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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
the book the reader is touched with magnificence of scenery sufficient to 
make him sincerely envy the writer, and make secret vows as to his next 
autumn’s excursion. We ourselves cannot do better than advise his fol- 
lowing in Miss Edwards’s footsteps, with this additional proviso, that he 
must first get her interesting book and read it. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION.* 
T he Actonian prize, which is in the gift of the Poyal Institution, was 
this year awarded to two works which we fancy have very different 
aims. The present is one of the two, and is by a clever, well-known 
enthusiast, Mr. Thompson Lowne. W’’e ourselves do not hold the author’s 
views — we may as well state this at once — but we think he has shown 
particular cleverness in advancing his opinions ; and if he were to go a little 
f^urther than he has done, we should most heartily agree with him. How- 
ever, as the author was bound to certain conditions in presenting his writing 
for an Actonian prize, we must make some allowances, and we will even go 
so far as charitably to suppose that certain views admitted as possibly 
correct are not necessarily those to which the author would bind himself. 
With regard to the main object which the author has had in view, we of 
course entirely agree with him, but in reference to some of his arguments 
we must decidedly take exception. It would be out of place in so short a 
notice as the present one to point out where we differ from the author in 
some of his conclusions, especially as it would be idle to point them out 
without endeavouring to place before the reader the opposite views. But 
we may observe that though we differ from Mr. Lowne on some matters, 
we agree with him wholly in the great bulk of his arguments ; and on no 
point, singular to say, more than in his observations on the markings of the 
diatomacse, for we feel sure that advanced microscopic research will even- 
tually prove the truth of what Mr. Lowne advances. In any case, no matter 
what view we were to take of the evidences the author brings forth, we 
think he has produced a capital argument in favour of evolution ; and the 
plates, though not numerous, help out his ideas. From what we have seen 
of the book, however, it increases our objection to the prize essay system. 
Mr. Lowne would have done better if he had not had the Actonian prize 
before his eyes. 
* “ The Philosophy of Evolution ” (an Actonian Prize). By B. Thompson 
Lowne, M.R.C.S., F.L.S., Lecturer on Physiology at the Middlesex Hospital 
School. London : Van Vorst, 1873. 
