Notices of New Books. 7609 



considering every difficulty that has occurred to hira. In Chapter XIV., 

 however, we seem merely to get a faint glimmer of what is passing in 

 his mind. The reader has been gradually prepared for something be- 

 yond the conclusions that are previously stated, and we begin to 

 wonder whether man's origin, the question inevitably suggested to 

 every reader of 'The Origin of Species,' has been thought over by 

 Mr. Darwin with the same amount of detail as the origin of brute 

 species. We hope we do him no injustice in saying that there 

 are several passages in Chapter XIV. which seera to hint at some- 

 thing which he dares not openly avow, and point at conclusions 

 which may not be candidly stated. In his retrospective glances he 

 knows not how far to press his theory, and in applying it prospectively 

 there is an equally unsatisfactory indecision, — a quality of which the 

 rest of the work is so characteristically void that we cannot help 

 feeling it is intentional, and that he is shrinking from the open asser- 

 tion of convictions which appear to clash with Revelation. At p. 523 

 (third edition) he says, " In the distant future I see open fields for far 

 more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new founda- 

 tion, that of the necessary acquirement of each mutual power and 

 capacity by gradation ; light will be thrown on*the origin of man and 

 his history. ***** When I view all beings not as special 

 creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived 

 long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they 

 seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past we may 

 safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered 

 likeness to distant futurity. ***** ^^ all the living/arms 

 of life are the lineal descendants of those tvhich lived long before the 

 Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession of 

 generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has 

 desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence 

 to a secure future of equally inappreciable length ; and, as natural 

 selection acts solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal 

 and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection." 



We must confess these passages pain us, because we believe 

 their thoughtful author must have considered their bearing upon 

 Revelation. It is one thing to avoid carping at apparent scientific 

 inaccuracies of the Scriptures and another to carelessly pass by and 

 ignore all reference to Revelation. Everything like detail appears 

 here to be scrupulously avoided ; monkeys and gorillas are unac- 

 countably passed by without notice ; and notwithstanding Mr. Darwin 

 leads us by inference to conclude that he considers the human species 

 VOL. XIX. 2 s 



