that species, and he will add varieties, "exist as categories of thought," that is, as cognizable distinctions, which is all that we can make of the phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian metaphysics. Admitting that species are only categories of thought, and not facts or things, how does this prevent the individuals, which are material things, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify the present almost innumerable categories of thought, or embodiments of Divine thoughts in material forms, or -viewed on the human side—in forms marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances and differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of species, genera, orders, etc., and to our reason the inference of a Divine original? We have no clear idea how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in saying that branches are founded upon different plans of structure, classes upon different modes of execution of these plans, orders on different degrees of complication in the mode of execution, families upon different patterns of form, genera upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, and species upon relations and proportions. That is, we do not perceive how these several "categories of thought" exclude the possibility or the probability that the individuals which manifest or suggest the thoughts had an ultimate community of origin. Moreover, Mr. Darwin would insinuate that the particular philosophy of classification upon which this whole argument reposes is as purely hypothetical and as little accepted as his own doctrine. If both are pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to extinguish the one by the other. If there is no real contradiction between them, there is no use in making the attempt.

As to the dilemma propounded, suppose we try it upon that category of thought which we call chair. This is a genus, comprising the common chair, (Sella vulgaris,) the arm or easy chair, (S. cathedra,) the rocking chair, (S. oscillans,) widely distributed in the United States, and some others, each of which

has sported, as the gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the genus and the species have no material existence, how can they vary? If individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are eternal, yet they are manifested in time and succession, and by their manifestation only can we know them, how imperfectly! Allowing that what has no material existence can have had no material connection and no material variation, we should yet infer that what had intellectual existence and connection might have intellectual variation; and, turning to the individuals which represent the species, we do not see how all this shows that they may not vary. Observation shows us that they do. Wherefore, taught by fact that successive individuals do vary, we safely infer that the idea or intention must have varied, and that this variation of the individual representatives proves the variability of the species, whether subjectively or objectively regarded.

Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has its varieties, and one species shades off by gradations into another. And note it well-these numerous and successively slight variations and gradations, far from suggesting an accidental origin to chairs and to their forms, are very proofs of design.

Again, edifice is a generic category of thought. Egyptian, Grecian, Byzantine, and Gothic buildings are well-marked species, of which each individual building of the sort is a material embodiment. Now the question is, whether these categories of thought may not have been evolved, one from another, in succession, or from some primal, less specialized, edificial category. What better evidence for such hypothesis could we have than

stead of theorizing-we notice that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after ceasing to be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the structure, without supernatural interposition, just as Darwin would have it, if the development of a variety or incipient species, though rare, were as natural as a metamorphosis. "Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the animal would be no better supported than the objection. Darwin makes very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a squirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; but might not the length of the leap be increased by practice?

The "North American" reviewer's position, that the higher brute animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate proportions, we know of nothing in instinct surpassing that of an animal so high as a bird, the Talegal, the male of which plumes himself upon making a hot-bed in which to hatch his partner's eggs, which he tends and regulates the heat of about as carefully and skilfully as the unplumed biped does an eccaleobion.† As to the real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably defended by a

Vide article by Mr. C. Wright, in the Mathematical Monthly for May last.

† Vide Edinburgh Review for January, 1860, article on "Acclimatization," etc.

far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the best of dogs "in that respect upon a level with a considerable portion of poor humanity," nor indulge the hope, or, indeed, the desire, of a renewed acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.*

The assertion, that acquired habitudes or instincts, and acquired structures, are not heritable, any breeder or good observer can refute.

That "the human mind has become what it is out of a developed instinct "† is a statement which Mr. Darwin nowhere makes, and, we presume, would not accept. As to his having us believe that individual animals acquire their instincts gradually, ‡ this statement must have been penned in inadvertence both of the very definition of instinct, and of everything we know of in Mr. Darwin's book.

It has been attempted to destroy the very foundation of Darwin's hypothesis by denying that there are any wild varieties, to speak of, for natural selection to operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to prove that wild varieties abound. We should think it just as necessary to prove that snow falls in winter. That variation among plants cannot be largely due to hybridism, and that their variation in Nature is not essentially different from much that occurs in domestication, we could show, if our space permitted.

As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be insisted upon as absolutely true, nor be practically used as a test between species and varieties, unless we allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. That it subserves a purpose in keeping species apart, and was so designed, we do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that this sterility proves nothing against the derivative origin of the actual species; for it may as well have been intended to keep separate those

* Contributions; Essay on Classification, etc., Vol. i. pp. 60-66.

† North Amer. Review, April, 1860, p. 475. Amer. Journal of Science, July, 1860, p. 146.

forms which have reached a certain amount of divergence as those which were always thus distinct.

The argument for the permanence of species, drawn from the identity with those now living of cats, birds, and other animals, preserved in Egyptian catacombs, was good enough as used by Cuvier against St. Hilaire, that is, against the supposition that time brings about a gradual alteration of whole species; but it goes for little against Darwin, unless it be proved that species never vary, or that the perpetuation of a variety necessitates the extinction of the parent breed. For Darwin clearly maintains-what the facts warrant that the mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede the parent form, but it may coexist with it; yet it does not in the least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the fox in the fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the permanence of the common sort of fowl.

As to the objection, that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwin's theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, replaced by higher forms, the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organization is best adapt ed, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the conditions, seems to be aimed at, and this is effected by diversification.

Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwin's, or any other derivative theory,

as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in a blind faith that species- that the manifold sorts and forms of existing animals and vegetables -"have no secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become more and more probable. But we are confident, that, if a derivative hypothesis ever is established, it will be so on a solid theistic ground.

Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis is on trial,-an hypothesis thus far not untenable,—a trial just now very useful to science, and, we conclude, not harmful to religion, unless injudicious assailants temporarily make it so.

One good effect is already manifest: its enabling the advocates of the hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must admit an actual diversification into strongly marked and persistent varieties, and so admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian hypothesis is built; while those, on the other hand, who recognize a diversity of human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such species were primordial and supernatural in the common sense of the word.

The English mind is prone to positivism and kindred forms of materialistic philosophy, and we must expect the derivative theory to be taken up in that interest. We have no predilection for that school, but the contrary. If we had, we might have looked complacently upon a line of criticism which would indirectly, but effectively, play into the hands of positivists and materialistic atheists generally. The wiser and stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothesis leaves the argument for design, and there. fore for a Designer, as valid as it ever was; that to do any work by an instrument must require, and therefore presup

HOW IT WAS LOST.

AMONG green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled, mossyroofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it about, a garden-plot stretched upward to the whispering birches on the slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and found them young.

One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers in the meadow, blackbirds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain humble history began. "Nan!"

"Yes, Di."

And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at the open door in answer to the call.

"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,' — there's a dear. It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'm once fairly laid." As she spoke, Di pushed up her black braids, thumped the pillow of the couch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last page of her book. "Nan!"

"Yes, Laura,” replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too intent upon the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a certain plain sinner.

"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's the only thing fit for me this hot weather."

And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she was drawing. "Little daughter!" "Yes, father."

"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at three; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I shall be in the lower garden."

The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that domestic purgatory on a summer day,— the kitchen. There were vines about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories of wasted temper, time, and toil.