378 Notices of Books. [July, 
dispensation of Providence to eliminate the weak and imperfect, 
and thus purify the earth, in order to save us from becoming a 
race of pigmies, of sickly dwarfs, and eventually dying out.” 
It is distressing, and at the same time incomprehensible, how 
any man who has enjoyed any rudiments even of a scientific 
training can give vent to such an unscientific outbreak of grati- 
tude. Pulmonary consumption prevails mostly during the prime 
of life, and» numbers of its victims have consequently, before 
they are carried off, become parents! If it were the plan 
of Providence “to eliminate the weak and imperfect,” the 
disease, surely, ought to occur in early childhood ; or, better 
still, the first symptom of debility in any organism would be the 
cessation, temporary or permanent, of the reproductive power. 
But we often find that sickly beings, both animal and vegetable, 
are more prolific than the healthy. Shall we never be able to 
free ourselves from the delusions of teleology ? 
We can only hope that our voice may be, at any rate, of some 
little service in securing for Dr. Churchill that candid hearing 
which is all he demands. 
Text-Book of Botany, Morphological and Physiological. By 
Jutius Sacus, Professor of Botany in the University of 
Wirzburg. Translated and Annotated by A. W. BENNETT 
and W. T. TuistLeToN Dyer. London; Macmillan and Co, 
Ir has been insinuated, somewhat wickedly, that since the disuse 
of the Linnean system Botany has become much less popular 
among ladies than it was heretofore. The change, indeed, is 
complete. We can imagine a botanist of the old school whose 
highest ambition it was to collect specimens from our scanty 
British flora, and to ascertain their names according to an artifi- 
cial system, feeling bewildered at a work such as the one before 
us. He would find classification no longer the be-all and end-all 
of plant-lore, developed rather in its fundamental principles than 
in the minutie of detail. He would find species grouped to- 
gether, not with regard to one single set of organs, but in 
accordance with their entire structure and the laws of their evo- 
‘lution. Had he the patience and perseverance to study the 
volume, he would be bound to confess that the botany of the 
present, if making larger demands upon the faculties of his 
votaries than did the botany—we might say the herbalism—of 
the past, it rewards their exertions in a far more bountiful 
manner. 
The work of Professor Sachs is so thorough-going, so com- 
plete, and presents the results of the most recent investigators 
in such a clear and intelligible manner, that criticism becomes 
almost superfluous. We have certainly no English work which 
