i88o.J 
Analyses of Books. 
7 17 
he attacks the burning question of the day “ Is life worth living ?” 
He considers morality and religion in the past, the origin and 
nature of goodness, the sense of obligation, the principles of 
selfishness and sacrifice, the relativity of duty, the real and con- 
ventional virtues and vices, the mutual bearings of morals and 
knowledge, moral sanaions, and the morality and religion ot 
In dealing with such themes it would have been well if Mr. 
Savage had remembered that the position of the philosopher, 
like that of the poet, “ should be higher than on the battlements 
of party.” If we observe the men whom he refers to, the opinions 
which he cites, the instances of moral delusions which he. selects, 
and note how he confers the proud title “ a leading thinker of 
England ” we must pronounce him one whose speculations he 
to some' extent outside of our jurisdiction. But we fear the 
elimination of the party element from philosophic works is be- 
coming unfashionable. Were we not amazed lately to find one 
who has been looked on as the Aristotle of the 19th century 
using language only fit for professional agitators . 
Mr Savage protests with some force against a “ misconcep- 
tion as to the moral significance of the doftrine of evolution.” 
We may here remark that this misconception if such it be 
refers not to the do tine of Evolution fer se, but to the hypo- 
thesis of natural seleaion as the principle to which such Evo- 
lution is alleged to be due. But this by side let us ask whether 
those forms of life which survive in the struggle for existence 
are the “ best ” in any worthy sense of the word ? This struggle 
assumes two aspets according as it rages between members of 
one and the same species and between different species. In the 
former case it will doubtless be found that as a rule the strongest, 
most agile, bravest, and most intensely animated, will prove 
vitorious. But will it not frequently happen that when the 
conflia is over the conqueror will have suffered so much injury 
that he will be inferior even to what the vanquished was at the 
outset ? Hence the notion that e.g. the combat of two male 
animals for a female must necessarily lead to the perpetuation 
of the species by the more vigorous is not necessarily correa. 
As regards the contests between different species we need 
only refer to the numerous faas which have appeared in the 
journal of Science for years past proving that in the contests 
between different species, animal or vegetable, it is not the 
most beautiful, certainly not the most useful to man, or as far 
as we can judge, to the world at large, which wins the day. In 
organic creation, just as in the competition of daily life, or in 
international struggles, it is the N achbar-fresser—- the most per- 
severing and unscrupulous destroyer of all neighbours— which 
triumphs. , , 
To the author’s query “ would it have been any better it the 
weakest had won and the unfit had survived ?” one sufficient 
