1884.] 
Analyses of Books. 41 
moment rationally suppose that even the highest and noblest of 
our race can reach the presence of the Infinite itself at one 
bound from a world so low as this. Rather let us acknowledge, 
with the Buddhists, the much greater probability that ages of 
progress, and possibly a great variety of stages of existence, may 
separate us from Nirvana.” 
Mr. Kirby, indeed, so far from being what is commonly styled 
a Materialist, makes a certain approximation to the so-called 
“ Spiritualist ” and Theosophic views. He contends for the im- 
mortality of animals as a corollary of that claimed for man, and 
on this subjedt he quotes Allan Kardec. In a note he speaks of 
the Resurredtion of Christ as “ a case of long-sustained mate- 
rialisation.” He accepts the dodtrine of re-incarnation as at 
least conceivable, and combats some of the objedtions with 
which it is ordinarily encountered. 
Hence the present volume will doubtless be read with interest 
not merely by avowed Spiritualists, but by that class — and judging 
from popular literature it is numerous — who have a vague yearn- 
ing for evidences of an unseen world. On the other hand, this 
Eirenikon will fail to command the sympathies not merely of 
Materialists, but of orthodox religionists. We know that, in 
some quarters, to ascribe immortality to brutes is a deadlier sin 
than to deny it to man, 
Turning from these generalities to a notice of particular pas- 
sages, we find the author emphasizing rather more strongly than 
should we the modern origin and charadter of Physical Science. 
He urges that Evolution was not admitted in the days of anti- 
quity, and judiciously remarks that “ it would certainly not be a 
presumption in favour of Evolution that it was accepted as a 
truth by the ancients, but rather the contrary.” 
In discussing the old dodtrine of Special Creation, he points 
out that the only view which can even partially reconcile such 
creation with existing fadts is Gosse’s theory of Prochronism, 
unmatched, and perhaps unmatchable, in its absurdity. 
In the third chapter we find a statement which many of us 
will probably feel unable to accept. Says Mr. Kirby: — “The 
history of the earth, as a whole, furnishes no instance of a retro- 
grade movement.” Now even ignoring the Glacial epoch, a 
catastrophe some of whose results are probably irremediable, we 
can scarcely deny that a gradual refrigeration of the earth is 
going on, analogous to the senescence of the individual. Surely 
here is an element of retrogression, which, unless physicists are 
utterly mistaken, must sooner or later make itself felt. 
On the subjedt of hybridism the author, as it appears to us, 
concedes too much to Anti-Evolutionists. He writes : — “ Others 
supposed that new species might have been produced by the 
intercrossing of old ones : but this cause is now known to be 
physiologically almost impossible in a state of nature.” 
Again he says : — “ The objedtion drawn from the physiolo- 
VOL. VI. (THIRD SERIES. E 
