advanced under different forms in more modern times, to be just as often rejected by naturalists as unworthy a place among scientific theories. Now we find the same old doctrine renovated by Mr. Darwin, "furnished with a new hat and stick,” and started with a great flourish of trumpets on its travels again and again, we fear, to fall by the wayside like its predecessors, though it is likely to last longer and go further than they.

The advocates of this doctrine contend that "when the mind has once admitted the conception of the gradual production of the present physical state of the globe by natural causes operating through long ages of time, it will be little disposed to allow that living beings have made their appearance in any other way." (West. Rev., April, 1860, p. 306.) This argument from analogy seems to have had some influence with Sir Charles Lyell, for after so ably combating the transmutation theory, he is now inclined to adopt it as a necessary complement to his geological doctrines. But "analogy may be a deceitful guide," Mr. Darwin says. Here, we think, it certainly leads us astray. We cannot see the parallelism between the changes of form in inorganic matter and the production of living beings with all their existing diversity. Science has determined pretty clearly all the properties of inorganic matter and the nature of all the physical forces. The law of these forces has been reduced to strict mathematical expression, and their effects have all been calculated. In the phenomena of inorganic nature all the elements are known, but what do we know of the causes of vital phenomena? The transmutation of inor ganic matter into a living form has not yet been accounted for by any of the natural agencies which produce physical phenomena. In organic matter we find an entirely new element introduced, which controls and subjects all the others, and which, for want of a better name, we call vitality, or the vital force. The exact value or law of this force has not yet been calculated and reduced to a numerical expression, as the other forces of matter have been. Therefore, until this link in the chain is supplied, until we are able to account for the first production of vital phenomena by the operation of physical forces previously existing, and until we have determined the law of this vital force, as we have that of gravitation, we are not prepared to form any consistent hypothesis to explain the origin of the

present diversified forms of living beings, which shall be a complement, as its supporters pretend this one is, to the theory which "accounts for the physical changes of the globe by the operation of natural causes." If they ask us to admit an act of special creation at this point, though they limit it to merely breathing life into one "primordial form," the chain of secondary causes is broken, and the analogy no longer exists. Lamark was more consistent. He supposed his monads or "rough draughts" of animal and vegetable existence to be produced by spontaneous generation. The author of the "Vestiges of Creation" also, in order to fill up this gap, declares that "the first step in the creation of life on this planet was a chemico-electric operation by which simple germinal vesicles were produced." (Vestiges of Creation, page 106.) Mr. Darwin sneeringly asks the advocates of special creation if "they really believe that at innumerable periods of the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues!" (Page 418.) We certainly cannot see any insuperable difficulty in admitting a supernatural agency for the production of each new form introduced, after admitting it for the first one, or as Mr. Darwin prefers, the first four or more; especially until some secondary cause has been proved sufficient to account for their origin, and thus dispense with the further necessity for a primary one.

To satisfy ourselves of the difficulty the transmutationists have found in discovering or inventing a cause sufficient to produce the present variety of forms, it is only necessary to look at the various attempts that have been made within the last two centuries. Each one has been confidently advanced as the vera causa, in a short time to give place to another, which likewise has soon become fossilized with the other extinct theories of the stratum of thought which produced them.

The theories of the ancients, and also that of Buffon, were theories of degradation, while those of the moderns are theories of progression. By the former the most perfect animals were created, but had a constant tendency to degenerate; according to the latter, the lowest forms are constantly improving or developing. By the first the orang-outang is a fallen or degenerate man; by the second, man is but a developed monkey.

The speculations of Demaillet, (Tellaimed,) published in

1748, were so entirely unsupported by facts that they made but little headway against the prevailing opinion of that time. He supposed that when, in the process of the formation of the globe, the dry land was upheaved, some of the marine animals, leaving the water, took to the land, and during a long period they gradually became adapted to their new conditions of life; others in like manner, by constant efforts, became enabled to fly in the air.

Lamark, in the beginning of the present century, presented nearly the same doctrine again, and supported it with much more ingenuity. (Philosophie Zoologique.) He develops the lower forces into the higher by the tendency to progressive advancement in organization and intelligence, and by the force of external circumstances, or of variations in the physical condition of the earth, or the mutual relations of plants and animals. According to his theory, the habits of an animal are not determined by its organs, but that organs are developed, or become obsolete in the course of time by the habits of an animal, or those of its progenitors. For instance, ducks and other water-fowl were not made web-footed to enable them to swim, but by making constant efforts to swim, in searching for food, the skin gradually expanded between the outstretched toes until in course of time the membrane grew and filled the whole space. Again, by the repeated efforts of a fish to fly in the air, the fins gradually developed into wings, and the fish became a bird. The insufficiency or worthlessness of the facts adduced by Lamark in support of his theory was enough of itself to cause its rejection by scientific men; but when he attempted to show its practical operation in developing an orang-outang, who had been brought up through all the regular stages from an oyster, into a man, the ridicule with which it was met was so overwhelming that but few ever had courage to advocate it.

The author of the Vestiges of Creation next attempted to solve this "mystery of mysteries." His idea is, that the lower forms of animals represent by a regular series all the stages in the embryological development of the higher; "that the simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like production is subordinate, gave birth to the type next above it, that this again produced the next higher, and so on to the

very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases very small, namely, from one species only to another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a simple and modest character." (Vestiges, p. 115.) In order to bring about this generation of any species by the next one below it, he thinks it is only necessary "to protract the straightforward part of the gestation over a small space." He supposes this may be accomplished "by the force of certain external conditions operating on the parturient system." (Vestiges, p. 110.) The nature of these conditions, he says, we can only conjecture. But, as conjecture was not deemed quite substantial enough for the basis of a scientific theory, this flimsy fabric did not long withstand the tempest of argument and ridicule let loose upon it.

This last attempt to discover a secondary cause sufficient to meet the wants of the development hypothesis proved such a miserable failure that for years no one ventured to make another. So completely did this heresy appear to have been crushed out, that the advocates of special creation, having the field all to themselves, had begun to look upon their position as impregnable against any force that could be brought to bear upon it. Such was the state of affairs when Messrs. Darwin and Wallace startled the scientific world by a communication to the Linnean Society, professing to be a restatement of the Lamarkian hypothesis in an improved and truly scientific form. Out of this paper Mr. Darwin's book has grown. When we consider the circumstances under which this work is produced, the respectability of the source from which it emanates, and the great pretension it makes, we are not surprised at the stir it has made, nor at the rigid account to which it has been held by the advocates of the opposing doctrine.

What, then, is this great discovery of Mr. Darwin-this new natural agent sufficient to develop all the diversity of living things from the "one primordial form into which life was first breathed?" What is this great secret kept hidden from the world to be revealed to us in these latter times through Mr. Darwin? He calls it "Natural Selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for existence." This "struggle for existence," upon which he bases his whole theory, he states thus:

A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase. Every being which, during its natural lifetime, produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise, on the principal of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so inordinately great that no country could support the product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food and no prudential restraints of marriage.-P. 63.

We will, just here, in passing, for we have no time to discuss this point, say that we do not believe in this struggle for existence, as Mr. Darwin states it. In spite of his array of facts, we are not yet convinced that such is the law of any part of God's creation. As Carey and other political economists have conclusively proved the doctrine of Malthus to be false in its application to human society, so we believe science will yet prove it as false and wicked when applied to the organization of the animal kingdom. But having, as he thinks, established this struggle for existence, he next considers its influence on the variation of species. That each organism begets its like, but with some slight difference, is a law universally admitted. Now it is not improbable that, in the course of "thousands of generations," some modification, however slight, may occur which may be of advantage to its possessor in this everrecurring struggle for existence. The individuals possessing this advantage would, therefore, have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind. This profitable variation would also, after "thousands of generations," under the same law of variability, be improved and perpetuated. Thus, by a slow process, varieties would be produced. The same tendency to vary still existing, these varieties would, in the course of ages, become true species. After a still longer time these species would be divided into genera, classes, etc. "This, of course, is only applicable to the profitable variations, for those that were injurious would be rigidly destroyed." This preservation and accumulation of infinitesimally small and inherited profitable variations, and the destruction of injurious