380 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



would be in historic times, when they are especially bred and 

 trained and cultivated by man's care. Yet they fall hopelessly 

 short ; they get no nearer, except as man may get nearer the stars 

 by going upstairs. Is this because Nature has fallen off in her 

 variability, being no longer young ? Then natural selection is not 

 enough for evolution, but we need a certain indwelling potentiality. 

 Whence came this potentiality ? The teleologist will call it, with 

 all respect to Mr. Grant Allen, " a creative nisus." 



Again, man is a free being. Or has Darwin shown that he is 

 not ? But how can freewill have grown out of the necessary 

 evolution of matter ? 



These are some of the doubts of a teleologist touching the 

 Darwinian formularies. They form part of his scientific plea for 

 still holding the old faith to be better than the new. The worship 

 of God the Creator has survived the discovery that the stars are 

 not animals, and that they are not borne about by angels. Our 

 idea of God's majesty has even gained by dropping epicycles and 

 geocentricism. Teleologists will yet "baptize" Darwin, as they 

 baptized Aristotle in the thirteenth century, and classical literature 

 in the sixteenth. They will accept as much evolution as is capable 

 of proof, and glorify God Who planted the germ and primitive 

 potentiality. They will yet, as Kingdon Clifford once dreaded they 

 would, seize all the glories of modern science and weave them into 

 a crown for the Creator and Eedeemer of men. 



Joseph Eickaby. 



Supplement to the Flora of Norfolk. By Eev. Kikby Tkuimer, 

 A.B. London : Jarrold. [1885J pp. vii. 73. 5s. 6d. 



Flowers and Ferns of Cromer and its neiqhhoiirhood. By B. A. F. 

 PiGOTT. London : Jarrold. [1885] pp. 100. 2s. 6d. 



Botany. By Herbert D. Geldart. Eeprinted from Mason's 

 'History of Norfolk,' [1884] 4to, pp. 14. 



The most noteworthy feature of Mr. Kir by Trimmer's book 

 (apart from its very high price) is his arrangement, with descrip- 

 tions, of the Norfolk mints. Norfolk has been rendered the 

 classical county for meuthologists by Smith and Sole, and Mr. 

 Trimmer has evidently very carefully studied these interesting but 

 puzzling plants, inasmuch as he speaks of his collection as con- 

 taining about a hundred and fifty specimens of M, hirsuta alone. 

 These he groups under six " forms," designated by the Greek 

 letters, each being carefully described. He mentions a plant of 

 M. alopecuruides which, "when gathered, measured 4 ft. 3^^ in. in 

 height." The Mints occupy thirteen pages — more than one-sixth 

 of the whole work ; and the care which ]\Ir. Trimmer has bestowed 

 on them makes us regret that other genera have not received a 

 share of his attention. An interesting note on a habitat of 

 Spiranthi's autuiiinalis is worth quoting : — " In the autumn of 1869 

 I met with this plant in St. Mary's Island, Scilly, growing abun- 

 dantly in a very remarkable situation, namely, in the crevices and 



