1884.] 
Analyses of Books. 
361 
coming so generally to an adverse conclusion concerning my 
views. As the case really stands the ability of the purely scien- 
tific class to give at the present time a true response upon such 
a subjedt appears extremely challengable. It is no discredit to 
them that they are, almost without exception, engaged each in 
his own little department of science, and able to give little or no 
attention to other parts of that vast field. . . . Experiments 
in however narrow a walk, fadts of whatever minuteness, make 
reputations in scientific societies ; all beyond is regarded with 
suspicion and distrust. The consequence is that philosophy, as 
it exists among us at present, does nothing to raise its votaries 
above the common ideas of their time.” 
We fear, however, that much of the opposition which the 
teachings of the “ Vestiges ” met with from scientific men sprang, 
in part at least, from motives less creditable than a mere lack of 
the esprit d'ensemble. A novel theory put forward in an 
anonymous work, or by a man whose reputation is not already 
established, is, even in these days, by no means sure of a fair 
hearing. We fear that some of the scientific critics of the 
“ Vestiges ” were, in fadt, hypocrites who, against better light 
and knowledge, pandered to ruling error. Upon this subjedt, 
however, we cannot enlarge. 
The authorship of the work before us was at one time hotly 
contested. We learn, indeed, from the introduction that, though 
Robert Chambers was, among not a few others, suspected of 
being the author, yet “ there is in existence an elaborate MS. 
essay demonstrating that he could not have been the author.” 
To undertake a review of the “ Vestiges ” would now be super- 
fluous. Most of the arguments urged against it have been not 
merely shattered but decomposed, and, as the old alchemists used 
to say, resolved in terram damnatam. We may, however, 
briefly notice some of the points in which the “Vestiges” differs 
from the “ Origin of Species,” — a difference, as we believe Mr. 
S. Butler would contend, not always in favour of the latter work. 
Darwin, as is well known, does not speculate on the primary 
origin of life. He seeks merely to show how from one or from 
few species the present rich diversity of the animal and vegetable 
worlds may have been developed. Chambers argues in favour 
of spontaneous generation (abiogenesis) as not improbable. It 
must be admitted that the evidence here, brought forward in its 
behalf is not in accordance with the knowledge of the present 
day. 
In Chambers we find no trace of “Natural Selection ” and 
“ Sexual Selection ” as agents in the work of Evolution. On the 
contrary, this development is, in his opinion, the result — “ First 
of an impulse which has been imparted to the forms of life, 
advancing them, in definite times, by generation, through grades 
of organisation, terminating in the highest dicotyledons and 
vertebrata, these grades being few in number , and generally 
VOL. VI. (THIRD SERIES) 2 B 
