214 THE AMERICAN... MIDLAND NATURALIST. 
one of the upholders of the evolutionary origin of the inorganic world 
as well as the organic world.” 
Dorlodot thinks that Darwin did not go far enough and that if we 
follow the Fathers of the Church, we must go further and accept absolute 
natural evolution. He himself is not quite ready to go that far. In 
fact, after reading this book, one is not quite clear as to the exact posi- ° 
tion of the author. — 
A final example of the author’s method will not be out of place. On 
page 89 there is a statement to the effect that it is unreasonable to say 
that the ovum of a given species cannot develop without fertilization 
because to-day, the eggs of sea urchins are hatched parthenogenetically. 
The fact of the parthenogenetic development of sea urchin eggs, as also 
the eggs of other animals, will not be denied by any present-day biologist. 
But from the hatching of an ovum to the origin of an animal from no 
ovum at all is a pretty far cry. It is also suggested—page 90—that 
“conditions for spontaneous generation of certain animals may have been 
present in the first ages of the world which are no longer present to-day.” 
The author seems here to forget entirely that the one point which is 
stressed throughout the whole book is that the same natural laws are 
operative now as were operative in the beginning. 
It seems to us that, on the whole, this book is not deserving of the 
importance that some press notices attach to it. The entire ground 
covered in the book has been covered,—and in our opinion much more 
thoroughly,—thirty years ago by the Rev. Dr. John A. Zahm, C. S. C., 
in his “Evolution and Dogma.” Dorlodot’s book is brief and concise. But 
it contains merely the old materials worked over. We _ discovered 
nothing new. 
FRANCIS. J. WENNINGER, C. S. C., M. S. 
