the Fauna and Flora of this heretofore unexplored country. It would be well if certain other members of Her Majesty's Consular service, whose opportunities are not less, would take the lesson thus set to them and endeavour to exert themselves in a somewhat

similar manner.

VI.-HUXLEY'S LECTURES ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CAUSES OF THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE, being Six Lectures to Working Men, delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology. By Professor Huxley, F.R.S. London: Hardwicke.

Few books have been more extensively reviewed than Mr. Darwin's treatise on the Origin of Species. Nor can its author feel otherwise than gratified by the criticisms which he has called forth; not only because the majority of them have been more or less complimentary, but because the reviewers have, in almost every case, taken evident pains to qualify themselves for the task which they have undertaken. They have conscientiously studied the question, and endeavoured to place it fairly before their readers.

Of course, however, there are exceptions to this rule. Thus, the "Record," while it admits that Mr. Darwin's work is "so far from "weakening a single outwork of revealed truth that no careful "reader can rise from its perusal without gathering, from the facts " of natural history that it supplies, a deeper reverence for the wisdom "and power of God," does not hesitate to characterize it as a "gigantic mental bubble," a "monstrous assumption," a tissue of "absurdities and contradictions," of "monstrous conclusions and "specious theories," an idle speculation, and a "something beyond "which human absurdity and credulity cannot go," besides applying to it such epithets as "atheistical," "paradoxical," and "poisonous." Finally, this reviewer lays down the work "with the conviction that "the theory advocated in it could never have been for a moment "adopted by its author, or supported by its advocates... if it had "not proffered a semblance of learned reasonableness to an infidelity, which had already darkened the reason and bewildered the "conscience."

We confess that our darkened reason and bewildered conscience have derived some consolation from the astonishing ignorance of

natural history evinced by the writer of this article. Our readers will be surprised to hear that in the seal "the hind legs have alto"gether disappeared," and that the "wings in birds were developed "by the constant use of some rudimentary organs, which in terrestrial "animals have disappeared altogether." We shall be happy to supply this learned critic with a ticket of admission to the Zoological Society's Gardens, where he may see that the hind legs of the seal are of considerable size, and as well adapted to their purpose as are those of the Editor of the "Record" himself. And by reference to any elementary work upon Natural History, he will learn, with astonishment, that the wings of birds are homologous with the forelegs of quadrupeds. We might, perhaps, have supposed such statements to be merely attempts at jocularity; but we are gravely informed by the reviewer that they were not intended to be so. "We assure our "readers," he says, "that we are not joking. These are illustra"tions given by Mr. Darwin himself, and this statement is simply "the natural reductio ad absurdum to which his theory inevitably "leads." The attribution of his own blunders to Mr. Darwin gives the last touch of absurdity to this picture of ignorance; the reductio ad absurdum is indeed evident enough, but we do not consider that Mr. Darwin is the victim of it.

Perhaps, after all, the writers in the "Record" are by no means so black as they paint themselves; at any rate, though the claws and teeth may be those of a lion, the voice is, as we have seen, that of a very different animal. Still, on the whole, we congratulate Mr. Darwin, that the days of the faggot and the stake are gone by. Any one can use these rough instruments of torture; but happily something more than illwill is required to give to the pen the characters of the sword.

But we cannot hope to gather grapes from thorns, or scientific information from religious periodicals. From the "Quarterly Review," on the other hand, better things might have been expected. Yet even here we find entire misconception of the real theory propounded by Mr. Darwin. "Is it credible," asks the writer, "that all favour"able varieties of turnips are tending to become men, and yet that "the closest microscopic observation has never detected the faintest "tendency in the highest of the Algae, to improve into the very "lowest zoophyte ?"

As a matter of simple curiosity, the man who could really believe this to be Mr. Darwin's opinion after having perused his book,

would be worth seeing. We do not so lightly esteem the talents of this writer, as for a moment to suppose him guilty of such folly: but while admiring his power of satire and ridicule, we cannot approve of the use which he has made of it. The article itself should have appeared in the pages of "Punch.”

Like many other opponents of Mr. Darwin, the Quarterly Reviewer relies much upon the authority of Professor Owen, from whose work on the classification of Mammalia, he quotes the following passage:

"As to the successions or coming in of new species, one might speculate on the gradual modifiability of the individual, on the tendency of certain varieties to survive local changes, and thus pro"gressively diverge from an older type: on the production and "fertility of monstrous offspring: on the possibility, e. g. of a variety "of auk being occasionally hatched with a somewhat longer winglet, " and a dwarfed stature: on the probability of such a variety better "adapting itself to the changing climate, or other conditions than "the old type; of such an origin of Alca torda, e. g.-but to what "purpose? Past experience of the chance-aims of human fancy, "unchecked and unguided by observed facts, shews how widely they "have ever glanced away from the gold centre of truth."

In his Memoir on the Aye-Aye, "Transactions of the Zoological Society, 1863," Professor Owen, however, at length admits that the "attempts to dissipate that (mystery) which still enshrouds the "origin of species, cannot but be fraught with collateral advantages "to zoological science." Moreover, as regards the great question at issue between the "Quarterly Review" and Mr. Darwin, whether, namely, each separate species has been produced by a direct interference on the part of the Deity, or in accordance with a continuously operative secondary law, Professor Owen appears to be entirely on the side of Mr. Darwin.

"That organic species," he says, "are the result of still operating "powers and influences is probable, from the great paleontological fact of the succession of such so-called species, from their first appearance "in the oldest known fossiliferous strata: it is the more probable, from the kind and degree of similitude between the species that "succeeds, and the species that disappears, never to return as such: "the similitude being, in the main, of a nature expressed by the "terms of 'progressive departure from a general to a special type.' "Creation by law is suggested by the many instances of retention of

"structures in paleozoic species, which are embryonal and transitory "in later species of the same order or class: and the suggestion "acquires force, by considering the analogies which the transitory "embryonal stages in a higher species bear to the mature forms of "lower species. Every new instance of structures which do not "obviously and without straining, receive a teleological explanation, "especially the great series of anatomical facts, expressed by the "law of vegetative or irrelative repetition,'-all-congenital varie"ties, deformities, monstrosities,-oppose themselves to the hypo"thesis of the origin of a species, by a primary or immediate, and never repeated act of adaptive construction."

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In one respect, indeed, Professor Owen goes beyond Mr. Darwin. While the latter does not attempt to go further back than some "primordial form, into which life was first breathed," Professor Owen rather inclines to the hypothesis which "maintains "that the single celled organisms so diversified, as to be relegated "to distinct orders and classes of protozoa are now, as heretofore, "in course of creation, or formation by the ordained potentiality of "second causes."

It is somewhat remarkable that Professor Owen, who thus in reality out-Darwins Darwin, should yet have come to be generally regarded as the champion of outraged orthodoxy ; but the fact is that notwithstanding the numerous reviews which have appeared, the whole question of the origin of species, and especially Mr. Darwin's view, appears to be much misunderstood by the public generally. It is, for instance, supposed by many that in Mr. Darwin's opinion, hares might by careful selection, and after a sufficient number of generations, be bred from rabbits-or horses from zebras. Under these circumstances, Professor Huxley has, we think, exercised a wise discretion both in choosing the origin of species, as the subject of his "Lectures to Working Men," and in his manner of treating the question. That dissimilar species may have descended from common ancestors appears indeed to many persons as incredible a supposition as that two and two should make five. Professer Huxley has therefore begun, so to say, with the very alphabet of Natural History, and his first chapter is on the present condition of organic life, pointing out the homological resemblances of different species, and especially showing that "each species took its origin in a form similar to that "under which all the others commenced their existence." The second lecture is devoted to the past condition of organic nature.

In the third, he considers the "method by which the causes of the "present and past conditions of organic nature are to be discovered,"” and "the origination of living beings." The fourth lecture is devoted to the "perpetuation of living beings, hereditary transmission "and variation;" and the fifth, to the "conditions of existence, as "affecting the perpetuation of living beings. Finally, he enters into "a critical examination of the position of Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species, in relation to the complete theory of the pheno"mena of organic nature.”

This theory Professor Huxley understands to be, that "all phenomena of organic nature, past and present, result from, or are caused "by the interaction of those properties of organic matter, which "are called atavism and variability, with the conditions of exist"ence: or, in other words, given the existence of organic matter, its "tendency to transmit its properties, and its tendency occasionally "to vary, and, lastly, given the conditions of existence by which "organic matter is surrounded, that these, put together, are the "causes of the present and of the past conditions of organic nature." Professor Huxley admits, and we think that it cannot be denied by any one, that these two tendencies of organic matter, which are known as atavism and variability, do really exist. "But in the next place, comes a much more difficult inquiry: are the causes indicated com"petent to give rise to the phenomena." Professor Huxley suspects that "this is indubitable to a certain extent." "I think," he says, "it is demonstrable that they are perfectly competent to give rise to "all phenomena which are exhibited by races in nature. Furthermore, "I believe that they are quite competent to account for all that we "may call purely structural phenomena which are exhibited by "species in nature. Again, I think that the causes assumed are "competent to account for most of the physiological characteristics of "species; and I not only think that they are competent to account "for them, but I think that they account for many things which "otherwise remain wholly unaccountable and inexplicable." There is, however, one physiological peculiarity, continues Professor Huxley, "which the theory of selective modification, as it stands at present, "is not wholly competent to explain, and that is the group of phe"nomena, which I mentioned to you under the name of Hybridism, "and which I explained to consist in the sterility of the offspring of "certain species, when crossed one with another. It matters not one "whit whether it exists only in a single case. Every hypothesis is