but the pioneers will be remembered as the pilgrims of science, although its votaries are now a Legion. This Memoir is a fine example of its class, and does credit both to the filial piety and literary ability of its distinguished Author.

B. S.

FLEURY: Des races qui se partagent l'Europe. 8vo, 132 pages. Hachette & Co.This author has brought to his study of the races great learning and a deep knowledge of the facts. He considers modern European civilization as springing from the German race.

JAMIN: Cour de Physique de l'Ecole polytechnique. T. II. with 3 plates and 191 figures in the text.-This volume contains Heat and Acoustics. The plates are engraved and the mathematical formulæ are printed with the neatness and accuracy which distinguish at present the productions of the press of Bachelier above all

others in France.

G. LAME: Leçons sur les coordennées, curvilignes et leurs diverses applications, in 8vo. 1859. Mallet-Bachelier, Paris.-Under this title the distinguished Professor of the Polytechnic School introduces to us a new branch of mathematical science. It is geometry considered from a physico-mathematical point of view.

OBITUARY.

Professor WILLIAM W. TURNER, one of our most distinguished philologists, died at Washington, Nov. 29, 1859, in the 50th year of his age. Although an excellent linguist, he devoted himself less to the study. of words than to that of the structure of languages, their origin and connections, upon which subject his views were eminently philosophic. He was born in London, but was brought in his fifth year to this country, where he has ever since resided. He early developed a taste for the study of oriental languages and was in 1842 appointed instructor in the Hebrew and cognate tongues in the Union Theological Seminary of New York. The last seven years of his life were spent in Washington, where his attainments and upright, amiable deportment secured to him a host of friends. He did a vast amount of work in the way of translation and grammatic compilation, little of which has, however, appeared in his name: he is chiefly known for his contributions to the "Bibliotheca Sacra" and to the journals of the American Oriental and Ethnological societies. But his published works give no adequate idea of the extent of his labors; his stores of knowledge were always open to his friends and most freely imparted, thus contributing to the advancement of sciences other than his own. He had, during the past ten years, given much attention to the study of the Aborigines of North America and their languages, not only elaborating general principles from the vocabularies collected by travellers, but confirming these and adding new information by communication with the delegates from various tribes that visited Washington upon business with the central government. In this investigation he accumulated a large amount of materials which will, it may be hoped, be some time given to the world.

W. S.

Dr. GEORGE WILSON, First Regius Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh, and Director of the Industrial Museum of that City, died near the end of November last, at the early age of 41. He was the biographer of Reid and Cavendish, and author of numerous researches, among which are the discovery of fluorine in blood and sea-water. Other of his published works are his "Researches on Color-blindness," an "Elementary Treatise on Chemistry," and "The Five Gate-ways of Knowledge." He is a great loss to his native city and the world.

THE

AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS.

[SECOND SERIES.]

ART. XV.-Review of Darwin's Theory on the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection.*

FULLY to understand the foregoing Essay of Dr. Hooker,† it should be read in the light of Mr. Darwin's book. The Essay is a trial of the Theory, an attempt by one inclined in its favor to see how the theory will work, when applied to the flora of a large and most peculiar province of the world.

An

This book is already exciting much attention. Two American editions are announced, through which it will become familiar to many of our readers, before these pages are issued. abstract of the argument,-for "the whole volume is one long argument," as the author states,-is unnecessary in such a case; and it would be difficult to give by detached extracts. For the volume itself is an abstract, a prodromus of a detailed work upon which the author has been laboring for twenty years, and which "will take two or three more years to complete." It is exceedingly compact; and although useful summaries are ap

*On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life; by CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnean, etc. Societies, Author of "Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round the World." London: John Murray. 1859. pp. 502, post 8vo.

This article was intended to follow the remaining part of the essay of Dr. Hooker, commenced in our January number; the continuation of which we are obliged to defer, for want of room.-EDS.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXIX, No. 86.—MARCH, 1860.

pended to the several chapters, and a general recapitulation contains the essence of the whole, yet much of the aroma escapes in the treble distillation, or is so concentrated that the flavor is lost to the general, or even to the scientific reader. The volume itself, the proof spirit-is just condensed enough for its purpose. It will be far more widely read, and perhaps will make deeper impression than the elaborate work might have done, with its full details of the facts upon which the author's sweeping conclusions have been grounded. At least it is a more readable book: but all the facts that can be mustered in favor of the theory are still likely to be needed.

Who, upon a single perusal, shall pass judgment upon a work like this, to which twenty of the best years of the life of a most able naturalist have been devoted? And who among those naturalists who hold a position that entitles them to pronounce summarily upon the subject, can be expected to divest himself for the nonce of the influence or received and favorite systems? In fact, the controversy now opened is not likely to be settled in an off-hand way, nor it is desirable that it should be. A spirited conflict among opinions of every grade must ensue, which, to borrow an illustration from the doctrine of the book before us-may be likened to the conflict in nature among races in the struggle for life, which Mr. Darwin describes; through which the views most favored by facts will be developed and tested by Natural Selection,' the weaker ones be destroyed in the process, and the strongest in the long run alone survive.

The duty of reviewing this volume in the American Journal of Science would naturally devolve upon the principal Editor, whose wide observation and profound knowledge of various departments of natural history, as well as of geology, particularly qualify him for the task. But he has been obliged to lay aside his pen, and to seek in distant lands the entire repose from scientific labor so essential to the restoration of his health,-a consummation devoutly to be wished, and confidently to be expected, Interested as Mr. Dana would be in this volume, he could not be expected to accept its doctrine. Views so idealistic as those upon which his "Thoughts upon Species"* are grounded, will not harmonize readily with a doctrine so thoroughly naturalistic as that of Mr. Darwin. Though it is just possible that one who regards the kinds of elementary matter, such as oxygen and hydrogen, and the definite compounds of these elementary matters, and their compounds again, in the mineral kingdom, as constituting species, in the same sense, fundamentally, as that of animal and vegetable species, might admit an evolution of one species from another in the latter as well as the former case,

* Article in this Journal, vol. xxiv, p. 305,

Between the doctrines of this volume and those of the other great Naturalist whose name adorns the title-page of this Jour nal, the widest divergence appears. It is interesting to contrast the two, and, indeed, is necessary to our purpose; for this contrast brings out most prominently, and sets in strongest light and shade the main features of the theory of the origination of species by means of Natural Selection.

The ordinary and generally received view assumes the independent, specific creation of each kind of plant and animal in a primitive stock, which reproduces its like from generation to generation, and so continues the species.* Taking the idea of species from this perennial succession of essentially similar individuals, the chain is logically traceable back to a local origin in a single stock, a single pair, or a single individual, from which all the individuals composing the species have proceeded by natural generation. Although the similarity of progeny to parent is fundamental in the conception of species, yet the likeness is by no means absolute: all species vary more or less, and some vary remarkably-partly from the influence of altered circumstances, and partly (and more really) from unknown constitutional causes which altered conditions favor rather than originate. But these variations are supposed to be mere oscillations from a normal state, and in Nature to be limited if not transitory; so that the primordial differences between species and species at their beginning have not been effaced, nor largely obscured, by blending through variation. Consequently, whenever two reputed species are found to blend in nature through a series of intermediate forms, community of origin is inferred, and all the forms, however diverse, are held to belong to one species. Moreover, since bisexuality is the rule in nature (which is practically carried out, in the long run, far more generally than has been suspected), and the heritable qualities of two distinct individuals are mingled in the offspring, it is supposed that the general sterility of hybrid progeny, interposes an effectual barrier against the blending of the original species by crossing.

From this generally accepted view the well-known theory of Agassiz and the recent one of Darwin diverge in exactly opposite directions.

That of Agassiz differs fundamentally from the ordinary view only in this, that it discards the idea of a common descent as the real bond of union among the individuals of a species, and also the idea of a local origin,-supposing, instead, that each species originated simultaneously, generally speaking over the whole geographical area it now occupies or has occupied, and

* "Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio produxit Infinitum Ens; que formæ, secundum generationis inditas leges, produxere plures, at sibi semper similes." -Linn. Phil. Bot., 99, 157.

in perhaps as many individuals as it numbered at any subsequent period.

Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, holds the orthodox view of the descent of all the individuals of a species not only from a local birth-place, but from a single ancestor or pair; and that each species has extended and established itself, through natural agencies, wherever it could; so that the actual geographical distribution of any species is by no means a primordial arrangement, but a natural result. He goes farther, and this volume is a protracted argument intended to prove that the species we recognize have not been independently created, as such, but have descended, like varieties, from other species. Varieties, on this view, are incipient or possible species: species are varieties of a larger growth and a wider and earlier divergence from the parent stock: the difference is one of degree, not of kind.

The ordinary view-rendering unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's-looks to natural agencies for the actual distribution and perpetuation of species, to a supernatural for their origin.

The theory of Agassiz regards the origin of species and their present general distribution over the world as equally primordial, equally supernatural; that of Darwin, as equally derivative, equally natural.

The theory of Agassiz, referring as it does the phenomena both of origin and distribution directly to the Divine will,-thus removing the latter with the former out of the domain of inductive science (in which efficient cause is not the first, but the last word),-may be said to be theistic to excess. The contrasted theory is not open to this objection. Studying the facts and phenomena in reference to proximate causes, and endeavoring to trace back the series of cause and effect as far as possible, Darwin's aim and processes are strictly scientific, and his endeavor, whether successful or futile, must be regarded as a legitimate attempt to extend the domain of natural or physical science. For though it well may be that "organic forms have no physical or secondary cause," yet this can be proved only indirectly, by the failure of every attempt to refer the phenomena in question to causal laws. But, however originated, and whatever be thought of Mr. Darwin's arduous undertaking in this respect, it is certain that plants and animals are subject from their birth to physical influences, to which they have to accommodate themselves as they can. How literally they are "born to trouble," and how incessant and severe the struggle for life generally is, the present volume graphically describes. Few will deny that such influences must have gravely affected the range and the association of individuals and species on the earth's surface. Mr. Darwin thinks that, acting upon an inherent predisposition to vary, they have sufficed even to modify