368 REVIEWS—ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 
types. Such is the general, but not the universal, beliefi>An 
opposite view, dating probably from a very distant period, hasbeen 
brought forward and maintained, from time to time, by many 
philosophic minds. This view is to the effect that what we call 
species, are no independent-creations—at least for the greater part— 
but are simply varieties, arising from the modification of a few 
original types, or, if pushed to its extreme length, of a single 
originally-existing organism. ‘The object of Mr. Darwin’s book is 
to impart an increased vitality and support to this view, by arguments 
based on a large series of facts, the accumulation of many years of 
research ou his own part and on that of other naturalists. The 
present work purports to be merely a general synopsis of the mate- 
tials thus gathered together, and of the results to which their 
consideration tends ; butit is on a sutticiently extended plan to enable 
us to test, fairly, the relative solidity of the structure which its 
facts and arguments support. 
Although an. hypothesis of this kind must naturally seem to those 
who consider the question seriously for the first time, as one wholly 
indefensible and preposterous ; it is nevertheless probable, that, few 
persons have ever made the close contemplation of Nature their study 
for any time, without having experienced, at one period or another, 
the visitation of sundry hauntings of a similar character. When 
we see, for example, certain forms, at first remarkably distinct, 
become more and more closely connected by after-discoveries, until 
the one appears to merge into the other, and our once clear definitions 
beeome no longer tenable; when we see in many species the extra- 
ordinary varieties sometimes produced by the crossing and intercross- 
ing of other varieties ; when we consider the transition stages of foetal 
development, the homologies of organic structure, the presence of 
rudimentary organs in many forms, the marked relations which obtain 
more or less between ali living and extinct types of the same series, 
with other facts of an allied kind—the question becomes forced upon 
us: why is this? Why these relations, these homologies, these tran- 
sition-phases of embryonic development, these rudimentary organs, 
these closely-connected forms, if all species were separate and 
distinct creations? Why, in other words, this recognised unity of 
plan, amidst this variety of structure, unless by the long-contimued 
modification of an original unit-organism? Here, however, we 
merely express our inability to fathom the design of the CrEaToR 
