132 Reviews and Notices of Books. 
the views of the author of the Vestiges and those of Darwin ; 
and, in consequence, often imputes to the latter the arguments 
used by the former, and to this must be attributed several slips 
he makes in his treatment of the subject, Thus, after quoting a 
passage from Darwin’s work, he says, ‘‘ Here, then, according to 
his own showing, inheritance, external conditions, use and disuse, 
struggle for life, and natural selection are all fulfilling their parts 
as co-factors in one great Jaw; and it is strange that, in the face 
of this admission, he should labour to ascribe to one cause what 
would have been more philosophically and satisfactorily ascribed 
to the many” (p. 211). Now, this is a mere assumption regard- 
ing Darwin’s object, for in the introductory chapters to his work, 
we find him stating, “that natural selection has been the main but 
not exclusive means of modification” (Darwin’s Origin of Species, 
p. 6, 5th 1000). 
Then, again, with reference to the controlling power of the 
Deity, he has misrepresented Darwin by saying, that he ‘‘ appeals 
throughout his argument to chance and nature for all subsequent 
development, as if these blind duties were aught without the 
direction of the same original life-breathing impulse” (p, 211). 
And again still more strongly, in a foot note to p. 197, when, 
along with Lamarck and the Vestiges, he refers “‘to the whole 
tone and tenor of the Origin of Species, in which there seems to 
be a studied non-recognition of any higher influence than chance, 
external conditions, nature, law, and other kindred activities,” 
But if we again turn to Darwin’s own statement, we find that he 
says, “To my mind it accords better with what we know of the 
laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and 
extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should 
have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth 
and death of the individual”’ (p. 489). Here we have. a distinct 
and most philosophical recognition of a supreme controlling 
power, which our author assumes that Darwin denies. 
From the general tone of the work before us, we would not 
have expected that Mr Page would attempt, however vaguely, to 
wield the odium theologicum in arguing against Darwin’s or any. 
other person’s views, '‘l'o use his own words; ‘“ In the organic, 
as in the inorganic world, the Creator often operates through 
secondary causes, and the discovery of these causes, in the spirit 
of true philosophy, is to human reason a duty as well as a privi- 
lege” (p. 208). Why, then, should he treat Darwin with the 
least approach to acrimony for making the attempt to perform 
this duty ? 
We have not space to enter into any discussion on the subject ; 
but we believe that if all those arguments which he misdirects 
against the theory of natural selection were withdrawn, the general 
