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1884.J Analyses of Books. 
to be accepted under penalty of scientific excommunication. 
When we cannot fully explain all that is involved in the 
formation of a drop of water, I think we ought not to dogmatise 
on the profound mysteries of life and sensation.” This is well 
put. 
“ Some Popular Misconceptions of Darwinism,” by Rev. S. 
Fletcher Williams, is a timely paper, though the author in the 
latter part of his paper uses the term Darwinism in its popular 
sense, as synonymous with Evolutionism. He combats the pre- 
vailing error that Darwinism undertakes to account for the 
origin of life. He shows that Darwin did not profess to pene- 
trate this mystery, and that, in the words of Prof. Tyndall, the 
Evolution hypothesis “ does not solve— does not profess to solve 
the ultimate mystery of this universe.” The author next 
touches the misconception that, according to Darwin, man is 
only a little more advanced than the brutes. Among the scoffers 
who make this assertion — one and all we believe ignorant, and 
contemptuously ignorant, of Biology— is mentioned Mr. Froude, 
in his Address at the University of St. Andrews. Another cur- 
rent assertion is, that if man has been developed out of the 
lower forms of life he is in danger of losing his soul and his 
hope of immortality. The worthy people who are moved by this 
dread would doubtless shudder if told that most, if not all, of the 
arguments advanced to prove the immortality of man apply with 
no less force to the brutes also. But, passing over this difficulty, 
the author asks — “ If we are made out of the dust, where did we 
get our immortal souls ? If we have developed out of some 
fower form of animal life, is there any more mystery about the 
soul than on the other theory ? ” The author justly maintains 
that “ the theory of Darwin does not touch the question of my 
spiritual nature or my immortality.” 
The last popular outcry against Darwinism is “ that it is 
godless, atheistic ; that it involves the exclusion of God and of 
design from the universe.” This view has found, it appears, an 
advocate in Mr. Gladstone, who, in his Address at the Shaw- 
street College, declared that in our time, “upon the ground of 
what is called Evolution, God is relieved of the labour of crea- 
tion.” We are here reminded of an utterance of his great rival, 
Earl' Beaconsfield, to the effecff that in the question as to 
whether a man was a monkey or an angel, he was “ on the side 
of the angels.” 
Such sayings are the more to be regretted since, according to 
a prevailing English superstition, a member of the Privy Coun- 
cil simply as such, and without any especial stud} , is entitled 
to deliver an authoritative opinion on any question whatever. 
“ On the Justifiability of Scientific Experiments on Living 
Animals,” by Dr. F. Pollard, is an able paper, but the author 
curiously enough, does not see the argument which completely 
crushes the Bestiarians. After speaking of the cruelties inflidted 
