the rest is hinted in general expressions, left for the imagination to supply whatever may be deficient: and, indeed, in this matter M. Trémaux has not ventured on more than any physiologist would assert, that there is a sort of analogy or resemblance, and a chain of similitude traceable in degree, throughout the Animal Kingdom.

In his system, however, we might inquire, if, as it is pretended, there is a union between mammifers and fish, how the soil elaborated the fish? as the soil is the creator it must have produced the mammifers first, and from them the fish must have sprung. M. Trémaux says nothing about the power of water on aquatic animals, nor does he notice that which would be obvious to any one, that if it be true that the soil has produced land-animals, then it must be considered that the water has produced the aquatic tribes. This would, however, break into his system of transmutation of every Species of animal from antecedent Species-and of the unity of all animals. In his system there cannot be two producers: and it will be remembered that he has distinctly told us that all beings from the lowest point of separation, up to man, have been perfected by means of transformation from one Species to another!' There is this curious proposition of the Theory, common indeed with most of the school, that animals in the position in which they first appeared on the scene, were not perfect in their grade of life and the position which they occupied, but have become perfect by a long process of transmutation subsequently. The worm was not perfect but improved into some higher form, the reptile was not perfect, the mammifer was not perfect, the ape improved through many gradations of ameliorating Species up to man-and so of every other animal. M. Trémaux thinks, indeed, that all animals are

perfect now, and that they have reached their resting point, at least this seems to him probable, though it is by no means apparent why the inferior forms should now rest content with their inferiority, or why the soil should cease to exercise its powers of mutation. In this point, as in many others, he disagrees with Mr Darwin, who looks forward to an immense improvement in all forms of life, for with him Nature has by no means reached its Sabbath, but is progressing onwards towards perfection.

If it were worth while to sift such a system with question, we might ask how the soil could have influenced the existence of most of the carnivorous animals? The wolf, for instance, cares nothing for the nature of the soil: primitive or recent, elaborated or simple, are all one to him. He abounds in all soils, very frequently amongst the rocky solitudes of the primary mountains, as well as in the forests or 'the recent' plains, and in the great steppes of wild and sterile lands. What, again, has the soil had to do in forming migratory birds, which continually pass over in long journeys to distant lands, and settle on soils of the most varying qualities? But a system like this may claim immunity from questions, its existence is in the realm of the imagination, and therefore it is free from the test of logic.

The work of M. Trémaux is certainly a curiosity in literature. It is written in a grave, philosophical tone, well sustained, and with dignity of style. Pages follow pages full of ideal statements and positions of circumstances, to account for the formation of Species; laws and rules are laid down for the events of ancient epochs; and geological combinations* and distributions of life are described, as if all

*As a striking instance of these visionary speculations take the following passage:

this had really happened, and were as authentic as the history of France; and the whole system is built up with as much care as if it were a solid and substantial fabric, based on a careful induction from known and acknowledged facts.

The general view of M. Trémaux on Nature will be best seen in these words, which need no comment :-' Quoi de plus admirable que cette incommensurable Nature, où tout s'enchaine tellement bien, qu'il suffit d'un seul acte de condensation d'atomes, de rien, pour que des astres immenses, des milliers de soleils, puis chaque planète, chaque être animal, végétal ou autre, en découle à son tour' (486).

We have only now to show M. Trémaux in the character of an opponent of Mr Darwin. These two writers have indeed the same cause to advocate, but it is by such a different principle, that M. Trémaux frequently reproves Mr Darwin for his statements, and, in some instances, with success; though it must be borne in mind that M. Trémaux's true ground of quarrel with his confederate is, that he does not make any use of M. Trémaux's fundamental principle.

"The principle of Selection has been long known, although it has only been seriously put into practice in our epoch. This principle is considered by Mr Darwin as the great motive power of perfection. The employment of it, in fact, by suppressing artificially the procreative action of the inferior beings of each species, gives an advantageous result which elevates the average specimen of this type; only that

'Let us suppose that, from one cause or another, a Species is nearly entirely destroyed; if a feeble remnant of it should find itself in a favourable geological condition, it may be transformed many times in succession (elle peut se transformer plusieurs fois de suite), and so much the more easily the smaller the remnant shall be, and the more isolated, and that without leaving scarcely any traces of its mutations' (226).

this result, being artificial, disappears with the attention which has produced it.

'When a horticulturist chooses his best specimens for reproduction, or simply suppresses the worst, it is evident that the descendants obtained by this process will present, on an average, a higher degree of improvement. But if this process of careful selection is relaxed, the new race falls back into its state of anterior equilibrium.

'Mr Darwin, it is true, imagines an effect of a struggle for life, which would fulfil, in an unconscious and permanent manner, this function of Observer, adequate to destroy the inferior creatures. In this view of the question, Mr Darwin seems to us to be greatly in error, for a struggle for life is injurious to all that are subject to it, good as well as bad.

When two plants or two animals press upon one another and dispute for existence, they injure one another mutually much more than they make a difference between two subjects of the same Species; if one triumphs over the other, it is simply that the one which has been less injured gains the victory.

'Supposing ten trees should fix their roots where one only could have successfully grown without this struggle or competition, the ten, in spite of this competition, or rather on account of it, will grow miserably stunted. Nevertheless competition has played its part in hindering the development of many seeds and off-sets.

'If ill-fed animals fall upon a meagre pasture, the more insufficient it is, the more do they devour it with an eager competition. Nevertheless the most favoured is far from being satisfied, as he might have been if he had been alone, that is to say, without this struggle for food.

If a tribe of people is expelled from a good soil to a miserable one, as the Irish of Armagh and Down, who were driven into the barony of Flews, the struggle for life becomes indeed serious, but they nevertheless all degenerate. It does not terminate in some of them improving, and becoming greatly superior to the others.

'In one word, the struggle for life only keeps the productive power of beings, the germs of which are always superabundant, in an equilibrium with the resources of the soil; and nothing authorizes Mr Darwin to suppose that the very feeble difference of action with which it bears on individuals of the same species, is superior to the injurious competition with which it acts on all of them.

'Mr Darwin, like many others, wanted an explanation for the phenomena which surround us, and he has not perceived that everywhere and in all times beings were developed in proportion to the qualities of the soil to which they belong. The augmentation of these qualities must therefore determine the qualities of the beings themselves' (228).

'According to Mr Darwin, this law of progress by Selection only takes account of cases of perfection; and cannot, as he himself acknowledges, account for cases of degeneracy, which are nevertheless so very numerous. Thus is he driven by his system to deny every instance of the sort. Nevertheless no one will admit that the white man has made progress in assuming the negro type, although Mr Darwin can say with reason that the constitution of the negro agrees better than ours with the contions of life in Central Africa-in the same way that the constitution of the earth-worm agrees better with its condition than ours. Moreover, in explaining how it is that the island and the little continents have fewer species than