ii Some of the " Best Books " on Animal Life 367 



arguments which show that the animals and plants now alive are 

 descended from simpler ancestors, these from still simpler, and 

 so on back into the mists of life's beginnings. To realise that the 

 present is child of the past is to realise the fact of Evolution, and 

 the surest way to grasp the biological verification of this fact is to 

 undertake a. course of practical study. Failing this, we must, I 

 suppose, read up the subject. Romanes's Evidences of Evolution 

 (Nature Series, Lond.) gives a convenient statement of the case, 

 and his Rosebery Lectures will be more exhaustive. Clodd's 

 Story of Creation: a plain account of Evolution (Lond., 1888) 

 sums up the evidence in small compass ; another very terse state- 

 ment will be found in H. De Varigny's Experimental Evolution 

 (Lond., 1892); Haeckel's Natural History of Creation (Berlin, 

 1868) — the most popular of his works, now in its eighth edition 

 (Jena, 1890) — is available in translation (Lond., 1879); Huxley's 

 American Addresses (Lond., 1877) have even greater charm of 

 style ; Carus Sterne's Werden und Vergehen (3rd ed., Berlin, 

 1886) is perhaps the best of all popular expositions; while the 

 thorough student will find most satisfaction in the relevant 

 portions of Darwin's Origin of Species, and Spencer's Principles 

 of Biology. 



History of Evolution Theories.— As the idea of Evolution 



is very ancient, and as it was expounded in relation to ^animal life 

 by many competent naturalists before Darwin's intellectual coin 

 became current throughout the . world, it is unwise that students 

 should restrict their reading to Darwinian and post-Darwinian 

 literature. The student of Evolution should know how Buffon, 

 Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, Treviranus, the St. Hilaires, Goethe, 

 even Robert Chambers, and many other pre-Darwinians dealt with 

 the problem. Those who desire to preserve their sense of historical 

 justice should read one or more of the following : Huxley's article 

 on " Evolution " in the Encyclopedia Brilannica ; Samuel Butler's 

 interesting volume on Evolution Old and New (Lond., 1879); 

 Perrier's Philosophic Zoologique avant Darwin (Paris, 1884) ; the 

 historical chapters of Haeckel's Natural History of Creation ; 

 Carus's Geschichte der Zoologie, and some other historical works 

 already referred to (p. 355) ; A. de Candolle's Histoire des 

 Sciences et des Savants depuis deux SiZcles (Geneve, Bale, 1883); 

 Carus Sterne's (Ernst Krause's) excellent work, Die Allgemeine 

 Weltanschauung. (Stuttgart, 1889); De Quatrefages, Charles 

 Darwin et ses pricurseurs francais (Paris, 1870). 



Darwinism. — The best account of the Darwinian theory of 

 Evolution, especially of the theory of natural selection which 

 Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently elabo- 

 rated, is Wallace's Darwinism (Lond., 1889). From this the 



