Obituary Notices. 
xv 
merit or some addition to the variation. Consequently, the law of 
nature, as regards kingdoms of life, is not permanence but change, 
evolution. . . . The survival of the fittest is a fact ; and the fact 
accounts, in part, for the geographical distribution of the races of 
men now existing and still in progress ; but not for the existence of 
the fittest, or for the power that has determined survival/’ Again, 
referring as an example to the giraffe, he remarks that the elonga- 
tion of the anterior pair of legs has the same purpose as that of the 
neck — high-reaching in quest of food. “ How should the giraffe 
have had to run to make its fore legs grow faster than the hind 
legs, and what kind of antics would have started the change in the 
neck 1 It has to be supposed that the requisite argumentative 
variations were somehow begun, and that, under interbreeding, 
accelerated growth went forward. But the origin of variation 
is without explanation. And so it is, for the most part, throughout 
the kingdoms of life. Enough is known to encourage study.” 
Finally, the closing paragraph of his book runs as follows : 
“Whatever the results of further search, we may feel assured, in 
accord with Wallace, . . . that the intervention of a Power above 
Nature was at the basis of man’s development. Believing that 
nature exists through the will and ever-acting power of the 
Divine Being, and that all its great truths, its beauties, its har- 
monies, are manifestations of His wisdom and power, or, in 
the w r ords nearly of Wallace, that the whole Universe is not 
only dependent on, but actually is the Will of one Supreme 
Intelligence, Nature, with man as its culminant species, is no longer 
a mystery/’ 
Although Dana has so recently passed away, it is not too soon to 
judge of his position in the roll of scientific worthies. The mere 
mass of facts and data which he has added to the several depart- 
ments of science in which he laboured would suffice to procure for 
him a prominent place amongst his fellows. But it is the general 
suggestiveness of his writings, the originality of his views, and his 
far-reaching philosophical generalisations, which have most im- 
pressed his contemporaries, and which, we believe, will continue 
to influence his successors. No one who is at all conversant with 
Dana’s work need hesitate to accord him a high place among the 
