1868.] NEWBERRY. — SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. 287 



been lost. Among the advocates of a multiplicity of species and 

 diversity of origin we have from Blumenbach to Agassiz almost 

 every number between fifteen and three as that of distinct species 

 of the human race, scarcely any two writers advocating the same 

 number. We may, therefore, very fairly infer that the facts upon 

 which their conclusions are founded are not of a very clear and 

 unmistakeable character. 



The subject of the origin of the human race brings us into the 

 domain of zoology, and opens the wide question of the origin of 

 species, which, of late years, has been shaking the moral and 

 intellectual world as by an earthquake. While the various writers 

 upon the origin of the human race were gathering with so much 

 industry, and reporting with so much eloquence, the proofs of a 

 diversity of origin, the Darwinian hypothesis comes in and refers, 

 not only all the human family, but all classes of animals and 

 plants, to an initial point in a nucleated cell. 



It would be impossible for any one to discuss, in a fair and 

 intelligent manner, the great question of the origin of species, in 

 anything less than a bulky volume. The merest mention is, 

 therefore, all we can give to it at the present time. Although 

 the appearance of Darwin's book on the Origin of Species com- 

 municated a distinct shock to the prevalent creeds, both religious 

 and scientific, the hypothesis which it suggests, though now for 

 the first time distinctly formularized, was by no means new ; as it 

 enters largely into the less clearly stated development theories of 

 Oken, Lamarck, De Maillet, and the author of the Yestiges of 

 Creation. There was this difference, however, that in the develop- 

 mental theories of the older writers the element of evolution had a 

 place; the process of development had its main spring in an 

 inherent growth, or tendency, such as produces the evolution of 

 the successive parts in plant-life, while, according to Darwin, the 

 beautiful symmetry and adaptation" which we see in nature is 

 simply the form assumed by plastic matter in the mold of external 

 circumstances. 



Although this Darwinian hypothesis is looked upon by many as 

 striking at the root of all vital faith, and is the bete noire of all 

 those who deplore and condemn the materialistic tendency of 

 modern science, still the purity of life of the author of the Origin 

 of Species, his enthusiastic devotion to the study of truth, the 

 industry and acumen which have marked his researches, the 

 candor and caution with which his suggestions have been made, 



