to 140° of Fahrenheit which I have 
 found sufficient to destroy germ life. In this the beings 
 appeared in only thirty hours ! and were larger, fibrous and 
 moist. Other children in the same house with the boy from 
 whose throat I obtained the matter, yielded none of the 
 peculiar germs referred to — until some acquired the same 
 disease, these then exhibited the noxious organisms in his 
 or her greyish throat matter." (pp. 28-29.) 
 
 ix. Contagion. 
 
 " Eeflection on this [the statements in the two paragraphs 
 last quoted] , leads us to consider how many diseases may be 
 introduced, transmitted or conveyed by the contact of flesh, 
 perspiration or saliva and how cautious, how prudent and 
 how circumspect we should ever be in governing the inter- 
 course of ourselves and of our children with other persons or 
 creatures, no matter whether the latter appear to be clean 
 and healthy or not * " (pp. 29-30.) 
 
 * Continues with "If the system is in proper condition", on p. 34, 
 
 h 
 
34 
 
 PEOCEHriNGS OF THE 
 
 X. Resistance : Suggestions of phagocytes. 
 
 "Only nearly perfect, very healthy, vigorous bodies can 
 successfully resist these parasitic wanderers, (Ishmael-like 
 reamers through the universe) when they are at their best 
 and we are exposed to their attacks : hence we note a 
 favored few who defy plague and pox and cholera ; 
 epidemics of all fateful kinds and remain serene, incautious 
 and unscathed. But wo to the weak, the ailing or the 
 debauched ! they fall an easy prey to the fatal onslaughts 
 of these tiny destroyers, everywhere watchful, voracious, 
 insatiate ; even as the Harpies of fable or the vulture that 
 preyed on Prometheus [sic]. Why this is so, I am unable 
 to say ; it is doubtless for the same reason that a stunted, 
 set back, or sickly plant yields to thp massed attacks of 
 aphide hosts while healthier close by vegetation of the same 
 kind is nearly free from the vermin destroying the weaker 
 foliage : from what either results, our too scanty store of 
 knowledge avails us not to tell. It may be that, precisely 
 as the spermatozoa, which Leeuwenhoek in 1677 discovered 
 existing in the bodies of men ; so other living germs, antago- 
 nistic to the evil kinds, may oppose the latter in undebilitated 
 systems and wage war upon the humors in our blood." 
 (pp. 25-26.) 
 
 " '. If the system is in proper condition one will 
 
 go as safely through any contagion as a diver in Halle^'^s 
 suit through the water of the sea, but who is so wise as to 
 know when he is absolutely hale and hearty ? one fatal 
 moment of inviting weakness, and wo ! the insidious germ 
 has found a foothold. 
 
 " Then comes the difficulty of dislodgment. These creatures 
 floating numerously through the entire atmosphere and only 
 able to thrive in a congenial harbourage : just as the Tobacco 
 Worm can subsist but on the foliage of the plant from which 
 it receives its name — once having effected this subtle lodgment 
 in our systems, are there protected by phlegmatic or viscid 
 excretions partly emanating, perhaps, from their own 
 organisms and partly consisting of corruption thrown out 
 by the irritated tissues for the purpose of resisting the 
 invasion : as observed in putrid sore throat and in catarrh ; 
 and then withstand many substances that otherwise would 
 immediately kill them. 
 
 " Do not misunderstand me : I do not mean to say that 
 all diseases are thus contracted, but only those that are 
 similar to those I have mentioned . Nor do I assert that the 
 
LUfNEAN SOCIBXT OF LONDON. 35 
 
 observance o£ all the precautions hinted at, will ward off all 
 
 danger * " (pp. 30-31.) 
 
 " We have an approach to something o£ the kind 
 
 in Jenner's valuable vaccine for the prevention pf Small-pox. 
 Here, I believe, is shown a striking instance of the destruction 
 of one germ by another : the substance he employs must 
 contain creatures antagonisUcal to those of the Small pox 
 pustules, else how could its effects endure so long in the 
 systems of those inoculated with it ? And that this, supplied 
 in sufficient quantities, not only overwhelms those of the 
 malady when they enter the blood, but continues to exist, 
 inhabit and breed in that fluid thereby preventing entrance 
 of the other and fatal germ life. If this is so, then what a 
 Sun of Hope — Hope that should ' Spring eternal in the 
 human breast ' bursts in dazzling splendour on afilicted Man : 
 consumption, cancer, cholera, all must mitigate, recede, or 
 vanish before benificent germs meeting the horrible, de- 
 structive causes on their own grim grouiid and remaining 
 
 triumphant on the never again to be fought-for field " 
 
 (pp. 33-34.) 
 
 xi. Insects as carriers of disecise : Malaria and the mosquito : the 
 ffouse-Jly. 
 
 " Careful observation has led me to perceive that 
 
 many of our common insects are conveyers of the germs of 
 illness, disease and death. The House-Fly that crawls over 
 our food or drowns itself in our drink, the Gnat that buries 
 its lancet in our veins, the Bed-Bug that attacks the un- 
 cleanly during the slumbers of night, the Wasp and the 
 Bee that thrust us with their stings — are all transporters, 
 injectors or introducers of germ life. 
 
 " My reasons for affirming this are briefly comprised in the 
 statement that I have never known a person to suffer from 
 malarial fever that had not at one time or other been stung 
 by Gnats or been the resident of a region containing these 
 pests ; and that anyone can appreciate the too palpable 
 filthiness of the Fly, feeding, crawling, rioting and breeding 
 in the loathsome repulsiveness of refuse, offal, and decaying 
 abominations of every conceivable kind ; then alighting on 
 our victuals or on our persons to trail his defilement over 
 our absorptive epidermis " (pp. 31-32.) 
 
 * Continues with "Careful observation has led me to perceive", &o., 
 below. 
 
36 PEOCEBDINGS OF THE 
 
 xii. The exclusion of liouse-fiies : the utilization of natural enemies, 
 
 " I suggest that wooden frames be covered with metal 
 gauze such as is used for sieves, and hinged on outside of 
 doors and windows, otherwise, with free access to your 
 
 houses, what can be safe from the Fly ? How 
 
 to accomplish this [the extermination of the Fly], and also 
 annihilate the swarms of Ticks, Fleas, Gnats, Bed-Bugs and 
 so forth, is indeed a question. Of course cleanliness will 
 affect something towards the desired end ; but, perhaps, 
 more than this may be called into play : maybe other 
 creatures can be bred that may abate the numbers of these 
 vermin, just as the Mungoos is used by the Hindu to destroy 
 the Cobra-di-Capello, as the Ferret is set upon the Rat in 
 England and the Ladybird is said to be employed in the 
 South of Europe to exterminate the larvse of various insects 
 
 that prey on the poor peasant's scanty crops " 
 
 (pp. 32-33.) 
 
 The author brings his second lecture to a close in a paragraph 
 which obliterated 40 years and made me a boy again, reading 
 Herbert Spencer's ' Principles of Biology' for the first time. 
 
 " All this ", he is alluding to his germ theory and its 
 possibilities, " I believe will be proven to be fact, and in 
 its darker aspect we are very naturally brought to see no 
 hand of God. For what just, compassionate and merciful 
 Father Diety would let loose a host of death dealing, 
 ravenous Wolves in miniature, upon ignorant, frail, sup- 
 plicating creatii^es of his kindly creation — his own, fore 
 known, fore-destined, children ? " (pp. 35-36.) 
 
 Similarly, Herbert Spencer, after describing the adaptations by 
 which a number of parasites are enabled to wage successful war 
 upon mankind, continues : — 
 
 " "What shall we say to this arrangement? Shall we say 
 that man, ' the head and crown of things/ was provided as a 
 habitat for these parasites ? Or shall we say that these 
 degraded creatures, incapable of thought or enjoyment, were 
 created that they might cause unhappiness to man ? One or 
 other of these alternatives must be chosen by those who 
 contend that every kind of organism was separately devised 
 by the Creator." ('Principles of Biology,' London, 1864, 
 vol. i. pp. 343-4.) 
 
LIKNEAN SOOIETT OF LONDON. 37 
 
 Herbert Spencer finds the answer to his question by invokiug 
 evolution and the struggle for life as its motive cause : — 
 
 " Slowly, but surely, evolution brings about an increasing 
 amount of happiness : all evils being but incidental. By 
 its essential nature, the process must everywhere produce 
 greater fitness to the conditions of existence ; be they what 
 
 they may The universal and necessary tendency 
 
 towards supremacy and multiplication of the best, applying 
 to the organic creation as a whole as well as to each species, 
 is ever diminishing the damage done — tends ever to main- 
 tain those most superior organisms which, in one way or 
 other, escape the invasions of the inferior, and so tends to 
 produce a type less liable to the invasions of the inferior. 
 Thus the evils accompanying evolution are ever being self- 
 eliminated. Though there may arise the question — Why 
 could they not have been avoided ? there does not arise the 
 question — Why were they deliberately inflicted ? Whatever 
 may be thought of them, it is clear that they do not imply 
 gratuitous malevolence." (ibid. pp. 354-5.) 
 
 The author of this remarkable pamphlet takes different ground 
 in seeking for his answer. Many will think — in spite of the 
 narrow and aggressive spirit which disfigures the passage, — that he 
 takes higher ground. In the attacks of the germs of disease upon 
 man he sees no hand of God, but — 
 
 " rather the astonishing, strange uncomprehended 
 
 workings of some mightier power in almighty Nature 
 infinitely beyond the weak, puny, priest aborted rudiments 
 of perception, dawning in the infant brain of Man : carrying 
 out a grand design of unfathomable profundity, in which an 
 atom is as mighty as a mass, a second as significant as a 
 thousand years, and the smallest being in the universe of as 
 much importance in the stupendous scheme as lordly Man, 
 himself, with all his presumptionj arrogance and self conceit 
 thick upon him — leading us to exclaim with Hamlet^ in 
 immortal Shakespeare : 
 
 ' There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in thy philosophy ! ' " 
 
 (p. 36.) 
 
 I do not propose, on the present occasion, to discuss the history 
 of the ideas which have been quoted from the booklet. Any such 
 consideration is better deferred until the authenticity of the date 
 has been tested by every possible means. It is, however, appro- 
 priate to eay at once, concerning what is perhaps the most 
 
38 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 
 
 surprising statement in the work, that it supplies no evidence that 
 the bacillus of Diphtheria had been seen by the author. My friend 
 Dr. F. "W. Andrewes of St. Bartholomew's Hospital wrote to me 
 May 17 & 19, 1913 :— 
 
 " I should regard the term ' rounded, jointed grains in wavy 
 clusters ' as a bad description of the bacillus of Diphtheria. On 
 the other haud the phrase would be quite apt in describing the 
 clusters of Streptococci which would commonly be present in sore 
 throats or even in Diphtheria itself, and the appearance is one 
 which might be visible with an inferior microscope. I think it 
 would be correct to say that, hy crude methods, clumps of Strepto- 
 cocci would be more readily recognized in sore throats than in 
 normal throats. The microscopist can get from a sore throat 
 something tangible to look at, and, in most sore throats, of what- 
 ever nature, he would be likely to see clusters of Streptococci." 
 
 A curious point about the first lecture is the very inadequate 
 criticism of Lamarck whose theory is described as founded " entirely 
 on Spontaneous Generation" (p. 18). The same is also true 
 of the treatment of the " Vestiges of the Natural History of 
 Creation " (1844) alluded to in the first lecture (1847) as having 
 " appeared about three years ago" (p. 19). 
 
 The defence of phrenology (pp. 17-18) is consistent with the 
 date assigned to the lectures ; although, from information lately 
 received, there is no doubt that the author retained his convictions 
 on this subject unshaken up to the end of his life. 
 
 There are curious spellings some of which are obvious misprints. 
 Beneficent in the form of " benificent " cannot be thus explained, 
 for it appears three times (pp. 13, 19, 34). 
 
 LiPH or THE AtTTHOE. 
 
 I am now able to give a brief account of the life of the author, 
 received only on the. morning of May 20th from his son Mr. John 
 F. Sleeper, of Tenafly, New Jersey. The information, partly con- 
 veyed in a letter and partly in newspaper cuttings, was the out- 
 come of letters written to four American gentlemen bearing the 
 name Sleeper whose addresses had been given to me by Mr. B. 
 E. Miller. 
 
 G-eorge Washington Sleeper was born in Baltimore on Oct. 15, 
 1826. He went to Boston as a lad and eventually opened a great 
 tea store there and later in Providence. He was prosperous in 
 business until he was ruined by the Civil War and by the unpopu- 
 larity of views which he never hesitated to express. The dates of 
 his residence in Boston and Providence are given in Dr. Putnam's 
 quotations on pp. 41, 42 from the Boston and Providence directories. 
 After leaving Providence he went to New York, residing in 
 Jersey City, N.J., where he died on Sept. 13, 1903. He was able 
 to recover in a measure from his misfortunes, at one time selling 
 books, at another travelling for a New York firm. He married in 
 1858 and a son, Mr. John P. Sleeper, was born in 1864. 
 
IINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 39 
 
 His son's letter, dated May 10, 1913, gives a graphic picture 
 of the persecution sufEered by Gr. W. Sleeper. His outspoken 
 views, — prominent in the booklet which is the subject of the 
 present address — " drew down upon him the wrath of ' the bigots 
 of his iron time.' Undismayed, he defied them all. Clergy — 
 government — society — relatives — all ! His friends shrank away 
 (not even his relations could understand him ; they declared him a 
 lunatic), his enemies prevailed, he was mobbed and assaulted in the 
 streets and halls, his bosom friend, Hilton, pulled his beard in 
 public, his lectures were suppressed : all that frantic malignity 
 could do to obliterate his written and spoken thought was resorted 
 to." These statements are supported by the preface to the booklet 
 quoted below and on page 42. At the same time it is only fair 
 to remember that the language of the lectures was highly provo- 
 cative and aggressive, and would have been likely to produce a 
 remarkable effect upon hearers in the middle of the last century, 
 and indeed in much later years. The preface to a later lecture 
 "Education and its Offspring Civilization" (Providence, 1860) 
 speaks of the alteration of notices and attempts to efface records 
 so as make it appear that it was never given before the "Franklin 
 Lyceum" of Providence. The appendix to the same lecture 
 reproduces minutes and press notices in order to prove the fact of 
 its delivery. Apart from the far greater detail given in the later 
 pamphlet there is a striking similarity in the description of the 
 conditions under which both were written. In both, the expressed 
 object of the writer is to print addresses which neither audience 
 nor Press would receive. 
 
 The ArTHENTiciTY of G. W. Slbepbe's Pamphlet (1849). 
 
 The author's conclusions on a number of extremely important 
 subjects have been given in his own words in the first part of this 
 address. If it be true that these conclusions were reached by 
 1849, the fact is of the highest interest in the history of scientific 
 thought. The author claims indeed that his ideas were older still 
 by several years, for he says in the introduction — 
 
 " The original ideas on which these lectures were Hounded, 
 entered my mind when I was barely seventeen, and during 
 their gradual development the major portion of both of the 
 lectures were committed to paper in the course of the past six 
 years. The first public delivery o£ either occurred in Boston 
 about two years ago, " 
 
 The above statement is consistent with the history of G. W. 
 Sleeper, who was born on Oct. 15, 1826, and would therefore have 
 been seventeen in 1843, six years before the date printed on the 
 pamphlet. In 1847 he would have been twenty-one — a very early 
 age, it must be admitted, for the amount of thought and reading 
 implied by the two lectures. 
 
40 PEOOEEDINGS OF THE 
 
 Science is rightly exacting of proof when she is called upon to 
 revise her history ; and it now becomes our duty to enquire, and 
 if possible to decide, whether these statements are true, — whether 
 the pamphlet was printed in 1849 or at some later date. It may 
 be admitted at once that the general appearance of the work — the 
 paper, type and style of printing — is entirely in its favour. This 
 is the opinion of many eminent authorities who have kindly 
 examined it for me — of Sir Frederick Kenyon and his staff at the 
 British Museum Library, of Mr. Madan, Bodley's Librarian, and of 
 Sir James Murray. 
 
 The Paper. — I have submitted photographs of the watermark 
 to Mr. Lewis Evans, who kindly wrote May 2, 1913 : — 
 
 " I have been looking through two collections of watermarks 
 that I have but can find nothing conclusive in them. I have two 
 small undated pieces of paper of which I enclose a tracing very like 
 the mark in the pamphlet, they are hand-made, either English or 
 Dutch, and I should think between 1790-1850 : the VI or more 
 probably I. V is not an uncommon mark, but whether it stands for 
 
 6, 4 or I. Van I do not know. The pamphlet paper is I 
 
 fancy Dutch and 1 think it would be made before 1849, but I do 
 not know how far Dutch paper was in general use in U.S.A. about 
 that date. The shield with 3 lines across it is fairly common 
 in Dutch papers." 
 
 Mr. G. A. James Eothney also kindly wrote from John 
 Dickinson & Co., London, April 30, 1913: — 
 
 " We have found a letter from the East India House, Leaden- 
 hall St., dated 5th Oct. '55, which has a watermark identical with 
 the size mark, but it has no Eoman lettering IV. 
 
 Mr. Johns — our great paper expert — rather fancies it is a Dutch 
 handmade." 
 
 The Type. — Mr. Horace Hart, controller of the Oxford Uni- 
 versity Press, has kindly examined the type for me. The words 
 " Some Eecent Lectures " on the title-page and cover are almost 
 identical with a line of " two-line Small Pica ornamented Latin " 
 in a trade catalogue issued by the late firm of V. & J. Eiggins. 
 The catalogue was undated, but an order form with the decade 
 " 188- " was bound into it. " The Origin of Life " (p. 1) and 
 " The Dangers of the Unseen" (p. 20) are almost identical with 
 " two-line Brevier Monastic No. 2 " in the same catalogue. It is 
 certain that this type in the pamphlet was copied from that of 
 Messrs. Eiggins or vice versa. I applied to E. H. Stevens & Co., 
 successors to V. & J. Eiggins, but was unable to learn the date. 
 Messrs. Stevens wrote Apr. 22, 1913: — " The two Eaces that you 
 mention are quite old and out-of-date, and we have no record of 
 the date when they were first made." 
 
 Mr. Hart has written to me, May 23, 1913, on the questions 
 raised in the preceding paragraph : — " I think you may take it as 
 conclusive that the American founder would foUow the English 
 founder and not the other way about. Tou may also take it for 
 granted that the typefounding firms would continue issuing their 
 
IINNBAN SOCIETY Or lOKDOIf. 41 
 
 old types for a great many years. It is a question of fashion 
 rather than anything else. The types that you are interested in 
 have gone out of fashion, and that is the reason why they do not 
 appear in the typefounders' specimen books to-day. There are, 
 of course, people who have made a study of types and their dates ; 
 but it happens that the types we have been discussing, are what 
 are called Jobbing or Display types, used for circulars and adver- 
 tisements ; and no one is particularly interested in them. 
 
 " My opinion about the little booklet which you showed to me is, 
 that it was not only set up, but was also printed off, and done up, 
 i. e. stitched and put into its cover, by an amateur printer, and 
 not by a regular printer. And it might very well have been 
 printed in Boston at the date mentioned." 
 
 Mr. Hart also told me when I showed him the pamphlet a few 
 weeks ago that the paper had not been damped, and that this and 
 the setting-up, inking, and black marks made by the "furniture" 
 showed that the work had not been done by a printer, but by an 
 amateur who had access to a press of fair size. In all these 
 respects the pamphlet presents an appearance remarkably dif- 
 ferent from the author's lecture, " Shall we have Pree Speech ? " 
 undoubtedly printed in 1860 — only eleven years later. 
 
 It is perhaps worth recording that the two titles appear to have 
 been set up from a very small stock. The Brevier Monastic " i" 
 is without a dot, but this feature is only wanting from the two 
 letters in " Origin" : the " i" in "Life " has been printed from 
 a letter of another fount turned upside down, so that the dot is 
 below the line. 
 
 Intbenai. Evidbncb. 
 
 Registration and Press notices. — The first and most important 
 line of evidence breaks down. The following words are printed 
 on the back of the title-page: "Entered according to Act of 
 Congress, in the year 1849, by Geo. "W". Sleeper, in the Clerk's 
 office of the District Court of Massachusetts." My friend 
 Prof. C. S. Minot of the Harvard University Medical School 
 has kindly written for me to Dr. H. Putnam of the Library 
 of Congress, Washington, who states, Apr. 30, 1913 : — " The 
 Eegister of Copyrights reports that the copyright records for 
 Massachusetts for the year 1849 are in his office and have been 
 examined page by page, without discovering the registration of 
 this work." Prof. Minot, hovrever, writes. May 9, 1913 : — 
 " The record of copyrights begins with 1846, and I understand 
 that the records for a few years are considered not to be perfect, 
 so that there is a possibility of Sleeper's pamphlet having been 
 issued and copyrighted, as stated on its title-page. It is, however, 
 extremely improbable that such was the case." Purtlier evidence 
 by Dr. Putnam is more positive: — "We find the names of both 
 the author and printer in the Boston directory for 1849. 
 Sleeper's name also appears in the Boston directory from 1849- 
 1855 inclusive ; then in the Providence directory from 1856-1865, 
 
42 PROCEEDINSS OP THE 
 
 in both places his occupation is given as a tea merchant. His 
 name again appears in the Boston directory from 1866-1872*. 
 
 Here he is listed as a printer From the above it appears 
 
 that the author and printer of the pamphlet lived in Boston at 
 the time of the publication of it, thus affording evidence of its 
 genuineness. The only negative testimony is that the copyright 
 records of Massachusetts for 1849, which are in the custody or 
 the Eegister of Copyrights, fail to shove that the book was 
 copyrighted as claimed." 
 
 The statement of registration is in favour of the authenticity of 
 the work ; for it is unlikely that one who was forging a date 
 would print a conspicuous paragraph by which the forgery could 
 be so easily detected. 
 
 The attempt to find evidence in the Press of the delivery of the 
 lectures in 1847 or the publication of the work in 1849 has also 
 failed. Mr. Horace G-. Wadlin, Librarian of the Boston Public 
 Library, has kindly written, Apr. 23, 1913 : — " An exhausitve 
 
 search of Boston daily newspapers for 1846 and 1847 has 
 
 failed to reveal any information concerning G. W. Sleeper." 
 Dr. Putnam writes : — " Search has also been made in the files of 
 some of the Boston newspapers of that period [1849 J, but without 
 avail. This search is not quite completed and if we should dis- 
 cover it I will inform you." Supposing that the pamphlet is 
 genuine the remainder of the introduction, of which the first 
 portion was quoted on p. 39, gives an explanation of the silence 
 of the Boston Press. 
 
 " The first public delivery of either occurred 
 
 in Boston about two years ago, it was, however, almost 
 impossible to obtain a hearing for them so bitterly hostile 
 did the audiences (assemblies little better than savages) 
 prove themselves to be, and so persistently did they inter- 
 rupt, and endeavor to overawe, the lecturer. 
 
 " Such being the condition of society, and as the press of 
 this city, influenced by certain clergymen, have not seen fit 
 to acquaint the public either with the substance of the ideas 
 set forth or with the facts relating to the attempts to deliver 
 the lectures containing them, I decided to put these subjects 
 to print ; as being the only way open to secure attention 
 from the many fair and noble minds among our citizens who 
 undoubtedly have Common Sense." 
 
 Comparison letween O. W. Sleeper's pamphlets of 1849 and 1860. — 
 "We know that the date (Providence ; 1860) of the later pamphlet, 
 " Shall we have Pree Speech ? " is genuine ; for the copy in the 
 British Museum Library bears the stamp " June 9, 1864." This 
 
 * Mr. J. P. Sleeper informs me that this is an error and that his father 
 did not return to Boston but went to New York in June 1866. 
 
LINNBA.N SOCIETY OF lONDON. 43 
 
 work is stated to be registered in " The District Court of Ehode 
 Island," and I have asked Dr. Putnam if he svill kindly ascertain 
 whether it is actually entered in the records of the Court *. 
 
 The comparison between the two pamphlets is, in my opinion, 
 unfavourable to the authenticity of the one with the earlier date. 
 The undoubtedly genuine pamphlet contains nothing surprising, 
 nothing that any able man, well read in the ethnology of his day, 
 might not have inferred. Although the two works present 
 obvious resemblances — for instance in the treatment of gun- 
 powder — there is not the slightest hint in the later pamphlet of 
 the existence of the earlier one, nor of any original view contained 
 in it. And there is one passage at least where such reference was 
 to be expected. Speaking in 1860 of the unsanitary conditions 
 of ancient Greece the author says : — " Undoubtedly these tended 
 to cause the great plague of Athens — which unheard of disease in 
 modern times is no doubt owing to the superior education of man, 
 whose vast accumulation of scientific facts are fast developing the 
 origin and causes of great pestilences." (p. 13.) 
 
 History of the only copy at present Icnown f. — By far the strongest 
 evidence in favour of the authenticity of the earlier work is to 
 be found in the history of the copy now presented to the Society, 
 as given in the first part of this address (pp. 26-27). Many of the 
 ideas must have been originated by the author, if they are printed 
 in a pamphlet bought in 1891 or 1892 of a bookseller who then 
 said that it was an old work and had been through many hands. 
 This history destroys the validity of an objection which has been 
 felt by many to whom I have shown the pamphlet — the very 
 completeness and balance of the anticipations, and the fact that 
 so many important modern ideas are touched off, often in a few 
 lines. The views on the origin of life and on insects as carriers 
 of disease must I think, under any circumstances, have been 
 original, and those upon the germinal origin of characters and 
 some of the thoughts on resistance almost certainly so. 
 
 The excessive rarity of the pamphlet is probably a point in 
 favour of its authenticity. 
 
 The use of characteristic Huxley an and Spencerian words. — When 
 I read the pamphlet for the first time, I was struck with the em- 
 ployment of the word " Agnostic " as though it were in general 
 use. The author is speaking, on page 15, of Education and what 
 she has done for Man. He speaks of " her Commerce and Travels; 
 her Printing Press and Schools ; her Gunpowder and her Agnostic 
 with his untrammelled thought, ". 
 
 " Unknown Cause " on p. 5 and " vegetal " on p. 2 (we find 
 " vegetable " on pages 9 and 19) suggest Herbert Spencer, but 
 
 * Dr. Putnam has now kindly sent me a letter from Mr. Thorvald Solberg, 
 Eegister of Copyrights, stating that the title of the 1860 pamphlet was duly 
 registered on April 27, 1860, but that no copy was deposited. — E. B. P. 
 Aug. 12, 1913. 
 
 t I have since learnt from Mr. J. F. Sleeper that he possesses three copies 
 of the pamphlet.— E. B. P. Aug. 12, 1913. 
 
44 PROCEEDINGS OE THE 
 
 Sir James Murray informs me that " vegetal" is very old, going 
 back even to Oaxton (1490). 
 
 Huxley's creation of the word " agnostic " in 1869 is vi^ell 
 known, but I think it will be of interest to quote the passages 
 from the " Life and Letters " (London, 1900, vol. i. pp. 319, 
 320). Under the year 1869 we read : — 
 
 " How he came to enrich the English language with 
 
 the name " Agnostic " is explained in his article " Agnosticism " 
 (Coll. Ess. V. pp. 237-239). 
 
 " After describing how it came about that his mind ' steadily 
 gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant,' so well 
 stated by the latter as follows : — 
 
 ' The greatest and perhaps the Bole use of all philosophy of pure reason is, 
 after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlarge- 
 ment (of knowledge), but as a discipline for its delimitation ; and, instead of 
 discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error': — 
 
 " he proceeds — 
 
 ' When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ast myself whether I 
 was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist ; » materialist or an idealist ; a 
 Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the 
 less ready was the answer ; «ntil, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had 
 neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The 
 one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in 
 which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain 
 "gnosis" — had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; 
 while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the 
 problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not 
 think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion 
 
 ' This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place among 
 the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since de- 
 ceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every 
 variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and 
 expressed itself with entire openness ; most of my colleagues were -ists of one 
 sort or another ; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man 
 without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of 
 the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving 
 the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally 
 elongated companions. So I took thought, and inTented what I conceived to 
 be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively 
 antithetic to the " gnostic " of Church history, who professed to know so much 
 about the very things of which I was ignorant ; and I took the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the 
 other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took ; and when the Spectator 
 had stood godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people 
 that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course, com- 
 pletely lulled.' " 
 
 The following account of the origin of " Agnostic " is given in 
 the great Oxford Dictionary : — 
 
 " Suggested by Prof . Huxley at a party held previous to the forma- 
 tion of fhe now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr. James 
 Knowles's house on Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, in 
 my hearing. He took it from St. Paul's mention of the altar to 
 ' the Unknown God.' E. H. Hutton in letter 13 Mar. 1881." 
 
IINNBAN SOCIETY O]? LONDOS'. 45 
 
 Sir James Murray informs me that no importance can be 
 attached to " clewless " (p. 5) of which the first quotation (in the 
 form of " cleuless ") is dated 1862 in the Oxford Dictionary. 
 
 At this point I must leave the problem, hoping to be able to 
 add in an appendix or in an early communication to the Society 
 the evidence wliich vcill enable us to reach a decisive conclusion. 
 
 [Since the delivery of the above address I have been in con- 
 tinual communication with Mr. John ]?. Sleeper, who has kindly 
 permitted me to see much interesting manuscript with a direct 
 bearing on the authenticity of the pamphlet. The new facts 
 suggest further enquiries which are being undertaken but cannot 
 be hurried. I therefore leave the address as it was delivered, save 
 for a few necessary corrections and occasional notes, the latter 
 with the date Aug. 12, 1913. The results will be communicated 
 to the Society at the earliest possible date. 
 
 E. B. PouLTON, Aug. 13, 1913.] 
 
[^Extracted from the Peooebdhtgs of the Limtban Society 
 OP London, Session 1913-14, repaged.] 
 
 CONTINUED INVESTIGATIONS INTO A 
 REMARKABLE AMERICAN WORK 
 UPON EVOLUTION AND THE GERM 
 THEORY OF DISEASE. 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 
 BEAD BBI'OaB THE 
 
 LINNEAN SOCIETY OP LONDON 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ANNIVERSARY MEETING, 
 
 Mat 25, 1914. 
 
 BY 
 Peofessoe EDWAED B. POULTON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PEIKTBB BY lAYLOK AND -FBANCIS, EBD LION COUKI, FLEET SIKEM. 
 
 1914, 
 
PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 1914. 
 
 When I had the pleasure of addressing you on May 24, 1913, 
 I little thought that the same subject would require another 
 year's intermittent work, and furnish the material for another 
 Anniversary Address. But Gr. W. Sleeper's booklet, dated 1S49, 
 had been in my hands only two months, and the enquiry ' was 
 still proceeding, when the address was dehvered. I had informed 
 the author's son, Mr. J. E. Sleeper, that the registration of the 
 work was not to be found among the copyright records for 
 Massachusetts for the year 1849, that there was no evidence 
 of a copy having been deposited, and that therefore any docu- 
 mentary proofs which he could furnish would be of the utmost 
 importance. His reply, which arrived on June 2nd, a few days 
 after the delivery of the Address, shewed that decisive evidence 
 was in his possession : — 
 
 Sense's contract, signed and sealed by him and dated May 18, 1849, is 
 among my lather's papers ; there is an entry in his old memo book for 1849, 
 " Bense, pamphlets, $30," under that date ; and an MS. lecture, " Life and the 
 Cosmosite," refers to the Origin of Life as delivered in 1847. 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper had previously stated that the word 
 " Agnostic " had been introduced by his father, and that it 
 was to be found in the manuscript of a lecture to which he 
 assigned the date 1846. 
 
 I wrote asking for the loan of all these documents, in order 
 that they might be examined by experts. Mr. Sleeper replied 
 that, in the absence of the expected registration, they had 
 become so precious that he could only submit them one at a 
 time, and could only despatch the second after the safe return 
 of the first, and so with the rest. This meant loss of time ; 
 but the perfectly reasonable conditions could not be resisted, 
 and I still hoped that expert opinion would be unanimous, 
 no further evidence required, and the whole subject brought to 
 a, decisive conclusion in a terminal note to the 1913 Address. 
 With this hope, the revised proofs were held back from the 
 press until late in the summer; but by August 13 it was 
 obvious that the enquiry was far from complete, and I therefore 
 returned the proofs to the General Secretary, after adding the 
 brief explanatory paragraph on p. 45. 
 
 I fully expected when the proofs were returned that the 
 investigation would be finished in time for a meeting in the 
 autumn session ; but, partly because I could not devote myself 
 to this subject continuously, although mainly on account of the 
 
2 LltTNEAN SOCIETY OF T,0NI)01f. 
 
 inherent ditffculty of pursuing enquiries in another and distant 
 land, it was soon realised that many months must elapse. 
 
 The necessary delay has been of special and great advantage, 
 in that it has afforded the opportunity for settling, as I believe 
 finally, the date of certain type used in printing the booklet — a 
 problem which last year appeared to be insoluble. 
 
 I do not think that the Fellows of the Linnean Society will 
 criticise too severely the devotion of two Anniversary Addresses 
 to this interesting subject. Had I not seen, in the documentary 
 evidence and the lines of enquiry suggested by it, the probability 
 of a final decisive solution, I should not have hesitated to express 
 my own eonclusious as to the authenticity or otherwise of the 
 booklet ; although it is not to be expected that the opinion would 
 have received universal or even general approval. On the evidence 
 available a year ago, many thinkers held that the booklet was the 
 outcome of remarkable genius, many that it was the product of 
 remarkable fraud. Whether genius or fraud, it is certainly 
 remarkable, as I fully realised when the title of the address 
 ■was deliberately chosen:— "A remarkable American Work upon 
 Evolution and the Germ Theory of Disease." 
 
 The evidence now brought forward will probably lead the 
 scientific and literary world to an undisputed conclusion — that 
 the work is a fraud ; but, when the story is told, I do not doubt 
 that the word " remarkable " will, by general agreement, be 
 allowed to stand. 
 
 Much kind help has been received in the course of the investi- 
 gation, which, indeed, could not otherwise have been carried to a 
 successful issue. All such help is acknowledged in the course of 
 the Address, but I must at the outset specially record my grateful 
 thanks to Mr. Horace Hart, Controller of the Oxford University 
 Press; Mr, J. W. Phinney, Manager of the American Type- 
 founders' Company, Boston, Massachusetts ; Sir George Warner, 
 late Keeper of the Manuscripts of the British Museum ; Mrs. 
 Erederic Endicott, of Canton, Massachusetts, a daughter of the 
 late Mr. W. Bense; Dr. H. Putnam, Librarian of Congress, 
 Washington ; Mr. H. G. Wadlin, Librarian of the Public Library, 
 Boston. 
 
 I also desire to thank Mr. F. Madan, Bodley's Librarian, 
 Oxford University, for his great kindness in correcting the proofs 
 of the reproduction in the Appendix, comparing them line for 
 line and word for word with the original booklet. Fellows of 
 the Linnean Society owe to his kindness, and to the skill of the 
 experts of the Oxford University Press, that they will possess an 
 exact reproduction in all essentials of the work stated to be 
 written by G. W. Sleeper and dated 1849. 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper has been most kind in supplying documents 
 and answering questions, and I fear that the long correspondence 
 has absorbed much of his time. I regret that 1 have not been 
 able to accept his conclusions. On p. 22 I have ventured to 
 
PEBSIDENTIAL ABBRBSS. 
 
 suggest the mental coiulition wliich led to the fabrication of 
 
 evidence. The solution offered — that of self-deception is, I 
 
 hope, not only the correct one, but also the one which will bring 
 the least distress to my courteous correspondent. 
 
 1. The Type. 
 
 At the time when the revised address for 1913 was sent to 
 press, no clear evidence based on the type had been forthcoming 
 (Proc. Linn. Soc. 1912-13, pp. 40, 41). Some of the founts 
 had been found by Mr. Horace Hart in an undated catalogue of 
 V. and J. Figgins, but their successors had beeti unable to trace 
 the history. Mr. Hart, on the whole, concluded that the 
 booklet " might very well have been printed in Boston at the 
 date mentioned" (p. 41). 
 
 The enquiry has now been carried much further, and has pro- 
 duced results of the highest importance. On July 16, 1913, 
 Mr. Hart wrote the following letter to his friend, the late 
 Mr. Theodore L. De Vinne, of 300 West Seventy-sixth Street, 
 New York: — 
 
 I am troubling you with a question about the date of certain types, which 
 will interest you, especially if you are able to make the necessary references to 
 typefounders' catalogues in your own possession, 
 
 I have a pamphlet, the titlepage of which is as follows : — 
 
 SOME EEOENT LECTURES. 
 By GEO. W. SLEEPER. 
 Boston : Wm. Bensb, Printer, 1849. 
 
 I have been assisting to fix the date by means of the types, and I 
 
 have chosen three founts as tests. These are : 
 
 (1) Type used for certain headings: Piggins's two-line long primer 
 
 Monastic No. 2. 
 
 (2) Ditto. . two-line brevier Monastic No. 2. 
 
 (3) Ditto. • two-line small pica wide Latia. 
 
 The point I would submit to you is, — Can you say with any certainty that 
 1, 2, or 3 existed in America as early as 1849 ? I find them in late editions 
 of Piggins's Specimen Books ; but unfortunately their business has been sold to 
 Messrs. E. H. Stevens & Co., and the new firm has not the means of finding 
 out anything about origins of types. 
 
 I have not found these types in your specimen books. 
 
 P.S. — On second thoughts, I am sending you a couple of rotographg, one 
 of the titlepage which contains the types I am writing about, and the other 
 containing a drive-down* heading. The words "SOME RECENT LEC- 
 TURES "are in the wide Latin type, and the words "Tlie Origin of Life" 
 are in the two-line long primer and brevier Monastic No. 2. 
 
 * A heading that is not printed at the very top of a page, but is driven 
 down, as at the beginning of any important section of a book. 
 
 a2 
 
4 lIIfNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
 
 Mr. De Vinne, in acknowledging tbe receipt of this communi- 
 cation, said he was getting old and could not himself undertake 
 the necessary research, but that he had handed Mr. Hart's letter 
 and enclosures over to Mr. J. W. Phiuney, the Manager of the 
 American Typefounders' Company, Boston. Mr. Phinney kindly 
 undertook a thorough investigation, which occupied some months, 
 and it was not till Nov. 4, 1913, that Mr. Hart received the 
 following reply : — 
 
 Mr. Theodore L. De Vinne has handed me your inquiry about the date of 
 certain types used in the titleptige of a pamphlet entitled "Some Eecent 
 Lectures by George W. Sleeper ; Boston, William Sense, Printer, 1849." 
 
 I haye examined my specimen books of French, German, English, and 
 American types, and am disappointed. 
 
 Our Librarian in Jersey City, where we have a Typographic Library and 
 Museum, has examined the catalogues of four Libraries, and is unable to find 
 the Sleeper Lectures pamphlet. 
 
 The type has been variously called "Norman," "Wide Latin," "Celtic 
 No. 2,'' etc. 
 
 We do not find any specimens of "Norman" in French specimen-books 
 earlier than 1879, in Berthier, a concern w itb a reputation of [producing] faces 
 foreign to France. Even at this day no French specimen-book of a leadius; 
 type-foundry shows "Norman." The earliest showing in England was by 
 Eiggins, 1873, one size, two-line Great Primer, Caps, and Small Caps., called 
 " Wide Latin." The same book shows " Ornamented Latin," three sizes, with 
 Floriated Caps, and Small Caps, similar to " Wide Latin," in bodies corre- 
 sponding to our 6-, 8-, 10-, 12-, and 18-point sizes. 
 
 Figgins also shows the Floriated Caps, separately under the name " Latin 
 Initials." 
 
 We have not been able to find the face in German books earlier than 
 1885. 
 
 MaoKellar, Smiths, & Jordan's 'Typographic Advertiser' of July, 1870, 
 shows the face in eight sizes as " Celtic No. 2." All other specimens in tliat 
 issue are priced, indicating that the face was quite new at that date in that 
 foundry. 
 
 The Matrix Book of the Johnson Foundry shows that the face was first, 
 added in 1870. The matrices are electrotyped. The specimen has no patent 
 date, while all faces originating in that foundry were patented as they 
 appeared. 
 
 Conner's 'Typographic Messenger' shows the face in 1873, as a supplement, 
 printed on one side, suggesting that it was just added. 
 
 The Boston Type Foundry shows the face in five sizes of Caps, in 1874, and 
 there is a note to the effect that " Small Caps, are in preparation." 
 
 Our collection ha.s the Dickinson book of January 187fi, in which "Norman" 
 is shown in four sizes in Caps, and Small Caps. I believe the Dickinson 
 commenced to manufacture the " Norman" in 1874. 
 
 Finally, in a letter written March 16, 1914, kindly giving me 
 permission to quote the above statement, Mr. Phinney summed up 
 the results of his enquiry in these "words :—" It seetns to me 
 impossible that the titlepage could have been set at the date 
 claimed for it, the style of type used in some of the lines of the 
 titlepage being designed at a much later date, as we have 
 recently established in the running-down we gave to the type 
 face." 
 
PEESIDBNTIAL ADDRESS. 5 
 
 2. Early Worhmanship of W. Bense compared with that of 
 the Booklet dated 1849, 
 
 The rough appearance of the booklet was referred to in last 
 year's address (p. 41), where Mr. Hart's opinion that it was the 
 work of an amateur is quoted, and where it is compared un- 
 favourably with the 1860 pamphlet. 
 
 Sir George Warner wrote, August 7, 1913, after seeing the 
 booklet : — 
 
 Apart from its really astonishing anticipation of modern theories and 
 discoveries, the only thing at all suspicious about the pamphlet is that it looks 
 almost too early and scrubby — in short, overdone, especially as it purports to 
 have been printed at Boston, which was not a primitive Western town, but the 
 literary centre of the States. Even if Benea was merely a printer in a small 
 way of business, one would have expected something better, and it is a pity 
 more of his work is not available for comparison. 
 
 It has, fortunately, been possible to supply this want ; for 
 Mrs. Endicott, a daughter of the late Mr. W. Bense, kindly 
 sent to me on Nov. 4, 1913, two samples of her father's work 
 set up within a few years of 1849. One is the ' Annual Eeport 
 of the Selectmen of the Town of Canton' (1855) ; the other the 
 'Massapoag Journal and Canton Observer' (vol. i. No. 12, 
 Oct. 9, 1852). Mr. Hart has kindly examined both of them, 
 and tells me that the type referred to on p. 3 is not to be found 
 in either, although the journal is rich in the variety of its founts. 
 The workmanship of both is creditable, and bears no resemblance 
 to the rough and untidy print of the booklet. The comparison 
 affords strong evidence that the booklet was not printed by 
 Bense. 
 
 Mrs. Endicott wrote in the accompanying letter : — 
 
 My father thoroughly understood his business, and took pride and 
 pleasure in it. Ho served an apprenticeship in the old-fashioned way with 
 the well-established firm of Crocker and Brewster, continued witli them 
 afterward as a journeyman, and ever since my earliest recollection had his 
 own printing-office in Boston, and I suppose was in business for himself at 
 the time of his marriage. He must have had a proper outfit, too, for he made 
 a specialty of dainty work, dance orders, bills of fare for some of the largo 
 city hotels, and other work of that nature. 
 
 Mr. Phinney, in his letter to Mr. Hart (p. 4), also stated that 
 "William Bense was an excellent printer." 
 
 The. copy of the ' Massapoag Journal ' supplies evidence that 
 there were business relationships between W. Bense and G. W. 
 Sleeper ; for it contains a rather extensive advertisement of the 
 latter's " New England Tea Hong," at 130 Washington Street. 
 Eurthermore, the last advertisement in the paper, that of the 
 printer, W. Bense, states that " orders may be left with E. & N. 
 Bent, at the Depot, or at 130 Washington Street, Over New 
 England Tea Hong, Boston." 
 
6 LIA^NEAW SOCIETY OF LONDOK. 
 
 Mr. J. r. Sleeper states that his father specially arranged 
 for W. Bense to procure the paper and type from abroad, and 
 would not permit the printer to dump the paper. No such 
 stipulations appear in the very elaborate contract (see p. 10). 
 The price, moreover, of 30 dollars for 500 copies, does not seem 
 to leave much margin to pay for the special importation of paper 
 and type. 
 
 3. Evidence that O. W. Sleeper was described as a Printer 
 between 1866 and 1872. 
 
 In last year's Anniversary Address it is stated (p. 42), on tlie 
 authority of Dr. H. Putnam, that G. W. Sleeper's name appears 
 as a printer in the Boston Directories from 1866-1872. Mr. J. F. 
 Sleeper, on the contrary, strongly asserted {I. c, footnote) that the 
 information was erroneous, and that his father went to New York 
 in June 1866. I threfore asked Dr. Putnam if he would give me 
 the precise addresses printed in the volumes. He kindly replied 
 •as follows : — 
 
 OiBoe of the Librarian of Congress, 
 November 14, 1913. 
 
 The following entries occur in the Boston City Directories for 
 the years 1866 to lb7l' : 
 
 1866. Sleeper, George, printer, boards 89 Hudson. 
 
 1867. Sleeper,. George, printer, boards 12 Piedmont. 
 
 1868. Sleeper, George, printer, 120 "Wash. b. 11 SufEolk-pl. 
 
 1869. Sleeper, George W., printer, 118 Wash. b. 29 Harvai'd. 
 
 1870. Sleeper, George W., printer, 118 Wash. b. 29 Harvard. 
 
 1871. Sleeper, George W., printer, 118 Wash. b. 29 Harvard. 
 
 1872. Sleeper, George W., printer, boards 10 Decatur. 
 
 It will be seen that two of Ihe business addresses are very near 
 that of the "New England Tea Hong," at 130 Washington 
 Street. 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper states emphatically that his father " never 
 was a printer ; any such statement in a Boston Directory 
 for 1860, &c., is either a gross error or refers to some other 
 person. Your proof said ' 1866-1872.' At that time father was 
 in New York and New Jersey ! " Mr. Sleeper also suggests 
 many directions in which enquiries may be expected to yield 
 confirmatory evidence. These I have not had time to make. 
 Furthermore, any amount of evidence that G. W. Sleeper was 
 resident in New York and New Jersey between 1866 and 1872 
 would not disjirove his residence in Boston for portions of the 
 same years. The proof that is required by Mr. J. F. Sleeper 
 must deal with the Boston record. No other will suffice. 
 
PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 7 
 
 4. The Contract with the Printer. 
 
 The contract, of which a reduced facsimile appears opposite 
 p. 10, IS the most important document relating to the 1849 
 booldet that 1 have received. It supplies a crucial test. If 
 it be genuine, the booklet receives sufficient confirmation, and 
 will be accepted by the reasonable critic. If it be proved a 
 forgery, the reasonable critic will cJtinclude that the booklet is 
 a forgery also. 
 
 Several eminent authorities in Oxford to whom I shewed the 
 contract were quite satisfied with its appearance, and were 
 prepared to accept the booklet on its authority. I do not 
 think that any of them examined it very critically, for they 
 appeared to be satisfied with the inherent improbability that 
 it had been forged. Mr. Horace Hart remarked that the deed 
 was unnecessarily pompous and elaborate for so small a sum 
 as thirty dollars. 
 
 After receiving several favourable reports, 1 took the document 
 to the Eegius Professor of Modern History, Prof. G. H. Firth, 
 who at once expressed his disbelief in it, telling me that he would 
 not think of accepting historical data on such evidence. He did 
 not consider that the brown stains looked genuine, and thought 
 that the effect had been in part produced by rubbing. 
 
 Mr. J. P. Sleeper states that the lecture containing the word 
 " Agnostic " (p. 17) and some other manuscripts, being crumpled 
 and dirty, he damped them slightly with a nearly dry sponge, and 
 then ironed them flat. Such treatment might have caused the 
 appearance noticed by Professor Pirtli. 
 
 The document was then sent to Sir Prederick Kenyon, who 
 kindly expressed his opinion as follows : — 
 
 British Museum, 
 
 London, W.O. 
 July 25, 1913. 
 I return the contract. I can't say I like the look of it. The brown 
 stain does not look natural ; it has more the appearance of the coffee-stain 
 which one sees on faked documents than the genuine foxing. Otherwise 
 there is not much to take hold of, though I should have expected more wear 
 at the cracks of the folds. On the whole, though I should not like to 
 pronounce decisively, this document rather increases my distrust than 
 otherwise. 
 
 I have shown it to the present Keeper of MSS., who concurs ; un- 
 fortunately we no longer have Warner available, whose experience is much 
 greater than ours. 
 
 1 next sent the contract to Sir George Warner, late Keeper of 
 the Manuscripts of the British Museum, who was then at 
 Llandrindod Wells. He kindly replied, Aug.l, 1913 : — 
 
 I have carefully examined the document which you have sent me, but 
 without further evidence cannot come to a positive conclusion respecting its 
 genuineness. So far as its general appearance goes, it certainly might date 
 
8 LINNEAN SOCIETY 03? LONDON. 
 
 from 1849, but I am by no means ooiiTincefl that it really does so, for there 
 is much in it that is decidedly suspicious. The discoloration (which in 
 forgeries is so often a weak point) does not look quite natural, and I see no 
 signs that it is caused by the use of pounce instead of blotting-paper*. But, 
 apart from this, there seems to be an occasional tendency to lapse into what 
 may be the writer's own customary hand as distinct from an artiBcial one. 
 Take, for instance, the"9" at the end of "aforsnid." This was originally 
 written as " 'Q," but has been painfully altered to " d " so as to conform to the 
 usage elsewhere ; and the same is^pparently the case with the " d " at the end 
 of "counted." In my experience tliere is no letter, especially when at the 
 end of a word, in which a forger is more often taken off bis guard; and 
 thronghout the document the rf-form seems to be made with more or less of 
 an effort, as if the writer was not accustomed to it. I am also inclined to 
 think that the attestntion was written by the same hand as the body of the 
 document. The mode of connecting the letter s with e or another letter 
 following is somewhat peculiar and characteristic, and ft is exactly the same in 
 " presence " and " Joseph " as it is in " presents " (1. 1) and elsewhere t. 
 
 A few weeks after the receipt of the above letter, Mr. J. P. 
 Sleeper kindly sent several sheets of his father's manuscript, 
 written within a few years of 1849. These were submitted, 
 together with a collotype of the contract, to Sir George Warner, 
 who wrote, Aug. 28, 1913, as follows : — 
 
 The more I see of the contract the less I am disposed to believe in its 
 authenticity, for the hand varies too mucli in so short a document written all 
 at one time to be the writer's own natural hand, and has all the signs of an 
 attempt to disguise it. Tbe paper, so far as I remember it, seems to be the 
 same as that used for most of the documents now sent, but of course it may 
 have been a blank page torn oif for the purpose of the forgery, if it is one, as I 
 more and more strongly suspect is the case. I certainly would not commit 
 myself to a belief in the pamphlet until more copies with authenticated dates 
 of acquisition are forthcoming. 
 
 It wa.s obvious, after learning Sir George Warner's opinion, 
 that every attempt should be made to obtain signatures for com- 
 parison with the contract, as -well as other possible confirmation. 
 On Aug. 9 I wrote to the Librarian of the Boston Public Library, 
 asking if he could kindly give me the names and addresses of 
 
 * Mr. J. F. Sleeper sent me samples of his father's white and also of his 
 dark blotting-sand, but they bore no resemblance to the fine white powder 
 wliich was thickly encrusted on some of the ink. 
 
 t Sir George also wrote on the same subject, Aug. 7, 1913: — 
 
 In the contract it is not the similarity of the signature of Bense to the 
 body of the document v\hic"n struck me as a little suspicious, for I think there 
 can be no doubt that, as would be natural, they were both written by tbe same 
 hand. The question is, whether the signature of the witness was not also 
 written by tbe same hand, though the intention was to disguise it. 
 
 These of course are only groimds for .suspicion, and not proofs, but they 
 make me very anxious to see specimens of both Sleeper's and Sense's hand- 
 writing, if it is possible to obtain them. Tbe problem presented by the 
 pamphlet is ah extremely interesting one, and it is well to sift the matter 
 
 thoroughly The use of the term " Agnostic " staggers 
 
 me, and I confess I am sceptical and disposed to ask for more proof than this 
 doubtful contract that the pamphlet is anytliing more than a fraud prompted 
 by an old man's vanity and desire to score off his detractors. 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 9 
 
 W. Bense's children. The Assistant-Librarian, Mr. Otto Fleisch- 
 iier, kindly Replied, Aug. 22, sending the addresses of two 
 daughters and a son. I wrote at once to Mrs. Frederick Endicott, 
 of 1032 Washington Street, Canton, Massachusetts, who replieil 
 most kindly on Sept. 21st, and has since continued, in consultation 
 with other members of her faiiiily, to assist the investigation. 
 Mrs. Endicott's letter showed that no evideuce was to be expected 
 from the business books and papers that must have been kept at 
 her father's printing establishment, for 
 
 in the panic and confusion of the great Boston fire in 1872, the chief of tlie 
 five depai'tuient ordered tlie blowing up of numerous buildings, among them 
 the one at 35 Congress St., where his office was. Tiie fire did not reach the 
 spot, but the great building was totally wrecked, and father's iinely equipped 
 office, presses, and everything, went down in the ruins. So of course every- 
 thing, books, papers, and all were gone, and he had to make an entirely new 
 beginning. 
 
 Mrs. Endicott had never heard of Mr. Joseph Crafts, and other 
 attempts to trace the witness to the contract have also ended in 
 failure. Enclosed in Mrs. Endicott's letter was the signature of 
 William Bense, reproduced on a slightly smaller scale below. 
 The signature was the recei|)t for a bill dated Jan. 8, 1890, from 
 the office at 35 Congress Street, Monks Building : — 
 
 The signature was obviously closely similar to that upon the 
 contract (opposite p. 10). I sent it to Sir George Warner, 
 together with a collotype reproduction of the contract, and wrote 
 to Mrs. Endicott begging for more signatures, especially of an 
 earlier date, and one as near as possible to 1849. Sir George 
 replied, Oct. 6, 1913, as follows : — 
 
 The signature you have sent me certainly does support the genuineness of 
 the Sleeper-Bense contract of 1849. At the same time I am not quite satisfied, 
 for it seems to me very remarkable that after so long an interval as 40 years 
 the signature should be so precisely identical ; and it is almost easier to believe 
 that the early one is a forgery from a considerably later example. Is there 
 no signature of Bense more nearly of the same date as the contract 1 — and 
 other writing as well, for it is the text of the contract which looks so sus- 
 piciously irregular and artificial. The signature, I think, would not be a 
 diflicult one to forge. 
 
 The hoped-for signatures, three in number, were found by 
 Mrs. Endicott and her sister, and sent Nov. 4, 1913. One 
 of them, reproduced in a shghtly smaller size below, is of late 
 date, Sept. 5, 1882. It is a receipt from the same office as the 
 
LINNBAN SOCIETY OF LOXDON. 
 
 signature last-mentioned, and, like it, obviously resembles the 
 cue appended to the contract : — 
 
 The two other signatures are of great importance, being much 
 earlier — the first, of Dec. 17, 1856, not eight years, the second 
 not quite nine years, from the date of the contract ; yet both are 
 very different from the signature on the latter. The first, the 
 receipt on a bill, is shewn slightly reduced ; the second, on an 
 unreceipted bill, is of about half the original size, and includes 
 with the signature the upper third of the document, so that the 
 ordinary handwriting, as well as the signature, may be compared 
 with the contract: — 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ _ '-■d-O J~. ,yK -it, - s. c,^^^ ^ /, c/z, 
 
 Sir George Warner wrote, Nov. 17, after receiving the four 
 signatures and the collotype of the contract : — 
 
 I have received your five documents and have compared them. The two 
 dated in 1856 and 18.'i8 supply the evidence which has hitherto been lacking, 
 and I am now convinced that the contract purporting to be dated 18 May, 
 1849, is nothing more than a forgery, as I have suspected all along. Both the 
 text and signature were evidently written by the same person ; but tlie hand 
 of the text has no resemblance to that of the items in the bill of 1858, nor 
 
c'^ixc-,. ■ cJ c iiLt,^ (-, L7r.jt /1 1 ' J ' ../j / ' 
 
 
 y ,.,<'- 
 <-■/- /v 
 
 /' 
 
 :.,/. 
 
 
 
 
 
 # 
 
 REDUCED COLLOTYPE FACSIMILE 
 
 S/,s(? o/ original sheet g^'J, z«. x 8j\7 /«. 
 
PEESIDENTIAI. ADDEESS. II 
 
 could the latter, I think, have been developed from it, while the signature 
 appears to have been copied from a genuine signature of Sense later, and 
 probably much later, than 1858, after he had ceased to make the exaggerated 
 flourish at the end of B. 
 
 I am going up to the British Museum on Wednesday and will show ths 
 documents, il I may, to Mr. Gilson and get his opinion. 
 
 Two days later, Nov. 19, Sir George wrote : — 
 
 I return the documents, which J have shown to Mr. Gilson, Keeper of MSB. 
 at the British Museum. He agrees with me that the contract is spurious. 
 
 5. Advertisements for the Booklet dated 1849. 
 
 In the course of a letter written Aug. 7, 1913, Sir George 
 Warner had made the following suggestions : — 
 
 How would it be to advertise for further copies of the pamijhlet; for, if 
 500 were printed, others almost certainly exist somewhere, and tlie date of 
 acquisition in some cases might be recorded or be otherwise ascertainable ? 
 
 Such attempts have now been made. 
 
 Dr. Putnam very kindly advertised for a copy of the 1849 
 booklet, but without success, as explained in his letter of Feb. 13, 
 1914 :— 
 
 We advertised for Sleeper's "Shall we have Common Sense?" in the 
 ' Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer,' and also in the ' Publishers' Weekly,' 
 on November 10, 1913, but no reply of any sort has been received to the 
 advertisements. Our failure to find by this means a copy of the edition of 
 500 copies supposed to have been issued 65 years ago would not appear per se 
 to argue such an issue as improbable. 
 
 With regret at our inability to aid you further in this matter. 
 
 Mrs. Endicott also kindly advertised in November, 1913, for 
 information concerning the pamphlet in the ' Boston Trans- 
 script,' and has recently drawn my attention to another advertise- 
 ment to the same effect which appeared at the beginning of last 
 March in the same paper, ^o reply was evoked by either of 
 these. 
 
 6. 27ie Entries in O. W, Sleeper's Diary for 1849. 
 
 The diary, kindly sent to me by Mr. J. P. Sleeper, was a little 
 bound volume for the year 1849, so arranged that each of its 
 pages held spaces for the entries on three days. The entries had 
 been struck out, sometimes with pen, sometimes pencil, but 
 were still legible. Under the date Thursday, April 26, was the 
 entry " Copyright' -50," and under Friday, May 18, "Bense 
 Pamphlets iSSSO.OO." If other details of the expenditure of a 
 prosperous business m^n, as Sleeper was then, had been entered 
 with equal care, the diary would have been far more crowded than 
 as a matter of fact it was. The page including April 26 held no 
 entry except the " Copyright," the opposite page held two entries ; 
 the page including May 18 held three entries in addition to th& 
 " Pamphlets," the opposite page two entries. 
 
12 LIJJNBAlf SOCIETY OF LONDOS". 
 
 I was anxious to know if the fifty cents conformed to the law 
 at the time, and also whether there was any entry in the record 
 book for April 26, 1849, that might have escaped notice. I there- 
 fore wrote to Dr. Putnam, who very kindly sent me the following 
 result of a renewed search made by the Register of Copyrights : — 
 
 From the Register of OorYRiQiiTS, 
 Sept. i2, 1913. 
 To the LiBKARiAN OP Congress, 
 
 Referring to the inquiry I'rom Prof. E. B. Poulton. 
 
 Professor Poultnn asks that the Copyright Office record book for 
 the yenr 1849 be searched under the specific date April 2(5, for possible entry 
 of Mr. Sleeper's book. We have done so, but find no registrations at all on 
 April 26 of that year. As stated in my previous "Memorandum," we had 
 already examined the record book page by pnge for the year 1849 vpithout 
 discovering any entiy in regard to Mr. Sleeper's book. 
 
 He also asks, in view of a notation in Mr. Sleeper's Diary, what the legal 
 copyright fee was at that date, and whether the copyright could have been 
 registered before the book was published. 
 
 The answer is that any registration in 1849 must have taken place under the 
 provisions of the Act of February 3, 1831, which provided in sec. 4 as follows 
 (in part): — 
 
 "That no person 'shall be entitled to the benefit of this Act, unless he 
 shall, before publication, deposit a printed copy of the title of such book, 
 or books, map, chart, musical composition, priut, cut, or engraving, in the 
 clerk's office of the district court of the district wherein the author or 
 proprietor shall reside, and the clerk of sucli court is hereby directed and 
 required to record the same thereof forthwith, in a book to be kept for 
 that purpose .... For whioh record, the clerk shall be entitled to receive, 
 from the person claiming such right as aforesaid, fifty cents .... And the 
 author or proprietor of any such book, map, chart, musical composition, 
 print, cut, or engraving, shall, within three TaonVaa ivom t\\e pvJilication 
 of said book, map, chart, jnusioal composition, print, cut, or engraving, 
 deliver or cause to be delivered u copy of the same to the clerk of said 
 district, . . ." 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 TlIORVALD SOLBERG, 
 
 Seffister of Copyrights. 
 
 It is therefore clear that the date and fee of the copyright are 
 entered in accordance with the law existing at the time ; although, 
 in the absence of coofirmation, they are valueless as evidence of 
 the publication in 1849. Sir George Warner, in fact, considered 
 that the diary does not support the genuineness of the pamphlet, 
 for he wrote, Sept. 6, 1913 : — 
 
 I am not satisfied with the entry in the Diary, 18 May, and instead of 
 removing my suspicions it merely increases them. The inis in whioh it is 
 written looks as if it had been doctored to give it the appearance of age, and 
 neither this entry nor the others in which the same ink is used liave quite the 
 character of G. W. Sleeper's hand — they seem imitative rather than natural, 
 e. g. compare " Barrill," 20 May, with " Burrill," 15 March, and the entry on 
 22 May with the other " Nash " entries. The object of more forged entries 
 than one would of course be to make any peculiarity in the appearance of the 
 entry less marked. On the other hand, assuming all the rest of the entries to 
 have been Sleeper's, his hand certainly does vary to a certain extent, as every- 
 one's does when writing at different times and under diiTerent conditions. So 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 1 3 
 
 far therefore the eTidenue is inconclusive, and I am very glad to hear you are 
 in coinmuaication with Bense's daughter. If his ledgers or business accounts 
 are in their possession, they ought to settle the matter * ; but it will be some- 
 thing, with regard to the contract, to get specimens of his signature and 
 handwriting t. I ani inclined to think that the IB May entry and the contract 
 were written by the same person, so far as I can remember the latter. 
 
 7. Manuscript exhibiting Appearance of Artificial Treatment 
 with a Brown Stain. 
 
 Mr. J. P. Sleeper kindly sent to me, Aug. 10, 1913, a number 
 of short manuscripts, probably the original rough drafts of a series 
 of articles for the press entitled " Thoughts of an Atheist." 
 Some of the pages were written on the backs of sheets dated 1851 
 and 1852, and accompanying them was a manuscript letter, 
 protesting against slavery, signed "A Southerner," and dated 
 Aug. 14, 1852. This, 'like the "Thoughts," was evidently 
 intended for the press, and probably published. There seems 
 little doubt that all were written within a few years of 1849, yet 
 the contrast between them and the pamphlet is immense. The 
 " Thoughts," which convey no suggestion of originality or power, 
 include discourses on the followmg subjects : — (No. 7) On laws 
 and their enforcement and on the atheist being compelled to give 
 evidence on oath — although meaningless to him ; (No. 8) On the 
 atheist being as good as any other man ; (No. 12) On the brain 
 of animals and man, and on mind as the product of brain and 
 therefore of matter ; (No. 13) On animal sagacity and instinct ; 
 an unnumbered paper on the inconsistencies of the attributes of 
 the Deity. 
 
 N 0. 9 was of interest in a very different way ; for it had obviously 
 been treated with a brown stain, apparently laid on by a brush or 
 rubbed on by a broad surface, perhaps the end of a finger or a 
 painter's stump. 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper suggests that a fluid may have been spilt over 
 the manuscript, or mildew formed in the creases, and that after 
 some chemical had been then brushed over the surface in order to 
 remove the effect, the iron in the ink had in time caused the stain. 
 He has not seen such an appearance on any of the other papers. 
 
 This curious-looking document was sul)mitted to Sir George 
 Warner, who wrote Aug. 28, 1913 : — " No. 9 has a very queer 
 appearance. Is the stain tobacco-juice or what? It is obviously 
 artiiicial and intentional, and not the natural discoloration of 
 time like that on No. 8 ; but this again, 1 think, is not the same 
 as that which is on the contract.'' 
 
 8. The Paper of the BooUet dated 1849. 
 
 The present section does not contribute evidence for or against 
 the authenticity of the work; but it is desirable to render the 
 
 * See p. 9. t See p. 10. 
 
14 LINNBAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
 
 enquiry as thorough as possible, and to throw further light on a 
 subject already investigated up to a certain point. 
 
 Mr. Lewis Evans and Mr. Johns expressed the opinion, at the 
 time of last year's address (p. 40), that the paper is probably a 
 a Dutch hand-made. 
 
 The late Mr. De Vinne also informed me, Aug. 25, 1913, that 
 " the hand-made paper sold in the United States about 1850 was 
 largely of Dutch manufacture." 
 
 It is now possible to come to a definite conclusion concerning 
 the watermark, wliich appears on pp. 19-20 of the booklet, and 
 concerniug the letters 1 V to be made out from pp. 9-10 and 
 25-26. 
 
 Last summer, Mr. Horace Hart, continuing the skilled help 
 which he has always given me in this enquiry, sent a photograph 
 of the watermark to Mr. 0. H. Balston of W. and R. Balston, 
 Ltd., Maidstone, proprietors of the Whatman paper. Mr. Balston 
 recognised the device as that distinctive of his firm for paper of 
 Eoyal size (19 in. x 24 in.), namely, a shield with three diagonal 
 cross-wires. He furthermore stated that the form of the device 
 was of an old type, shewn, by a fine series of samples kindly 
 submitted by him, to have been altered by 1831, when a broader 
 bolder pattern was substituted, and has been continued unchanged 
 to the present day. Unfortunately the photograph sent to 
 Mr. Balston did not include the lowest part of the device, which 
 in the Whatman watermark terminates with a W, but in the 
 pamphlet with a simple point, making a V. I wrote explaining 
 tills to Mr. Balston, who replied, Nov. 11, 1913 : — 
 
 If, as you say, the monogram in the watermark finishes off as a V, and not 
 as a W, then I agree with you that the device is probably a pirated one. 
 I noticed in your photogi-apli tlie centre of the W did not appear, but as it 
 was on the extreme edge of the print, I thought possibly that its non-appear- 
 ance might be due to a fault in the printing, or that it appeared lower down, 
 so I did not attach much importance to it. Another point which struck me 
 was that the upright lines were not the regulation distance apart, namely 
 lfV"> which is invariably the case in all the samples I have of this size 
 from 1781 up to the present day. In the photograph showing the monogram 
 they are 1" apart. This might be due to shrinkage of your printing paper 
 after washing the print, so I attached no importance to it. You could, 
 however, verify this point by measuring the original. I have made a fairly 
 extensive search through all the old papers and have been unable to find any 
 watermarks with the characters I V, as referred to in your letter of July 14. 
 
 The letters I V are clearly to be explained as a fraudulent 
 rendering of J. W. (for James Whatman), which appear on the 
 earliest Whatman sheets, viz. 1781 and 1784 in the specimens 
 sent by Mr. Balston. It is probable that the imitated paper was 
 of very early date ; for in 1808 and 1810 J. W. is replaced by 
 J. Whatman, while W. Balston is added, although omitted from 
 later years, viz. 1831 and 1834. 
 
 The upright lines of the pamphlet are not spaced at regular 
 distances, some of them being 1 in. apart, others as much as 1^ in. 
 
 Considering the evidence as a whole, there can be little doubt 
 
PBESIDEKTIAL ADDBESS. I 5 
 
 that the paper of the pamphlet is of Dutch manufacture and that 
 it bears a forged Whatman watermark of early date in the history 
 of the firm. Having undertaken this enquiry I have been anxious 
 to pursue it to the end in every detail, although fully aware that 
 the identification of paper and watermark throws little light on 
 the date of the pamphlet, for in the words of Mr. Lewis Evans : — 
 
 Should anyone in America, say in the seTentiea, have contemplated a literary 
 forgery purporting to belong to the forties, he might easily have got enough 
 suitable paper for the purpose of printing a few copies, either from some old 
 blank books or conceivably from some little lot in stock in a printer's ware- 
 Louse .... Aug. 18, 1913. 
 
 9. A Manuscript Lecture entitled " Life and the Cosmosite " as 
 Evidence for the BooMet dated 1849. 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper has kindly permitted me to see the following 
 letter addressed to his father : — 
 
 Boston, Not. 5/GO. 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 You are cordially invited to deliver your Lecture — Life and the 
 Oosmosite at the meeting of the Society * next Monday. 
 
 Ever &c., 
 
 James W. Stonb t. 
 Mr. Sleeper. 
 
 Accompanying the letter was a manuscript of rather closely 
 written pages (8f x6| in.), bearing the title "Life and the Cos- 
 mosite," and purporting to be the lecture of Nov. 11, 1850, 
 delivered in response to Dr. Stone's invitation. The lecturer 
 
 * The Massachusetts Medical Society is the only one which Mr. H. G. 
 Wadlin, Librarian of the Public Library of the City of Boston, can suggest. 
 He kindly wrote, Feb. 12, 1914: — "A search of the Boston newspapers of 
 Monday, November 11, 1850, and previous and subsequent dates, revealed no 
 notice of the lecture by G-. W. Sleeper. 
 
 " No mention of the lecture before the Massachusetts Medical Society is 
 found in 'An Index of Medical Communications, Library of Practical 
 Medicine, and Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society, 1790-1901. 
 Prepared by the Recording Secretary. Boston, Clapp, 1903, 40 pp., 8°. ' " 
 
 Gr. W. Sleeper's lecture would hardly fall into the category of " Medical 
 Communications," so that the absence of a record is probably unimportant. 
 
 t The following information has been very kindly sent to me, Feb. 12, 1914, 
 by Mr. Horace G. Wadlin ; — 
 
 The 1850 Boston Directory gives the address of Dr. J. W. Stone as 
 6 Bowdoin Square, h. do. "The Harvard Medical School, a History &c. by 
 Thomas P. Harrington, Vol. 3, p. 480, No. 794, has the following record of 
 Dr. Stone: — 
 
 "James Winchell Stone, A.B. 1843; A.M.; b. Oct. 26, 1824, Boston; 
 d. Aug. 20, 1863, Dorchester. Practiced Boston. Collector Internal Eevenue, 
 3d, Massaohu»ett3 District. M. M. S. S." From 1857-1862 Dr. Stone's 
 residency was Cottage Street, Dorchester. 
 
 " Harvard College, Class of 1843, Memorabilia, 1883, Prepared by Wm. A. 
 Eiohardi'on," has the following entry relating to Dr. Stone :^ 
 
 " James W. Stone, Boston (Roxbury, Mass.), Descendants, Ella Gr. Stone, 
 Florence, Italy ; Frances Tyler Stone, Florence, Italy." 
 
1 6 LIXNEAjST society of lONDOjr. 
 
 speaks of being "about to address you this evening at the liberal 
 invitation of Dr. Stone . . . ." He continues, after a brief intro- 
 duction, " In 1847 — only three years ago in this very oily — some 
 of you will doubtless remember I delivered several Lectures, one 
 on the Origin of Life and the Advance of Civilization, . . . ." 
 He then goes on to speak of their hostile reception, concluding 
 this parr, of his lecture in the following words : — " These good 
 
 Christians, were also zealous to show their pious faith, by 
 
 publicly burning my ' blasphemous pamphlet,' that is, the few 
 that they could lay hands upon .... All this tempest rose 
 because a man who had thought and experimented and reasoned 
 and reflected tried to place before his fellow-raen the results he 
 had theoretically and experimentally arrived at "... . "It is 
 this theme (with your kind permission) which I intend to review 
 to-night, and in doing so I hope to reveal my thoughts in a some- 
 what clearer manner — ." The lecture proper then opens with a 
 paragraph beginning — "As I then was at pains to try to prove" 
 and continuing with the substance — often word for word the 
 siime — of the second and third pai'agraphs on p. 3 (also p. 3 of 
 the present Appendix) of the 1849 pamphlet. The last three 
 lines '"may be greatly modified .... its kind" on p. 3 appear 
 word for word on a later page of the lecture. The passage re- 
 ferring to the triad of Lemur, Monkey, and Man (Appendix 
 p. 5) also appears in nearly the same words. The two sequences 
 of stages (Appendix p. 8) are also given — fused together and 
 almost complete. The lecture concludes, as does the 1849 pam- 
 phlet, in argument directed against the existence of a Personal 
 
 Deity. As evidence there is brought forward the " fact 
 
 that the air, &c., is filled with myriads of deadly gernns." Apart 
 from the above, the lecture is almost entirely devoted to the 
 contention that the germ of every animal and plant has always 
 existed and will continue to exist for all time, that it may lie 
 dormant for long periods until called into activity by favourable 
 circumstances which determine the particular form its reincarna- 
 tion will assume. All germs are apparently to be traced back to 
 an electrical primal germ containing " within it all the essentials 
 of all Life that it is possible to create — Cosmosite .... or ' germ- 
 world-inhabitant.' " 
 
 It will be realized from the above account that the lecture 
 itself is of no great interest or importance, except as supplying 
 evidence that the booklet dated 1849 is genuine. The validity of 
 this evidence again rests upon the authenticity of Dr. Stone's 
 invitation. Accompanying the latter were three other documents 
 signed by J. W. Stone. One of these dated Aug. 11, 1856, 
 introduced " my friend George W. Sleeper, Esq." to the Hon. E. 
 G. Hazard. A second of the same date, written to G. W. 
 Sleeper, suggested that the same introduction might be shown to 
 others, who are named. The object in view was probably poli- 
 tical, viz., " doing something for the good cause of Fremont and 
 Dayton." 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. I 7 
 
 A third document, dated Boston, May 23, 1854, certifies that 
 Dr. Stone had known " George W. Sleeper for some years as an 
 active, determined, paying, and woriiing member of the Suffolk 
 Free Democratic Ward & Co. Convention, of which he was one 
 year the Secretary." 
 
 There was something in the handwriting of the invitation, when 
 compared with that of the three other documents which roused 
 my suspicions. I sent all four to Sir Q-eorge Warner and asked 
 for his, opinion. He kindly replied as follows, April 18, 1914 : — 
 
 I return the four additional letters which you have gent me. I am un- 
 hesitatingly of opinion that the one dated 5 Nov., 50, is spurious. It is 
 almost enough to place the four letters side by side, when the difference of its 
 handwriting from that of the others is at once apparent. Instead of being 
 easy and natural, it is laboured, halting, and plainly imitative. But there is 
 other damning evidence. The paper (a) is the earns make as that of the 
 letter dated 23 May, 54 (A), and is, I have no doubt, the originally blank 
 second leaf of the same sheet. You will see that the left edge of b is slightly 
 rough, showing that it has been cut with a paper-knife. It you lay a upon o, 
 making the rigbt edges exactly even, you will find that the width is not quite 
 the same, and that the left edge of a has been trimmed (so as to avoid a 
 suspicious rough edge), but not quite straightly. It has also been carefully 
 torn, evidently with design, so as not to show the same holes as are in b, and 
 also for the purpose of destroying the evidence of the date in the endorsement. 
 Nevertheless, by laying the one leaf carefully over the other, as I have said, 
 the top hole and the next will be seen to fit in exactly. This would hardly be 
 the case unless a and b were the two leaves of the same sheet, any more than 
 the original folds would exactly coincide, as in fact they do. 
 
 The folds spoken of by Sir George "Warner traverse the leaves 
 in both directions — three across and two longitudinally — so that 
 the case against coincidence is much stronger than it would be 
 with the two leaves of most letters. The four holes are perfora- 
 tions by which the letter had been doubtless attached to others in 
 pamphlet-like form, and a part of the circumference of the third 
 hole as well as that of the first and second is still visible, in spite 
 of the torn edge. The only one that has been entirely removed is 
 the fourth and lowest. Examination with a lens shows that the 
 portions of the three upper holes resemble the corresponding 
 parts of the entire holes in their darkened colour as well as 
 their precise form. The endorsement has not been wholly torn 
 away. " Dr." and " 18," the first two figures of the year, were 
 no doubt intentionally left. The blank sheet was probably 
 damped and ironed in order to alter its appearance as far as 
 possible. 
 
 Sir George Warner's convincing proofs that the invitation was 
 forged are, of course, sufficient evidence that the manuscript 
 lecture, which opens with a reference to the invitation, is also 
 fraudulent. 
 
 10. The Use of the Word "Agnostic." 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper wrote May 10, 1913, stating that the word 
 Agnostic was invented by his father in 1846 and that he used it 
 in several lectures. The manuscript of the lecture in which the 
 word was introduced was the first of all documentary evidence 
 
 6 
 
1 8 LINNEAN SOCIETX OF LONDON. 
 
 submitted to me. The lecture is entitled " On Our ricjJit to express 
 our Ideas and the value to Mankind of that expression." 
 
 Speaking of " men who dared to think differently from their 
 less-educated or less-original fellows," and who, although perse- 
 cuted in their own age, were honoured in later generations, the 
 manuscript continues: — 
 
 These men I shall designate as " Agnostics "—as differing from the mere 
 Atheist, under this term I comprehend much : I mean it to signify a man of 
 advanced ideas who confesses he has not attained perfect worldly wisdom, who 
 admits he does not know all about " &od " and "a future state," who is an honest 
 asserter of ignorance on all matters not proven to him by actual Scientific 
 demonstration, and to whose reflective mind the mere verdict of a majority 
 carries little weight. Which, as you will see, is precisely the reverse of the 
 word " Gnosis" and of the professions of the old Gnostics (as described by the 
 Bev. Taylor in his Diegesis on page 37) — in several respects — and is also in 
 defiance of those bigoted, all-knowing, persecuting and pitiless imparters of 
 divine revelation whom I would call Torarians from the Hebrew word Torah*. 
 
 The manuscript is signed with the initials " G. "W. S.," and is 
 undated. Mr. J. F. Sleeper informs me that his father said the 
 lecture was delivered during the latter part of 1846. The date 
 can be inferred by means of a quotation from the " poet Mackay," 
 who is said to have "just composed the lines — 
 
 " We wonder long 
 
 That hate had power to lead our "fathers wrong 
 Or that false glory lured their hearts astray 
 And made it virtuous and sublime to slay." 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper tells me that these lines form part of a work 
 entitled ' Eailways ' dated 1846. 
 
 The circumstances under which Buxley introduced the word 
 "Agnostic " in 1869 were quoted in last year's Address (pp. 44-5). 
 Although no comparison is possible between the literary form of 
 the two accounts, the line of thought is precisely the same, and 
 adds another to the long series of improbable coincidences in- 
 volved by the hypothesis that the booklet is genuine. But the 
 facts proved in sections 2, 4, and 9 show that it is not genuine, and ' 
 we are driven to conclude that the manuscript is a late fabrica- 
 tion, and that the manner in which the date is revealed without 
 being stated, as well as the addition o£ " Torarian " are parts of an 
 elaborate scheme intended to throw the critic off his guard. It 
 was probably foreseen that there would be a tendency to argue 
 thus : " The date is so important that a forger would certainly 
 have added it ? therefore, as it has not been added, the document is 
 genuine." 
 
 11. The 1860 Pamphlet is inconsistent with the Booklet 
 dated 1849. 
 
 It was pointed out on p. 43 of last year's Address that the com- 
 parison between the two pamphlets was unfavourable to the 
 * Signifying inspired teaching. 
 
TEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 1 9 
 
 authenticity of the one with the earlier date. A further serious 
 inconsistency was pointed out to me by Mr. Howard M. Ohapin, 
 Librarian of the Ehode Island Historical Society, Providence, and 
 was afterwards independently observed by my friend Professor 
 Lotsy, of Haarlem. The Introduction of the later pamphlet opens 
 with the words 
 
 This lecture is founded upon a theory, entirely original upon this side of 
 the Athmtio, and which first developed itself in my mind about the year 1853 — 
 at which time I published a small article in a Boston paper, from which 
 nucleus was produced and delivered the greater part of this discourse, in the 
 year 1856, before the Hopkins Literary Association, of North Providence — of 
 which I was then President — in which capacity, I became acquainted with 
 P. W. Miner, who, to reciprocate a like act, invited me to deliver it before 
 the South Providence Lyceum, where it was also well received. 
 
 The next delivery of it occurred from an invitation to present it as the 
 firsl, or opening lecture of the " Member's Course of Franklin Lyceum Lec- 
 tures," which was done, and it stands so recorded — notwithstanding every 
 means have been used to efface it. 
 
 The Introduction then goes on to speak of the attempts made 
 to deliver the lecture on Feb. 8 and again on Feb. 24, 1860. 
 
 I have quoted the above sentences in order to shew that the 
 author was extremely careful to give the history of the develop- 
 ment and the exposition of his thoughts on education in relation 
 to civilization. And yet these very thoughts are set forth in 
 considerable detail on pages 12-18 (also 12-18 of the Appendix to 
 the present Address) of the 1849 booklet, stated in the Intro- 
 duction to contain lectures delivered in 1847, and to be founded 
 on ideas which entered the author's mind when he was 17, viz., 
 in the year 1843. We cannot doubt that if the pamphlet dated 
 1849 had been in existence in 1860, the author would hare 
 referred to it in his Introduction. 
 
 Mr. J. F. Sleeper maintains, on the contrary, that there is a 
 real difference between the two pamphlets, which accounts for 
 the want of any reference from the later to the earlier. He 
 states that in 1847 his father looked upon Education as the 
 offspring of Civilization, but in the next decade regarded Civiliza- 
 tion as the offspring of Education. I am sure, however, that no 
 one can read pages 12-18 of the accompanying Appendix with- 
 out recognising the fact that Education is given the primary 
 place, just as in the 1860 pamphlet, and that "the advance of 
 civilization " spoken of in the title (Appendix, p. 1) was a pro- 
 gress which the author maintained in that very lecture to have 
 been brought about by " Mother Education " (p. 17). 
 
 12. The BooJclet contains Ideas implying Knowledge 
 much later than 1849. 
 
 My friend Professor Van Bemmelen, of Grroningen, has pointed 
 out to me that the ideas on the germinal origin and germinal 
 transmission of characters set forth on pp. 10, 11, and 14 (iilso 
 
20 LINNBAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
 
 pp. 10, 11, 14 of the Appendix) of the 1849 booklet, and quoted in 
 last year's Address (p. 31), imply a standpoint of knowledge and 
 hypothesis that is much later than 1840. The passages referred to 
 pre-suppose the equality in heredity of the germ-cells of the two 
 sexes. Yet this conclusion is only implied and not announced 
 as the important new thought it would have been in 1849. The 
 same criticism applies to the work as a whole, which, apart 
 from the discoveries announced in it, seems to belong to the 
 intellectual atmosphere of a far later date. 
 
 My friend Professor August Weisraann tells me that the con- 
 clusion that the male and female germ-cells are essentially similar, 
 and play the same part in heredity, was first published in his 
 memoir "Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der Daphnoiden," Leipzig, 
 1876-79, p. 323. 
 
 13. The " 1849 " Booklet probably of very recent Date. 
 
 In May 1913 I had no reason to doubt the history of the copy 
 given on pp. 26-27 of last year's Address, and considered on 
 p. 43 to be the strongest evidence in favour of authenticity. The 
 facts that have now been proved make it impossible to accept 
 this history without further confirmation, and as yet such con- 
 firmation is wanting. 
 
 The attempt was made to trace the book-store at Cleveland or 
 Cincinnati where Mr. Miller stated that he had bought the 
 booklet (pp. 26-27). A letter directed to "Mr. "W. Davie, 
 Book Store, Cleveland," was returned with the stamp "Not in 
 Directory No. 8." A similar letter directed to Cincinnati was 
 not returned, but brought no reply, and a second letter to the 
 same address was equally unsuccessful. My friend Dr. Joseph 
 L. Hancock, of Chicago, has been unable to find evidence in the 
 Directories that anyone named W. Davie is now keeping a book- 
 store in either city. 
 
 The attempt to obtain confirmation has therefore failed, and 
 we cannot accept the history of the copy sent to Dr. Wallace. If 
 the booklet is a forgery, as there is the strongest evidence to 
 prove, it is only reasonable to suppose that it was printed after 
 all the discoveries announced in it had become known, and per- 
 haps after the death of Gr. "W. Sleeper in 1903. This suggestion 
 was made by Sir George Warner in a letter dated Aug. 17, 
 1913: — 
 
 The possibility of a fraudulent concoction after G. W. Sleeper's death had 
 occurred to me. If, however, Miller's statement that he purchased his copy 
 of the pamphlet in 1892 is correct, this cannot be, and the fact that the 
 pamphlet is mentioned* in the obituary notice of 190tS is also against it ... . 
 But, on the assumption that the date 1849 is genuine, the wonder to me is 
 that the author apparently does not refer to the theories advocated in this 
 pamphlet anywhere else among his later publications, and that no claim to 
 anticipation has been made on his behalf until now, although he lived to so 
 
 * This is a mistake (see p. 21). 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 2 1 
 
 late as 1903, and his son shaves his views and seems fully alive to hia pre- 
 eminent merits I am still rather sceptical, and look forward with 
 
 interest to the arrival of the Diary, which ought to settle the matter as 
 you say 
 
 As a matter of fact, the pamphlet dated 1849 is not directly 
 mentioned in the obituary notice of 1903. 
 
 When the account of G. W. Sleeper in the ' The Truth Seeker' 
 for October, 1903, is carefully compared with the further re- 
 ferences to him in the obituary notice of his wife in the same 
 journal, for January 13, J 912, certain differences are apparent. 
 
 The earlier notice spealss of his " little book, entitled ' Educa- 
 tion and its Offspring — Civihzation,' " of " various ideas put 
 forth in his numerous essays and speeches," and states " he was 
 the first to advance the theory that germs cause most diseases, and 
 further maintained that life was due to other organisms diffused 
 throughout the atmosphere, requiring only favorable conditions 
 for its development. Numerous novel thoughts concerning civi- 
 lization likewise emanated from his mind, " 
 
 There is no reference to the 1849 booklet, and the words I 
 have quoted give a very imperfect idea of its power and scope. 
 And yet a sentence in the notice, quoted as one of Q-. "W. Sleeper's 
 " oft-repeated utterances," appears almost word for word* in the 
 pamphlet, viz., the sentence beginning " Of what lies beyond the 
 grave" and ending "need not fear to die" near the top of p. 17 
 (also p. 17 of the Appendix to this Address). 
 
 The references in the obituary notice of 1912 are very different. 
 "The Origin of Life" and " The Dangers of the Unseen "are 
 spoken of as lectures published in 1849, while the main subjects 
 of both are set forth in brief but adequate summaries. 
 
 The above comparison strongly suggests that the 1849 book- 
 let was printed after G. W. Sleeper's death. The printer's 
 signature to the contract taken alone is probable evidence for 
 thirty or forty years after 1849. The special mention of the 
 house-fly as a carrier of disease is evidence for a much wider 
 interval. 
 
 I have carefully read more than once everything in print and 
 everything in manuscript by G. W. Sleeper that has been sentto 
 nie by his son, and I fail to see any evidence of that ability which 
 would certainly be required to produce the booklet if it were 
 written to-day. The evidence of ability is probably chiefly dis- 
 played in fitting the accounts of modern discovery into the frame- 
 work of an older phraseology. The conclusions of modern science 
 may well have been derived, as Sir George Warner suggests, from, 
 a resume of recent discoveries in some scientific publication or 
 magazine. 
 
 On the other hand, the fact that G. W. Sleeper is described 
 
 * The only verbal differences are the substitution of " can " in the notice for 
 "may" in the booklet, and of " all his fellow-men " in the former for "all 
 in the latter. There are also slight differences in punctuation, capital 
 letters, &c. 
 
22 LINNBAN SOCIETY Or LONDOX. 
 
 as a printer (p. 6), and that some of his manuscript shows the 
 signs of artificial treatment (p. 13) are in favour of the conclu- 
 sion that the fraud was perpetrated by him. 
 
 14. The probable Motive of the Forgery. 
 
 The consideration of motive seems to be almost a waste of 
 time, but so many friends have raised the question " Why should 
 anyone have done such a thing ?" that I think it may be interesr- 
 ing to atrempt a brief discussion. The most probable explanation 
 is, 1 think, as follows : — 
 
 G. W. Sleeper was a man who loved to lecture and to take every 
 opportunity of publicly expressing his views. He was probably 
 far more wounded by ridicule and neglect than by any violent 
 attack. The following reminiscence by an old resident of Provi- 
 dence was kindly sent to me by Dr. Putnam : — 
 
 I knew George W. Sleeper by sight, but was not acquainted with him. 
 He kept a tea store as sta,tecl. He advei-tised a lecture about the year 1860, 
 the subject being ' Education and its Offspring, Civilization.' He may have 
 put this in pamphlet I'orm, but I do not remember of seeing it. There was a 
 tendency to ridicule his litei'ary aspirations and he was hardly taken seriously. 
 Excepting in that early time I do not remember of ever hearing of him, and 
 I do not know that he remained in Providence. 
 
 Sleeper's intense belief in himself would only have been 
 strengthened by opposition, and still more by his failure to 
 command serious attenticm. He probably quite honestly believed 
 that the vague ideas which occurred to him were of momentous 
 importance in the history of science, and that when he had put 
 the results of his reading in his own words he was announcing 
 original discoveries. Then, as the years went by, such ideas as 
 natural selection, the origin of man, the continuity of the germ- 
 plasm, the germ-theory of disease, resistance, the mosquito and the 
 house-fly as carriers, sprang into existence and instantly became 
 centres of intense interest. In each of these successive dis- 
 coveries and many others, Sleeper's self-centred egotism would 
 recognize the natural outcome of thoughts received so very dif- 
 ferently or not received at all when he had spoken them. One 
 thus self-deceived as to the importance of his own ideas would 
 certainly honestly believe that he had been, and was still, the 
 victim of bitter injustice, and he might defend the falsification of 
 evidence on the ground that only in this way could justice be done 
 not only to himself, but to the history of thought. He would 
 argue " All these vaunted discoveries are the simple and easy 
 development of original thoughts which I announced half a century 
 ago, and it is only fair and right that they should bear the date 
 of their conception as well as that of their birth." 
 
 The above attempt to analyse the psychological situation 
 assumes that the forgeries were committed by G-. W. Sleeper 
 himself ; but the same explanation may be offered if we suppose 
 that they were committed by another who knew his feelings and 
 shared his delusion that he was the victim of injustice. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A Eepbint ot the Booklet by 
 G-. W. Sleeper, dated 1849, and 
 
 FOEMINCf THE SUBJECT Ol? THE 
 
 Pbesidejsttial Addresses in 
 1913 AND 1914. 
 
The work has been printed as in the original, page for page 
 and line for line, and the type has been matched as nearly as 
 possible. 
 
 All the mistakes of the original have been preserved, with the 
 exception of a few letters or hyphens which have slipped at 
 beginning and end of lines. These instances are noted below : — 
 
 Page 1, 1. 5. all- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 3, 1. 15. infinitesimally (raised i at beginning). 
 
 „ 3, 1. 24. characteristics (o lower down). 
 
 „ 4, 1. 4. conception, (comma lower down). 
 
 „ 5, 1. 1 1. il (slight space between i 1). 
 
 „ 5, 1. 27. species, (raised comma). 
 
 „ 8, 1. 11. in (i lower dowji). 
 
 „ 8, 1. 15. germ, (raised comma). 
 
 „ 11, 1. 6. dis- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 12, 1. 15. uu- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 15, II. 3, 4. ing . . . ly (i and 1 lower down). 
 
 ,, 15, 1. 9. ignorant (i lower down). 
 
 ,, 16,1.18. iah (raised \). 
 
 „ 19, 11. 1, 2. not . . . the (t and e lower down). 
 
 „ 23, 1. 1. re- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 24, 1. 27. hu- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 25, 1. 26. ier (i lower down and slight space between 
 
 i and er). ' 
 
 ,, 27, 1. 12. fi- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 29, 1. 13. having (slihgt space between n g). 
 
 ,, 31, 1. 4. men- (raised hyphen). 
 
 „ 36, 1. 5. ere- (raised hyphen). 
 
SHALL WE HAVE COMMON SENSE 
 
 SOME 
 RECENT LECTURES 
 
 WBITTEN AND DELIVEKED BT 
 
 GEO. W. SLEEPER. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WM. BENSB, PRINTER. 
 
 1849, 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in 
 the year 1849, By Geo. W. Slbepbe, in 
 the Clerk's office of the District Court of 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The original ideas on which these lectures 
 were founded, entered my mind when I was 
 barely seTenteen, and during their gradual 
 development the major portion of both of the 
 lectures were committed to paper in the course 
 of the past six years. The first public deliv- 
 ery of either occurred in Boston about two 
 years ago, it was, however, almost impossible 
 to obtain a hearing for them so bitterly hos- 
 tile did the audiences (assemblies little better 
 than savages) prove themselves to be, and so 
 persistently did they interrupt, and endeavor 
 to overawe, the lecturer. 
 
 Such being the condition of society, and as 
 the press of this city, influenced by certain 
 clergymen, have not seen fit to acquaint the 
 public either with the substance of the ideas 
 set forth or with the facts relating to the at- 
 tempts to deliver the lectures containing them, 
 I decided to put these subjects to print ; as 
 being the only way open to secure attention 
 from the many fair and noble minds among 
 our citizens who undoubtedly have Common 
 Sense. 
 
JhE OriQIJ^ Of ]^!FE 
 
 AND THE ADVANCE OP CIVIIiIZATION. 
 
 Let US take a cursory survey of an abstruse 
 subject, one that has naturally woven an ever- 
 fascinating, a mind-stimulating and an all- 
 powerful spell over the vast majority of the 
 deep thinkers of past and present ages. 
 
 Born out of the womb of Night; dwelling 
 in the house of Night ; and fading away in the 
 embrace of Night — how mysterious, how dif- 
 ficult, how remote is this interesting phenome- 
 non : The Origin of Life, on which scientific 
 and speculative Man vainly ruminates and 
 theorizes while borne dreamily along on a has- 
 tening current of hopeless perplexity and con- 
 fusing course ; and yet on which a so-called 
 God-inspired Bible assumes to expound with 
 authority and to relate with truth ! 
 
 In this legend Man and all the Animals are 
 introduced as creations of a single day ! Ge- 
 ology has dispelled that illusion from minds 
 
open to admit the irradiating light of Knowl 
 edge. And it is also fabled that all this work 
 of Creation occurred but six thousand years 
 ago ! Which Creation, the state of civiliza- 
 tion in India and China some five thousand 
 years back, is sufficient to disprove without 
 the abundant aid derived from Geological 
 evidence; all proving an inconceivably ancient 
 history for Man. 
 
 Leaving the crude, brief, unsatisfactory and 
 incredible account of the Creation given in 
 Genesis to its inevitable and unregrettable 
 fate, as one of the most audacious insults ever 
 offered to the human intellect ; a reasoner is 
 irresistibly drawn on to conclude that Man 
 has been impelled, as Education gradually ex- 
 panded his growing intellect and drew him 
 away from the evil grasp of the deceiving 
 priest in the dense shadow of the enslaving 
 chiu-ch, to read with more and more deductive 
 attention the open book of ingenuous Nature 
 under the blue dome of a clear sky in the frank 
 light of day. , 
 
 Thus has he been broadeningly led to in- 
 spect the vastly altering geological strata, to 
 compare the multi vegetal transformations oc- 
 curring from age to age, to meditate upon the 
 
remarkable fossils re-constructed by the amaz- 
 ing genius of Cuvier, to study the inyolved 
 appearances, disappearances and relations of 
 long bygone or of still living races of barbar- 
 ous and citrilized mankind and also of species, 
 varieties and individuals of animals, plants 
 and minerals in their likewise complex inter- 
 relations, differences and ramniflcations : aye, 
 until even like Baer he discovers the true seat 
 of the human germ of Life. 
 
 As a grandly final result of ; his readings, 
 his reflections, his searches and his experiments 
 he finds that Life owes its faint beginning' to 
 primal germs. These germs I hold to be 
 infinitesimally minute living atoms pervading 
 the entire terrestrial atmosphere ; and, perhaps, 
 the entity of the Cosmos. 
 
 Perishable themselves, each is the common 
 carrier of the principle of Life which is inde- 
 structible and eternal, and each is lastingly im- 
 bued with the peculiar characteristics of the 
 species and, but less so, of the individual its 
 particnlar variety alone is able to form. The 
 characteristics and attributes of any germ may 
 be greatly modified or limitedly altered dur- 
 ing its union with its sexual opposite to form 
 its kind. 
 
Arranging themselTes in strict obedience 
 to dominant Natural laws of which we have 
 but little knowledge, in a Tastness of Space 
 of which we have no intelligent conception, 
 and exhibiting an almost unmeasurable min- 
 uteness reducing our feeble powers of compre- 
 hension to appalled nothingness, these germs 
 are slowly developed, altered and perfected 
 during an immensity of periods of time com- 
 pared to which the six thousand years of the 
 Bible is but a trifling era — a pebble on the sea 
 shore ; a tiny star in the Milky Way. 
 
 These germs of life and the individuals 
 growing out of them, were constantly exper- 
 iencing change. Weakened by exposure and 
 attack they were only preserved unmodified 
 for a brief (though variable) period by means 
 of the more or less effectual resistance they 
 were able to offer to climatic conditions, chan- 
 ges of food, convulsions and transformations 
 of Nature and the destructive inroads of over- 
 poweringly hostile forms of reptile, piscine or 
 animal Life For example : just as most of 
 you have beheld a neglected flower perishing 
 in the midst of over-topping weeds or languish 
 Ing for lack of the vital sustenance that grass 
 or clover has withdrawn from its starving roots 
 
How these tiny germs first creatively group- 
 ed together, at Nature's will, out of the vast 
 chaotic void ; what the first formed creature 
 was and what amazingly prevailing law com- 
 pelled their more passive obedience to its mute 
 behest than ever the humblest of the nations 
 abjectly rendered unto the loudest mouthed 
 decree of imperial Alexander; will probably 
 remain forever enshrouded in clewless mystery 
 darkly closed as the burned tomes of the Syb- 
 il to the anxious inquiries of investigating 
 Man. I should venture to imagine, taking 
 the researches of Leeuwenhoek, of Swammer- 
 dam and of Schwann in consideration together 
 with the results I have tediously arrived at 
 by microscopical and generative experiments, 
 that germ cells of the simplest form at first ex- 
 isted; that these obeying the Unknown Cause 
 I have alluded to, gradually extended them- 
 selves branching out like the Banyan tree, but 
 to generate, or metamorphose into, more or 
 less progressive species or varieties; the low- 
 est the next higher, and so on, trilobite to mam- 
 mal : one of the many branches necessarily ter- 
 minating temporarily in a triad: the Lemurs, 
 the Monkeys, and — Man himself. 
 
 Thus appeared the original of our species, 
 
not fashioned out of clay or after God's image ; 
 originally naked,, savage ravenous, lustfulj unr 
 sympathetic and revengeful, he has never ret' 
 rogradedj but at all times in one portion of the 
 world or another has steadily advanced, raising 
 himself ethically and intellectually throughout 
 the course of the ages entirely without the aid 
 of supernatural revelation or divine assistance> 
 simply by his own increasing Reason and that 
 Experience which so admirably cultures the 
 tender flowers of Morality while eradicating 
 the hardy weeds of Vice ; and also by his own 
 persistent efforts stimulated by Education, — 
 but always, though more or less hairy and un- 
 couth, he was, nevertheless, essentially Man. 
 
 And as such he cannot but remain. 
 
 I am well aware. Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 when I make the broad statement that Man 
 and the Ape are co-descended from some pri- 
 mary type, that there is little resemblance in 
 face or figure between the nude forms of the 
 symmetrical, pleasing, beautiful Apollo and 
 Venus that the surpassing art of Apelles and 
 Praxiteles has richly bequeathed to us and 
 the ungainly, loathly and ugly contour of the 
 Simian tribes ; but remember that it is not to 
 the higher evolutions of Man nor to the low- 
 
er variations of the Monkey that we must 
 look in this matter, but to just the reverse of 
 each. And then in many respects a striking 
 parallel is observed to exist between the "lord 
 of creation" and his Quadrumana relatives 
 the Chimpanzee and the Ourang Otang which 
 clearly establishes the extremely rational view 
 I have advanced and enables us to experience 
 very little difficulty in tracing back these kin- 
 dred creatures to a remote, an ancient, but a 
 general stock ; although exactly what that 
 common forefather was is as likely to forever 
 remain as profound a mystery as the astound- 
 ing problem of how the beginning of things 
 could take place or the absolute ending of all 
 matter can ever occur ! 
 
 We have never found any living or fossil 
 link to form a chain between Man and the 
 Ape, nothing to close the gap separating the 
 two related animals like Owen's rhynchosau- 
 rus bonds the *yines to the saurians, and the 
 pliosaurus unites the pterodactyle to the croc- 
 odile. I doubt that any such creature will be 
 discovered; to my mind there never was oc- 
 casion for its existence : more likely some relic 
 of an, at present, unknown animal proving to 
 be the forerunner of both species, will be ex- 
 
8 
 
 humed out of the debris of an age immedi- 
 ately antecedent to both: just as the gigantic 
 mammoth was dug out of the congealing bos- 
 om of Siberia's ice in 1800 and the three-toed 
 palasotherium, rude ancestor of our valued 
 horse, was disinterred from the profound of 
 the Eocene in earlier years. 
 
 The wonderful progressive presentation of 
 forms ascending from day to day in the scale 
 of organized beings exhibited by our species 
 in the foetal state and remarked by the phys- 
 iologist, is another substantiation of my theory 
 
 Man, in the womb, passes through all the 
 embryo forms of the types of the known di- 
 visions of animated Nature: first but a germ, 
 he then resembles moUusk, fish, reptile, bird, 
 rodent, ruminant, and batrich, finally assum- 
 ing unmistakeable features of the human ani- 
 mal. Thus we see a significant panorama 
 of the momentous changes which occurred in 
 the course of ages displayed irf the short space 
 of nine months in the mysterious womb. 
 
 Primal matter to zoophyte, to crustacean^ 
 to fish, to saurian, to mammal and to Man! 
 the inferior forms disappearing when their al- 
 lotted work was done and the improved era 
 no longer warranted theirthen inutile existence 
 
just as the platysoma of the Old Red Sand- 
 stone vanished in the Magnesian Limestone ; 
 or else becoming dwarfingly modified previous 
 to extinction : similarly to the diminution of 
 the seventy foot iguanodon into the four foot 
 and perishing iguana which has outlived the 
 age and environment -which called its giant 
 ancestor into being. 
 
 In this ever recurring disappearance, or 
 modification, of animal and vegetable forms 
 there is nothing strange. Everywhere about 
 us we see waged the pitiless battle for life 
 of which it is the inevitable outcome. Just 
 as the dandelion, the plantain and the bur- 
 dock extend their broad leaves o'er the verd- 
 ure of the meadow, starving and exhaust- 
 ing the grasses around them; just as the 
 weeds of the garden o'erwhelm with rank 
 luxuriance the feebler cultivated vegetables 
 during a brief period of neglect; and just 
 as species of birds and animals become ex 
 tinct from their merciless slaughter by bar- 
 barous man who spares not his own weak 
 er kind, varieties of his race thus fading 
 from sight; so there is a continual process 
 of elimination and substitution going on in 
 the great laboratories of Nature ; the use- 
 
10 
 
 less perish, the useful live and improve, al- 
 though our conception of what is useful and 
 improving is often opposed to Nature's. 
 
 All Geology indicates assured progress by 
 its presentation of higher and higher gen- 
 erations of exalting forms, each remarkably 
 suited to the peculiar age in which it ap- 
 peared at its best. Of all such forms, that 
 of Man would seem to be the masterpiece 
 of Nature on this globe, and we cannot fail to 
 be impressed by a conviction that whatev- 
 er Nature may have accomplished on oth- 
 er planets, all her energies upon this have 
 evidently been exerted, through the medi- 
 um of Education, to shape, to instruct and 
 to perfect, the Human Race. 
 
 But our parallel of comparison of Man with 
 the Simians is effectually arrested by a three 
 fold, irremovable, barrier : the possession of 
 progressive, deductive and inventive Reason; 
 the acquirement of extensible and transmissi- 
 ble Speech; and the innate knowledge of the- 
 formation and use of Tools ; attributes resident 
 solely in the spermatozoa and ovum of the hu- 
 man species, and absolutely inseparable there- 
 from. So I am spared the unpleasantness of 
 announcing anything so distasteful, to you, as 
 
11 
 
 that the monkey was parent or progeny of Man ; 
 thus, this Scylla and Charybdis being happily 
 steered past, I merely find it necessary to re- 
 aifirm my fixed belief in the gradual origina- 
 tion of both from a general parent, each dis- 
 tinct from birth and each preserving that dis- 
 tinctiveness unto the present epoch, modified 
 somewhat; it is true, in the instance of the hu- 
 man individual owing to his germ-endowment 
 with the rudiments of primarily cultivatible 
 and incalculably higher functions. 
 
 I feel assured that skeletons or rock-preser- 
 ved hairy specimens of this ancestor of the 
 two species will ultimately be excavated from 
 the strata preceding that in which remains of 
 Man and of the Monkey have been found, to 
 it once and forever confound the silly, the 
 incredible, the sense-offending relation of the 
 Book of Genesis; hashed together and served 
 up to the simple by posturing and ifnposturing 
 knaves of priests. The greater perishability 
 and much more restricted production and dis 
 tribution of the human frame in those remote 
 ages, together with the very limited extent of 
 the exploration of this but recently thrown 
 open field have so far precluded success. 
 
 Thus, then, was Satyr Man. Behold him ! 
 
12 
 
 Education took this beastial, crude and ig- 
 norant Frankenstein horror by the clumsy 
 hand and kindly began to lead him on in eyer- 
 gaining pursuit of the lofty ideal ■which alas 
 we yet see flitting before us in the brighten- 
 ing distance, illusive, fanciful, unattainable, 
 •will 'o the -wisp like, still. But nevertheless 
 no chimera, like poor Ponce de Leon's Foun- 
 tain of Youth, but a glorious reality, a lumi- 
 nous to-be of the glad time to come. 
 
 And her kindly care. Mentoring a Tele- 
 machus, which began with Man's stormy ad- 
 vent on this troubling planet ; has never ceas- 
 ed, but has multiplied and multiplied, solici- 
 tously training the uncouth fingers of the un- 
 docile creature first to difficultly shape the 
 roughly-sharpened knife of wood ; next to fash 
 ion the weapon out of fractured bone or shell ; 
 then to discard these for laboriously ground 
 flint or stone; giving place, in turn, to more 
 durable bronze or copper and yet again to the 
 keener and harder iron or the tempered steel; 
 improving the quality, increasing the number 
 and extending the usefulness of her pupil's 
 weapons and tools. Enabling the civilizing 
 savage to exchange the damp, smoke filled, 
 gloomy, bone strewn cavern for the dry, ven- 
 
13 
 
 tilated, cleanly mansion of wood, brick or stone 
 elevating him to lofty distaste for the red 
 fields of fiendish fray and sickening slaughter, 
 the grim, cannibal feast of flesh and blood and 
 the disgusting orgies of sexual obscenity and 
 drunken madness that characterized his earlier 
 ages — insensibly drawing him slowly on to 
 display kindness, sympathy and toleration to- 
 wards his Brother Man. 
 
 Yes ! Education, benificent Power, thou hast 
 produced all of the "Material" whereof we of 
 the earth have cause to be thankful for. And 
 thou wilt produce incrdeibly more than even 
 the most sanguine of us can venture to predict ; 
 besides incalculably ministering towards the 
 true "Spiritual" of Man — not the ghostly, the 
 priestly, the false intangibility of which knaves 
 or fools so glibly presume to prate. For I 
 disbelieve that in the marvellously complex 
 piece of mechanism which we call Man (mov- 
 ed by some unknown Force pervading the 
 Universe of which force electricity and chem- 
 ical action are but a few of the observable ef- 
 fects) resides anything more "Spiritual" than 
 can emanate from this Force: a Force which 
 is manifested in the working of our brains and 
 in the involuntary movements of our bodies. 
 
14 
 
 Spiritualism plays no part in the great dra- 
 ma of this our life. Indeed, the sole phenom- 
 enon approaching to such is the departure of 
 the life-germ from a perishing frame but to 
 begin anew in another or an allied form. For 
 nothing is lost in the vast economy of Nature : 
 all things suffer but a transient change of form : 
 thus the life germ resident in Man transmitted 
 to his descendants, goes on existing indefinite- 
 ly throughout all Time's infinitude of years ; 
 just as his Thoughts, those Genii children of 
 his prolific brain, continue to live on ages and 
 ages after that transitory organ has moulder- 
 ed aviray into the dust of the long ago ; and 
 thus, and only thus, is Man immortal : in the 
 transmission of his germ life and in the eter- 
 nal perpetuation of his Original Thought. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, pray excuse this 
 long digression ; I now return to my subject : 
 I was remarking how Education had abated 
 the savage and revolting appetites of Man, how 
 she has fanned the flickering flames of melt- 
 ing mercy and soothing sympathy and sincere 
 Brotherly love — qualities almost wholly want- 
 ing in the eldest of Earth's peoples — how she 
 has dimmed the furious fire in the persecuting 
 eyes of the religious bigot ; quenched the 
 
15 
 
 fierce flare of his flesh consuming faggots and 
 rusted for aye the levers of his muscle-rend- 
 ing racks ; how it has raised the poor, the low- 
 ly and the ignorant and brought the rich, the 
 high born and the learned down to a more 
 common and less caste marked plane. 
 
 It has also insensibly, yet surely, softened 
 the rigor of a host of heart breaking evils that 
 ignorant men bore patiently, apathetically or 
 helplessly in the long, dark, dreary times 
 agone, simply because they knew no better, 
 or adventured to breathe no murmur, or dared 
 not rub the talismanic ring of Change — until 
 Education with her Muses of Poetry and 
 Prose ; her Commerce and Travel ; her Print- 
 ing Press and Schools; her Gunpowder and 
 her Agnostic with his untrammelled Thought, 
 pointed out to them the very place to set the 
 chisel of Emancipation upon the formidable 
 gyves of venerable Tyrant Custom and an- 
 cient High Priest Superstition, and told them 
 when to drive the keen edge through a rusty 
 link with the Thor hammer of Progress wield- 
 ed by the lusty arms of the Thinker of Free 
 Thought. Alas ! that even in this, the freest 
 and fairest of all the countries on the Globe, 
 the needed work should as yet have been so 
 
16 
 
 partially and haltingly performed: The taint 
 of Slavery still adheres to us with rank repul- 
 siveness and sinful shame. Abolished by Eng- 
 land, Prance and Holland it is left for the land 
 of freemen to stand shoulder to shoulder with 
 Turkey and Muscovy in the rear ranks of Civ- 
 ilization's columns; its heel on the breast of 
 the hapless Negro precisely as Muscovy grinds 
 hers on the bosom of the cringing Serf. 
 
 Education, that must set both free, has yet 
 to accord to us that Freedom of Speech, that 
 Equality before the Law, now wrongfully de- 
 nied to the poorer and weaker and the irrelig- 
 ious of the citizens of the World. 
 
 And to abate the lengthy hours of toil, the 
 saddenning overwork of unjustly kept down 
 women and stunted little children. And ban- 
 ish the brutishness of the majority of the peo- 
 ple, the arrogance and frivolity of that minor- 
 ity : the rich and great, and the frenzying in- 
 fluence of the Arch Fiend, Rum. Above all 
 it must exorcise the horrible nightmare Relig- 
 ion from every priest cursed land ; substitu- 
 ting the pure, the noble, the holy creed of 
 Thomas Paine : the Doing of Good to all in 
 that common World which is our universal 
 country. Thus shall we answer the problem 
 
17 
 
 of the wherefore of our existence as far as we 
 can elucidate it; and thus reconcile ourselves 
 to its certain termination, Death. Of what 
 lies beyond the grave we know nothing — 
 Death is a mystery we may never hope to 
 solve; But he, whatever his race or creed, 
 who tries to do right to all, need not fear to die. 
 
 Education has yet te remedy a multitude 
 of evils besides those I have touched upon — 
 civil, social, sexual and political ; which can- 
 not be entered into in the compass of this lec- 
 ture. And she will do all this and more in the 
 years to come ; years which for her are eternal. 
 
 A great assistant to Mother Education in 
 the tedious licking into shape of her bear-cub 
 Man will prove to be the dawning but preg- 
 nant Science which the peculiar physiognomy 
 of a schoolboy awakened into perception in 
 the brilliant mind of the sage Spurzheim, la- 
 ter to be developed by the reflective Gall. 
 
 I allude to Phrenology, which young as I 
 am, I have studied for the past six or seven 
 years. I know it is a science at present held 
 up to ridicule by the superficial, the unthink- 
 ing and the ignorant; it is one, however, cer- 
 tain to become one of the most potent instruc- 
 tors of the race — one of the most tried and 
 
18 
 
 trusty staves Man has to lean upon for gui- 
 dance and support. I cannot here enlarge on 
 this miscalled "science of bumps" so despica- 
 bly attacked by the press in England and in 
 this country — bumps, in fact, it has very lit- 
 tle to do with, being really a science dealing 
 with the measurements of angles and the thin- 
 ness or thickness of parts of the skull. But 
 at a future time I intend to devote an entire 
 lecture to a subject so prodigal of light upon 
 Man's self-means of education and perfecti- 
 tude and so certain to give rise to greater prog- 
 ress and greater results. Briefly : in my opin- 
 ion, the study and application of Phrenology 
 is essential to the civilization of Man. 
 
 I must soon conclude; but before so doing 
 I have to remark that I am quite aware that a 
 distinguished Frenchman, Lamarck by name, 
 many years ago suggested that there was a 
 gradual and progressive alteration of animal 
 types, but he founded his ingenious theory en- 
 tirely on Spontaneous Generation, which I in- 
 tend to demonstrate in a succeeding lecture 
 has no substantiation, and he (not enjoying 
 the geological, chemical and phrenological ad- 
 vantages that increasing Knowledge has show- 
 ered on us of the present century) but very 
 
19 
 
 imperfectly outlined the subject and did not 
 conceive my principal ideas. I may say the 
 same of the anonymous author of a book call- 
 ed the "Vestiges of the Natural History of 
 Creation" which appeared about three years 
 ago. The book is in some respects a remark- 
 able production and ■would possess greater mer- 
 it if its author was not so lacking in scientific 
 knowledge as to place blind faith in a Person- 
 al Diety and its benificent planning of the 
 Uniyerse, and to credulously accept the most 
 unlikely tales of animal and vegetable mar- 
 vels, unconfirmed and poorly vouched for, that 
 one has read outside of the works of Munch- 
 housen and the Brothers Grimm. Both found 
 a lock but neither found its key. Whether I 
 have discovered that key or not, must rest 
 with you and your acquaintances or posterity, 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, to decide — your most 
 careful consideration of what I have set forth 
 being earnestly entreated ; for : 
 "Truth, like a single point, escapes the sight 
 And claims attention to perceive it right; 
 But what resembles Truth is soon descried, 
 Spread like a surface and expanded wide." 
 
JhE P;\^IQER0 Of THE "{Jfi^^flft. 
 
 During the few, brief years of our exist- 
 ence in tliis wonderful world, we sre repeat- 
 edly indebted to the constant, the resistless 
 and the enlightening advance of Education 
 for some all too fleeting, yet mind-enlarging, 
 glimpses into the profound, the exhaustless 
 and the enchanting book of Knowledge ; that 
 book which, although freely opened unto ev- 
 eryone by the liberal hand of Nature, would 
 have been consumed, annihilated, or at least 
 forever sealed to the curious gaze of priest- 
 ridden Humankind had a bigoted, enslaving 
 and persecuting church possessed the power. 
 
 We must not wholly blame the clergy for 
 this would-be wrong. For, in general, it is 
 unthinking Man who wilfully or stupidly pla- 
 ces himself in the ready way of his own ad- 
 vancement ; who drowns the feeble voices of 
 the gifted few who have something new, in- 
 
21 
 
 structive, or uplifting to impart for the last- 
 ing benefit of him and of his race, with the 
 hiss, the groan, the loud uproar, of the ignor- 
 ant barbarian; and who in his lamentable 
 shortsightedness casts back the beautiful, na- 
 ked, mind culturing ^Truth into the depths of 
 her obscuring well — just as the stern, fanatic, 
 recluse saint thrust the lovely maiden who 
 sought his unresponding love, from the aw^e- 
 ful precipices of his mountain home lest her 
 too seducing charms should wean him from 
 the austerities, the veneration and the domin- 
 ion of God and the Church. 
 
 Well it is for us that Truth is more than 
 mortal ; unlike the poor, feeble girl of the sor- 
 rowful legend. Dazzling, pure and fearless, 
 she emerges again, again, and ever, from the 
 depths of crystal clearness as might a twin- 
 goddess — a Minerva- Venus — from her natal 
 wave, each time fairer, stronger and more pre- 
 vailing; refreshed e'en as the o'erthrown An- 
 teus when, re-invigorated, he upsprang from 
 the bosom of his Mother Earth. Aye, and it 
 is fit that this should be so, for only such in- 
 cessant, such dauntless, such thought compel- 
 ling persistence can eventually command the 
 admiration, captivate the mind and impreg- 
 
22 
 
 nate the brain of Thought retarding, God fear- 
 ing, Church crippled Man ; brush the dust 
 from his blinded eyes and disclose to him the 
 majestic thoroughfare stretching grandly out 
 to the shining Temple of Progress, an Olym- 
 pus the poor dupe who tamely submits to the 
 dark guidance of Religion can never see. 
 
 Original Thought, fair thriving child of pro- 
 lific young Dame Education, has found a dead- 
 lier enemy than ever adventurous, valorous, 
 ■wrong redressing Amadis o'ercame in foul, 
 fire breathing Dragon of the Myths of yore. 
 That foe is Holy Church, whose Titan power, 
 whose BrisBrius reach and whose Machaivel- 
 lian craft at one fell period of theworld's sad 
 history almost blotted Intellectuality out of 
 human minds, laid struggling Science on a 
 CsBCus' bed, and infamously halted the sub- 
 lime march of divine Progress on its difficult 
 but inevitable way. 
 
 It is this Original Thought, cradled in some 
 Crichton's brain, that has exquisitely chiselled 
 the civilized (or rather the civilizing) Man out 
 of the rough barbarian ; that is irresistibly, 
 openly and enlighteningly overthrowing the 
 Colossus of the Church ; and that more and 
 more conclusively demonstrates in the minu- 
 
23 
 
 tise of the smallest things it presents to our re- 
 ceptiye minds, the potency, the majesty, the 
 unchangeability of the Laws of Nature as lu- 
 minously contrasted with the impotency, the 
 puerility and the contradictoriness of what is 
 audaciously related of a Biblical personal God. 
 
 Original Thought, unaided by sage Experi- 
 ment, remains but lame Theory — a child in 
 close leading strings — and can be accepted as 
 mature Pact or not, as he to whom it is con- 
 veyed, suggested, or expounded chooses to fi- 
 nally decide. But let it be backed by the 
 strong " confirmation of Experiment : it then 
 becomes Practical — it is Pact itself, and soon- 
 er or later must be received as such by even 
 the most doubting, scoffing and bigotedly op- 
 positional of our obtuse kind. 
 
 The Original Thought I wish to put before 
 you tonight may be, I am sorry to say, devoid 
 of as much of the potent aid of Experiment : 
 that is, systematic, directly planned and skill- 
 fully conducted Experiment as might be wish- 
 ed. Yet it is a clear expression of Natural, 
 observed phenomena, supported by simple but 
 certain proofs; therefore it presents definite 
 claims to be thoughtfully received as no va- 
 gary of Theory, but a substantiality of Pact. 
 
24 
 
 From observation, thought and deduction, 
 I have concluded that earth, air and water are 
 replete with multitudinous, infinitesimal, ever 
 active creatures, probably many of which are 
 too minute for our best microscopes to reveal 
 to the sense of sight. These pigmy, insignif- 
 icant-seeming and yet collectively formidable 
 beings are everywhere at work — born in myr- 
 iad numbers, propagating and expiring in a 
 brief season, like May-Plies, ere they hardly 
 have begun to live; they infect or disinfect 
 the air, alter the nature af the soil, and cleanse 
 or contaminate the water. Entering our sys- 
 tems through all of these facile mediums (we 
 inhale on an average about 2800 cubic feet of 
 air through our lungs in the short space of only 
 twenty four hours and swallow dust and wa- 
 ter in surprising quantities every day of pur 
 lives) they soon obtain mastery over our weak- 
 ened bodies and it is surely their maleflant 
 effects that we behold in the horrid virulence 
 of small-pox, the dreadful malignancy of can- 
 cer and the melancholy ravages of consump- 
 tion. Kings evil, catarrh, malarial and scar- 
 let fever, measles, the putrid sore throat, gan- 
 grene, aye, dozens of other catching ails let 
 loose from a cursed Pandora's box among hu- 
 
25 
 
 mankind, are simply the direct or indirect re 
 suits of these almost invisible atoms. 
 
 The drop of water we sip, the breath of air 
 we breathe, the particle of dust that finds in- 
 sidious entrance to our bodies, may be to us 
 the unseen precursor of terrible disease, the 
 unheard knell of fateful doom, the silent fore 
 runner of early, torturing, ghastly death. 
 
 Only nearly perfect, very healthy, vigorous 
 bodies can successfully resist these parasitic 
 wanderers, (Ishmael-like roamers through the 
 universe) when they are at their best and we 
 are exposed to their attacks : hence we note a 
 favored few who defy plague and pox and 
 cholera ; epidemics of all fateful kinds and re- 
 main serene, incautious and unscathed. But 
 wo to the weak, the ailing or the debauched ! 
 they fall an easy prey to the fatal onslaughts 
 of these tiny destroyers, everywhere watch- 
 ful, voracious, insatiate; even as the Harpies 
 of fable or the vulture that preyed on Promo 
 theus. "Why this is so, I am unable to say ; it 
 is doubtless for the same reason that a stunt- 
 ed, set back, or sickly plant yields to the 
 massed attacks of aphide hosts while health- 
 ier close by vegetation of the same kind is 
 nearly free from the vermin destroying the 
 
26 
 
 weaker foliage : from what either results, our 
 too scanty store of knowledge avails us not 
 to tell. It may be that, precisely as the sper- 
 matozoa, which Leeuwenhoek in 1677 discov- 
 ered existing in the bodies of men; so other 
 living germs, antagonistic to the evil kinds, 
 may oppose the latter in undebilitated systems 
 and wage war upon the humours in our blood. 
 
 I am aware that this mere idea of things 
 such as living at6ms produced by the forces of 
 Nature is, in itself, by no means novel. 
 
 The wise Aristotle conceived that the mud 
 of rivers might become impregnated with ac- 
 tive life by the wizardry of Spontaneous Gen- 
 eration and thus give birth to fishes. Then 
 you will recall to mind the old fable of the 
 bees whom Sampson found abiding in the li- 
 on's carcass. Oh how bitterly the church at- 
 tacked the presumptuous few who first timor- 
 ously ventured to question the validity of the 
 grounds for this utter absurdity ! to deny the 
 statement that neither germs or eggs were nee 
 essary for the production of the insects ! But 
 the churchmen got a serious set back early in 
 the seventeenth century when Redi laid bare 
 the surpassing fallacy of their claims by ma- 
 king known his justly celebrated experiment 
 
27 
 
 with pieces of flesh kept in coTered and uncov- 
 ered jars ; and again it tottered when Spallan- 
 zani followed in Eedi's track with incontesti- 
 ble proof of the continued barrenness of a well 
 boiled infusion preserved from contact vrith 
 air by a feealed glass vessel. Neither investi- 
 gator was able to detect the faintest trace of 
 life after long and patient observation. Yet 
 such a man of genius as Lamarck believed in 
 Spontaneous Generation and many others fell 
 in with his views, indeed it required Schwann's 
 truly scientific and masterly researches to fi- 
 nally disprove the plausible theory in 1837, 
 scarcely eleven years ago. 
 
 I have repeated most of these interesting ex- 
 periments and in addition to these have made 
 many more of my own devising, to attempt 
 to now detail wrhich would tediously and un- 
 instructively prolong this, I have no doubt to 
 you, seemingly already drawn-out Lecture. 
 
 From them I find that Schwann is, in the 
 main, correct ; but further note that the close 
 sealing he has recoiHse to is unnecessary, mere 
 ly stuffing the mouth of the containing vessel 
 with cotton wool will answer the same purpose : 
 that of a germ barrier, as the most elaborate 
 sealing if the heated wool is held in a forceps. 
 
28 
 
 A hood dipping into quicksilver answers 
 excellently. Yet mere filtration is inadequate. 
 
 I am now certain that this much talked of 
 spontaneous generation is largely a delusion 
 and that if the phenomenon ever does take 
 place it is only exhibited under extremely un- 
 usual conditions and in most extraordinary 
 cases. I am also aware that Kircher ascribed 
 the virulence of the Plague to the action of 
 living creatures — you will find his assumption 
 elaborated upon in his scarce and curious 
 "Scrutinum Contagiosae," published nearly a 
 century and a half ago — but he entirely failed 
 to prove his theory by recourse to experiments 
 (I have made many) and deduce from them 
 many things they made manifest to me. 
 
 It is one thing to hint, to guess, to prophesy, 
 but quite another, I assure you, to be able to 
 truthfully say "I know," and then to connect 
 the vague and formless spirit of the Theory 
 with the definite and tangible Matter of Fact. 
 
 This I may modestly assert I have done. 
 
 I have placed some of the matter contain- 
 ing certain of what I have found to be the 
 minute beings causing the putrid sore throat 
 in the common calves foot jelly so familiar to 
 all of you and covered this with a bell jar 
 
29 
 
 standing in quicksilver ; ' jelly, jar and metal 
 all being strongly heated^-thus, as you can 
 readily understand, completely excluding any 
 other germs. In three days, these particular 
 germs had amazingly multiplied as rounded 
 jointed grains in wavy clusters, and each lit- 
 tle portion of the jelly when placed in pieces of 
 fresh jelly was capable of plentifully propaga- 
 ting them in the new material which, in turn, 
 produced them in others — and so on. 
 
 I was curious to see how they would adapt 
 themselves to human blood : to avoid the red 
 color I let some venous stand quietly, having 
 skimmed off some crust ; and drew away the 
 greenish yellow watery serum froin the cruor 
 and heated it for some hours to 140 degrees of 
 Fahrenheit which I have found sufficient to 
 destroy germ life. In this the beings appeared 
 in only thirty hours ! and were larger, fibrous 
 and moist. Other children in the same house 
 with the boy from whose throat I obtained the 
 matter, yielded none of the peculiar germs re- 
 ferred to — until some acquired the same dis- 
 ease, these then exhibited the noxious organ- 
 isms in his or her greyish throat matter. 
 
 Reflection on this, leads us to consider how 
 many diseases may be introduced, transmitted 
 
30 
 
 or conveyed by the contact of flesh, perspita-, 
 tion or saliva and-liow cautions; how prudent 
 and how circumspect we should ever be in gov- 
 erning the intercourse of ourselves and of oUr 
 children with other persons or creatures, no 
 matter whether the latter appear, to be clean 
 and healthy or not. If the system is in prop- 
 er condition one will go as safely through any 
 contagion as a diver in Halley's suit through 
 the water of the sea, but who is so wise as to 
 know when he is absolutely hale and hearty? 
 one fatal moment of inviting weakness, and 
 wo! the insidious germ has found a foothold. 
 Then comes the di£fioulty of dislodgment. 
 These creatures floating numerously through 
 the entire atmosphere and only able to thrive 
 in a congenial harbourage : just as the Tobacco 
 Worm can subsist but on the foliage of the 
 plant from which it receives its name — once 
 having effected this subtle lodgment in our 
 systems, are there protected by phlegmatic or 
 viscid excretions partly emanating, perhaps, 
 from their own organisms and partly consist- 
 ing of corruption thrown out by the irritated 
 tissues for the purpose of resisting the invas- 
 ion : as observed in putrid sore throat and in 
 catarrh ; and then withstand many substances 
 
31 
 
 that otherwise would immediately kill them. 
 
 Do. Hot miSTinderstand me : I do net mean 
 to say tha,t all diseases are thus contracted, but 
 only those that are similar to those I have men- 
 tiofied. Nor do I assert that the observance 
 of all the precautions hinted at, will ward off 
 all ' danger. Careful observation has led me 
 to perceive that many of our common insects 
 are conveyers of the germs" of illness, disease 
 and death. The House-Ply that crawls over 
 our food or drowns itself in our drink, the 
 Gitat that buries its lancet in our veins, the 
 Bed-Bug that attacks the uncleanly during the 
 slumbers of night, the Wasp and the Bee that 
 thrust us with their stings — all are transport- 
 ers, injectors or introducers of germ life. 
 
 My reasons for affirming this are briefly 
 comprised in the statement that I have never 
 known a person to suffer from malarial fever 
 that had not at one time or other been stung 
 by Gnats or been the resident of a region con- 
 taining these pests ; and that anyone can appre- 
 ciate the too palpable filthiness of the Fly, feed- 
 ing, crawling, rioting and breeding in the 
 loathsome repulsiveness of refuse, offal, and 
 decaying abominations of every conceivable 
 kind; then alighting on our victuals or on our 
 
32 
 
 persons to trail his defilement over our absorp- 
 tive epidermis. Doubtless many of you, La- 
 dies and Gentlemen, have seen a magnification 
 of the foot of the Ply, you will therefrom com- 
 prehend how easily the wonderfully formed 
 suckers by which this curious creature is ena- 
 bled to support its own weight in an inverted 
 position, can take up and transfer and impart 
 germs of every description ; and you will rec- 
 ognize what extraordinary facilities the insect 
 possesses for acquiring and delivering them. 
 
 I suggest that wooden frames be covered 
 with metal gauze such as is used for sieves, and 
 hinged on outside of doors and windows, other- 
 wise, with free access to your houses, what can 
 be safe from the Fly ? Oldys, Ladies and Gen 
 tlemen, penned a quaint poem on the Ply, bid- 
 ding the latter "Drink with me and as I;" but 
 I am far from sharing his peculiar poetical 
 sentiments, and I believe that could the "Busy, 
 curious, thirsty" insect be swept altogether 
 out of existence the world would be ever so 
 much the better for it. How to accomplish 
 this, and also annihilate the swarms of Ticks, 
 Pleas, Gnats, Bed-Bugs, and so forth, is indeed 
 a question. Of course cleanliness will effect 
 something towards the desired end ; but, per- 
 
33 
 
 haps, more than this may be called into play : 
 maybe other creatures can be bred that may 
 abate the nuihbers of these vermin, just as the 
 Mungoos is used by the Hindu to destroy the 
 Cobra-di-Capello, as the S'erret is set upon the 
 Rat in England and the Ladybird is said to be 
 employed in the South of Europe to extermi- 
 nate the larvae of various insects that prey on 
 the poor peasant's scanty crops. Indeed, this 
 is a fascinating, an exhaustless, a labyrinthine 
 subject and could be enthusiastically pursued 
 like Ariadiie's silken clue, with infinite bene- 
 fit to our suffering race. We have an ap- 
 proach to something of the kind in Tenner's 
 valuable vaccine for the prevention of Small- 
 pox. Herej I believe, is shewn a striking in- 
 stance of the destruction of one germ by an- 
 other ; the substance he employs must contain 
 creatures antagonistical to those of the Small 
 pox pustules, else how could its effects endure 
 so long in the systems of those inoculated 
 with it ? And that this, supplied in sufficient 
 quantities, not only overwhelms those of the 
 malady when they enter the blood, but con- 
 tinues to exist, inhabit and breed in that fluid 
 thereby preventing entrance of the other and 
 fatal germ life. If this is so, then what a Sun 
 
34 
 
 of Hope— Hope that should "Spring eternal in 
 the human breast" bursts in dazzling splendour 
 on afflicted Man : consumption, cancer, chol- 
 era, all must mitigate, recede, or vanish before 
 benificent germs meeting the horrible, des- 
 tructive causes on their own grim ground and 
 remaining triumphant on the never again to 
 be fought-for field. You may laugh at this, 
 and call it the rosy imagery of a too exuber- 
 berant fancy ; but let me ask you to observe 
 arid notice that things much more incredible 
 have come to pass, aye, and are occurring daily 
 about us, that are now — like the steam engine 
 the great' Strassburg clock and the marvellous 
 discoveries in chemistry — so accepted and 
 commonplace as to remain almost unnoticed : 
 what we deem the impossibilities of one age 
 are the actuallities of the next, and I am thus 
 explicit in bringing what I consider is a preg- 
 nant truth to your earnest attention because 
 I anticipate the vastness of the fertile field it 
 will surely occupy in the wonderful future 
 which we may never see but which is sure to be. 
 Now come with me into the seductive realm 
 of the enchantress Theory and reflect upon, 
 debate and analyze the ideas that I have sub- 
 mitted to your attention. May not these in- 
 
35 
 
 visibles, these atoms of Natural Creation, be 
 the mysterious Absolute of our exi8te:pce ? Of 
 our prpp3,gation*and decease? Multitudes of 
 these creatures toiling silejitly in the cppyolu- 
 ted brain cells, like the maggots of odd Dean 
 Swift's fancy, may create ideas, intellect, pas- 
 sions. Other legions, laboring in the blood 
 corpuscles, may determine the purity or jmr 
 purity of that precious medium and, thereby, 
 its Titalizing or devitalizing virtues ; while 
 yet other hosts may control (or influence) the 
 deca,y of our organic structures and their per- 
 ishable framework ? May not soils owe their 
 fertility or sterility, their adaptability or im- 
 practicability to the unseen workings of these 
 Genii of the Little ? May not water, also, de- 
 rive many of its properties, beneficial or injur- 
 ious 3,s they may happen to be, from its teem- 
 ing contents of microscopical life ? We al- 
 ready know (from Bruce, the traveller,) that 
 the natives of far away Abyssinia are infest- 
 ed with parasite "Worms through the agency 
 of the water they drink — may not many dis- 
 eases of the guts originate from germs more 
 minute than these pernicious Larvse? 
 
 All this I believe will be proven to be fact, 
 and in its darker aspect we are very naturally 
 
36 
 
 brought to see no hand of God. For what 
 just, compassionate and merciful Father Die- 
 ''ty would let loose a host of death dealing, 
 ravenous Wolves in miniature, upon -ignorant, 
 frail, supplicating creatures -of his kindly cre- 
 ation — ^his own, fore-known, fore-destined, 
 children ? But rather the astonishing, strange 
 uncomprehended workings of some mightier 
 power in almighty Nature infinitely beyond 
 the weak, puny, priest-aborted rudiments of 
 perception, dawning in the infant brain of 
 Man : carrying out a grand design of unfath- 
 omable profundity, in which an atom is as 
 mighty as a mass, a second as significant as 
 a thousand years, and the smallest being in 
 the universe of as much importance in the stu- 
 pendous scheme as lordly Man, himself, with 
 all his presumption, arrogance and self conceit 
 thick upon him — leading us to exclaim with 
 Hamlet, in immortal Shakespeare: 
 
 "There are more things in Heaven and 
 
 Earth, Horatio,/^' 
 
 Than are dreamt ,j^ in thy philosophy I" 
 
 4 
 
 FINIS.