the variations and grades which connect one of these species with another? We might extend the parallel, and get some good illustrations of natural selection from the history of architecture, the probable origin of the different styles, and their adaptation to different climates and conditions. Two qualifying considerations are noticeable. One, that houses do not propagate, so as to produce continuing lines of each sort and variety; but this is of small moment on Agassiz's view, he holding that genealogical connection is not of the essence of species at all. The other, that the formation and development of the ideas upon which human works proceed is gradual; or, as the same great naturalist well states it, "while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous." But we have no right to affirm this of Divine action.

We must close here. We meant to review some of the more general scientific objections which we thought not altogether tenable. But, after all, we are not so anxious just now to know whether the new theory is well founded on facts as whether it would be harmless, if it were. Besides, we feel quite unable to answer some of these objections, and it is pleasanter to take up those which one thinks he can.

Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest of the objections, is that of the absence, in geological deposits, of vestiges of the intermediate forms which the theory requires to have existed. Here all that Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme imperfection of the geological record and the uncertainty of negative evidence. But, withal, he allows the force of the objection almost as much as his opponents urge it, so much so, indeed, that two of his English critics turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge him with actually basing his hypothesis upon these and similar difficulties, as if he held it because of the difficulties, and not in spite of them ;handsome return for his candor! As to this imperfection of the geologi

-a

cal record, perhaps we should get a fair and intelligible illustration of it by imagining the existing animals and plants of New England, with all their remains and products since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated; and that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new colony, dropped by the New Zealand fleet on its way to explore the ruins of London, undertake, after fifty years of examination, to reconstruct in a catalogue the flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close of the glacial period to the present time. With all the advantages of a surface exploration, what a beggarly account it must be ! How many of the land animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massachusetts official reports would it be likely to contain ?

Another unanswerable question asked by the Boston reviewers is, Why, when structure and instinct or habit vary, -as they must have varied, on Darwin's hypothesis, - they vary together and harmoniously, instead of vaguely. We cannot tell, because we cannot tell why either should vary at all. Yet, as they both do vary in successive generations, as is seen under domestication, — and are correlated, we can only adduce the fact. Darwin may be precluded from this answer, but we may say that they vary together because designed to do so. A reviewer says that the chance of their varying together is inconceivably small; yet, if they do not, the variant individuals must perish. Then it is well that it is not left to chance. As to the fact: before we were born, nourishment and the equivalent to respiration took place in a certain way. But the moment we were ushered into this breathing world, our actions promptly conformed, both as to respiration and nourishment, to the before unused structure and to the new surroundings.

"Now," says the "Examiner," "suppose, for instance, the gills of an aquatic animal converted into lungs, while instinct still compelled a continuance under water, would not drowning ensue?" No doubt. But-simply contemplating the facts, in

stead of theorizing-we notice that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after ceasing to be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the structure, without supernatural interposition,—just as Darwin would have it, if the development of a variety or incipient species, though rare, were as natural as a metamorphosis.

"Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the animal would be no better supported than the objection. Darwin makes very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a squirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; but might not the length of the leap be increased by practice?

The "North American" reviewer's position, that the higher brute animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate proportions, we know of nothing in instinct surpassing that of an animal so high as a bird, the Talegal, the male of which plumes himself upon making a hot-bed in which to hatch his partner's eggs, which he tends and regulates the heat of about as carefully and skilfully as the unplumed biped does an eccaleobiont As to the real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably defended by a

*

Vide article by Mr. C. Wright, in the Mathematical Monthly for May last. † Vide Edinburgh Review for January, 1860, article on " Acclimatization," etc.

far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the best of dogs "in that respect upon a level with a considerable portion of poor humanity," nor indulge the hope, or, indeed, the desire, of a renewed acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.*

The assertion, that acquired habitudes or instincts, and acquired structures, are not heritable, any breeder or good observer can refute.

That 66 the human mind has become what it is out of a developed instinct "† is a statement which Mr. Darwin nowhere makes, and, we presume, would not accept. As to his having us believe that individual animals acquire their instincts gradually, ‡ this statement must have been penned in inadvertence both of the very definition of instinct, and of everything we know of in Mr. Darwin's book.

It has been attempted to destroy the yery foundation of Darwin's hypothesis by denying that there are any wild varieties, to speak of, for natural selection to operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to prove that wild varieties abound. We should think it just as necessary to prove that snow falls in winter. That variation among plants cannot be largely due to hybridism, and that their variation in Nature is not essentially different from much that occurs in domestication, we could show, if our space permitted.

As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be insisted upon as absolutely true, nor be practically used as a test between species and varieties, unless we allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. That it subserves a purpose in keeping species apart, and was so designed, we do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that this sterility proves nothing against the derivative origin of the actual species; for it may as well have been intended to keep separate those

* Contributions; Essay on Classification, etc., Vol. i. pp. 60-66.

↑ North Amer. Review, April, 1860, p. 475. Amer. Journal of Science, July, 1860, p. 146.

forms which have reached a certain amount of divergence as those which were always thus distinct.

The argument for the permanence of species, drawn from the identity with those now living of cats, birds, and other animals, preserved in Egyptian catacombs, was good enough as used by Cuvier against St. Hilaire, that is, against the supposition that time brings about a gradual alteration of whole species; but it goes for little against Darwin, unless it be proved that species never vary, or that the perpetuation of a variety necessitates the extinction of the parent breed. For Darwin clearly maintains-what the facts warrant that the mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede the parent form, but it may coexist with it; yet it does not in the least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the fox in the fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the permanence of the common sort of fowl.

As to the objection, that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwin's theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, replaced by higher forms, the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organization is best adapted, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the conditions, seems to be aimed at, and this is effected by diversification.

Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwin's, or any other derivative theory,

as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in a blind faith that species- that the manifold sorts and forms of existing animals and vegetables -"have no secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become more and more probable. But we are confident, that, if a derivative hypothesis ever is established, it will be so on a solid theistic ground.

Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis is on trial,-an hypothesis thus far not untenable,- -a trial just now very useful to science, and, we conclude, not harmful to religion, unless injudicious assailants temporarily make it so.

One good effect is already manifest : its enabling the advocates of the hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must admit an actual diversification into strongly marked and persistent varieties, and so admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian hypothesis is built; while those, on the other hand, who recognize a diversity of human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such species were primordial and supernatural in the common sense of the word.

The English mind is prone to positivism and kindred forms of materialistic philosophy, and we must expect the derivative theory to be taken up in that interest. We have no predilection for that school, but the contrary. If we had, we might have looked complacently upon a line of criticism which would indirectly, but effectively, play into the hands of positivists and materialistic atheists generally. The wiser and stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothesis leaves the argument for design, and there- ̧ fore for a Designer, as valid as it ever was;-that to do any work by an instrument must require, and therefore presup

pose, the exertion rather of more than of less power than to do it directly;- that whoever would be a consistent theist should believe that Design in the natural world is coextensive with Providence, and hold fully to the one as he does to the other, in spite of the wholly similar and apparently insuperable diffi

culties which the mind encounters whenever it endeavors to develop the idea into a complete system, either in the material and organic, or in the moral world. It is enough, in the way of obviating objections, to show that the philosophical difficulties of the one are the same, and only the same, as of the other.

HOW IT WAS LOST.

AMONG green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled, mossyroofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it about, a garden-plot stretched upward to the whispering birches on the slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and found them young.

One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers in the meadow, blackbirds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain humble history began. "Nan!"

"Yes, Laura,” replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too intent upon the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a certain plain sinner.

"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's the only thing fit for me this hot weather."

And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she was drawing. "Little daughter!" "Yes, father."

"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at three; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;-I shall be in the lower garden."

The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that domestic purgatory on a summer day, — the kitchen. There were vines about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories of wasted temper, time, and toil.

Nan was tired, having risen with the birds, hurried, having many cares those happy little housewives never know,—and disappointed in a hope that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too patient to be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too light of heart to be pent up when earth and sky were keeping a blithe holiday. But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly of themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service of less conscientious souls, whose careless thanks seem quite reward enough.

To and fro she went, silent and diligent, giving the grace of willingness to every humble or distasteful task the day had brought her; but some malignant sprite seemed to have taken possession of her kingdom, for rebellion broke out everywhere. The kettles would boil over most obstreperously,—the mutton refused to cook with the meek alacrity to be expected from the nature of a sheep,-the stove, with unnecessary warmth of temper, would glow like a fiery furnace,the irons would scorch,—the linens would dry, and spirits would fail, though patience never.

Nan tugged on, growing hotter and wearier, more hurried and more hopeless, till at last the crisis came; for in one fell moment she tore her gown, burnt her hand, and smutched the collar she was preparing to finish in the most unexceptionable style. Then, if she had been a nervous woman, she would have scolded; being a gentle girl, she only "lifted up her voice and wept."

"Behold, she watereth her linen with salt tears, and bewaileth herself because of much tribulation. But, lo! help cometh from afar: a strong man bringeth lettuce wherewith to stay her, plucketh berries to comfort her withal, and clasheth cymbals that she may dance for joy."

The voice came from the porch, and, with her hope fulfilled, Nan looked up to greet John Lord, the house-friend, who

stood there with a basket on his arm; and as she saw his honest eyes, kind lips, and helpful hands, the girl thought this plain young man the comeliest, most welcome sight she had beheld that day.

"How good of you, to come through all this heat, and not to laugh at my despair!" she said, looking up like a grateful child, as she led him in.

"I only obeyed orders, Nan; for a certain dear old lady had a motherly presentiment that you had got into a domestic whirlpool, and sent me as a sort of life-preserver. So I took the basket of consolation, and came to fold my feet upon the carpet of contentment in the tent of friendship."

As he spoke, John gave his own gift in his mother's name, and bestowed himself in the wide window-seat, where morning-glories nodded at him, and the old butternut sent pleasant shadows dancing to and fro.

His advent, like that of Orpheus in Hades, seemed to soothe all unpropitious powers with a sudden spell. The fire began to slacken, the kettles began to lull, the meat began to cook, the irons began to cool, the clothes began to behave, the spirits began to rise, and the collar was finished off with most triumphant success. John watched the change, and, though a lord of creation, abased himself to take compassion on the weaker vessel, and was seized with a great desire to lighten the homely tasks that tried her strength of body and soul. He took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish from the closet, proceeded to imbrue his hands in the strawberries' blood.

"Oh, John, you needn't do that; 1 shall have time when I've turned the meat, made the pudding, and done these things. See, I'm getting on finely now; you're a judge of such matters; isn't that nice?"

As she spoke, Nan offered the polished absurdity for inspection with innocent pride.

"Oh that I were a collar, to sit upon that hand!" sighed John,― adding, ar