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It's a pleasure to introduce
the 162nd series

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of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

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And, during this year,

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since the last series, we have,
in the Royal Institution, celebrated

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the 200th birthday of,
what I and many other people
believe, to have been

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the greatest experimental scientist
who ever lived, Michael Faraday.

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I think, it's also worth saying
this afternoon

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that, not only was he
a great scientist,

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but he was also the originator
of these Christmas Lectures,
started in 1826,

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and which he himself gave
no fewer than 19 times.

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I thought I would read

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what he said at the beginning
of one of those series of lectures,

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when he stood here,
I believe it was in 1854.

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He said the following:

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"Let us consider, for a little while,

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how wonderfully we stand
upon the world.

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Here it is that we are born,
and bred, and live.

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And yet, we view these things
with an almost entire absence of wonder

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to ourselves, respecting the way
in which all this happens."

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That was the reason for the Christmas
Lectures in Faraday's mind -

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it was to awaken wonder.

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We are going to take up
that theme again this year,

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because Doctor Richard Dawkins,
the Reader in Zoology
from Oxford University,

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is going to tell us how you and I -
stand upon this world,

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and how that all comes to happen.

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Because, he's going to explain
to us how living creatures -

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many kinds of living creatures,
including you and I -

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have evolved on the surface
of the earth.

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We are very happy, to acknowledge
the help preparing these lectures

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from Shell UK & Shell International

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who have given us valuable sponsorship,

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I would also like to
take the opportunity to say

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that we are organising, again,
a competition this year,

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based on the content of the lectures,

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so if you would like to
participate in the competition,

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you will find the address

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to send your entries
to displayed at the end of lecture.

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Now, it only remains for me
to introduce to you
Doctor Richard Dawkins,

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who is going to give
the 1991 Christmas Lectures
of the Royal Institution

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on 'Waking Up In the Universe'.