LITERARY NOTICES. 



851 



other we know for any young person, with 

 a teacher or without, who wishes to get a 

 right start in cultivating this branch of sci- 

 ence. 



The Refutation of Darwinism and the 

 Converse Theory of Development ; 



BASED EXCLfSIVELY UPON DaUWIN's 



Facts. By T. Warren O'Xeill, Mem- 

 ber of the Philadelphia Bar. Philadel- 

 phia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 454. 

 Price, $2.50. 



Opposite in every respect to Huxley's 

 book is this volume of Mr. O'Neill upon an 

 aspect of the same subject. Huxley's idea 

 is that, when a man makes a biological 

 book, he ought really to know something 

 about the matter — to know it at first hand 

 independently and authoritatively. But 

 this man, who comes forward to put an 

 end to Darwin, has no scientific credentials, 

 but, quite the contrary, he reports himself 

 as a member of the bar. That is, he is an 

 advocate, a professional hireling, who first 

 gets a fee and then argues accordingly. 

 His vocation is not to search for truth by 

 the methods of science, but to win cases by 

 the methods of law-practice. Mr. O'Neill 

 comes into biology as an attorney who pro- 

 poses to show what dialectics is capable of 

 by refuting Darwin with his own facts, and 

 showing how he can work them all back- 

 ward and establish a converse theory of 

 development. 



We gather, from a very hasty glance at 

 his book, which is all that it is worth, that 

 the author's position is this: He assumes 

 the exploded doctrine of the fixity, or what 

 he calls the normal immutability, of spe- 

 cies — the old traditional doctrine that pre- 

 vailed before the rise of modern biologi- 

 cal knowledge. As man was created per- 

 fect and "fell," so species were created 

 with a primitive "physiological integrity" 

 from which they have become degraded. 

 So the Darwinian progress, proved by Dar- 

 winian facts, is but a kind of atavism or 

 reversion upward toward the recovery of 

 lost characters. The book is ingenious 

 from the lawyer's point of view, and makes 

 merry throughout at the expense of Mr. 

 Darwin's gross ignorance of the subjects to 

 which he has devoted his life, but which 

 become luminous in the hands of the man 

 who really knows nothing about them. 



Another book is promised by the author, 

 and meantime we recommend the present 

 one to all young law-students, that they may 

 see what they are in danger of coming to. 



The Geological and Natural History Sur- 

 vey OF Minnesota, under the Direction 

 of Mr. N. H. WiNCHELL. 1879.' Pp. 123. 



This survey was conducted during 1878 

 in the northern part of the State, and was 

 devoted principally to the examination of 

 the coast-line of Lake Superior from Duluth 

 to the Pigeon River, for geological and litho- 

 j logical data. It was intended to give espe- 

 j cial attention to mining interests, but very 

 [ few persons were found to have any concern 

 I in them, and no actual mining is now done 

 [ in the State. The zoological and botanical 

 investigations were kept in abeyance, or car- 

 ried only so far as possible without much 

 additional expense. The ornithological sec- 

 [ tion made, however, satisfactory progress, 

 and a good account is given in the report of 

 j the plants of the northern shore of Lake Su- 

 ] perior. A paper is appended by Mr. C. L. 

 I Herrick on the microscopic Entomostraca of 

 the State, with twenty-one full-page plates 

 of illustrations ; the first attempt, the author 

 believes, that has been made to describe 

 these little crustaceans as a class. 



The Kansas Retieiv. Vol. I., No. 1. No- 

 vember, 1879. Monthly. 75 cents per 

 year. 



This succeeds the " Kansas Collegiate " 

 as the periodical of the students of the Uni- 

 versity of Kansas. Its scope will be more 

 general than that of its predecessor ; and it 

 begins by having something to say on scien- 

 tific and practical subjects. The number 

 before us has signed papers on " Molecules," 

 the comets of the year, and the college 

 course, and the health of college girls. 



The Californian. A Western Monthly 

 Magazine. Vol. I., No. 1. January, 

 1880. Pp. 100. Price, $3 a year. 

 This is a new periodical, of prepossess- 

 ing appearance, published by the A. Roman 

 Publishing Company at San Francisco. The 

 first number offers a varied list of articles, 

 among which " The Pacific Coast and Geo- 

 detic Surveys " and " Physical and Moral 

 Influence of the Vine " are of scientific in- 

 terest. 



