156 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



DAinvi.v ON THE "descent of man." 



Few scientific works have excited more attention than that 

 of Mr. Charles Darwin upon "The Descent of Man, and Selec- 

 tion in Relation to Sexes," the only parallel perhaps being 

 found in some previous works by the same author. This 

 treatise has already been discussed from almost every point 

 of view, and for a considerable time it was almost impossible 

 to take up a periodical at all interested in such subjects with- 

 out finding one or more notices of the book. Among the best 

 written of these criticisms may be cited one in The Academy, 

 from the pen of Mr. Alfred R.Wallace, himself a naturalist of 

 a high degree of eminence, and, although known to agree 

 with Mr. Darwin in some of his vieVs, yet entirely opposed 

 to him in others. 



As summed up in this article, the first chapter of Mr. Dar- 

 win's book discusses the evidence for the descent of man 

 from some lower form, in which it is shown that man's entire 

 structure is comparable, bone by bone, and muscle by muscle, 

 with that of other vertebrata, while the close relationship is 

 shown in many other ways, such, for instance, as his ability 

 to receive certain animal diseases as glanders and hydro- 

 phobia; his having internal and external parasites of the 

 same families and genera as those of the lower animals ; and 

 in exhibiting an embryonic development so exactly similar 

 to that of other vertebrates that his embryo can scarcely be 

 distinguished. Much stress is laid upon the occurrence in 

 man of rudiments of structures characteristic of lower forms, 

 many muscles regularly present in the apes and other mam- 

 mals appearing occasionally in man, although sometimes in- 

 appreciable or wanting. When the mental powers of the 

 lower animals are compared with those of man they are found 

 to exhibit a strong resemblance, although more or less rudi- 

 mentary ; and in reference to the origin of the moral sense, 

 Mr. Darwin maintains that this arises from the social instincts 

 combined with an active intellect. 



The manner of the development of man from some lower 

 form is next very fully discussed, attention being called to 

 the extreme variability of every part of his bodily structure 

 and mental faculties, the influence of changed conditions, and 

 the occurrence of arrested developments, reversions, and va- 



