Darwiniana; Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism Part 19

V-8. "Darwinism in Morals," in Theological Review, April, 1871.

VI-1. "Histoire des Sciences et des Sevants depuis deux Siecles, suivie d'autres etudes sur des sujets scientifiques, en particulier sur la Selection dans 1'Espece Humaine, par Alphonse De Candolle." Geneve: H.

Georg. 1873.

"Addresses of George Bentham, President, read at the anniversary meetings of the Linnaean Society, 1862--1873."

"Notes on the Cla.s.sification, History, and Geographical Distribution of Compositae. By George Bentham." Separate issue from the Journal of the Linnean Society. Vol. XIII. London. 1873.

"On Palaeontological Evidence of Gradual Modification of Animal Forms, read at the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain, April 25, 1873. By Prof. W.H.

Flower." (Journal of the Royal Inst.i.tution, pp. 11.)

"The Distribution and Migration of Birds. Memoir presented to the National Academy of Sciences, January, 1865, abstracted in the American Journal of Science and the Arts. 1866, etc. By Spencer F. Baird."

"The Story of the Earth and Man. By J.W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Princ.i.p.al and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, Montreal. London: Hodder & Stoughton; New York: Harper & Brothers. 1873. Pp. 403, 12mo.

VI-2. Since this article was in type, noteworthy examples of appreciative scientific judgment of the derivative hypothesis have come to hand: 1. In the opening address to the Geological Section of the British a.s.sociation, at its recent meeting, by its president, the veteran Phillips, perhaps the oldest surviving geologist after Lyell; and, 2. That of Prof. Allman, President of the Biological Section. The first touches the subject briefly, but in the way of favorable suggestion; the second is a full and discriminating exposition of the reasons which seem to a.s.sure at least the provisional acceptance of the hypothesis, as a guide in all biological studies, "a key to the order and hidden forces of the world of life."

VII-1. "The Theory of Evolution of Living Things, and the Application of the Principles of Evolution to Religion, considered as ill.u.s.trative of the 'Wisdom and Beneficence of the Almighty.' By the Rev. George Henslow, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S., etc." New York: Macmillan & Co. 1873. 12mo, pp. 220.

"Systematic Theology. By Charles Hodge, D.D., Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. Vol. ii. (Part II, Anthropology.") New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1872.

"Religion and Science: A Series of Sunday Lectures on the Relation of Natural and Revealed Religion, or the Truths Revealed in Nature and Scripture. By Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Geology and Natural History in the University of California." New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1874. 12mo, pp.

324.

VII-2. "But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this-- we can perceive that events are brought about, not by insulated interpositions of divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.--Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise.

"The only distinct meaning of the world 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so--i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times--as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."--Butler's a.n.a.logy.

VIII-1. "What Is Darwinism? By Charles Hodge, Princeton, N.J." New York:

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

"The Doctrine of Evolution. By Alexander Winch.e.l.l, LL.D., etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1874.

"Darwinism and Design; or, Creation by Evolution. By George St. Clair."

London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1873.

"Westminster Sermons. By the Rev. Charles Kingsley, F.L.S., F.G.S., Canon of Westminster, etc." London and New York: Macmillan & Co. 1874.

VIII-2. These two postulate-mottoes are quoted in full in a previous article, in No. 446 of The Nation.

XI-1. "Insectivorous Plants. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S." With Ill.u.s.trations. London: John Murray. 1875. Pp. 462. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

"The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., etc." Second Edition, revised, with Ill.u.s.trations. London: John Murray. 1875. Pp. 208. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

XI-2. The Nation, Nos. 457, 458, 1874. It was in these somewhat light and desultory, but substantially serious, articles that some account of Mr.

Darwin's observations upon the digestive powers of Drosera and Dionaea first appeared; in fact, their leading motive was to make sufficient reference to his then unpublished discoveries to guard against expected or possible claims to priority. Dr. Burdon-Sanderson's lecture, and the report in Nature, which first made them known in England, appeared later.

A mistake on our part in the reading of a somewhat ambiguous sentence in a letter led to the remark, at the close of the first of those articles, that the leaf-trap of Dionaea had been paralyzed on one side in consequence of a dexterous puncture. What was communicated really related to Drosera.

XI-3. A. Gray, in "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," vol. iv., p. 98; and American Journal of Science and the Arts, March, 1859, p. 278.

XII-1. "Les Especes affines et la Theorie de l'Evolution," par Charles Naudin, Membre de l'Inst.i.tut, in Bulletin de la Societe Botanique de France, tome xxi., pp. 240-272, 1874. See also Comptes Rendus, September 27 and October 4, 1875, reproduced in "Annales des Sciences Naturelles," 1876, pp. 73-81.

XII-2. In noticing M. Naudin's paper in the Comptes Rendus, now reprinted in the "Annales des Sciences Naturelles," ent.i.tled "Variation desordonnee des Plantes Hybrides et Deductions qu'on peut en tirer," we were at a loss to conceive why he attributed all present variation of species to atavism, i.e., to the reappearance of ancestral characters (American Journal of Science, February, 1876). His anterior paper was not then known to us; from which it now appears that this view comes in as a part of the hypothesis of extreme plasticity and variability at the first, subsiding at length into entire fixity and persistence of character. According to which, it is a.s.sumed that the species of our time have lost all power of original variation, but can still reproduce some old ones--some reminiscences, as it were, of youthful vagaries--in the way of atavism.

XIII-1. London, 1862.

XIII-2. Hume, in his "Essays," antic.i.p.ated this argument. But he did not rest on it. His matured convictions appear to be expressed in statements such as the following, here cited at second hand from Jackson's "Philosophy of Natural Theology," a volume to which a friend has just called our attention:

"Though the stupidity of men," writes Hume, "barbarous and uninstructed, be so great that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious works of Nature, to which they are so much familiarized, yet it scarce seems possible that any one of good understanding should reject that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an intention, a design, is evident in everything; and when our comprehension is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some intelligent cause or author. The uniform maxims, too, which prevail throughout the whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not necessarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as single and undivided, where the prejudices of education oppose not so reasonable a theory. Even the contrarieties of Nature, by discovering themselves everywhere, become proofs of some consistent plan, and establish one single purpose or intention, however inexplicable and incomprehensible."---("Natural History of Religion," xv.)

"In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force that all objections appear (what I believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms."-- ("Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," Part X.)

"The order and arrangement of Nature, the curious adjustment of final causes, the plain use and intention of every part and organ, all these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author."--(Ibid., Part IV.)

XIII-3. See Section I, Chapter 12.

XIII-4. "No single and limited good can be a.s.signed by us as the final cause of any contrivance in Nature. The real final cause . . . is the sum of all the uses to which it is ever to be put. Any use to which a contrivance of Nature is put, we may be sure, is a part of its final cause."--(G. F.

Wright, in The New-Englander, October, 1871.)

XIII-5. "No single and limited good can be a.s.signed by us as the final cause of any contrivance in Nature. The real final cause . . . is the sum of all the uses to which it is ever to be put. Any use to which a contrivance of Nature is put, we may be sure, is a part of its final cause."--(G. F.

Wright, in The New-Englander, October, 1871.)