( 40 ) 
[January, 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
Evolution and Natural Theology. By W. F. Kirby, of the 
British Museum. London : W. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 
It is rarely possible for the scientific reviewer to take up a 
treatise dealing in any way with Evolution without a sigh of 
dissatisfaction. Too many such books are written by men pro- 
foundly ignorant of biology in every department, their sole 
preparation being, perhaps, the hasty and heedless perusal of a 
part of the “Origin of Species.” 
The work before us, we are happy to say, is one of a very 
different stamp. The author is well known as an industrious 
and successful worker in Natural History, thoroughly versed in 
the evidences, the bearings, and the results of the DoCtrine of 
Organic Development. That, like almost every competent en- 
quirer who has given the subject a fair study, he is a decided 
Evolutionist need not be said. 
Mr. Kirby’s objeCt in the present book is to deal with one par- 
ticular objection by which the religious world is still much exer- 
cised. Few of us have escaped being asked how we propose to 
reconcile the origin and career of plants and animals upon 
Darwinian — or more generally upon Evolutionist — principles, 
with the Mosaic cosmogony, as well as with many passages to 
be found elsewhere in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures? 
Such enquirers, if silenced for the moment, are by no means 
satisfied if we reply — in the language of Bruno and Galilei* — 
that the Scriptures were not intended to serve as a text-book of 
Natural Science, and that on such subjects they convey merely 
the ideas current in the days when they were written. 
Such a work as that before us, in which the author seeks to 
show that the theory of Evolution is not “ opposed to the prin- 
ciples of Christianity or the interests of true religion,” will be 
welcome to many, and may, we hope, clear away prejudices 
which prevent many from giving the question a fair examination. 
Mr. Kirby, at the end of an opening chapter in which the ancient 
and modern views of Nature are contrasted, suggests that 
“ Science and Religion may at length meet on the broad plat- 
form of Theism and Philanthropy.” In this same chapter we 
meet with a passage not without significance as showing one 
remarkable tendency of modern thought : — “ Nor can we for a 
* See the letter of the latter to the Dowager Grand Duchess Cristina of 
Tuscany. 
