LITERARY NOTICES. 



415 



ever in time. Destruction but makes 

 room for more destruction ; and not 

 only is the onflowing river of life full 

 to its banks, but ten thousand-fold more 

 creatures are born than can be pre- 

 served. Each species reproduces at a 

 rate that is out of all relation to the 

 possible means of subsistence. If Mr. 

 Bergh's sparrows could multiply at their 

 normal rate, unchecked by the agencies 

 of decimation, they would take posses- 

 sion of the world, and humanity and 

 philanthropy would end together. And 

 so it has ever been through the count- 

 less ages of the earth's history ; so that 

 its very rocks, for miles in depth, are 

 filled with the fossil remains of in- 

 numerable tribes of creatures, which 

 warred with each other through geo- 

 logical periods, and have now utterly 

 perished. And it is to-day as it has 

 been through the immeasurable past- 

 millions of species scattered over the 

 earth's surface, from pole to pole, are 

 engaged in a struggle for existence, that 

 is carried on everywhere with unrelent- 

 ing severity. 



From the point of view of senti- 

 ment alone, this is not a pleasant pic- 

 ture. Considered by itself, a hawk 

 with a sparrow in its talons is not sug- 

 gestive of beneficent intentions. If all 

 this remorseless destruction has been 

 beneficently designed, we must widen 

 our notions of beneficent design. Sci- 

 ence does this, by showing that out of 

 the universal agony Nature is slowly, 

 very slowly, working up to a better con- 

 dition of things. In the sanguinary strug- 

 gle the fittest survive, the ill-adapted and 

 less perfect are slain, and there comes 

 improvement. The value of this prog- 

 ress is to be estimated by its terrible cost. 

 Through the destruction of tribes with 

 what seems an almost infinite wanton- 

 ness have finally come creatures with 

 higher capacities of enjoyment, as well 

 as correlative suffering, and an order of 

 beings that have acquired great power 

 over the conditions of pleasure and pain. 

 In man, the last term of advancement in 



the animate series, ameliorations and 

 modifications of his primal savage pro- 

 pensities have gone on, until there has 

 grown up a set of feelings that are kind- 

 ly, merciful, sympathetic, and benevo- 

 lent; and they have at length become 

 so strengthened and organized in our 

 nature that they are characterized as 

 " the humane sentiments," or the " spir- 

 it of humanity." These are the final 

 product of man's moral evolution, and, 

 although the reminiscences and survi- 

 vals of savagery in the shape of mili- 

 tary systems still linger, yet the kindly, 

 merciful, and generous emotions are 

 steadily gathering force in the hearts 

 of men, and are becoming more and 

 more .the predominant law of the social 

 state. Terrestrial life has had a tragic 

 history, but, when under the stern dis- 

 cipline of a mortal competitive strife 

 the primitive cannibals have been so 

 utterly transformed that many of their 

 descendants have come to find their 

 highest pleasure in the gratification of 

 the sympathetic feelings, and even to 

 regard the brute creation with a tender 

 solicitude, as evinced by the organiza- 

 tion of societies for the prevention of 

 cruelty to animals, who shall say that 

 the grandeur of the end does not justify 

 all the terrible means by w T hich it has 

 been attained ? 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Evolution of Man : A Popular Expo- 

 sition of the Principal Points of Hu- 

 man Ontogeny and Phylogeny. From 

 the German of Ernst Haeckel, Professor 

 in the University of Jena, author of the 

 " History of Creation," etc. Tn two vol- 

 umes, with 330 Illustrations. New York : 

 D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 970. Price, $5. 



This work is now the great text-book of 

 a great subject. Darwin wrote on "The De- 

 scent of Man," and Haeckel, with greater 

 learning, writes later upon the same subject. 

 The interest in these volumes will mainly de- 

 pend, of course, upon the reader's interest in 

 the questions it considers. Those who wish 



