350 Analyses of Boohs. (June, 
our earth on a meteoric stone from other realms of space. But 
how did it originate in those other realms ? 
The definition which the author gives of species we are unable 
to accept, since the existence of fertile hybrids is now placed be- 
yond all doubt. The body of the work is an answer to the three 
great questions, Whence, What, and Whither ? He asks, “ What 
is the mysterious tendency to minor variations from the special 
type in individual animals, — what but the inherent and God-given 
propensity of the organism to strike out a new form or to adjust 
itself to its environment ?” Certainly we are not able to account 
for this tendency to vary, unless implanted in the organism ; and 
by whom implanted ? It has been shown repeatedly, in the 
“ Journal of Science ” as well as elsewhere, that Natural Selection 
must have incipient variations to work upon. It has even been 
asked whether the “ struggle for existence ” does not tend rather 
to reduce than to increase the number of species ? Wo find in 
this connection a statement which we feel bound to rejeCt : — 
“ Until man appeared, all animal life was guided by instinCL” 
There are few working naturalists who do not admit the ration- 
ality of the lower animals, though of course on a very limited 
scale. 
On p. 87 we find the remark : — “ The newly-introduced flora 
fed on the inorganic world, and purified the foul atmosphere ; 
while a fauna came after to feed, in its turn, on the vegetation, 
and breathe the purer air.” This passage seems scarcely in har- 
mony with what we read on p. 34 : — “Geology shows that although 
vegetation developed more rapidly than animal life, they pro- 
gressed together.” But throughout this first section we must 
pronounce the author’s general line of argument as, in our judg- 
ment, sound. We feel little difficulty in endorsing the words in 
which he sums up this part of his considerations : — 
“ Evolution leads us to take an infinitely grander, though more 
visionary, view of the universe than Genesis reveals. Instead of 
a series of separate pictures, it presents us with a continuous 
panorama of creation. It shows us Nature as an intimate union 
of beauty and fitness, a pageant to the sense, a mechanism to 
the intellect ; and in striving to survey this mighty plan the 
imagination seems to get a glimpse of the sublime truth that 
Cosmos realises the poetic dream, the transitory Art of God.” 
The two succeeding sections, “ What ?” and “ Whither ?” con- 
tain much into which we cannot legitimately enter in these pages, 
and not a few passages upon which we must beg to differ from 
“ A Scientific Layman.” Thus he writes — “ By far the greater 
portion (of the earth) is made up of six of these, namely, oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus.” Sodium, 
calcium, aluminium, silicium are certainly present in far larger 
proportions than phosphorus if not than sulphur also. Nor can 
we assent to the statement that animals contain no cellulose ( see 
gchoerer, “Ann. Chem. Pharm.,” clx., 312). 
