,774 MODIFICATIONS OP ASPECTS OF ORGANIC NATURE 



destructive agencies, neither, if he had, would that, as it seems 

 to me, prove that, ' though ^ living in physical nature he is not of 

 her, that he is of more exalted parentage, and belongs to a higher 

 order of existences.' He is not, in strictness of language, a ' cosmic,* 

 a ' telluric,' a 'geological,' nor a 'supernatural agency.' He may 

 ultimately obtain, as prophesied by Mr. Wallace ^j such a mastery 

 of the dry land as to supersede on that portion of the world's 

 surface the agency of natural selection ; but he cannot even there 

 effect cosmical changes in the climate, and as regards the sea, it is 

 possible enough, as Mr. Moseley has suggested on the two con- 

 cluding pages of his ' Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger ^^ 

 that when the present races of animals, plants, and men shall 

 have perished, the deep-sea animals, at least, if not those of 

 higher levels, ' will very possibly remain unchanged from their 

 present condition ^.' 



* Marsh, I.e., p. 34. ^ 'Natural Selection/ p. 326. 



^ Having been compelled to express dissent from Mr. Marsh's suggestion as to the 

 phosphorescence of the Mediterranean having been a less striking phenomenon in 

 ancient than it is in modern times, I cannot forbear to pay my poor meed of thanks to 

 this w^riter for the pleasure and instruction which his works have afforded me. The 

 * Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere ' of Herr Victor Hehn resembles Mr. Marsh's work 

 in dealing with the subject of man's action on organic nature in a way which attracts 

 the attention and stimulates the thought at once of the politician, of the literary man, 

 and of the man of science. I expressed my opinion upon the merits of the first edition 

 of this work in the 'Academy* of August 15, 1872. A third edition of it appeared in 

 1877, considerably enlarged and improved. And it may be observed that, for dealing 

 at all adequately with this subject, and indeed for avoiding very gross blundering in 

 so dealing with it, a man must have some knowledge not only of purely scientific 

 subjects, of the facts of history on the large scale, and of the results at least of 

 philological inquiry, but also of the power which commercial legislation and com- 

 mercial enterprise have for altering the distribution of the various vegetable and 

 animal articles of trade ; otherwise he may fall, as some have fallen, into the error of 

 supposing commercial results to have been produced by changes in the laws, not of 

 man, but of climate. I make this remark for, among other purposes, that of intro- 

 ducing another remark to the effect that it is much to be regretted a fresh edition of 

 Bureau de la Malle's ' Economic Politique des Romains ' should not be brought out 

 in these days : it is a work of permanent value, though it bears the date of 1 840. As 

 works of a more exclusively scientific character, but still easily intelligible to persons 

 possessed of a mastery of the rudiments of botany and zoology, and of cardinal import- 

 ance in researches such as these, I will specify : — 



De Candolle, 'Geographic Botanique raisonn^e,' 1855. 



Unger's ' Botanische Streifzuge,' in the ' Sitzungsberichte ' of the Vienna Academy 

 from 1857 to 1859 inclusively. 



Isidore Geofiroy St. Hilaire, * Histoire Naturelle G^ndrale des Rfegnes Organiques,' 

 torn, iii., 1862. 



K. E. von Baer, 'Reden und Studien aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften,' four 



