REVIEWS—ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 367 
educational information in common, the French and English journals 
are quite distinct, though each characterized by the same commenda-. 
ble effort to adapt it to the special tastes and sympathies of its readers. 
Indeed a local interest and a Canadian feeling of a healthful kind 
pervade both Journals. Bishop Laval, the Hon. James McGill, Gen- 
erals Brock, Wolfe, and Montcalm ; Jacques Cartier, Champlain, and 
other notable names interestingly associated with the early history 
of the province, are introduced to the reader in connexion with his-. 
torical narratives of discoveries made, Colleges founded, or victories 
won on Canadian soil. The illustrative wood-cuts are also appro- 
priate, and well executed; including views of the most important 
public buildings of Lower Canada, of its monuments, and some of its 
most striking city scenes. The Editors also merit the high com-. 
mendation of aiming at the very difficult achievement of dealing in 
an impartial and unsectarian spirit with the questions of education, 
which in the Lower Province are affected: by elements of language, 
race, and creed, very partially felt in Upper Canada. 
Feeling as we do, how greatly some means is required for getting 
hold of the whole population of Lower Canada, and developing among 
the peopie feelings of a common sympathy and interest in the spirit of 
intelligent progress which is at work in the great centres of our pub- 
he provincial life, we cordially wish success to both Educational 
Journals, and shali welcome new evidences of improvement, such as 
we have good reason for anticipating, with each succeeding volume. 
D. W. 
On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the 
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. By 
Charles Darwin, M.A., &c.. London, John Murray, 1860. 
The idea of a species as conceived by most minds, is that of a 
distinct and independent creation, capable of continuing itself 
unchanged in all its fundamental characters, although subject to 
’ partial modification by the influence of external agencies. It is be- 
lieved, moreover, by those who hold this view, that all our living species 
having been thus separately created from the beginning of the 
existing geological age or present condition of things, no real species 
(id est, a type-form capable of continuing itself) has originated, or is 
capable of being originated, by the intermixture of two distinct 
