252 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



some races with species, beyond the probability of their being ever 

 discriminated ; — and that more time and more altered conditions should 

 suffice to effect such further change as to produce the many existing 

 vegetable forms out of a fe>v pre-existing ones, seems to him a per- 

 fectly legitimate conclusion. He argues too, and with great plausi- 

 bility, that this theory of transmutation accounts better for the aggre- 

 gation of Species, Genera, and Natural Orders in geographical areas, 

 and for their limitation ; whilst he leaves it to geological change, and 

 altered climatal and other physical conditions, to account for their sub- 

 sequent segregation and ultimate destruction. 



We have hitherto treated the question as naturalists cannot help 

 doing, trammelled with facts and difficulties that have a different value 

 in different naturalists' eyes; but the general inquirer, who has nothing 

 to do with facts, and knows nothing of species or varieties, will treat 

 it in what appears to him a more philosophical manner : he will ask 

 himself whether it is most accordant with the operation of Natural 

 Laws, that the Oak-tree or Acorn should have appeared suddenly, as a f 

 special creation, on the surface of the globe, or be an altered form of a 

 pre-existing tree, of greater or less complexity of structure ; and will 

 doubtless choose the latter hypothesis as involving less of the marvel- 

 lous at first sight, and appearing to explain the mystery of creation. 

 But unfortunately transmutation brings us no nearer the origin of spe- 

 cies, except the doctrine of progressive development be also allowed, 

 and, as we can show, the study of plants affords much positive evidence 

 against progressive development, and none in favour of it. 



The main facts of Fossil Botany, though few, are well established, 

 and their significance in relation to the question of progressive develop- 

 ment is, we think, quite clear. They are — 



That LycopodiaceiB existed, and are amongst the earliest known land- 

 plants (in the Carboniferous period). 



That they were accompanied by many genera and species of Ferns. 



• Aprojws of this argument^ as applied to account for the origin of species, we 

 niay quote the opinion of the ahle author of an article in the Medico-Chirurgical 

 Review^ on the well-kuown 'Vestiges of 'the Natural History of the Creation:* — 

 " If, with the Progressionists, we conceive that species of living beings undergo 

 trausnuitation at the present day; that this trausmutatio;i is from a lower to a 

 higher type ; and that all the kinds of Hving beings which have ever existed upon 

 the earth's surface have originated in this way ; the idea is a perfectly Icgitimale 

 one, and must be admitted or rejected according to the evidence attainable ; but 

 if fully proved, it would not be, in any iutelh'giblc sense, an expianalion of crcah't^H; 



such 'crciilion in the maimer of natural law' would, in fact, simply be an orderly 

 miracle." 



