LITERARY NOTICES. 



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The Doctrine of Descent, and Darwinism. 

 By Oscar Schmidt, Professor in the 

 University of Strasbourg. With Illus- 

 trations. 334 pages. Price, $1.50. D. 

 Appleton & Co. No. XIII. of the " In- 

 ternational Scientific Series." 



A popular exposition of the general 

 doctrine of Development and Descent, within 

 moderate limits, has been long wanted. Mr. 

 Darwin's works are voluminous, and they 

 elaborate special points with a minuteness 

 of detail and a wealth of learning that are 

 the delight of the student, but are not 

 attractive to the general reader. A com- 

 pend of the main facts and essential logic 

 of his system, as now widely accepted by 

 naturalists, is therefore a desideratum in 

 scientific literature. Various attempts have 

 been made to meet this need, but they have 

 generally been defective in statement, and 

 made by men who did not know the subject 

 at first hand. Prof. Schmidt's volume fairly 

 covers the ground, and is brought within 

 convenient limits for the general reader ; j 

 while its author is an independent investi- 

 gator in natural history, and has made his 

 own original contributions' to the theory 

 which his book explains. As a piece of 

 exposition the volume is quite remarkable, 

 and its writer may be congratulated for 

 having done his part toward relieving Ger- 

 man men of science from the imputation 

 recently intimated by Helmholtz, that they 

 are behind those of other countries as lucid 

 and successful popular teachers. There are 

 a meatiness and a density of thought in this 

 little work which betray the close German 

 thinker, and keep the reader well occupied ; 

 but there are a wit, point, and polemical force 

 in his pages, that relieve them from dry- 

 ness, and well sustain the reader's atten- 

 tion. Yet the characteristic of the volume 

 is that the author has seized the essential 

 points of the great argument, and brought 

 out, with unexampled success, the strength 

 of what may be called the Darwinian posi- 

 tion. The broad philosophic doctrine of 

 Evolution he does not attempt to discuss, 

 but limits his argument to the field of biol- 

 ogy, to the Animal World in its Present State, 

 the Phenomena of Reproduction, Historical 

 and Paleontological Development, the Geo- 

 logical and Geographical Distribution of 

 Life, Heredity, Eeversion, Selection, Deriva- 

 tion, and Pedigree. An able chapter is 

 vol. vi. 40 



given to Special Creation and the Nature 

 of Species ; the Bearing of Linguistic In- 

 quiry upon the Doctrine of Development is 

 presented ; and the concluding chapter is 

 devoted to the question of the Descent of 

 Man. Cn all these subjects the author is 

 up to the latest results, and presents them 

 in a well-methodized form. 



This volume covers very important 

 ground in the popular scientific series to 

 which it belongs, as its doctrines are some- 

 times implied and frequently referred to in 

 the other books, and it is therefore satis- 

 factory to know that Prof. Schmidt has exe- 

 cuted his work with judgment and ability. 



Religion" as affected by Modern Materi- 

 alism. By James Martineau, D. D., LL. 

 D. With an Introduction by the Rev. H. 

 W. Bellows. 68 pp. Price, *75 cents. 



Dr. Martineau is one of the most afflu- 

 ent and captivating of modern theological 

 writers, and is regarded as perhaps the 

 leading English champion of Unitarian het- 

 erodoxy. His "Essays, Philosophical and 

 Theological," reprinted by the Putnams, 

 range over a wide variety of topics, and 

 display much acuteness and logical force, 

 but their chief characteristic is the imagina- 

 tive raciness of their style. The essay now 

 issued, and which was delivered as an ad- 

 dress before the Manchester New College, 

 is a brilliant rhetorical polemic, called forth 

 by Tyndall's address, in which the author 

 aims to expose what, he regards as the in- 

 consistency, the baselessness, and the ab- 

 surdity, of modern materialistic philosophy. 

 Many of his hits are fine, and many of his 

 sarcasms biting, and the whole discussion 

 is most readable, but we think the author 

 leaves the subject very much as he found 

 it. We fail to see that his breadth and 

 liberality give him any advantage in this 

 discussion over the narrow and bigoted 

 theologian. As an historical fact, theologi- 

 cal doctrines have stood in the way of Sci- 

 ence at every great step of its advancement. 

 Nor have the theologians ever consented to 

 take their doctrines out of the way ; the dis- 

 agreeable duty has been imposed upon Sci- 

 ence, all along, of displacing them. Nor does 

 there seem to be yet, on the part of theolo- 

 gians, much disposition to change their tac- 

 tics ; they still plant down their dogmas in 



