that the said awful gulf might in ordinary states of the wind and tide be safely navigated in a cock-boat. This is adding insult to injury. The myth dies, and is buried in ignominy as an impostor. Alas for all our old dreams! On scientific subjects, which frequently arise during the course of his rambles, Mr. Williams gives generally opinions which at least strike one for their good sense. A slight tendency to combativeness, especially on the subject of education, where he has strong opinions of a sternly utilitarian character, is frequently traceable; but on all subjects, except education, his views are at least plausible, and well sustained by facts. His theory of the cause of the mirage is ingenious, and is so strictly in accordance with well known optical laws that we have little hesitation in adopting it as true. On the whole, we have great pleasure and great confidence in recommending this little work to the attention of our readers. If they mean to travel in the district, it will give them a good idea of the scenery and manners of the people without travelling. THE TWO HOMES. By William Matthews. Three vols. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. THIS novel we shall not characterise, only repeat what all the world knows, that the firm which publishes it is on the look-out for merit in this department of literature, and that novels as well as human beings are dividable into the classes of better and worse. It is a kind of oracular puzzle. We shall present our readers simply with one or two of the running titles of the book, without hinting further at its plot, or pronouncing on its merits, that those who are so disposed may exercise their constructive faculty in making out a story from these data; and that those who like their pleasures to come to them without effort may order the tale from the library. It will be observed, then, from certain items in the short-hand summary of matter which tops the pages of "The Two Homes," such as "Mr. Graham Jumps to a Happy Conclu sion"-" Minnie being Drawn Out" "Nervousness the Remedy" "Our First Pony"-"Tally-ho". "Cub Hunting-Dear Little Minnie "Criticism on Riding"-"The American and English Races" 'Mrs. Graham Fences," &c., &c. ; that the two homes of our novels are two stables; that the proper names are those of quadrupeds, not bipeds: and that the novel scents of the torf and training ground, Epsom and Newmarket, hunting lodge and steeple chase, rather than of interests more exclusively human. Whether Nimrod or Harry Hieover constructing the novel in this sense from our pregnant hint would not make a better story of it is not for us to say. Such an event lies in the far-off region of postbilities, and there for the present we must leave it,trusting that the gratitude of our readers will attend the efforts just now made for their illuminst: »a at once by this not-multitudineus summary of topics in the picture before us, and by the clue we furnish to its prevailing character. POEMS, by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilam Read. London: Smith, Eider, and to 1859. WE know not that we can give higher or juster praise to this neatly got-up volume than by saying that its gallant author has not miscalled it. We have met with an occasional bad rhyme, with some conceits' we scarcely like, but with many things truly beautiful, and which only a poet could create. CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION IN INDIA. By AntiCaste. A goop little book by an able writer, laying open the rights and wrongs of the whole question of which it treats. It is full of information, presented in a clear manner. THE ECLECTIC. MARCH, 1860. I. ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., &c. MR. DARWIN, as a naturalist, is eminent amongst the eminentan authority amongst authorities-laudatur á laudatis. Probably few men are better entitled by patient observation, and careful analysis of facts, to construct a theory. He has been in no undue haste to do this. Perhaps it may be above a quarter of a century since, in the capacity of naturalist on board H.M.S. Beagle, he was impressed with certain facts connected with the geography and palæontology of South America, which appeared to throw "some light on the Origin of Species-that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers." After five years had elapsed in accumulating observations and reflecting upon them, he allowed himself to speculate, and drew up some short notes, which in 1844 were enlarged into a sketch of certain conclusions, which then seemed probable. Since that time he has been constantly engaged in the same investigations; and the present work, which is but an abstract of a much larger one promised in two or three years, contains the result. The fact that this is but an abstract, containing the conclusions only which have been arrived at by examination of vast masses of detail, the barest outline of which only is given, makes the task of the critic difficult, and in some respects vague.. "No one (says the author) can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that Introduction, p. 1. VOL. IIL scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done." We think it in many respects unfortunate that a theory of such importance as the one in question-one intended to produce so complete a "revolution in natural history"-should have been published in apparent haste, and without the fullest illustrations possible, and the most complete provisions against misapprehension. It is doubtless due to this cause that many errors as to fact, many hasty receptions of authority, many palpable contradictions in the argument, to which we must hereafter refer, have crept into the work. Such as it is, however, it has produced a very considerable sensation in the scientific world,† and both on this account, and because of its own intrinsic merits in regard to the learning and research therein displayed, claims, even from its opponents, the most careful and respectful consideration. We propose, therefore, to indicate, as fully as our limits will permit, the nature of Mr. Darwin's theory, and the reasoning by which it is supported; and afterwards to inquire whether such a theory be required by, and how it is accordant with, existing pheno mena. A casual survey of the vegetable and animal world exhibits to the inquirer an infinite number of forms, having almost every conceivable variety of general aspect and attribute; whilst a closer investigation shows certain relationships of type and function to subsist amongst certain members. Individuals are closely grouped together with such identity of structure, and such con * Introduction, p. 2. † At the last meeting of the British Association, Sir Charles Lyell thus spoke of the work and its author : "Among the problems of high theoretical interest which the recent progress of geology and natural history has brought into notice, no one is more prominent, and at the same time more obscure, than that relating to the Origin of Species. On this difficult and mysterious subject a work will very shortly appear, by Mr. Charles Darwin, the result of twenty years of observation and experiments in zoology, botany, and geology, by which he has been led to the conclusion that those powers of nature which give rise to races and permanent varieties in animals and plants are the same as those which in much longer periods produce species, and in a still longer series of ages give rise to differences of generic rank. He appears to me to have succeeded, by his investigations and reasonings, to have thrown a flood of light on many classes of phenomena connected with the affinities, geographical distribution, and geological succession of organic beings, for which no other hypothesis has been able, or has even attempted, to account." stancy of character derived from parent to offspring, as to be ranked as species. Various species present such analogies one to the other as to be classed, under more extended heads, as genera. Genera, again, that are allied by certain affinities, are united to form natural orders; and these are grouped again, according to such general characters as they may possess in common, into classes and sub-kingdoms. Thus all the varieties of our domestic dog or cat are so alike in essential structure, that they are respectively considered as distinct species. But the dog has many points of resemblance to the wolf, the dingo, &c.; and the cat has similar relations to the lion, tiger, and puma. The allies of the dog are therefore united to form a family, called Canis; and those of the cat are similarly united into the family Felis. But the Canida and the Felida are again allied by important points of structure, food, and habits to each other, and to the bears (Ursida), martens (Mustelida), and seals (Phocida); and these families are aggregated to constitute the natural order of the CARNIVORA. These form one of the great divisions of the class MAMMALIA—a section of the great sub-kingdom of the VERTEBRATA. It is with regard to the nature and reality of these divisions that naturalists differ. The great majority have been in the habit of considering that species alone had an existence in nature, and that a family, a genus, or a class was simply an ens rationis, a mental classification for convenience only; that only the members of a species had any natural relationship which they derived from one or more pairs of protoplasts, and the properties and attributes of which they inherited unchanged through each successive generation from their first creation; whilst every other species had equally an independent origin, merely grouped into larger and larger collections, in obedience to a law of the Creator, unknown in its nature, though beautiful in its result. Not so the supporters of the famous "Development" hypothesis, of which Mr. Darwin is the latest, and, probably, the most philosophical exponent. They believe that all the organisms which now live, or have ever lived, upon this earth, are naturally connected by descent-by blood-relationship, so to speak; that "all true classification is genealogical;" that such characters as the various species of one genus have in common, are thus common to them because they had one common ancestor; and that the affinities in like manner between the genera of an order and the orders of a class are due to an original common parentage. There was originally one form only of organization; and this, during the lapse of countless ages, in obedience to an infinite variety of influences, * Introduction, p. 420. was gradually modified into a tree, a fish, a bird, an oyster, a mammal, or a man. (We shall shortly show by quotation that we have not overstated the extent to which the theory is carried.) Thus, whilst the former theorists believe in creation, the latter believe only, or chiefly, in development. Not that they entirely exclude a Creator from the universe; he is by some permitted to create the first germs of organic life; but after that, his power is at an end, and the organism is left to struggle itself into development as best it may, in obedience to some "law of progress," to its own endeavours after action,* to casual variation, or to changed conditions of life owing to geological and other revolutions. Of all the supporters of this theory Oken is by far the boldest, the least doubting, the most uncompromising. He wrote his Treatise on Biology in "a kind of inspiration "t-at least so he tells us; they must, therefore, be daring critics who venture to dissent. (898) Mucus is carbon "mixed identically with water and air." (900) "Every organic has issued out of mucus." (901) "The primary mucus, out of which everything organic has been created, is the sea-mucus.' (905) "The sea-mucus, as well as the salt, is produced by the light. Light shines upon the water, and it is salted. Light shines upon the salted sea, and it lives." (906) "All life is from the sea, none from the Continent." (912) "The first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea." (913) "Man also is a child of the warm and shallow parts of the sea in the neighbourhood of the land." (930) The primary organic is a mucus point." (934) "The first organic points are vesicles." (958) "No organism has been created of larger size than an infusorial point. No organism is, nor has one ever been, created, which is not microscopic.' (959) "Whatever is larger has not been created, but developed." (960) "Man has not been created, but developed." Enough of this; too much, were it not desirable to show to what burlesques upon philosophy even great minds will condescend, rather than admit an ever-active Creator and sustainer of the world; theories, the "inspired" and inflated dogmatism See "Lamarck's Phil. Zool.," tom. I., passim. See Preface to "Physio philosophy,” p. 9, Royal Society's edition. |