THE SCOPE AND PRINCIPLES OF THE 

 EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY.* 



SixcE the interesting biological lectures of our last 

 year's course Avere delivered, a noteworthy contribution has 

 been made to that department of evolutional;}' thought, by 

 the publication of Alfred Eussel Wallace's " Darwinism : 

 An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with 

 some of its Applications." A co-discoverer with Charles 

 Darwin of the law of Xatural Selection, Mr. Wallace re- 

 sembles him as a writer in the simplicity and lucidity of 

 his style ; and the wealth of facts with which he has illus- 

 trated his discussion of the subject, indicating the utmost 

 patience and thoroughness of research, is nowhere equaled 

 save in those epoch-making books which indicated Darwin 

 as the foremost naturalist of his own, or, perhaps it Avould 

 not be too much to say, of any time. 



Writing thirty years after the publication of "The 

 Origin of Species," and in the light of all the objections 

 Avhich have been brought against the theory of Xatural 

 Selection, Mr. Wallace declares that Darwin " did his work 

 so well that ' descent with modification ' is now universally 

 accepted in the organic world; and the rising genera- 

 tion of naturalists can hardlv realize the novelty of this 

 idea, or that their fathers considered it a scientific heresy 

 to be condemned rather than seriously discussed." In the 

 defense of "Xatural Selection " as the fundamental law of 

 biological evolution, jNIr. Wallace is even more of a Dar- 

 winian than Darwin himself — showing, it would seem con- 

 clusively, that many of those variations which Darwin 

 attributed to sexual selection, can be explained by natural 

 selection, including nearly all those brilliant colors in the 

 ornamentation of male birds and animals which Darwin 

 assigned to the choice or preference of the female. 



Mr. Wallace also trenchantly criticises the su})posed luw 

 of use and disuse as aifecting biological evolution, — the so- 

 called "Lamarckian factor," — the importance of which 

 * Copyright, 1880, by Jaiues H. West. 



