640 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL KORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE WOELD OF LIFE: AN APPEEOIATION AND A . 

 CEITIOISM.* 



By tHe Eev. Prof. Geo. Henslow, M.A., F.L.S., V.M.H. 



This is an extremely interesting book, containing twenty chapters 

 dealing with such questions as — What is Life, and whence comes it? 

 the Number of Species and their Distributions; Heredity, Variation, 

 and Increase; Natural Selection and Adaptation; the Progressive 

 Development of the Life- World; some extensions of Darwin's Theory; 

 General Adaptations of Plants, Animals, and Man, &c. There are 

 also 110 illustrations and index. 



The title will surprise some readers, since the author and Darwni 

 both propounded the theory of natural selection. This theory was 

 seized upon by German philosophers as the very basis of the 

 Haeckelian atheism ! Thus writes Haeckel : " Darwin gave us the clue 

 to the monistic explanation of organization. . . . Mechanism alone can 

 give us a true explanation of natural phenomena, for it traces them 

 to their real efficient causes, viz. to blind and unconscious agencies, "i 

 So, too, Biichner says, in his Last Words on Materialism, " Darwinism 

 is the chief support of Materialism or Monism. "| 



Dr. Wallace does not hesitate to say much against Haeckel, who 

 " ri51es out the three central dogmas of metaphysics — God, freedom, 

 immutability. "§ 



On the other hand, the author upholds natural selection. Thus he 

 describes rabbits, let loose in Porto Santo, four and a half centuries 

 ago, as having changed in colour and structure, &c. He concludes : 

 They show " how Nature actually works in the production of slightly 

 modified forms through ' variation ' and * survival of the fittest ' ; 

 [this] will, I think, render the process of species-formation sufficiently 

 intelligible." Another case was that of 136 common sparrows," 

 which were found benumbed after a great storm in Ehode Island. 

 When warmed, seventy-two survived. Of these the males showed 

 a superiority over the females : the smaller and lighter birds prevailed. 

 But this has nothing to do with the origin of species. Similar results 

 occur with man. Vast numbers perished on the return from Moscow; 

 still, many others survived. Every female is said to have perished on 

 that terrible retreat. 



There was no doubt about their all being " common sparrows," 

 and not even " varieties." So, too, with regard to the rabbits. They 

 were smaller than English rabbits, being little more than half the 



*The World of Life: a Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind, and 

 Ultimate Purpose.- By A. R. Wallace, O.M., F.R.S. 8vo., 408 pp. (Chapman 

 & Hall, London, 1910.) 12^. 6d. net. 



f Riddle of the Universe, pp. 264, 265. XOp. cit., 139. 



• § Op. cil., p. 83. 



