nate Variations; these not a Product of, but a Response to, the Environment; not physical, but physiological.—-Adapta- tions in Nature not explained by Natural Selection apart from Design or Final Cause.-Absurdity of associating Design only with Miracle.-What is meant by Nature.-The Tradition of the DIVINE in Nature, testified to by Aristotle, comes down to DARWINIANA. I. THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION.' (AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS, March, 1860.) 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. An 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 appended to the several chapters, and a general recapitulation con 16 "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, Linnæan, etc., Societies, Author of "Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round the World." London: John Murray. 1859, 502 pp., post 8vo. tains 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 all 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 of received and favorite systems? In fact, the controversy now opened is not likely to be settled in an off-hand way, nor is it 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 Ameri can Journal of Science would naturally devolve upon 1 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. Between the doctrines of this volume and those of the other great naturalist whose name adorns the titlepage of this journal [Mr. Agassiz], 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 1 Article in this Journal, vol. xxiv., p. 305. ה 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 1 "Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio produxit Infinitum Ens; quæ formæ, secundum generationis inditas leges, produxere plures, at sibi semper similes."-Linn. Phil. Bot., 99, 157. |