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290 BRITISH ASSOCIATION, MEETING AT EXETER.
the total disappearance of the selected forms (if they had ever existed)
Avas a fatal objection to the hypothesis, which was, moreover, opposed
to all progress.
A very animated discussion then took place. The President re-
marked of the last paper that he was at a loss to see what it had to
do with Darwinism. He had some doubt also as lo the connection of
the second paper with the subject.—Professor Huxley said he ap-
peared to have been enfi,aged in a perpetual battle since lie had been
in Exeter. The tiiree papers were of very different characters. The
second was one of which he did not propose to take any notice what-
ever. With regard to Dr. M'Caun's paper, he held that they should
have the most intimate connection between science and philosophy
and in the name of philosophy he protested against such a shallow
caricature of it as that of Dr. M'Cann. How could the latter impute
to opinions which were essentially the same as those of Bishop Berke-
ley the conclusions which he did ? Let him read Bishop Berkeley's
writings— they were short. As to what he said about the affirmations
of consciousness being necessarily true, did he not know that the
foundations of the Cartesian philosophy had been snapped long ago ?
It was one thing to say that an affirmation of consciousness was abso-
lutely certain, and another that any conclusion therefrom was also cer-
tain. He did not complain that Dr. M'Cann liad caricatured him, be-
cause a man must understand before he could caricature, but he did
complain that he had been misrepresented. He had written in a re-
cent article that the freedom of the human will was the great question
of the present day ; and that he believed it would never be solved, be-
cause it lay without the domain of the human mind. It was not
right, with that in print, to call him a necessitarian. Professor Huxley
highly praised Archdeacon Freeman for his candour, though he de-
nied his conclusions. He agreed with the Archdeacon in believing
that the Bible was intended to teach physical science. The Arch-
deacon's ideas were not new, but constituted the philosophy of biology
of Owen and Agassiz. It was a mistake to believe that the uniformity
of type and plan were chiefly to be seen in the higher animals. It was
to be seen as much in the lower, and was absent from none.—Dr.
Hooker, who had also been criticized by Dr. M'Cann, said he had no
course to defend liimself but to read portions of his address to which
reference had been made, and ask the meeting- if tlu'v bore the eoubtrue-
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