74 



NA TURE 



[May 22, 1884 



we shall give a few quotations from the book, in order to 

 show at once the tone of thinking which more or less 

 pervades the whole, and the pleasing style in which it is 

 conveyed. 



" There are some considerations on the very threshold 

 of the question which appear to throw the balance of like- 

 lihood strongly on the side of natural causes, however 

 difficult it may be to say what these causes were. The 

 production of the organic world is, we see, mixed up with 

 the production of the physical. It is mixed in the sense 

 of actual connection and dependence, and it is mixed in 

 regard to time, for the one class of phenomena com- 

 menced whenever the other had arrived at a point which 

 favoured or admitted of it ; life, as it were, pressed in as 

 soon as there were suitable conditions, and, once it had 

 commenced, the two classes of phenomena went on, hand 

 in hand, together. It is surely very unlikely, a priori, 

 that in two classes of phenomena, to all appearance per- 

 fectly coordinate, and for certain intimately connected, 

 there should have been two totally distinct modes of the 

 exercise of tin- divine power" &c. (p. 14S). 



" There is certainly no express reason to suppose thai, 

 although life had been imparted by natural means after 

 the first cooling of the surface to a suitable temperature, 

 it would have continued thereafter to be capable of being 

 imparted in like manner. . . . We are rather to expect 

 that the vital phenomena presented to our eye should 

 mainly, if not entirely, be limited to a regular and un- 

 varying succession of races by the ordinary means of 

 generation. This, however, is no more an argument 

 against a time when phenomena of the first kind pre- 

 vailed, than it would be proof against the fact of a mature 

 man having once been a growing youth that he is now 

 seen growing no longer " (p. 168). 



Notwithstanding this, however, the writer immediately 

 begins coquetting with a number of very seductive facts 

 and considerations in favour of spontaneous — or, as he 

 more correctly terms it, " non-parental generation." In 

 particular he lays great stress upon the " Crossian experi- 

 ment " of producing acari by the action of a voltaic bat- 

 tery on a solution of silicate of potash. And here we have 

 a very good special illustration of the difference between 

 Chambers and Darwin. The former, as a literary man, 

 states the experiments, weighs the evidence which they 

 yield, and, without actually accepting the fact as proved, 

 is on the whole strongly disposed to believe it. The latter, 

 as a man of science, would have spent a lifetime in veri- 

 fying so all-important a fact, even if the evidence of it 

 had appeared to him of but a tenth part of the weight 

 that it appeared to Chambers. Here, however, it is but 

 fair to Chambers, as a literary man, to say that he does 

 not in this place, or anywhere else, attach more than its 

 due value to the evidence of any alleged fact. He merely 

 gives the evidence for what it may be worth, and then 

 passes on. Therefore he is careful to make it clear that 

 whether or not all the considerations which he adduces 

 in favour of " non-parental generation " are valid, the 

 question of its actual occurrence is really a side issue, 

 and does not affect the course of his general argument in 

 favour of the evolution of species by way of " parental 

 generation." This clearness of logical view is further 

 and particularly well displayed in his consideration of 

 Lamarck's theory touching the causes of the evolution of 

 species : although Chambers is exceedingly anxious to 

 find these causes, so that it might "appear as if the clouds 

 were beginning to give way, and the light of simple, un- 

 pretending truth were about to break upon the great 



mystery," yet he critically puts his finger upon the weak 

 points of the theory in question, and ends by dismissing 

 it as inadequate to explain the facts (p. 233 et s t -g.). 



One other quotation may be given as an example of 

 the general common sense which the writer every now 

 and then pours out, like a viscid secretion, wherewith to 

 entangle and render helpless his opponents. 



" It may be well to mark the credulity to which the 

 adherents of immutability must here be reduced. They 

 must believe that the Creator, having a particular regard 

 to the fact of molluscan shells lying useless on the shore, 

 formed, by special care or fiat, a family of crabs to occupy 

 them. They must believe that the roughness of the 

 caudal appendages, the development of suckers along the 

 abdomen, the reduction of the two hind pairs of limbs, 

 and the left pincer-claw, were all subjects for this special 

 care, and were beyond the power of what an eminent 

 geologist calls ' vulgar nature.' Surely the Deus ex 

 machind was never more remarkably exemplified. See, 

 on the other hand, how these facts are accounted for on 

 the development theory. According to this new light, the 

 hermit-crabs are simply a portion of some greater section 

 of the crustacean class. Their peculiarities are modifica- 

 tions from the parent form, brought about in the course 

 of generations, in consequence of an appetency which had 

 led these creatures to seek a kind of shelter in turbinate 

 shells " (p. 54). 



It only remains to say that this, the no doubt final 

 edition of the " Vestiges of Creation," is very prettily got 

 up, and leaves nothing to be desired as to printing, &c. 

 We feel, however, that it would have been well north 

 while to have had the reprint edited by some competent 

 naturalist, who might have inserted footnotes to warn the 

 general reader against the numerous pitfalls which are to 

 be encountered on matters of fact. As it is, the general 

 reader cannot possibly know what he is to accept as 

 scientifically-established truth, and what he is to reject as 

 superseded error. This we think is a pity in the interests 

 of the book itself, because during its author's lifetime the 

 successive editions were successively brought up to date 

 in the matter of keeping pace with the progress of 

 science. Lastly, in the appendix, written by the author 

 himself in reply to criticisms, we must not fail to note 

 the magnanimous temper, dignified style, and forcible 

 reasoning, which contrast so favourably with the opposites 

 of these things in the quotations which he has occasion 

 to make from the more celebrated among his critics. 



George J. Romanes 



NATTERER'S BRAZILIAN MAMMALS 

 Brasilische Sangethiere. Resultate von Johann Natterer's 

 Reisen in den Jahren 1817 bis 1835. Dargestellt von 

 August von Pelzeln. (Wien, 1883.) 



THE collections of the celebrated Brazilian traveller 

 and naturalist, Johann Natterer, owing to his un- 

 timely death shortly after his return to Europe, lay almost 

 unnoticed for many years in the Imperial Cabinet at 

 Vienna. At length Herr August von Pelzeln, after several 

 years' unremitting study of the unrivalled collection of 

 birds, published in 1S71 his " Ornithologie Brasiliens " — 

 well known to ornithologists as one of the most important 

 authorities on the Brazilian avifauna. More recently the 

 same laborious naturalist has devoted his attention to 

 Natterer's mammals, and in the memoir now before us, of 



