The History of Evolutionism. 
[January, 
Mr. C. Darwin, — and we presume Mr. Wallace,— instead of 
developing, have rather obscured the doctrines advanced by 
Erasmus Darwin, Buffon, and Lamarck. The volume now 
before us is therefore the more opportune. In it Dr. Krause 
gives a full, an able, and impartial survey of the genius and 
the researches of the elder Darwin, and assigns him a high 
place in the history of biological science. 
It must not be imagined that prior to the appearance ot 
the “Vestiges” the hypothesis of special creation had re- 
mained uncontroverted. Linnaeus and Buffon were men ot 
too philosophical intellects to accept as a matter of course 
the notion of a world mechanically made and peopled with 
plants and animals by a certain date, as if under contract. 
But their opinions wavered, perhaps according as evidence 
on the one or the other side suggested itself to their minds, 
—perhaps, also, as they were alternately swayed by piivate 
conviaion or by prudential considerations. These fluctua- 
tions are most strikingly shown in the writings of Buffon. 
Mr S Butler solves the difficulty by interpreting all such 
passages favourable to the Old School as ironical— a some- 
what hazardous expedient. But in the works of Eiasmus 
Darwin— who, it must be remembered, is prior in point ot 
time to Lamarck— we find no such wavering. He first esta- 
blished, as Dr. Krause insists, “ a complete system ot the 
theory of Evolution.” At first sight, indeed, he might seem 
to have anticipated his illustrious grandson to a very serious 
extent He discusses in his works the questions of heredity 
of adaptation, of the proteaive arrangements of animals 
and plants, and of sexual seledtion. He describes mseo:- 
ivorous plants. He analyses the emotions and social im- 
pulses, and seeks to trace out their origin. He suggests 
that all the limestone rocks in the world weie formed 
originally by animal and vegetable bodies from the mass oi 
waters.” He refers the Fungi to a third kingdom which, 
like a “ narrow isthmus,” unites plants and animals. He 
asks “ Do some genera of animals perish by the increasing 
power of their enemies ? or do they still reside at the bottom 
of the sea? Or do some animals change their foi ms gra- 
dually, and become new genera?” It is only quite of late 
that we may venture to reply to the second of these ques- 
tions in the negative. In tacit but yet unmistakable oppo- 
sition to the shallow and mawkish teleology of his time 
which viewed all nature in rel r a V, on /\ man ’, and ,fw^? d has 
know the hidden purposes of God, he asks— Why has 
this plant poisonous juices ? Why has that one spines ? 
Whyhave birds and fishes light-coloured breasts and dark 
