30 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
popular idea of the origin of species. It is a playing with terms, and 
a sophistical abuse of logic to transfer the argumeut derived from 
changes occurring accidentally or produced by design in the varieties 
of a species, to the imagined ¢ransmutation of one species into another. 
No argument based upon such confusion is of the slightest scientific 
value. 
e are, however, going beyond our purpose, in criticizing indepen- 
dently this ipeum Our intention was to say a word or two on 
the ** examination " of it before us. 
The author of this volume deals with the position taken up in the 
‘Origin of Species,’ in two ways :—first, as an argument, and then as 
an exposition of natural phenomena. It is seldom that the logical 
the observational faculties occur equally powerful in the same 
individual. When they do, their possessor stands out as a founder or 
restorer of science, as in the case of Robert Brown. Generally, 
we find the one overpowering or dwarfing the other. And no 
better examples of this could be adduced than the Author and * Ex- 
aminer" of the Darwinian theory. Darwin is a close, a keen, an un- 
surpassed observer of nature, but his defects are at once apparent 
when he begins to argue; in his premises he confounds things which 
differ, ane, draws conclusions not covered by his data. His “ Ex- 
aminer,” on the other hand, is at home with premises, syllogisms, and 
conclusions; he can estimate the value of an argument, and detect its 
fallacies ; but when he steps beyond this and deals with scientific facts, 
he at once shows his defects. Had he confined his examination to 
the logical aspect of Darwin’s position, his book would have been a 
success. His early chapters contain a complete and withering expo- 
sition of the logical fallacies which everywhere abound in the ‘ Origin 
of Species.’ 
Unfortunately the author has disfigured his pages by the intro- 
duction of a weak and often obscure sarcasm. He has taken as his 
model that remarkable article of Sedgwick’s, which appeared in the 
‘Edinburgh Review’ some twenty years ago, and which gave the 
deathblow to the “ Vestiges.” Had he been able to wield the weapon 
as powerfully as his master, it would have added force to his position ; 
but Sedgwick’s sarcasm is natural, obvious, and concise, while that in 
this work has the opposite defects. Whatever advantage there may 
be in gaining the public ear, is more than lost in a scientific argument 
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