[September, 
^85 Analyses of Books. 
Professor. If they had been the daughters of a minister or a 
general the two sisters would probably have received a pension ; 
but their father was merely a great naturalist, and an honour to 
his country for all time.” 
Prof. Martins gives an exposition of the “ Philosophic Zoolo- 
gique ” of Lamarck, showing how he approximates to the 
evolutionist writers of our day, and where he falls short of them 
for want of a knowledge of faCts which have only been discovered 
since his death. The well-known argument of Cuvier for the 
permanence of species, founded on the identity of mummified 
animals with their still living descendants, is shown to prove too 
much. If of any weight at all, it would equally demonstrate 
the permanence and independent origin of races, breeds, and 
varieties. The ram depicted on Egyptian monuments is iden- 
tical with the ram of Modern Nubia; the small horse of the 
Lithuanian peasantry is the same whose skeleton is found in 
ancient tumuli. What, then, must we think of such writers as 
Dr. Bateman, who, in the face of such faCts, refurbish this 
Cuvierian fallacy ?* Mention is made of an anatomical peculi- 
arity of man, the posterior opening of the sacrum which under 
certain cases imperils the lives of great numbers of persons. f 
Lamarck was fully aware that species, in the sense applied to 
to the term by Linnaeus and Cuvier, do not exist. He admitted 
so-called “ spontaneous generation,” i.e., the production of the 
lowest organisms from inorganic matter. But we shall do well 
to note that he ascribes the development not to chance or neces- 
sity, but to the will of the Creator of all things.! This agrees 
closely with the view of Lavoisier, || that “ God, when He created 
light diffused over the earth the principle of organisation and of 
sensibility.” Hence the theory of Lamarck on the origin of life, 
so far from being atheistic, agrees essentially with that asserted 
by orthodox Christians ! 
Space unfortunately does not allow us to enter into the inte- 
resting chapter on Lamark’s psychology. In reference to the 
charge of Materialism raised against the great French naturalist, 
our author remarks : — “ Materialism, spiritualism are meaning- 
less words, which it is time to banish from the strict language of 
Science. What is matter ? It is impossible to define. What 
is spirit ? Another unanswerable riddle ? These words, which 
serve as the starting-points of antagonistic doCtrines, produce 
vain discussions which can lead to no result.” 
It may perhaps be argued, in some quarters, that such essays 
as these which Prof. Martins has produced are no longer neces- 
sary. We do not accept this contention. So long as the 
Evolutionist doCtrine is persistently misunderstood and mis- 
* Journal of Science, December, 1879, p. 804. See also March, 1880, p. 166. 
f Broca, Rev. Anthropologique, t. 1, p. 596. 
+ Philosophic Zoologique, i., p. 74, and ii., p. 57. 
|| Traite de C’nimie, i., p. 202. 
