LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. XVU 



others give an analysis more or less perfect and more or less con- 

 scientious of the book, but none have appeared to me so good or so 

 clear in this respect as Mr. Darwin's own summaries of his several 

 chapters. 



Amongst the favourable reviews by distinguished men who have 

 more or less adopted Mr. Darwin's views, the best I have seen are 

 those of Dr. Edouard Claparede (who, in the Eevue Germanique for 

 August and September 1861, gives a good summary, dressed up in 

 language very appropriate for a French reader) and, above all, of 

 Dr. Asa Gray, reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, under the title of 

 * Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natiu'al Theolog5\' The 

 chief object of this remarkable dissertation appears to have been the 

 removal of the prejudices excited by religious views ; and the question 

 is no doubt exceedingly well put for the purpose. This is not, how- 

 ever, an aspect under which purely logical argument is likely to be 

 of much avail. His opponents reply that his Natural Theology is 

 not Religion. Our religious instructors have always interpreted or 

 enforced great moral truths by illustrations taken from the physical 

 world ; and these illustrations, in order to have due effect, have ap- 

 plied rather to physical phenomena as generally understood by the 

 community addressed, than as they might be foimd to be in a future 

 and more enlightened age. Thus it is that many errors, Kke the 

 astronomy of the middle ages, have at various times become incor- 

 porated with religious belief. It is therefore a dangerous thing for 

 lay naturahsts to endeavour to reconcile the facts they ascertain with 

 religious traditions. It seems to me much wiser to leave it to theo- 

 logians and churchmen gradually to make themselves so far ac- 

 quainted with the progress of science as to modify accordingly that 

 which is illustrative only in the lessons they teach, separating it 

 in their minds from that which is essential in their doctrines. 



The best objections which I have seen to Mr. Darwin's views on 

 scientific grounds, independently of their ultimate tendency, are un- 

 doubtedly those of F. J. Pictet in the Bibliotheque UniverseUe de 

 Geneve for March 1860, and of Dr. H. G. Bronn in a final chapter 

 of his German translation of the ' Origin of Species ;' but especially 

 the former, which afford a good example of the lucidity of exposition 

 which has characterized many Genevese philosophers. Some of his 

 objections have been taken up by Claparede, Asa Gray, and others, 

 as well as by Darwin himself, who fully admits their force, although 

 he believes them to be outweighed by the counter . arguments by 

 which he has tested his hypothesis. 



In the consideration of the purely argumentative parts of most of 



