Bibliographical Notice. 141 



others, every naturalist who has worked six months under the open 

 skies (instead of in his closet) is absolutely certain. Indeed, whilst 

 we see hosts of species scarcely alter at all, in whatever circum- 

 stances and regions they are placed, and therefore whilst exposed 

 to innumerable conditions of surrounding organic forms so that 

 (in a broad sense) they may be regarded as almost independent 

 of the various influences alongside them, we see, on the contrary, 

 that other species are by constitution so unstable and shifting, in 

 their external details, as scarcely to present two phases alike in 

 even the several localities and altitudes of a continuous, unbroken 

 tract. Nor is this mere assertion, for we are prepared to support 

 it by the plainest facts ; whilst, at the same time, we could point to 

 a country in which nearly all the land-shells now existing (upwards 

 of one hundred species) are found in a fossil state, conglomerated 

 together in beds of indurated mud often twenty feet in thickness, 

 and which have not altered, apparently, so much as a puncture or a 

 granule during the enormous period (even though it be geologically 

 recent) which has elapsed since they were first deposited, a period, 

 moreover, in which there is every reason to believe that the various 

 physical conditions (and perhaps extent) of the whole region have 

 most materially changed : which, at any rate, does not tally with 

 that steady movement towards perfection, that certain progress, of 

 some kind or other (even though slow), of organic forms, which a 

 reception of this " natural selection " idea so loudly and positively 

 demands. 



As to the theological difficulties of this question, we must decline 

 entering into them ; for we believe that science and theology are best 

 discussed apart, and that neither of them was ever intended to teach 

 us the other. Nevertheless we fear it must be admitted that they 

 are exceedingly grave, if not absolutely insurmountable; and, although 

 as yet they have been altogether, and studiously, kept out of view, 

 the time will assuredly come when, like all other objections, they 

 must be fairly stated, the arguments on both sides candidly examined 

 by competent judges, and each of them impartially weighed, on its 

 own merits. Although it is obviously desirable, for more reasons 

 than one, not to bring revelation and science into unnecessary con- 

 tact (for the evils which have resulted from injudicious attempts 

 to do so have usually been but too evident), still no man who loves 

 truth, in all its phases, for its own sake, will long rest contented in 

 accepting as such a zoological creed which is in direct antagonism 

 with his theological one ; for, since two opposite sets pf statements 

 cannot be both true, one or the other of them must eventually fall. 

 The question simply is : which, in this case, shall it be ? Although 

 we might hazard a hasty reply, we nevertheless will not do so; though 

 we can anticipate the feelings of our more learned theologians, were 

 a bouquet of some of the leading conclusions culled for their special 

 contemplation. What, for instance, would they think, when told 

 that, in spite of their honest convictions (convictions which they had 

 supposed to be coeval with our race), it has been lately discovered 

 that man, with all his lofty endowments and future hopes, was, in point 



