478 Literary Notices. 



very strong indeed ; but an immense deal has been done of late 

 years, not only to sbow beyond all doubt that our paheontological 

 record is incomplete ; but that it is imperfect to such an extent that 

 it may be likened to a book from which whole chapters of unknown 

 size, and unknown contents, have been cut out. How many of 

 these chapters we may be able to recover no one can guess, as only 

 a small part of the earth has yet been subjected to accurate exami- 

 nation. We are likewise profoundly ignorant of the physiological 

 causes of hereditary transmission, with or without variation. Dar- 

 winism, therefore, stands in the position of an array of facts, proving 

 the operation of certain principles, but leaving room for conjecture 

 as to the extent of that operation, and its consequent capacity of 

 evolving new forms. Whether, therefore, it be accepted or rejected, 

 the mind should still have its "philosophic doubt," and avoid bigotry 

 with its antagonism to reason, on either one side or the other. As 

 for the religious questions which have been mixed up with this, as 

 with all former innovations upon received modes of thought, they 

 must be subordinated to the love of truth, and to the conviction 

 that whatever method it may have pleased the Creator to adopt in 

 peopling his world, that method must necessarily be one which, when 

 understood, will excite the love and admiration of his rational sub- 

 jects. The testimony of all science is conclusive as to the infinitely 

 small proportion of nature which we can either observe or under- 

 stand ; but there is much to lead us to believe that all parts of the 

 vast whole are bound together by a unity of design, as well as by a 

 unity of origin from one ultimate source of intelligence and power. 

 From the vastness of the Cosmos, human speculation is necessarily 

 imperfect, from insufficiency of information, or from the complexity 

 of the system baffling men's powers of analysis. The readers of 

 Darwin will find many beautiful and amazing instances of the inter- 

 dependence of objects that might have been supposed disconnected ; 

 and no one in whom the religious spirit is active can rise from a 

 perusal of his pages without higher conceptions of the evidence 

 which Natural Theology offers to the mind. 



An Elementary Treatise on Heat. By Balfour Stewart, 

 LL.D., E.R.S., Superintendent of the Kew Observatory, Examiner 

 at the Universities of Edinburgh and London. (Oxford : At the 

 Clarendon Press, mdccclxvi.) — This is by far the most compendious 

 and well- arranged treatise on heat which we have seen, and the 

 best adapted for class-teaching, or private study. It contains an 

 immense amount of well-arranged information, and a clear ex- 

 position of the most recent theories and facts pertaining to its 

 subject. 



An East Introduction to the Higher Treatises of the Conic 

 Sections. By the Rev. John Hunter, M.A. (Longmans.) — This 

 little book, as the author tells us, has resulted from practical expe- 

 rience of the difficulties pupils feel in the study of conic sections, 

 and we have no doubt it will be found of much use to the c!: 

 students for whom it is intended. 



