may even be suggested that evolutionism supplies a means of breaking the force of such objections which the theory of special creations does not possess for while according to the theory of special creation, e.g. each species of parasites was carefully designed of set purpose, according to the theory of evolution they were the result of general laws which may be conceived to have been set in motion because they would work well on the whole, although a certain amount of incidental evil might accidentally and temporarily be mixed up with the result. And thus in regard of this incidental evil there does not arise the question, "Why was it deliberately inflicted?" but only the far less urgent question, "Why was not this deduction from the general good somehow or other avoided?" P. 200.

The difficulties of the second class are drawn from regions which transmutationists have made peculiarly their own; their solution is more difficult, because they so strongly suggest the evolutionist interpretation that they have been taken as part of the proof of the theory of vital evolution; and it is more urgent, since, being difficulties not pressed into their service from without, but spontaneously rising out of their theory, they are principally relied on by evolutionists. To explain. There exists, in almost complete independence of all discussions as to any agency by which transmutation may have been effected, a body of evidence offered to show that it has been effected somehow. This body of evidence is composed of arguments drawn from the classification of living beings, from their distribution in space, from their distribution in time, and from structural peculiarities which they present in some part of their organization or at some period of their history. To take the last of these four heads of evidence. It often happens that the embryos of animals temporarily present peculiarities which are permanent in other species, from the like of which they may be imagined to have been descended: thus, for instance, the human embryo has at one time branchial arches like a fish, and fœtal guinea-pigs have teeth which are shed before they are born. Now why, if the teeth are never to be used, should they generation after generation be produced? It is obvious that facts of this description (and more or less analogous facts may be collected in abundance from the phenomena of classification and distribution in time and space) are at least at first sight opposed to the theory of special creation, and that not, like the cases of the first class, for general reasons merely, but in a pointed and especial manner. They are explained by evolutionists on the striking and perhaps somewhat strained hypothesis that the peculiarities in question were at first present, because of inheritance from remote ancestors, but that they afterwards atrophied or aborted, because of contrary inheritance from more recent ancestors. But "Nothing," it is objected, "Nothing could be more unworthy of a Supreme Intelligence than this inability to construct an organism at once, without previously making several tentative efforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and repeating for centuries the same tentatives and the same corrections in the same order."

are occupied by a somewhat confused mixture of biological and theological statement and argument.

Here, as our readers will have anticipated, Mr. St. Clair has recourse to the "wider Teleology." He concedes that on the special-creation theory such phenomena as those appear to show waste of time and energy, and want of power to effect a purpose in the directest way. We know too little, however, of the real causes of embryological phenomena to go farther than a mere appear; and where this is the case, even an appear is not justified. But he maintains that the difficulties vanish on the hypothesis of evolution; for if that hypothesis be accepted, these phenomena are not separately designed, but are incidental and almost indifferent results of a general plan. It can be no disadvantage, or at most it must be only a very minute disadvantage to guinea-pigs that in the fœtal condition they have teeth which they shed before they are born; and if the actual system of nature was selected by the Creator as one fitted for the purpose which He had in view in creation, it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that it ought to have been rejected because of such relatively insignificant results of the working of its general laws.

We must ow take an unwilling leave of Mr. St. Clair's interesting and suggestive book, in which the reader will find not only an excellent popular statement of the transmutation theory, but many most ingenious solutions of difficulties in natural theology.

Fallacies o Darwinism. An Exposition of Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr. Darwin. ByC. R. BREE, M.D., F.Z.S., Senior Physician to the Essex and Colchester Hospital: Author of "Species not Transmutable nor the Result of Natural Selection," "The Birds of Europe not observed in the British Isles," "Popular Illustrations of the Lower Forms of Life," &c. London: Longmans, Green, & Co.

DR. BREE was apparently determined to write his "Fallacies of Darwinism" by the publication of Mr. Darwin's "Descent of Man." The plan of the work is thus given by the author:

"I propose to treat [the subject] in a spirit of pure scientific investigation under the following heads :

"1. The Physical Argument.-Darwinism as it is presumed to derive support or otherwise from the assumed correlation of the physical and vital forces.

"2. The Physico-Psychical Argument.-Darwinism as it is presumed to derive support or otherwise from the doctrine of evolution as formulated by Mr. Herbert Spencer.

"3. The Variation and Natural Selection Argument.-Darwinism as set forth by Mr. Darwin himself and his principal supporters.

"4. The Derivative Argument.

"5. Mr. Darwin's Line of Descent.

"6. The Teleological Argument.

"7. Evolution and Theology."-" Fallacies of Darwinism," pp. 13–14.

The volume is not free from inaccuracies in matters of fact, and shows, in occasional breaks of continuity and hastily constructed sentences, marks of rapid composition.* But at the same time, allowance being made for these and similar imperfections, it will doubtless prove very useful to any one who wishes to take up the question of the "Origin of Species." The books and articles which have appeared on the controversy are abundantly referred to, and not only is a selection of the arguments used in them presented, but Dr. Bree has also added some original observations of his own.

In the first of the seven sections into which his work is divided, Dr. Bree sets himself to refute the physical theory of life, which it is, he says, "of great importance for the disciple of Darwin to establish." His refutation consists of quotations and arguments from Dr. Stirling and Professor Beale, to which are added some very strong remarks made three years ago by Professor Tait, of Edinburgh, in his Address as President of the Mathematical and Physical Science section of the British Association :—

"One herd of ignorant people. refuse to admit that all the phenomena even of ordinary dead matter are strictly and exclusively in the domain of physical science. On the other hand, there is a numerous group, not in the slightest degree entitled to rank as physicists-though in general they assume the proud title of philosophers-who assert that not merely life, but even volition and consciousness, are mere physical manifestations. These opposite errors, into neither of which is it possible for a

* Thus, for instance, at p. 88, we read: "Pigs, I am willing to admit, have descended from Sus Scrofa, the wild boar. Whether a second and unknown origin may be admitted, on the authority of Nathusius, is, I think, very probable, for the osteological changes which he himself tells us may be produced by feeding and the disuse of organs, is quite sufficient to account for his unknown ancestor." At p. 55, in proof that at an early stage of development the human is distinguished from the brute embryo, we are told that "the neurad' is backward in man, and upward in beasts; the haemad' forward in man, and downward in beasts." Yes; but backward, upward, forward, downward, in reference to what? Not to anything at the time existing in the embryo, but to the position assumed by the animal in walking. On the frontispiece the facial angle of an Australian savage is marked 85°, and contrasted with a gorilla, whose facial angle is, rightly, marked 40°. But 85° is more than the average facial angle of European skulls, and cannot possibly be that of an Australian savage. In the first and introductory chapter Dr. Hooker is represented to have said, in his 1868 Address as President of the British Association, that natural selection is "an accepted doctrine with every philosophic naturalist"; and is chastised for making such a mistake. What Dr. Hooker did say was, "with almost every philosophic naturalist." (British Association Report for 1868, p. lxxii.) A few lines lower down we are informed that since that address was delivered, natural selection has rather gone down in the world, for, Mr. Darwin has discovered tha he had pushed it too far, and Mr. St. George Mivart has proved that it has not a basis of truth." Mr. Darwin, however, from the first ("Origin of Species," first edition [1859], Introduction) expressed his belief tha natural selection has not been the only agency concerned in bringing abou changes of species.

VOL. XXIII.—NO. XLV. [New Series.]

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genuine scientific man to fall-so long, at least, as he retains his reasonare easily seen to be very closely allied. They are both to be attributed to that credulity which is characteristic of ignorance and of incapacity. . . . Alike condemned and contemned we leave them to their proper fateoblivion." Fallacies of Darwinism," pp. 35-36.

As to the controversy on variation and natural selection, Dr. Bree is a thorough anti-transmutationist.* He reminds us of Mr. Darwin's bear, who by swimming about with his mouth open and catching flies, came, ultimately, closely to resemble a whale,† and of Mr. Darwin's fish,‡ in which a change equally surprising, though different in character, took place; nor (turning to Mr. Darwin's supporters) does he omit to place before his readers Mr. Wallace's investigations into the education of birds of tender age. The most important discussion of principle entered into in this part of the "Fallacies of Darwinism" is the discussion as to what

*The discussion on natural (pp. 71-186) and sexual (pp. 187–241) selection, as propounded by Mr. Darwin and by his supporters, Mr. Wallace (pp. 242-267), Mr. Huxley (pp. 268-288), and Sir Charles Lyell (pp. 289-303), naturally occupies the greater part of the book.

Of this bear nothing is said in the later editions of the "Origin of Species." It would therefore appear that the unfortunate animal, whether from want of power to adapt himself to the novel conditions of his existence, or from the precarious and unsubstantial character of his diet, ceased to exist soon after the publication of the first edition.

Of the fish Von Baer speaks thus :-"A fish, swimming towards the shore, desires to take a walk, but finds his fins useless. They diminish in breadth for want of use, and at the same time elongate. This goes on with children and grandchildren for a few millions of years, and at last who can be astonished that the fins become feet? It is still more natural that the fish in the meadow, finding no water, should gasp after air, thereby, in a like period of time, developing lungs; the only difficulty being that in the meantime a few generations must manage to exist without breathing at all.” (“Fallacies of Darwinism," p. 79.) Cf. Spencer, "Principles of Biology," i. 272. Von Baer, we are informed by F. Valroger ("Gén. des Esp.," p. 226), who gives as a reference the "Jahrbuch für deutsche Theologie," vii. 169, formerly admitted transmutation within narrow limits; but the study of Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species," instead of confirming him in his opinion, made him more and more inclined to renounce it.

§ "Fallacies of Darwinism," p. 265. Mr. Wallace says:-"During the time they are learning to fly, returning often to the nest [a false fact in natural history, as every schoolboy knows-birds seldom or never return into a nest they have once left], they must be able to examine it inside and out [as if they were going to pass through a competitive examination], and as their daily search for food invariably leads them among the materials of which it is composed [another awful blunder in natural history], and among places similar to that in which it is placed [another awful blunder], is it so very wonderful that, when they want one themselves, they should make one like it?" For the observations between brackets Dr. Bree is responsible. While he was about it, he might also have taken note of the excellence of memory which enables these remarkable birds so accurately to remember the construction of the nest in which they first saw the. light, and the humility and docility of disposition which makes them shrink from deviating in any way from the example set them by their honoured parents.

is the proper test or criterion to be used in determining what is a species and what a mere variety. The reply ordinarily given to this question is that no fixed and determinate characteristics, difference in which indicates difference in species, can be pointed out, but that while very unimportant differences may be passed over, or held to constitute mere races or varieties, a somewhat greater amount of difference will constitute a specific, and a greater still a generic distinction; that at the same time the question is one of general likeness or unlikeness, to be decided by common sense informed by a knowledge as to what points are important and what are not; and that the answer to be given to it is to a certain extent dependent on taste, predilection, the idiosyncrasy of the naturalist, as a certain room has to be left for individual opinion. Now is this a satisfactory way of dealing with the matter? Certainly it does not work well. Some botanists arrange flowering plants under as many as 150,000, others under as few as 80,000 species: a fact of itself sufficient to show how difficult it is in such a way practically to discriminate species from varieties. Now Dr. Bree contends that this is so because determination of species in the above fashion is an unsound and artificial method. It leads to the erection of mere varieties and races into distinct species.*

"Now, the great error which is committed by M. Gaudry, by Sir C. Lyell, by Mr. Darwin, and by others of the school, is this-they have made no difference between the species defined by man and those which are defined by Nature. In classification, as pursued by man, every little alteration in external character or habit is deemed sufficient to constitute a species; but Nature has nowhere created two organic beings exactly alike, and we frequently witness variations or sports which make her productions still more unlike each other. She has, however, instituted a grand law, which Flourens + has tersely expressed: Continued fecundity marks the species, but limited fecundity the genus.'

"Mr. Darwin has not been able to disprove this axiom, and therefore he is, according to Mr. Huxley even, altogether out of court.

"But how absurd it is to take the bones of a series of monkeys, or other animals, in a fossil state, and attempt to prove the theory of transmutation from their real or assumed difference from fossil forms!

"Let me illustrate this. Suppose we take the members of the British Association who will meet together next year, and measure the length, breadth, width, and circumference, and calculated brain-capacity of each member; let us carefully measure the length of each member's nose, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, and toes; let us note down the colour of their hair and its consistency, of their eyes, skin, and the hirsute condition of

*For instance, following the ordinary method, Professor Haeckel, of Jena, has divided the human race into ten species, which he believes to have the same value as ordinary natural history species.

+ In an appendix (pp. 395, sqq.), Dr. Bree has reproduced a part of M. Flourens' Examen du Livre de M. Darwin sur l'Origine des Espèces." M. Flourens, the perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, is, like M. Quatrefages, who proposed Mr. Darwin as a member of that body, an opponent of the Darwinian theory. Mr. Darwin was rejected, on the ground that his reputation had been gained chiefly by speculations of an uncertain character.