LITERARY NOTICES. 



845 



while we " minister to impressions that 

 are skin-deep and transitory, we leave 

 vast inner tracts of the nervous system 

 uncultivated." One great cause of the 

 evil may lie in the fact that to-day a 

 certain superficial education is all but 

 universal an education which favors a 

 superficial life and that the education 

 which reaches those deeper tracts that 

 the professor speaks of is, through the 

 spread of the other, becoming increas- 

 ingly scarce. The true note of a high 

 education is generous enthusiasm ; the 

 equally true and authentic note of an 

 inferior education, even though con- 

 ducted within the walls of a famous 

 university, is the spirit of selfish com- 

 petition. The world never had so many 

 teachers by profession as it has to-day ; 

 but possibly it never lacked teachers in 

 the highest sense more than it does to- 

 day teachers who are fountains of in- 

 spiration to all who come within their 

 influence, because, in their teaching, 

 deep calls to deep, and the nature of 

 the pupil is inwardly molded into the 

 image of a true humanity ; not merely 

 fashioned from without into fitness for 

 a struggle in which the hindmost is 

 piously consigned to the best help he 

 can get. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



From the Greeks to Darwin. An Outline 

 of the Development of the Evolution Idea. 

 Columbia University Biological Series. I. 

 By Henry Fairfield OsBORN, Sc. D. New 

 York : Macmillan & Co. Price, $2. 



Prof. Osborn has undertaken in this 

 work the interesting and useful task of trac- 

 ing from the earliest times down to the 

 present day the course of speculation and 

 discovery which resulted in the establish- 

 ment of the Darwinian theory of the ori- 

 gin of species by natural selection. This 

 being his specific task, we could wish that 

 the author had drawn more clearly the dis- 

 tinction between the discovery and enuncia- 

 tion of the law of natural selection and the 

 discovery and enunciation of the law of evo- 

 lution in its most comprehensive sense. We 



do not, indeed, find this distinction drawn 

 anywhere throughout the work ; on the con- 

 trary, we find in many places a somewhat 

 loose application of the wider term evolution 

 to the narrower theory of natural selection, 

 with a certain amount of resulting confusion. 

 "The evolution law," he tells us, "was 

 reached not by any decided leap, but by the 

 progressive development of every subordinate 

 idea connected with it, until it was recog- 

 nized as a whole by Lamarck and later by 

 Darwin." Compare this with Prof. Huxley's 

 statement of the case: "In the Origin of 

 Species, and in his other numerous and im- 

 portant contributions to the solution of the 

 problem of biological evolutions Mr. Dar- 

 win confines himself to the discussion of the 

 causes which have brought about the present 

 condition of living matter, assuming such 

 matter to have once come into existence. 

 On the other hand, Mr. Spencer and Prof. 

 Haeckel have dealt with the whole problem of 

 evolution (Italics ours). The profound and 

 vigorous writings of Mr. Spencer embody the 

 spirit of Descartes in knowledge of our own 

 day and may be regarded as the Principes 

 de Philosophic of the nineteenth century." 

 (See Collected Essays, Vol. II ; also Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica.) Prof. Osborn tells us, 

 referring to Darwin, that "iu the middle of 

 this century came the man who ranks as the 

 great central thinker." This was certainly 

 not Darwin's estimate of himself. His strong 

 point, as he often remarked, was observa- 

 tion. He looked at his facts hard and long 

 until they seemed to teach him something, 

 but he expressly disclaimed any special tal- 

 ent for generalization. This he recognized 

 as belonging to Mr. Spencer in an altogether 

 eminent degree. " I suspect," he wrote to 

 Prof. Bay Lankester, " that hereafter he will 

 be looked at as by far the greatest living 

 philosopher in England ; perhaps equal to 

 any that have lived." 



Nothing could be further from the wish 

 of any one connected with this journal than 

 to belittle in any way the work of Charles 

 Darwin. That he was the author of a great 

 and fertile idea which has worked almost a 

 complete revolution in biological method all 

 the world is aware. It is only a month or so 

 since we quoted in these very columns the 

 testimony borne by Prof. Huxley to the value 

 and importance of the Darwinian theory as 



