It is hardly necessary to remark how inadequate does the view of Lamarck appear to account for the rise of the organic kingdoms. If he had suggested a law of development for advancing the fundamental or internal organization in a succession of stages, like those of the individual ovum of the highest animal, and pointed to some abnormal and not yet understood tendency in organic beings to give rise, through the medium of generation, to modifications of external structure fitting the progeny for new conditions ; and if, to these ideas, he had added a more explicit acknowledgment of the whole being the evolution of a divine will, which was present in it all, he would, in my opinion, have come much nearer to fact, and obtained more patient hearing from mankind' (241). The author of the Vestiges tells us that at first the earth presented only seas and sea-animals. Afterwards shores were formed, and animals fitted for living in such a field were produced by an advance of development from certain of the marine tribes. In time there was dry land and vege tation, and then the shore-animals gave birth to families fitted for that superior theatre of existence (258). There is much reason to believe that certain large and important mammals, if not the whale,' have proceeded directly from the reptiles (263). The marine Saurians were progenitors of aquatic mammalia, whales, &c. (267). Elephants were derived from herbaceous cetacea (267). Birds sprung from fishes (263). The rhinoceros was the progenitor of the hog, and the horse was fined down from the elephant (a startling pedigree for the Racing Calendar). In the prehensile upper lip of the horse we see the last relic of the proboscis of the elephant and tapir; the clumping of the extremities into one shield or hoof, serving to support the body of the animal in soft, dry soil, sufficiently shows what kind of habitat determined the production of this interesting and useful genus' (269). The walrus or morse furnished the origin to ruminating animals (269), and the family of bears (Ursidae) came from the seals (271). Man's parentage is not directly stated, but suggested, apparently in a hint: Last of all issued from the woods a being erect, majestic, and with many traits of external grace and beauty, to overspread the whole earth with his race,' &c., &c. (274). As the system requires a parentage from an antecedent. form for every newly-developed' life, we cannot suppose that the majestic creature' is exempt from the general rule, and we must therefore understand that when man 'issued from the woods' he had been there for ages with his progenitors-the Gorilla, the Oran-Otang or Chimpanzee, that he had gradually got rid of the lower pair of hands, that his legs and muscles had been developed' into those of the human form, that his foot and heel had become adapted for walking, that his face and brain had mightily improved, that he had acquired the power of speech; and endowed now with a conscience and imagination, and with a capacity for the abstract sciences, was able to produce from his Species a Homer, a Milton, a Newton, or a Laplace. Such in a few words is this system. The origin of all life is to be traced to the waters; water is the general parent-ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ. The great trunk of animality, says the author, 'lies in the ocean, up even to the mammalia.' A curious contradiction of the old creed which made earth the great trunk of animality.' As istata al de School, ve ave he was perundi fanstuutation ronounded to is in nima. In the Testiges, it at the Law Dreiopment sinnor al, and tot inderstood. "endency arcane beings le dest ind implest teigs dvanced on he wre"OL Taes fter-tooment, “a & Length they leeane creatures of maleated ni renseiv-adapted structure." "er vere level.nd-ter became. Wat is leviopment Ita in addition of natter to existing forms to proquee 4s ingmentation. ut et is suppose matter added to a ser for an indefinite period. thui Town wenty feet with. It vond still may be a huge log-it would act have become more like in dephant in its constitution than when it was only a foot high. Do they mean chang • ";v This ca, in fact, the wai n-aning of the lanty vori leviorment,” von seem to be leging the which seems je niin ta us est athe Some cientñe numirers met de *8 1:1 n his cheri ... vor mestion in der abstitute mother term thôngh they to jot it intend I DJ 40. lowing sentence of Professor ? weil [dex of development or transmutation, because, is they ulega hev ini no evidence or existing instances of such a thing to pro-ies. — Trity of X BL.. V see then what he set. ntend by leve:pment: it is in plain English Transmutation, and i this vera sibstitutei or the other word, in all passages where it curs, much unignty would fisappear. The original and startet meaning of tevelopment is the disengaging from something that infoids, and thence, the fisclosure of bodies by growth. I ånd it defined thus in a French exposition of terns * Accroisement natural tes corms solides, liquides, ou gazeuses, des vézés fanx, des corps organisés ou inorganiques de terrain, les rchers, de Forme lui-même, spertalement considere fans les êtres vivants." Bifon says: “L'homme croit en hauteur jusqu'à seize ou inx-agit ans, et capendant le développement entier de toutes les parties de son corps en grosanur n'out achevé qu'à trente ans." In every instance where this word is legitimately used, it means augmentation, extension, or improvement of something already existing. It neway has the meaning of Transmutation. Barthelemi nees it in this passage in the strict sense: Je pense, que de tampa an tempa, peut-être même à chaque génération, la nature répand mir la terra un certain nombre de talents qui restent ensevelis, lorsque rien ne contribue à les développer? development? if so, then animals have been changed by the Law of Change'-a mystery of words of great depth. When a walrus was developing into a cow, how did the development begin? whence did the new particles of matter come for the new form and habits? and how did they begin to assume the new form? The answer probably would be, that it was by the operation of a Law not yet understood. Then if you do not understand your Law, and have no means of explaining or proving it, if it is merely a gratuitous invention, a mist of words to conceal your ignorance,-why pretend to be an exponent of that which you do not understand, and which after all your trouble is not explained at all? How easy it is to deceive oneself with a word! Lamarck had his words, 'efforts of internal sentiment' acts of organization,' 'influence of subtile fluids.' Then in another quarter we have Natural Selection, all expedients to conceal a deep chasm of the unknown with a thin veil of pretension; but the chasm is there still, deep as eternity, and no verbal expedients will ever succeed in making us forget its existence. The next English writer who adopted the theory of Transmutation was Professor Baden Powell, and this, but briefly, in his notes on The Order of Nature,' published in 1859. The position assumed by the learned Professor is, as far as I understand it, to admit a Universal Reason and Supreme Intelligence' in the mechanism of the universe (233), but wholly to repudiate the idea of creation, and especially in the production of the various forms of life. In noticing a suggestion of Playfair, that it might be worthy of consideration whether the original constitution of the planetary system might not be referable to a me chanical cause, he observes (147), 'If the arrangements alluded to could be shown to be the results of still higher mechanical causes, it would but furnish a still higher proof of Intelligence, instead of being antagonistic to it; mechanism is the very exponent of mind,' and yet he objects to any inference of design or purpose-' for the structure of the universe we can infer no final design or purpose whatever, which is perpetual in its adjustments, offering no evidence of beginning or end' (237); though he adds these remarkable words, however, the limited evidence in some of its parts, of adjustment of means to ends, may warrant the conjecture of other higher unknown purposes.' In the notes appended to "The Order of Nature,' the Professor very plainly takes his place in the School of Transmutation, objecting to the idea of creation,* as derived from religion, and therefore having no place in science.' That all Species were derived from older ones seems to him a necessity by the universal Law of Continuity; and if there is an absence of evidence to prove this by geological records, it is because the evidence has not yet been found (467). This point he takes up with some asperity, calling it a trite objection,' which he thinks he has disposed of' in some previous publication. He then quotes Professor Brown of Heidelberg, who *It has been already shown that Creation is not necessarily connected with any religious idea, and that Lucretius, of all writers most adverse to religious impressions, freely uses the term; take this instance, in which he says that things may be created without the intervention of the Deity:Quas ob res, ubi viderimus nihil posse creari De nihilo, tum, quod sequimur, jam rectius inde Et quo quæque modo fiant operâ sine Divûm.—(i. 155.) Lucretius more than once gives the title of creatrix to Nature:- |