Notices of Books. 
255 
1878.] 
It would possibly surprise Mr. Maclaren were he told that there 
are multitudes of Evolutionists who fully accept the first of these 
propositions, and, perhaps with the sole exception of the word 
“ diredt,” which might require some qualification, even the 
second ! On the other hand, there are, or at least have been, men 
who, whilst disbelieving in the transmutation of species, repudiate 
equally the necessity of a Creator, asserting that each form of 
life sprang into existence— 
“ When fatal chance 
Had circled its full orb.” 
The old school of Natural History has therefore no exclusive 
right to the title of “ Creationist,” its sole fundamental principles 
being that species are non-transmutable, and that each form of 
life originated from inorganic matter. 
In opposition to the “ Creationist ” we have next the “ Evolu- 
tionist,” of whose opinions the author gives a singularly travestied 
summary : — 
(1.) “ That the first combination of atoms which possessed 
the distinctive properties of life was called into exist- 
ence by the adtion of the physical forces which still 
surround us, on a portion of the matter of which our 
earth consists. 
(2.) “That the first form of living being when once called into 
existence, and afterwards its more or less modified 
descendants, have been made to vary gradually by 
changes in the external forces incident ; that the adtual 
variations produced were due in part to gradual changes 
in the external incident forces, and in part to internal 
variations, the more or less remote consequences of 
previous changes in the external forces surrounding 
living beings ; that any variation arising in this way 
which gave the living being in which it occurred an 
advantage in the struggle for life under the conditions 
which then prevailed was picked out by the survival of 
the fittest to compete in this struggle, or, as it is gene- 
rally called, by Natural Selection ; that all the known 
forms of life, both existing and extindt, have in this 
manner been developed from the first simple form of 
living being under the influence of repeated slow 
changes ; and that all change of form among living 
beings has been very gradual.” 
Further, we find Darwinianism not placed as it ought as one 
of the forms of Evolutionism, but classified as a distindt and in- 
dependent dodtrine. If Mr. Maclaren had taken the trouble to 
master even the outlines of the subjedt upon which he is, for the 
second time, coming forward as a teacher, he would have found 
that the “ view of the Evolutionist properly so called ” merely 
amounts to this — viz., that organic species are capable of trans- 
