5 8 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



peculiarities. This is shown most clearly in the keen sense of smell, 

 sight, and hearing, observed in all hunting and pastoral tribes of the 

 highlands and steppe-lands, as well as in the sense of locality and the 

 surprising physical endurance under hunger, thirst, and other priva- 

 tions. . . . The principle of selection prevails in the moral as well as 

 in the physical order. As mankind pressed northward, irrepressible 

 spirits alone could sustain life under the depressing influences of bleak 

 Arctic surroundings. Hence the remarkably cheerful temperament of 

 the Esquimaux, who are also bred to peaceful habits ; for peacefully 

 disposed families alone could dwell under a common roof, as the Es- 

 quimaux are fain to do in the total absence of fuel. Through over- 

 population the Chinese have become the most frugal and industrious 

 of peoples, in recent times emigrating to foreign lands and crowding 

 out all more indolent or pretentious races." 



These are but a few examples of the changes which environment 

 can work, in periods of time by no means unlimited. Yet Dr. Porter 

 forbids us to believe that a changing environment, operating through 

 periods of indefinite length, has wrought specific differences. What 

 we know is that in past ages thousands of species have died out and 

 given place to others ; and the only question to be settled is whether 

 the connection between successive forms was a genetic one or not. 

 We can conceive the Creator as wiping the slate, so to speak, of his 

 organic creation, and then covering it again with new forms more or 

 less like the former, but having absolutely no connection with them, 

 and as repeating this operation unnumbered times. The trouble with 

 that conception is that it is a little too barren. It might serve for a 

 postulate in theology, but there is no nourishment in it for the human 

 mind. It dispenses with all cause save a formal and hypothetical one ; 

 it takes all meaning out of the universe. The world therefore prefers 

 to believe with Darwin that the stream of life has been continuous, 

 and that all existing forms of life have truly issued from those that 

 preceded them ; and the world is thankful to Darwin for having done 

 something nay, much to show how the transitions from form to 

 form may have been accomplished. He may not have solved the prob- 

 lem entirely it is not pretended that he has ; but thoughtful people 

 in general feel more disposed to make the most of the indications he 

 has furnished than to carp at the evidence as not being logically 

 complete. 



According to the learned critic, it is owing to a sense of the in- 

 sufficiency of the evidence afforded by the paleontological record that 

 the evolutionist resorts to the arguments from biology. Here comes 

 in a remarkable bit of writing : " Perhaps it would be more fair to 

 say, if he [the evolutionist] knew how to put his case in the strongest 

 form, that he would urge that experimental proof is not to be looked 

 for, but only indications of a peculiar character." This may be con- 

 sidered a perspicuous style of composition at Yale ; but we confess to 



