6io 
Analyses of Boohs. 
[October, 
others. Yet Duchesne, in this respedt, was so completely ig- 
nored that M. Silvestre, his conscientious biographer, in deliver- 
ing his eloge before the Royal Society of Agriculture, entirely 
overlooks this point. 
But M. De Candolle, whilst fully recognising that the time for 
a grand re-organisation was come, admits also that for the task 
Darwin was needed. He doubts whether even Mr. A. R. 
Wallace, the co-discoverer of the hypothesis of “ Natural Selec- 
tion,” could in the absence of Darwin have secured its acceptance. 
He considers that among naturalists Darwin alone had the ex- 
ceptional power of concerning himself with the most trivial fadts 
and with the loftiest generalisations. 
M. De Candolle notices Darwin’s peculiar condudt towards his 
adversaries. He evidently had no love for polemics. Instead 
of answering he pursued his way. In particular he never 
attacked religion, and his results are now more and more widely 
accepted by Divines as hostile neither to Theism nor to 
Christianity. 
In conclusion the author describes a visit which he paid 
Darwin in the autumn of 1880, on which occasion he found the 
veteran naturalist “ more animated and apparently happier” than 
at their last interview, forty-one years previously. This fadt may 
seem trifling. We commend it to the notice of the author of 
that strange pamphlet “ All the Articles of the Darwinian 
Faith.” 
In a note M. De Candolle pronounces the term “ transformism” 
preferable to “evolution,” since the successive changes of forms 
are not always in the diredtion of a higher development. The 
word transformism may comprehend all the modifications of 
forms in whatever diredtion they may proceed. 
On the subjedt of degeneration he remarks that “ Mr. Ray 
Lankester published in 1880 a small volume entitled 1 Degene- 
ration, a Chapter in Darwinism,’ without suspedting that de- 
generations and abortations were among the principal subjedts 
of the elementary theory of Botany, by De Candolle.” He refers 
to the edition of 1819, page 105. 
The present work may be pronounced an accurate and luminous 
epitome of the history of the Darwinian movement in natural 
history. 
The Creed of a Modern Agnostic. By Richard Bithell, B.Sc., 
Ph.D. London : G. Routledge and Sons. 
This book touches upon and occasionally enters into regions 
which lie beyond our legitimate cognizance. The author seeks 
to redtify certain current notions concerning Agnosticism. He 
