Sept. 28, I? 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



343 



It is a curious fact that no ruminant animal can be 

 admitted into this class ; pet lambs, kids, fawns, etc., 

 always grow vicious as they reach maturity, and have 

 to be consigned to the butcher. 



■ — *^5»i^.^5«?-t 



English Worthies. Edited by Andrew Lang. — Charles 

 Darwin, by Grant Allen. London : Longmans, 

 Green and Co. 



Some time must still elapse before Darwin will have 

 received finally and definitely his position in the history 

 of science. If evolution among minds which from 

 training are capable of judging rightly, be hailed as 

 victorious along the whole line, Darwinism proper, which 

 refers the origin of species to " natural selection," is less 

 unreservedly accepted than was the case twenty years 

 ago. Even the intellectual calibre and the moral 

 character of the great biologist are still a subject of 

 dispute. In strange contrast to the estimates formed 

 by Huxley, Romanes, and the author of the work before us, 

 we find the censures of S. Butler and Oswald Dawson, 

 who fiercely accuse him of insincerity, hypocrisy, and of 

 appropriating without acknowledgment the ideas of 

 others. 



It is sad that such differences cannot be for ever 

 decided. Mr. Grant Allen is well qualified to write the 

 scientific biography of his master. He represents ortho- 

 dox Darwinism, and represents it most ably. So fully 

 is he master of the art of. charming to slumber the 

 watchful dragons of British Philistinism, that to him is 

 very largely due the acceptance which the doctrine of 

 development now finds among the educated public. His 

 general appreciation of Darwin's relation to his fore- 

 runners and his contemporaries is throughout masterly, 

 often brilliant. We cannot, however, in all cases accept 

 his views as here put forward. Thus he writes : — 

 "From time immemorial, in modern Christendom at 

 least, it had been the general opinion of learned and 

 simple alike, that every species of plant or animal owed 

 its present form and its original existence to a distinct 

 act of special creation." That such an opinion prevailed 

 in the last century we fully admit. That it had been 

 from time immemorial generally accepted, we dispute. 

 Mechanical creation is not to be found in the Church 

 fathers, and seems to have taken its rise with Milton, 

 Ray, and Raphael. 



To certain remarks on Lamarck we must also take 

 exception. Says our author : — " A bold, acute, and 

 vigorous thinker, with something of the vivid Celtic poetic 

 imagination, Lamarck went to the very root of the matter, 

 etc." Now, if Mr. Grant Allen will examine, he will find 

 that the opposition to evolution and to Darwin's reforms 

 has been headed by men of Celtic nationality ! 



We notice with regret that Oken is here under-valued. 

 Had Mr. Allen ever heard Oken lecture, or conversed 

 with him, he would have found something other than 

 " fanciful parodies of the Lamarckian hypothesis." 



We notice the author speaking with scant respect of 

 biological specialists. The butterfly-catchers and plant- 

 hunters of the world can only be convinced by long and 

 patient accumulations of facts. ... It was easy 

 enough to gain the ready adhesion of non -biological but 

 kindred (?) minds like Leslie Stephen's and John 

 Morley's; these might all, perhaps, have been readily 

 convinced by far less heavy and crushing artillery than 



that so triumphantly marshalled in the "Origin cf 

 Species." But why ? Because the biological specialists 

 knew hundreds of difficulties which to men of the Leslie 

 Stephen and John Morley type were unknown, and 

 therefore non-existent ! All the same Mr. Grant Allen 

 admits that it is with the biological specialists that the 

 practical acceptance or rejection of such a theory must 

 ultimately rest. Perhaps, also, he forgets that the opposi- 

 tion to the new natural history was due not to working 

 biologists, but to divines, ethicists, novelists, and other 

 outsiders. 



In the outset of Chapter VI. we find Alfred Russell 

 Wallace spoken of as "a young Welsh biologist." Was 

 this in anything beyond the accident of birth ? 



Much of what the author says on the " Malthusian 

 principle " we must reject, as not in accordance with facts. 



Very captivating is Mr. Grant Allen's summary of the 

 fate of former philosophies which had ignored develop- 

 ment. " Dogmatic Comte was left forthwith to his little 

 band of devoted adherents ; shadowy Hegel was rele- 

 gated with a bow to the cool shades of the common rooms 

 of Oxford ; Buckle was exploded like an inflated wind- 

 bag ; even Mill himself was felt instinctively to be lack- 

 ing in full appreciation of the dynamic and kinetic 

 element in universal nature." 



There are here points many on which issue might be 

 joined ; others, still more numerous, which might be 

 brought into approving notice. But lack of space forbids, 

 just as, perhaps, it has prevented the author from un- 

 folding the causes of the general rejection of evolution in 

 France, not as elsewhere by divines or ethicists, but by 

 bureaucratic savants. 



The Journal of the Franklin Institute. Vol. cxxvi., Nos. 

 751 and 752. 



The most interesting paper in these two numbers is 

 that on " Sanitary Science in the Home," by Mrs. R. H. 

 Richards. The author concedes that " sanitary science " 

 —she might better have said " sanitary art " — may be 

 traced back for 2,000 years, to the hygienic formula of 

 Hippocrates, " Pure air, pure water, and a pure soil." 

 But it seems very probable that the hygienic precepts to 

 be found in the Pentateuch and in the sacred books of 

 the Buddhists are fragments of a knowledge of the laws 

 of health fully on a level with our own, and greatly in 

 advance of our present practice. 



Mrs. Richards insists on sanitary reforms as being to 

 a great extent an attempt to counteract the evils resulting 

 from the existence and the increase of great cities. 

 Whilst recognising the general correctness of this view, 

 we must not forget that intensely, desperately unsanitary 

 conditions may and actually do prevail in small villages 

 and in scattered dwellings, be they baronial halls or 

 labourers' cottages. The author, however, seems to us 

 to misinterpret the crowding of population into urban 

 districts. She quotes from a story by George W. Calle 

 this remarkable passage : " They had done that dreadful 

 thing which everybody deprecates and everybody likes 

 to do — left the country and come to live in the city." 

 Now, this view, as far as Britain is concerned, is a mis- 

 take. With us everybody does not " like " to come to 

 live in the city. The stream flowing townwards con- 

 sists of the poor who cannot find employment in the 

 rural districts, or who fancy that in London they may 

 earn higher wages. At the same time there is a stream 

 of the wealthy flowing outwards, leaving the town and 

 going to live in the country. We distinctly recognise 



