EEVIEWS. 
75 
ment and fact, it is a species of lugubrious howl against natural selection by 
a writer who, without the courage to declare his name, has yet the imperti- 
nence to attempt the demolition of a doctrine whose essential features he 
has, upon his own showing, been unable to comprehend. To analyse the 
assertions — arguments we can hardly term them — of such a writer, would 
not only be an indignity to the subject but would be a very questionable 
compliment to the intelligence of our readers. From beginning to end the 
author’s observations are a prolonged and monotonous whine of complaint 
and querulousness. It has not even the merit of being a brisk bark, but is the 
monotone of puny helplessness which cannot understand, but which is ca- 
pable of expressing its feelings only. If the author had simply stated at the 
outset that he had certain convictions (.^) unbased on reason or observation, 
and that any system of philosophy opposed to these convictions must, in his 
opinion, be necessarily absurd, he would not only have given all his readers 
an insight into the species of ratiocination they had to expect, but he would 
have saved the thinker from the terribly unremunerative task of listening to 
his long cry of distress and misery. We yield to none in our admiration of 
the scheme of design, but we would ask whether the following sample of a 
Cambridge Graduate’s reasoning(!) — bless the mark — is calculated to satisfy 
men who are determined to think for themselves, and who refuse to be ledaway 
from logical conclusion by mere florid declamation? Alluding to the Dar- 
winian explanation of the origin of beauty — a theory, by the way, which in no 
way denies the teleological one, our author exclaims, “ Poor miserable theory ! 
which, quarrelling with creation, will not allow that the decorations of this 
terrestrial scene have been sketched and executed by a Supreme Intelligence, 
that sees beauty in its essence, and from that intention has turned out 
myriad graceful forms, tinted with refulgent colours, in well-considered con- 
trast, or blended in perfect taste; and for all regions, and for every climate, has 
prepared endless varieties of elegance, attractiveness, and symmetry — a 
theory that will not allow an artist to have executed the picture, though it 
acknowledges its beauty, and so betakes itself to cocks and hens as a refuge 
from creation, and seeks shelter under a Metaphor to escape from Omnipo- 
tence.” This elegant piece of composition is a sample of the whole book, and 
whatever its qualities as a merely literary production, we need hardly say it 
is not the species of refutation to prevent the spread of Darwinism. Indeed, 
if we wished to darwinise a thoughtful man, we should make him read this 
work as a preliminary to The Origin of Species.” We begin to think that 
after all this Cambridge graduate is a Jesuit in disguise, and has attempted 
a sort of reductio ad ahsurdiivi of orthodox views, with the object of 
encouraging Positivism. Equo ne credite. 
NATURE’S LITHOGRAPHS.* 
I F it be possible to convey to a child’s mind a simple, and withal -tolerably 
accurate, view of the great facts of geology, we think Mr. Steane’s efforts 
* “ The Cabinet of the Earth Unlocked.” By Edward Steane Jackson, M. A., 
F.G.S. London : Jackson, Walford, & Hodder. 1867. 
