280 Revieivs — Lowne's Philosophy of Evolution. 



clansman's Fiery Cross, it has been passed from Natural History to 

 Physics, from Physics to Morals, to Language, to Intellect, and for 

 some time it has claimed to throw light on the religions of the world, 

 and to be the key to the tangled mysteries of Theology. It is 

 natural, therefore, both that the world should be judged ripe for an 

 essay on the Philosophy of Evolution, and that the author should 

 attempt the more than Herculean task of showing, by help of some 

 department of science, how illustrative it is of the wisdom and bene- 

 ficence of the Almight}'-. Of course there are those who think that 

 the attributes of the Infinite are neither amenable to human criti- 

 cism, or in need of friendly essays " in such departments of science 

 as the Committee of the Royal Institution " think fit, that " its 

 excellence may be known in all the earth." The author is not as 

 one of these. Prizes of a thousand guineas enabled Buckland, 

 Whewell, and the best philosophers of the Bridgwater School, to 

 show with splendid eloquence that the sciences which they adorned 

 were in harmony, not only with the wisdom and beneficence of the 

 Almighty, but also with the revealed doctrine of Creation. Yet 

 such are the laws of supply and demand that now, for exactly one- 

 tenth of the sum which those men received, authors, wanting in 

 neither knowledge nor writing power, come forward to show that 

 not in Creation but in Evolution i« the wisdom and goodness of the 

 Creator. We do not quarrel with the later author for his under- 

 taking, for we cannot but rank his work among those minor miracles 

 with which the system of writing for prizes rather than with the 

 selfless enthusiasm of science, may exemplify the processes of man's 

 evolution. Method of treatment may ennoble the most cantankerous 

 subject; but the author's position towards his reader is almost 

 unique. In the preface we learn that "he does not expect to con- 

 vert any to a belief in Evolution," but only aims at furnishing 

 reasons for accepting that hypothesis to those who, having read 

 Darwin. Sioencei', and others, accept the doctrine as established. This 

 description we can only apply to those who gather fashionable beliefs 

 out of circulating libraries, and lack time or ability to possess them- 

 selves of an author's arguments. To such readers the book is to be 

 commended, if, indeed, they find they need it ; for it contains a good 

 summary of the teachings of " Darwin, Spencer, and others," though 

 even the others are innocent of many of the hypotheses with which 

 the author strives to state the great hypothesis of Evolution, in its 

 bearings on Natural History. The book claims, however, to do this 

 from " the point of view of a physiologist as well as of a naturalist," 

 as though physiology were not the basis of Natural History ; but we 

 discover no physiological acumen, or more than ordinary power of 

 suction from the usixal sources of information. We are far from 

 denying that the work has merits, and had it been printed with a 

 less exalted title, and free from theological ornament and loose 

 speculation, it might have had claim to the kindly consideration of 

 the general reader ; but as the philosophy of Evolution, it fails in 

 never rising to a Kosmic conception of the subject, and therefore 

 leaves Evolution, not a philosophy, but an hypothesis. 



