-110 THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAX SOCIETY 



should be studied by every naturalist. Mr. Wallace's chief object 

 throughout the work has been, no doubt, to hnd additional 

 evidence in favour of the theory of evolution by natural selection, 

 a doctrine of which he was the real originator. But, in treating 

 of the theory, he' does not, like some of the champions of the 

 cause, violently assert, as an ascertained truth, that which at best 

 is only a plausible hypothesis. On the contrary, Mr. Wallace, 

 throughout the whole of his delightful book, reasons well and fairly. 



While on this subject I may mention, and also recommend, 

 another book, published in the early part of the year. It is a 

 reprint of two lectures originally delivered in the Botanical 

 Theatre of University College, London, and is entitled " Evolu- 

 tion of the Human Race, from Apes : A Doctrine unsanc- 

 tioned by Science." By Thomas Wharton Jones, F.B.8., &c. 

 Professor Jones, in his first lectm - e, deals with the natural 

 selection theory of Darwin. He argues, with great force, that the 

 apparently general gradation, in form and structure, of all living 

 forms, is no proof of evolution, but rather of the Divine Idea of 

 an Almighty Power. The second Lecture treats chiefly of 

 Haeckel's scheme of the line of man's descent from lower 

 animals, and the following summary, exhibiting the extravagance 

 of Haeckel's Phylogenetic hypotheses, is extracted from *lie 

 concluding portion of the Lecture : — 



" Man, as he now is, was originally evolved from hypothetical 

 " speechless ape-men; these ape-men, again, were evolved from 

 " hypothetical men apes without tails, like the orang ; these men- 

 " apes from hypothetical apes with tails, like the nosed apes ; these 

 "tailed apes from hypothetical half -apes, like the lemur; these 

 " half-apes from hypothetical marsupial animals, like the kangaroo 

 " rat ; these marsupialia from hypothetical monotremata, like the 

 " ornithorhynchus, but without the duck's-bill ; these monotremata 

 " from hypothetical lizard-like creatures, of which no living 

 " resemblance is known ; these Lizard-like creatures from hypo- 



