226 Reviews — Lei/child's Higher Ministry of Nature. 



of the unknown," we feel that we are beyond our depth, and not 

 having confidence in the author's philosophy, we strike for the 

 shore. 



Under the head of " Definition of Species," the author gives us a 

 cai'efully collected summary of all the leading opinions of what is 

 meant loy the term Species in Natural History (p. 200) ; indeed the 

 book throughout is stored with extracts from Darwin, Lyell, Herbert 

 Spencer, Wallace, Mill, and very many other writers, evidencing the 

 wide extent of the author's reading. 



There are many of the author's conclusions however which we 

 cannot accept ; and some of his assertions are hardly correct. For 

 instance, under the head of " Objection to Darwin's Theory," is the 

 following statement (p. 209) : — 



"A very formidable objection against Darwinism is that a vast 

 number of transitional forms should be apparent as the necessary 

 consequence of the gradual passage of one species into another. 

 Any reader will perceive on reflection that an universal and con- 

 tinuous development of organic beings through a long series of 

 forms, must, if it has been in actual operation, disclose numerous 

 mutations at its various stages, of forms intermediate between two 

 species. Otherwise the connecting links in the living chain would 

 be wanting. Yet there neither is in the organic beings now known 

 to be living on earth, nor in the remains of animals as yet exhumed, 

 a single decided and incontrovertibly admitted instance of a tran- 

 sitional variety." (p. 210.) Again (p. 212), "And that there must 

 have been many such intennediate creatures is manifest, if we 

 look at the great differences between birds and all other vertebrate 

 animals. So great are these that Mr. Darwin remarks, 'We may 

 account for the distinctness of birds from all other vertebrate 

 animals by the belief that many ancient forms of life have been 

 utterly lost.' 



" But where," continues our author, " could these lost forms have 

 been, granting that they ever existed ? They must have been inter- 

 mediate, and must have borne organs in many intermediate and 

 imperfect states ; while any animal approaching to a bird, yet not a 

 bird, any animal with a half-developed wing, together with or with- 

 out other half-developed organs at the same time, must have been a 

 monstrosity, and either in respect of easy motion on the ground or 

 any motion in the air, an inconvenient and painfully existing mon- 

 strosity. A creature between any known vertebrate animal and 

 any known bird, in many and perhaps every preceding stage of 

 development, could not have moved without difficulty or failure ; 

 and such failure must, in most cases, if not in all, have prevented 

 the perfection and completeness of the after-growth and structure. 

 All such imperfections of structure must have been hindrances to 

 freedom of action, and thereby to fulness of growth, and thereby 

 again to success." (p. 218.) 



In reply to the assertion of the general absence of all transitional 

 forms, we will quote two very distinct authorities. 



Prof. Owen, in his Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates, has pointed 

 out that there is a direct line of succession between the tridactyle Eocene 



