"wa bye VLE WS 
MODERN IDEAS or Dertvation.* — This felicitous title heads an equally 
expressive and concise summary of the vàrious theories on the origin of 
vain treated by the strong hand of an accomplished and veteran 
observer. 
Prof essor Dawson recognizes that nodes has given form and cohe- 
ncy to researches upon the origin of species, but omits one very impor- 
fine consideration, to which we think the Pieta effect of his book is dii. 
The novel and exact methods of investigation, the analytical character 
of the book powerfully influenced a much arger class of minds than 
reptiles (Iguanodons) and the ostriches. ** Yet," writes Professor Daw- 
son, ** he could not have placed together any two members of the ew OE 
series inel hel. ten: any naturalist that an enormous gap had t 
filled between them.” The views of Darwin are summed up as pa ds 
“That all otganized beings are engaged in a struggle fo r existence; that 
in this struggle certain varieties arise, which, being better suited to the 
grins prosper and multiply more than others: that this pad to 
a ‘Natural Selection,’ similar in kind to the artificial selection of breeders 
of ick: that members of the same species isolated from each other . 
and subjected to struggles of different kinds, will in process of time 
become specifically distinct.” 
nae Dawson objects to this theory for several reasons. The most 
important are that **conditions which involve a struggle for SRR 
by 
breeders for their purposes,” and that the possibilities of geological his- 
tory are exceeded by the enormous time demanded by Darwin for accom- 
plishing the developmental change from one species to another. 
Seemingly no worse or more contradictory comparison could be made 
 *Modern Ideas of Derivation. By Principal J. W. Dawson, LL. D. Canadian Naturalist, 
Vol. iv, No. 2. June, 1869, 
(230 
