and small towns I have found the nests of hum- not the whole, of the original observations ble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which adduced by its author in the volume now I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the before us, our disappointment may be conmice.' Hence it is quite credible that the pres-ceived. Failing the adequacy of such obence of a feline animal in large numbers in a dis-servations, not merely to carry conviction, trict might determine, through the intervention but to give a color to the hypothesis, we were first of mice and then of bees, the frequency then left to confide in the superior grasp of of certain flowers in that district!"-P. 73. mind, strength of intellect, clearness and precision of thought and expression, which might raise one man so far above his contemporaries, as to enable him to discern in the common stock of facts, of coincidences, correlations and analogies in Natural History, deeper and truer conclusions than his fellowlaborers had been able to reach. These expectations, we must confess, received a check on perusing the first sentence in the book. This is very characteristic of the ingenious turn of thought of our author; the more sober, or perhaps duller, naturalist would, no doubt, appreciate more highly a dry statement of investigations, suggested by the actual extinction of red clover, and tracing that extinction inductively, by the ascertained absence of humble-bees and mice, back to the want of cats in the neighborhood. For the direct observation, however (if it should be confirmed), of the exclusive re"When on board H.M.S. Beagle,' as naturlation of Bombus terrestris, as the mechanical alist, I was much struck with certain facts in the fecundator of Trifolium pratense, natural distribution of the inhabitants of South Amerhistory may be indebted to Mr. Darwin. ica, and in the geological relations of the present We wish we could cite other instances aug-to the past inhabitants of that continent. These menting this debt from the present work; its chief part, however, is devoted to speculations on the origin of species; and its main object is the advocacy of a view which we find most clearly expressed in the following passage. Mr. Darwin refers to the multitude of the individuals of every species, which, from one cause or another, perish either before, or soon after attaining maturity. facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species-that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by some of our greatest philosophers."-P. 1. What is there, we asked ourselves, as we closed the volume to ponder on this paragraph,-what can there possibly be in the inhabitants, we suppose he means aboriginal inhabitants of South America, or in their distribution on that continent, to have sug"Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause gested to any mind that man might be a transproceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to muted ape, or to throw any light on the orian individual of any species, in its infinitely gin of the human or other species? Mr. complex relations to other organic beings and Darwin must be aware of what is commonly to external nature, will tend to the preservation understood by an "uninhabited island;" he of that individual, and will generally be inher-may, however, mean by the inhabitants of ited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. We have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great results, and can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand of Nature. But Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.”—P. 61. The scientific world has looked forward with great interest to the facts which Mr. Darwin might finally deem adequate to the support of his theory on this supreme question in biology, and to the course of inductive original research which might issue in throwing light on "that mystery of mysteries." But having now cited the chief, if South America, not the human kind only, whether aboriginal or otherwise, but all the lower animals. Yet again, why are the freshwater polypes or sponges to be called "in habitants more than the plants? Perhaps what was meant might be, that the distribution and geological relations of the organized beings generally in South America, had suggested transmutational views. They have commonly suggested ideas as to the independent origin of such localized kinds of plants and animals. But what the "certain facts" were, and what may be the nature of rious beginning of species, is not mentioned the light which they threw upon the mysteor further alluded to in the present work. The origin of species is the question of questions in zoology; the supreme problem which the most untiring of our original laborers, the clearest zoological thinkers, and the most successful generalizers, have never lost sight of, whilst they have approached it with due reverence. We have a right to expect that the mind proposing to treat of, and "Although organisms produce only bodies similar to themselves, there are circumstances which, in the succession of generations, alter to a certain point their primitive form." Here it may be remarked, that the whole question at issue hinges upon the proof of the determination of that limit of variety. Cuvier gives no proof that the alteration stops "at a certain point." It merely appears from what follows, that his means of knowing by his own and others' observations had not carried him beyond the point in question, and he was not the man to draw conclusions beyond his premises. assuming to have solved, the problem, should sional" view. "Less abundant food," he goes on to say, "makes the young acquire less size and force. Climate more or less cold, air more or less moist, exposure to light more or less continuous, produce analogous effects; but, above all, the pains bestowed by man on the animal and vegetable productions which he raises for his uses, the consecutive attention with which he restricts them in regard to exercise, or to certain kinds of food, or to influences other than those to which they would be subject in a state of nature, all tend to alter more quickly and sensibly their In reference to the definition of species, Cuvier admits that the determination by Lamarck, in 1809, cited, as the most exact, experiment of these variable properties, of that of a collection of like (semblables) the precise causes to which they are due, of individuals produced by other individuals the degree of variability and of the powers equally like them (pareils à eux)." But the of the modifying influences, is still very improgress of discovery, especially, perhaps, perfect (" mais ce travail est encore très-imin palæontology, led him to affirm that spe- parfait.") The most variable properties in cies were not as ancient as nature herself, organisms are, according to Cuvier, size and nor all of the same antiquity; that this al- color. leged constancy was relative to the circumstances and influences to which every individual was subject, and that as certain individuals, subjected to certain influences, varied so as to constitute races, such variations might and do graduate (s'avancent) towards the assumption of characters which the naturalist would arbitrarily regard, some as varieties, others as species. He comments in almost the words of Mr. Darwin, on the embarrassment and confusion which the different interpretation of the nature and value of such observed differences, in the works of different naturalists, had occasioned.† The true method of surveying the diversities of organization is from the simple to the compound forms, which course Lamarck affirms to be graduated and regularly progressive, save where local circumstances, and others influencing the mode of life, have occasioned anomalous diversities. "The first mainly depends on abundance of food; the second on light and many other causes so obscure that it seems to vary by chance. The length and strength of the hairs are very variable. A villous plant, for example, transported hair in hot countries, but gain hair in cold. Certo a moist place, becomes smooth. Beasts lose tain external parts, such as stamens, thorns, digits, teeth, spines, are subject to variations of number both in the more and the less; parts of minor importance, such as barbs of wheat, etc., vary as to their proportions; homologous parts (des parties de nature analogue') change one into another, i.e., stamens into petals as in double flowers, wings into fins, feet into jaws, and we might add, adhesive into breathing organs [as in the case of the barnacles cited by Mr. Darwin]." As to the alleged test of the difference between a species and a variety by the infecundity of the hybrid of two parents which may differ in a doubtful degree, Cuvier, in referCuvier had preceded Lamarck in specify-ence to this being the case when the parents ing the kinds and degrees of variation, which his own observations and critical judgment of the reports of others led him to admit. Philosophie Zoologique, 8vo. 1809, vol. i. † Ib. p. 55. 54. p. are of distict species, and not mere varieties, emphatically affirms, "Cette assertion ne repose sur aucune preuve" (p. 11); it is at Cuvier, "Tableau Elémentaire de l'Histoire Naturelle," 8vo. 1798, p. 9. 66 least constant that individuals of the same tent of their operation,-limited both as to species, however different, produce together; the time in which that operation has been quelque différens qu'ils soient, peuvent tou-watched, and limited consequently as to the jours produire ensemble." But Cuvier warns amount of the change produced. us not to conclude, when individuals of two different races produce an intermediate and fecund offspring, that they must be of the same species, and that they have not been originally distinct.-P. 13. "The number of varieties, or amount of va riation,' says Cuvier, 'relates to geographical circumstances. At the present day, many such varieties appear to have been confined around their primitive centre, either by seas which they could neither traverse by swimming or by flight, or by temperatures which they were not able to support, or by mountains which they could not cross, etc."* When Cuvier affirms that such capacity to vary proceeds only to a certain point, he may mean that it has not been watched and traced beyond such point. Cuvier admits the tendency to hereditary transmission of characters of variation. Neither he nor any other physiologist has demonstrated the organic condition or principle that should operate so as absolutely to prevent the progress of modification of form and structure correlatively with the operation of modifying influences, in successive generations. But those who hastily or prematurely assume an indefinite capacity to deviate from a specific form are as likely to obstruct as to promote the solution of the question. Daily observation, comparison, and reflection, on recent and extinct organisms, pursued from the date of these remarks (1798) The principles, based on rigorous and exto the close of his career (1832) failed to tensive observation, which have been estabbring the requisite proof, or to impress the lished since the time of Cuvier, and have mind of Cuvier with any amount of belief tended to impress upon the minds of the worth mentioning, as to the nature of the most exact reasoners in biology the conviccause operative in the production of the tion of a constantly operating secondary species of which he was the first to demon-creational law, are the following:-The law strate the succession. of irrelative or vegetative repetition, referred Lamarck, without contributing additional to at p. 437, of Mr. Darwin's work; the law results from observation and experience, of unity of plan or relations to an archetype; affirms that the changes defined by Cuvier the analogies of transitory embryonal stages do not "stop at a certain point," but pro- in a higher animal to the matured forms of gress with the continued operation of the lower animals: the phenomena of parthenocauses producing them. That, moreover, genesis; a certain parallelism in the laws such changes of form and structure induce governing the succession of forms throughcorresponding changes in actions, and that out time and space; the progressive depara change of actions, growing to a habit, be- ture from type, or from the more generalized comes another cause of altered structure; or more specialized structures, exemplified that the more frequent employment of cer- in the series of species from their first introtain parts or organs leads to a proportional duction to the existing forms.* In his last increase of development of such parts; and published work + Professor Owen does not that, as the increased exercise of one part is hesitate to state "that perhaps the most imusually accompanied by a corresponding dis-portant and significant result of paleontolouse of another part, this very disuse, by inducing a proportional degree of atrophy, becomes another element in the progressive mutation of organic forms.† 66 gical research has been the establishment of the axiom of the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things." The italics are the author's. As to his own opinions regarding the nature or mode of that "continuous creative operation," the Professor is silent. He gives a brief summary of the hypotheses of others, and as briefly touches upon the defects in their in These principles seem entitled to be regarded as of the nature of those called 99 veræ causæ by Bacon, and they are agreeable with known powers and properties of animated beings; only observation has not disclosed more than a very limited ex-ductive bases. Elsewhere he has restricted himself to testing the idea of progressive The most numerous illustrations of this principle are to be found in Owen's paleontological works and memoirs; but he refrains from announeing it as a general law, probably regarding the induction as being yet incomplete. † Palæontology, or a Systematic Summary of Extinct Animals, and their Geological Relations, 8vo., 1860, p. 3.; and President's Address to the British Association at Leeds, 1858, p. 3. Paleontology, p. 404. transmutation by such subjects of natural mutative production of man, is forthwith history as he might have specially in hand; clamored against as one who swallows up as, e.g. the characters of the chimpanzee, every fact and every phenomenon regarding gorilla, and some other animals. the origin and continuance of species "in the gigantic conception of a power intermittently exercised in the development, out of inorganic clements, of organisms the most bulky and complex, as well as the most minute and simple." Significantly characteristic of the partial view of organic phenenoma taken by the transmutationists, and of their inadequacy to grapple with the working out and discovery of a great natural law, is their incompetency to discern the indications of any other origin of one specific form out of another preceding it, save by their way of gradual change through a series of varieties assumed to have become extinct. All who have brought the transmutative speculations to the test of observed facts and ascertained powers in organic life, and have published the results, usually adverse to such speculations, are set down by Mr. Darwin as "curiously illustrating the blindness of preconceived opinion;" and whosoever may withhold assent to his own or other transmutationists' views, is described as "really believing that at innumerable periods of the earth's history certain elemental atoms suddenly flashed into living tissues." (P. 483.) Which, by the way, is but another notion of the mode of becoming of a species as little in harmony with observation as the hypothesis of natural selection by external influence, or of exceptional birth or development. Nay, Mr. D. goes so far as to affirm"All the most eminent palæontologists, namely, Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. Forbes, etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species."-P. 310. But if by this is meant that they as unanimously reject the evidences of a constantly operative secondary cause or law in the production of the succession of specifically differing organisms, made known by Palæontology, it betrays not only the confusion of ideas as to the fact and the nature of the law, but an ignorance or indifference to the matured thoughts and expressions of some of those eminent authorities on this supreme question in Biology. One of the disciples would seem to be as short-sighted as the master in regard to this distinction. "It has been urged," writes Dr. Hooker, "against the theory that existing species have arisen through the variation of pre-existing ones and the destruction of intermediate varieties, that it is a hasty inference from a few facts in the life of a few variable plants, and is therefore unworthy of confidence; but it appears to me that the opposite theory, which demands an independent creative act for each species, is an equally hasty inference."-Hooker, p. xxv. But has the free-swimming medusa, which bursts its way out of the ovicapsule of a campanularia, been developed out of inorganic particles? Or have certain elemental atoms suddenly flashed up into acalephal form? Has the polype-parent of the acalephe necessarily become extinct by virtue of such anomalous birth? May it not, and does it not proceed to propagate its own lower species in regard to form and organization, notwithstanding its occasional production of another very different and higher kind. Is the fact of one animal giving birth to another not merely specifically, but generically and ordinally, distinct, a solitary one? Has not Cuvier, in a score or more of instances, placed the parent in one class, and the fruitful offspring in another class, of animals? Are the entire series of parthenogenetic phenomena to be of no account in the consideration of the supreme problem of the introduction of fresh specific forms into this planet? Are the transmutationists to monopolize the privilege of conceiving the possibility of the occurrence of unknown phenomena, to be the exclusive propounders of beliefs and surmises, to cry down every kindred barren speculation, and to allow no indulgence in any mere hypothesis save their own? Is it to be endured that every observer who points out a case to which transmutation, under whatever term disguised, is inapplicable, is to be set down by the refuted theorist as a believer in a mode of manufacturing a species which he never did believe in, and which may be inconceivable? Here it is assumed, as by Mr. Darwin, that no other mode of operation of a secondary law in the foundation of a form with We would ask Mr. Darwin and Dr. Hooker distinct specific characters, can have been to give some thought to these queries, and adopted by the Author of all creative laws if they should see the smallest meaning in than the one which the transmutationists them, to reconsider their future awards of have imagined. Any physiologist who may the alternative which they may be pleased find the Lamarckian, or the more diffused to grant to a fellow-laborer, hesitating to and attenuated Darwinian, exposition of the law inapplicable to a species, such as the gorilla, considered as a step in the trans accept the proposition, either that life commenced under other than actually operating laws, or that "all the beings that ever lived on this earth have descended," by the way of "natural selection," from a hypothetical unique instance of a miraculously created primordial form. century, Lamarck in the first half of the present, Darwin in the second half. The great names to which the steady inductive advance of zoology has been due during those periods, have kept aloof from any hypothesis on the origin of species. One only, in connection with his paleontological discoveries, with his development of the law of irrelative repetition and of homologies, including the relation of the latter to an archetype, has pronounced in favor of the view of the origin of species by a continuously operative creational law; but he, at the same time, has set forth some of the strongest objections or exceptions to the hypothesis of the nature of that law as a progressively and gradually transmutational one. Mr. Darwin rarely refers to the writings of his predecessors, from whom, rather than from the phenomena of the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, he might be supposed to have derived his ideas as to the origin of species. When he does allude to them, their expositions on the subject are We are aware that Professor Owen and others, who have more especially studied the recently discovered astounding phenomena of generation summed up under the terms parthenogenesis and alternation of generations, have pronounced against those phenomena having, as yet, helped us "to penetrate the mystery of the origin of different species of animals," and have affirmed, at least so far as observation has yet extended, that "the cycle of changes is definitely closed;" that is, that when the ciliated "monad" has given birth to the "gregarina," and this to the "cercaria," and the "cercaria" to the "distoma,”—that the fertilized egg of the fluke-worm again excludes the progeny under the infusorial or monadic form, and the cycle again recommences.* But circumstances are conceivable,-changes of surrounding influences, the operation of some intermittent law at long intervals, like that inadequately represented. Every one studyof the calculating-machine quoted by the author of "Vestiges," under which the monad might go on splitting up into monads, the gregarina might go on breeding gregarinæ, the cercaria cercariæ, etc., and thus four or five not merely different specific, but different generic, and ordinal forms, zoologically viewed, might all diverge from an antecedent quite distinct form. For how many years, and by how many generations, did the captive polype-progeny of the Medusa aurita go on breeding polypes of their species (Hydra tuba), without resolving themselves into any higher form, in Sir John Dalyell's aquarium! The natural phenomena already possessed by science are far from being exhausted, on which hypotheses, other than transmutative, of the production of species by law might be based, and on a foundation at least as broad as that which Mr. Darwin has exposed in this essay. We do not advocate any of these hypotheses in preference to the one of "natural selection," we merely affirm that this at present rests on as purely a conjectural basis. The exceptions to that and earlier forms of transmutationism which rise up in the mind of the working naturalist and original observer, are so many and so strong as to have left the promulgation and advocacy of the hypothesis, under any modification, at all times to individuals of more imaginative temperament; such as Demaillet in the last President's Address to the British Association at Leeds, p. 27. † See the beautiful work entitled, "Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland," 4to. vol. i. 1847, by Sir J. G. Dalyell. ing the pages of Lamarck's original chapters (iii. vi. vii., vol. i., and the supplemental chapter of "additions" to vol. ii. of the "Philosophie Zoologique"), will see how much weight he gives to inherent constitutional adaptability, to hereditary influences, and to the operation of long lapses of time on successive generations, in the course of transmuting a species. The common notion of Lamarck's philosophy, drawn from the tirades which a too figurative style of illustrating the reciprocal influence of innate tendencies and outward influences have drawn upon the blind philosopher, is incorrect and unjust. Darwin writes: "Naturalists continually refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, etc., as the only possible cause of variation. In one very limited sense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true; but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for instance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees. In the case of the misseltoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other; it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of habit, or of the violation of the plant itself. "The author of the Vestiges of Creation' would, I presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to the misseltoe, and that these had been pro |