384 
Notices of Books. 
[July, 
character of an atom, are we therefore justified in saying that 
no such agency ever existed ? Because we do not know the 
natural cause of any phenomenon — nay, if you will, cannot 
conjecture how it could have had a natural cause at all — is it 
safe at once to pronounce it supernatural ?” 
Mr. Gibson holds that modern science has, at any rate, the 
merit of rendering polytheism an impossibility. We are not 
sure that the compliment can be accepted. We may, indeed, in 
view of the identity both in matter and in forces which we have 
succeeded in tracing far beyond the limits of our own planet, 
admit that the idea of conflicting territorial deities can no longer 
be entertained. But just as in a State unity of law, of institu- 
tions, of language and manners, may prevail equally under a 
personal despotism, a constitutional monarchy, or a republic, so 
the homogeneity which we deteCl in the universe supplies no 
absolute proof as to whether it is ruled by One or by many. 
Into the interesting critique on the “ Unseen Universe,” and 
the discussion on that old and vexed question the Origin of Evil, 
we cannot now enter. 
The second essay, on the “ Miraculous Evidences of Christi- 
anity,” can scarcely be dealt with in these pages. But the 
seCtion on Miracles, so-called, said to have occurred subsequently 
to the age of the primitive church, and even down to our own 
times, is profoundly interesting. “ There must,” says the author, 
“ one would say, be some unknown principle, either psychical or 
physical, to account for kindred narratives springing up in 
quarters so remote ; and surely we may add the reflection that, 
with such accounts so attested at the present day among our- 
selves, it must be hard to establish an exclusive case for the 
miraculous in Judaea eighteen centuries ago.” He adds, how- 
ever, — “ We may also deem it probable that there are ill-under- 
stood powers of nature which at times simulate the miraculous.” 
It is not too much to say that if all divines were like 
Mr. Gibson the antagonism between religion and science which 
he endeavours to remove would scarcely have come into ex- 
istence. 
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. By 
Charles Darwin, F.R.S. Second Edition, Revised. Lon- 
don : John Murray. 
To give a formal critique of this work would be impossible 
without entering upon the entire debate between the author on 
the one hand and the anti-evolutionists and catastrophic evolu- 
tionists on the other, a task which, for obvious reasons, is here 
put of the question. The author informs us that since the ap- 
