Bihliogrnphical Notice, ' 381 



under his charge. If others, beside myself, hold a sceptical 

 opinion as to the universal efficacy of this operation, we have 

 at least the satisfaction of knowing that the " types " are 

 contained where they can be examined, and where possiblv 

 at some future day a few of them at least may be relegated 

 back to what we are heretical enough to think is their more 

 proper position. 



BIBLIOGRA.PHICAL NOTICE. 



Evolnfion without Natural Selection ; or, the Segregation of Species 

 withont the Aid of the Darwinian Hgpothesis. I3y Charles 

 Dixon. Small 8vo. London : E.. H. Porter, 1885. 



In all matters of opinion, in politics, philosophy, and religion, we 

 find the partisans of one view or the other in possession of certain 

 cabalistic terms or phrases which are supposed by them to settle all 

 difficulties. It would be hard upon the naturalists to be without a 

 shibboleth of this kind, and accordingly since the publication of 

 Mr. Darwin's ' Origin of Species ' the term " Natural Selection " 

 adopted by that great naturalist has been freely employed by a 

 great number of his followers as a formula of this nature. In all 

 questions relating to species and their affinities disputes were con- 

 sidered to be closed by the use of this mysterious expression, and it 

 is no doubt in opposition to this employment of the term " Natural 

 Selection " that Mr. Dixon has produced the little book of which the 

 title stands at the head of this article. Unfortunately, however, 

 the author does not seem to have realized more clearly than his^ 

 presumed opponents the precise sense in which the phrase was used 

 by Darwin. From the whole construction of the volume on the 

 ' Origin of Species ' and the line of argument followed in it the 

 meaning attached to the term in the mind of its originator is 

 perfectly clear. Starting from the demonstration of the produc- 

 tion, in the case of domestic animals, of a set of varieties so 

 widely differing in character that if met with in nature they would 

 certainly have been regarded as distinct species, these extreme 

 varieties having been produced by the deliberate selective action of 

 man, taking advantage of comparatively small accidental differences, 

 Darwin proceeded to show that an analogous process may very well 

 have occurred in nature, and being, in the lapse of time, carried 

 even still further, may have given origin to true species in the 

 physiological sense of the term. And " artificial " or " methodical 

 selection " by man having been shown to be the cause of the great 

 variations in certain domestic animals, he somewhat metaphorically 

 employed the term " Natural Selection " to express the sum of the 

 actions upon which he considered the origin of still wider variations 

 in nature to depend. But Natural Selection in the Darwinian 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xvii. 26 



