Recent Literature. 175 



otherwise. Being unfamiliar with even a smattering of modern bi- 

 ological research, their,' attention has not been directed in these 

 channels. Mr. Romanes, therefore, very properly considers that 

 he has a public to convince, and argues every question from this 

 standpoint. In criticising the first part of his book, consequently, 

 the only thing to consider is how well and how forcibly, or, rather, 

 from the standpoint of an outsider, how fairly he has presented the 

 case of evolution. Had this work appeared even a comparatively 

 short time ago there would doubtless have been many reviewers 

 who would question the validity of his proofs, but to-day there are 

 {ftw who would have the2temerity to openly attack such a demon- 

 stration and expose themselves to the criticism which would follow. 

 It is really a question merely of whether his arguments are so pre- 

 sented and his illustrations so chosen that a person unfamiliar with 

 the subject could 'reasonably be expected to follow him. And this, 

 it seems, he has really succeeded admirably well in doing. The 

 figured illustrations are^especially worthy of notice, for both from 

 their profuseness andi'the judiciousness with which they have been 

 selected they, in many cases, speak for themselves. 



After a few pages of introduction, in which the subject is dis- 

 cussed from a general point of view, the testimony of classification 

 is adduced, followed in succession by that of morphology, embry- 

 ology, palaeontology and geographical distribution. In every case 

 he argues with the defender of special creation and a designing 

 deity, showing the'innumerable inconsistencies and absurdities which 

 the advocates of that view must maintain. Thus, in the chapter on 

 geographical distribution, he shows that on islands where gales of 

 wind are continually replenishing the mainland forms of life there 

 are few distinct species, while on islands where high winds from the 

 mainland do not prevail the species are, for the most part, distinct. 

 " But," he says, " on^the theory of special creation, it is impossible 

 to understand why there should be any such correlation between the 

 prevalence of gales and a comparative inertness of creative activity. 

 And, as we have seen, it is equally impossible on this theory to 

 understand why there should be a further correlation between the 

 decree of peculiarity on the part of the isolated species and the 

 degree in which their nearest allies on the mainland are there con- 

 fined to narrow ranges, and therefore less likely to keep up any 



