146 REVIEWS. 



one material or physical, whether slow or rapid ; the other 

 inherent in the nature of organic beings, incessant, but slow, 

 in a manner latent, but somehow assigning to the species, as 

 to the individuals, a limited period of existence, and, in some 

 equally mysterious but wholly natural way, connected with 

 the development of organic types : — "By type meaning a col- 

 lection of vegetable forms constructed upon the same plan of 

 organization, of which they reproduce the essential lineaments 

 with certain secondary modifications, and which appear to run 

 back to a common point of departure." 



In this community of types, no less than in the community 

 of certain existing species, Saporta recognizes a prolonged 

 material union between North America and Europe in former 

 times. Most naturalists and geologists reason in the same 

 wa y» — som e more cautiously than others, — yet perhaps most 

 of them seem not to perceive how far such inferences imply 

 the doctrine of the common origin of related species. 



For obvious reasons such doctrines are likely to find more 

 favor with botanists than with zoologists. But with both the 

 advance in this direction is seen to have been rapid and great ; 

 yet to us not unexpected. We note, also, an evident disposi- 

 tion, notwithstanding some endeavors to the contrary, to allow 

 derivative hypotheses to stand or fall upon their own merits, 

 — to have indeed upon philosophical grounds certain pre- 

 sumjitions in their favor, — and to be, perhaps, quite as cap- 

 able of being turned to good account as to bad account in 

 natural theology. 1 



1 What the Rev. Principal Tulloch remarks in respect to the philosophy 

 of miracles has a pertinent application here. We quote at second hand : 



" The stoutest advocates of interference can mean nothing more than 

 that the Supreme Will has so moved the hidden springs of nature that a 

 new issue arises on given circumstances. The ordinary issue is supplanted 

 by a higher issue. The essential facts before us are a certain set of phe- 

 nomena, and a Higher Will moving them. How moving them ? is a ques- 

 tion for human definition ; the answer to which does not and cannot affect 

 the divine meaning of the change. Yet when we reflect that this Higher 

 A\ ill is everywhere reason and wisdom, it seems a justcr as well as a more 

 comprehensive view to regard it as operating by subordination and evolu- 

 tion, rather than by interference or violation." 



