292 
REVIEWS. 
THE DESCENT OF MAN.* 
I T may "be necessary at the outset to state that, in postponing our notice of 
the present work to this number of the Review, we had fancied that 
the work was of far greater importance than it is. For great as the labour 
may have been on the part of the author, of collecting and putting together 
so vast an accumulation of facts, we should not be just to our readers did 
we not confess that the volumes are in no respect to be compared with either 
of Mr. Darwin’s previous books. In point of fact, we might readily have 
noticed this work in our previous issue, had we not thought that it was 
something like its predecessors, and on that account determined to deal 
with it slowly, and at our leisure. It must not, however, be imagined that 
the work is not in every way worthy of the author, for it is a most 
important treatise, and is full to overflowing with facts which, less or more, 
help to prove the author’s case. 
What we mean is, that as regards the descent of man the volumes some- 
how or other contain less than we had expected of them, and, as regards the 
arguments they set forth, the author’s case seems to us but little stronger, if 
anything, than before. The reader must not assume from this that we hold 
Mr. Darwin’s theory to be in error. Far from this ; for we are convinced 
that his views, taken altogether, are strictly and rigidly true. We are as 
satisfied that man came from some species of monkey, rather than from a 
heap of unorganised dust, as it is possible for us to be. That which we assert 
is, that Mr. Darwin’s book is not so convincing to the general reader of the 
force of this idea, as we had imagined it would be. It is full of details 
which the naturalist can value, and can see how every one of them convinces 
him more and more of the origin of species by natural selection, rather than 
by any other means. But to the general reader it is a heavy book, without 
sufficient thread of continuity to give it adequate effect in his mind. 
And yet it must be admitted that it contains nearly all the evidence upon 
the subject, and in some cases put in a very strong manner indeed. But for 
all that, we fear that the volumes will fail to convince those who are worth 
convincing as to the origin of man. Yet how little is on the other side, 
absolutely nothing in the form of legitimate reasoning 5 and still the 
* u The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.” By Charles 
Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. 2 volumes. London : John Murray, 1871. 
