8260 



Notices of New Books. 



kinds of living creatures at the beginning of their existence, and that 

 the great divisions of beings, from the lowest forms to the human race, 

 are successively manifest during the growth, beginning with the dis- 

 tinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and continuing 

 through the lesser divisions of the animal kingdom to the distinction 

 of species. It is obvious that if matter were merely to be raised from 

 its lowest state to its highest degree, as it is in man, he would be the 

 only kind of creature on earth ; but the law of development acts by 

 means of divergences. These divergences retard or regulate progress, 

 and the way by which the law of divergence is controlled may be 

 termed the law of degradation. In other words, all the developments 

 are divergences ; and no kind of creature, from the lowest to the 

 highest, makes any progress towards a higher state in its development, 

 or advances at all to the creatures which are above it in degree, but, 

 on the contrary, diverges from them. And man also makes no real 

 progress towards a higher state, by the development of his faculties, 

 or by the progress of civilization, or by the arts of life." — (P. 12). 



The next paragraph comes more within the range of Natural History 

 observation, but is based, as it appears to me, on a fallacy, — that we 

 are acquainted with the first origin of "living creatures." This is not 

 the case : life may be compared to a thread, which appears to be 

 severed at a point called death, but of which the other extremity is 

 unseen and unknown ; our author assumes a knowledge of that other 

 extremity, and calls it the " first origin." 



" The unity at the commencement of all kinds of life, or of all living 

 creatures. — All kinds of living creatures are alike in their first origin, 

 and, in the progress of growth, the characters which are common to 

 the whole animal kingdom first appear, and then the distinctive cha- 

 racters of the class, of the order, of the family, of the genus, and of 

 the species, are successively evolved, uutil all the characters have their 

 most full development, or until the creature has attained its most perfect 

 state."— (P. 12). 



In Wagner's ' Physiology,' which contains an admirable summary 

 of observations, without much of that speculation which often obscures 

 our scientific researches, we learn that the spermatozoon is a repro- 

 ductive animal, and in all probability continues to transmit its form 

 through countless generations, until one individual out of myriads 

 achieves a higher destiny and higher development. Hence the in- 

 evitable conclusion that that spermatozoon is not the u first origin " of 

 the "living creature " called man, but is only a point on that thread of 

 life of which one extremity has always been hidden from man. 



