72 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. * 
D R. KRAUSE, in the concluding paragraph of his essay on the works 
of Erasmus Darwin, says of his system that 1 to wish to revive it at 
the present day, as has been actually seriously attempted, shows a weakness of 
thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy.’ This ana- 
chronism has been committed by Mr. Samuel Butler in a very interesting 
little volume now before us, and it is doubtless to this, which appeared 
while his own work was in progress, that Dr. Krause alludes in the above 
passage. 
It is curious to observe how, when a new idea gains the predominance 
in any department of science, the opinions of men oscillate for a time, 
usually swinging, like a pendulum, to a greater distance in the new direc- 
tion in proportion as they have previously been pulled in the other. Thus 
for many years, as we all know, the idea of the transmutation of animals 
and plants, by any means whatever, was regarded as most unorthodox, and 
scarcely a naturalist could be found who would admit that such a thing was 
possible. Nowadays, since Mr. Darwin’s well-known works have shown that 
such a thing is not only possible, but that in all probability it has taken 
place, and in fact that on no other assumption can we account scientifically 
for the facts observed in nature, we find nearly all transformists pinning their 
faith exclusively to the theory of ‘Natural Selection,’ and indeed, to a very 
great extent, especially in Germany, to that extreme form of the doctrine of 
which Professor Hackel is the prophet. Under these circumstances, it is 
well that, from time to time, naturalists should be reminded that there are 
matters upon which the theory of Natural Selection, admirably worked out 
as it is, leaves us in the dark ; that there is room for some diversity of 
opinion as to the extent to which the innate qualities of the organism may 
govern its evolution ; and that we have not yet arrived at the point at which 
a new systematic philosophy of the universe may be proclaimed as the only 
truth. 
In his present work (which, after the fashion of musical composers, he 
somewhat affectedly characterizes as ‘Op. 4.’) Mr. Samuel Butler takes up 
the writings of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and subjects them 
to a searching investigation, with the purpose of showing that the funda- 
mental idea of the origin of species advocated by these writers is identical. 
This, we think, he does fairly enough, except in the case of Buffon, whose 
statements, even upon Mr. Butler’s own showing, vacillate in a most remark- 
able manner. Our author endeavours to account for this by ascribing to 
Buffon an ‘ ironical ’ intention in many of the expressions used by him in 
discussing questions bearing upon the origin of organic forms by descent with 
modification, — that is to say, that Buffon, having, by some of the statements 
made in his earlier volumes, ‘ got across,’ to use a vulgar phrase, with the 
ecclesiastical authorities, afterwards took the precaution of hinting what he 
really thought, or stating it as a possible result of a certain way of thinking, 
* Evolution, Old and Neiv ; or the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus 
Dancin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Damvin. By 
Samuel Butler. Small 8vo. London : Hardwicke and Bogue. 1879. 
