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Analyses of Books ■. 679 
bility have given the world a far more consistent theory of Evo- 
lution than that we now find scattered up and down the numerous 
volumes of his ‘ Histoire Naturelle,’ had it not been for the 
blighting influence of the Sorbonne.” He adds in a note that on 
first reading Mr. Butler’s “ Evolution Old and New ” he was 
“ greatly taken with the theory that the passages in the earlier 
volumes of the ‘ Histoire Naturelle ’ which avow a belief in im- 
mortality are ironical. But on reading Buffon himself I find the 
theory rather more difficult of acceptance.” 
Among the naturalists of the beginning of the present century 
Mr. Parker notices Goethe, Treviranus, and Saint-Hilaire, merely 
in a footnote, and overlooks Oken altogether. Of Cuvier he 
takes, in our opinion, a too favourable view. He describes that 
great type of the official bureaucratic savant as “ devoting him- 
self to fadts.” True, always provided that such fadts did not 
militate against his preconceived theories, such as the immuta- 
bility of species, the recent origin of man, the series of geological 
catastrophes, and the like. But we have heard of certain fossil 
human remains which he declined to examine, and which were 
ultimately mislaid. Preserve us from such devotion to fadts ! 
The author, however, in maintaining that, from the disappear- 
ance of Lamarck to the publication of the “ Origin of Species,” 
philosophical biology was completely in abeyance, overlooks the 
so-called “ Representative System ” of Macleay, Swainson, 
Vigors, and their adherents. This system, sometimes known as 
Quinarianism, collapsed not on contadt with Evolutionism, but 
by its own internal feebleness. Yet at one time it completely 
dominated British natural history. It tindtured the writings of 
Kirby and Spence, of Edward Newman, Stephens, of Professor 
Westwood, as well as the biological portions of “ Lardner’s 
Cabinet Cyclopaedia,” of “ Knight’s Penny Cyclopaedia,” and of 
other standard works. Nor without at all overlooking its many 
extravagances can we say that it does not contain the germs of 
certain truths which it might not be labour lost to extradt and to 
purify. 
To return : full justice is done by Mr. Parker to the singular 
philosophic caution of Darwin in refraining from publishing his 
views until he had fully weighed thq evidence upon which they 
rest. This point has a further bearing. Our great leader has 
been accused of a reticence bordering upon dishonesty for not at 
once extending his theory to include the human race. But the 
man who after five years’ work merely allowed himself to specu- 
late, and who, not until the end of two more, merely drew up 
some short notes, not yet for publication, but merely for the 
criticism of one or two friends, was simply true to Science and 
to himself in allowing twelve years to intervene between the 
appearance of the “ Origin of Species ” and that of the “ Descent 
of Man.” 
Mr. Parker gives a somewhat humorous sketch of the great 
