g8 
Notices of Books. 
[January, 
rised : — The coming thousand of years will be marked by a 
great increase of population, a mingling of races, and a prosperity 
more or less marked. Then will follow a long period of decrease 
of population and of general decadence. In this decline the 
increasing rarity of coal and of the useful metals will play a 
prominent part. These will by man’s operations have become 
comminuted and equally mingled with the superficial strata of 
the earth, nor does it apppear that there is at work any natural 
process which will re-aggregate them in masses capable of new 
exploitation. The Darwinian theory lends very little countenance 
to the dreams of indefinite improvement cherished by the French 
philosophers of the last century. Should the struggle for exist- 
ence become intensified, as there seems every reason to expeCt, 
the intellectual progress of the species must perforce slacken, 
because the pursuits of the inventor and the discoverer, however 
beneficial to the race at large, are very scantily remunerative to 
himself. Hence he will fare as would the vine, the wheat-plant, 
and others of the most precious and beautiful vegetal species, if 
left without human aid to compete with the brambles and 
thistles. 
A higher development of the nervous system, holds Mr. 
Spencer, diminishes the increase of population. A time will 
therefore come when the chief additions to the population will 
be made by the less intelligent and less provident families. 
Hence, says M. de Candolle, “ their numbers constantly renewed 
will greatly affect the supposed progression of intelligence.” 
It was contended by Malthus, by John Stuart Mill, and others, 
that almost all social evils spring from the faCt that population 
tends to increase more rapidly than the means of sustenance, 
and that, whether by moral or physical means, the supply of 
human beings should always be kept below the demand. Now 
we grant that the Malthusian individual or the Malthusian family 
has a certain advantage over non-Malthusians ; but unless the 
principle could be carried into effect all over the world the 
Malthusian nation must be overwhelmed by its neighbours, 
whether in war or by the silent — yet equally sure — method of 
immigration. A nation can only hold its place by unlimited in- 
crease, at whatever cost to some of its own members. The 
future has, for man, no “ good time coming.” 
In a short biographical notice of the late Prof. Agassiz, also 
taken from the “ Transactions of the Genevese Society of 
Physics and Natural History,” we find the following very judi- 
cious remarks : — “ He excelled in the examination of details 
and in the comparison of forms. I cannot say that he w T as 
equally superior in the principles of natural classification and in 
theoretic deductions. It may be considered at the least singular 
that the author of the immense discovery of a parallelism be- 
tween the successive forms of the embryo of a fish and the 
successive forms of the class of fishes in general, in geological 
