to the unknown "laws of growth" to which these sutures in the skull are referred?

That, apart from these preposterous extremes, Mr. Darwin's work has done the cause of religion admirable service, we do not hesitate to say. It accounts for the extinction of so many races of animals and plants, and the rise of others in a way that is a positive relief after the assertion of some Christian geologists, that we are bound to believe in a fresh creation at the close of each Geologic period. It accounts for the dispersal of animals and plants without the necessity of recurrence to many-some have said at least five-and-twenty-distinct "centres of creation." Its use will occur to every one in accounting for the striking varieties we find amongst the living descendants of Adam and of Noah; and so far from showing, as Mr. Darwin seems to think," that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world," it makes the universality of the Deluge of far easier credence, and diminishes the number of fellow voyagers with the patriarch in the ark.

Mr. Darwin has entirely failed to prove the necessity of enormous periods of time for the production of very considerable variation; and his cheval de bataille, the changes induced by domestication, point to an opposite conclusion. That the periods of time revealed to us by geology, were enormously long, no one can doubt, and the extinction and variation that took place during those periods, in the main, geology also discloses. But the variation of domesticated animals, furnishes us with a singular parallel to the variation of the human race. In some unaccountable way there seems, when a certain point is reached in a given direction, to be a limit to variation, and races are produced, which, if their common origin be acknowledged, may fairly be called distinct species. If on Egyptian monuments we recognise the physiognomy of races of men still existing unchanged, it is singular that in the same most ancient records, we see much diversity in the breeds of our domestic animals; "and that some of the breeds closely resemble, perhaps are identical with, those still existing." (p. 18). It may be the fact that such breeds have bred truly for four or five thousand years, and yet attained their utmost divergence from the parent stocks in a comparatively short space of time. Mr. Darwin does not seem to have anything better than Mr. Horner's wonderful piece of pottery, to carry him back for

"fourteen or fifteen thousand years," long before which ancient periods, savages, like those of Tierra del Fuego or Australia, who possess a semi-domestic dog, may have existed in Egypt. He acknowledges that "there is reason to believe that King Charles's spaniel has been unconsciously modified to a large extent since the time of that monarch:" and again, "though the old Spanish pointer certainly came from Spain, Mr. Borrow has not seen, as I am informed by him, any native dog in Spain like our pointer." (p. 35). If equal attention had been paid to other variations in animals as the origin of the ancon sheep fortunately met with, and if the amount of modification that our gardeners could speak to as having happened even in so short a space as a man's life, were all to be registered, they would make any one hesitate in requiring such very lengthened periods for the production of existing variations.

How Mr. Darwin can ever have persuaded himself to speak so calmly of "the first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, we cannot conceive. The very most that he can think he has proved, is, that such might possibly have been the origin of all beings that have life. But he has not advanced a single step towards proving that such was their origin. In two skilfully elaborated chapters on the Geologic record, he labours manfully, and it seems to us, successfully to show the imperfection of that record; and this was necessary for the truth of his theory at all, for how could it be true if innumerable intermediate creatures had not once existed? As far then, as Mr. Darwin's seientific arguments go, they are entirely in favour of that truth and applicability of his theory which would be serviceable to religion: immediately that he stretches it to an extent that would contradict the Mosaic account of creation, he rests simply on gratuitous hypothesis. Geology gives far too perfect an account for Mr. Darwin here. He has not only to account for the non-appearance of forms throughout all stages of the world's history, but he has the far more difficult task, and one that he will never accomplish, of accounting for the vast diversity of the forms of organic beings in the earliest fossiliferous strata. 66 Several of the most eminent geologists, with Sir R. Murchison at their head, are convinced that we see in the organic remains of the lowest Silurian stratum, the dawn of life on this planet." (p. 307)

This may not be the case, but nothing can be less probable, or more baselessly hypothetical, than that a stratum shall ever be discovered, to show that a period ever existed when the earth was peopled with a single organic form.

For ourselves, we can only say this, that the perusal of Mr. Darwin's book has strongly impressed upon us, that there exists a great variability in plants and animals, and that variations that conferred an advantage on their possessor would most probably be perpetuated, to the detriment and ultimate extinction of the less perfect form: that, on the other hand, in certain species, little or no variation is found, and this not only in an aberrant type, like the Ornithorhynchus, but in very many less eccentric forms, which, as a matter of fact, have endured through every known age of the world. We have concluded that both animals and plants have thus a power of adapting themselves to various climates and conditions of life, and of gradually assuming a great diversity of organization, which have enabled them to fill the world. We have seen thus great extinctions, and great variations taking place so that if an inhabitant of one of the earlier periods of the world's history were now to arise, he would look in vain for some familiar forms, while he would find himself surrounded by many that to his eye would be new and strange. But we do not find ourselves in any position to lay down any general laws, or to consider theories as proved which assert even "that all the existing species of the same group, have descended from one progenitor,' (p. 306) much less any attempt to sketch a still larger genealogical tree.

Bearing in mind that we have not one aboriginal language, but several; that some have varied, may be, but little, while others have not only changed exceedingly, but have been the parent of many and diverse varieties, we know not what illustration we could introduce preferable to that given by Mr. Darwin himself.

"If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the best classification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly changing dialects, had to be included, such an arrangement would, I think, be the only possible one. Yet it might be that some very ancient language had altered little, and had given rise to few new languages, whilst others (owing to the spreading and subsequent isolation and

1860.1 Modern Principles of Government-Real Progress. 81

states of civilisation of the several races, descended from a common race) had altered much, and had given rise to many new languages and dialects. The various degrees of difference in the languages from the same stock, would have to be expressed by groups subor dinate to groups; but the proper or even only possible arrangement would still be genealogical; and this would be strictly natural, as it would connect together all languages, extinct and modern, by the closest affinities, and would give the filiation and origin of each tongue."-pp. 422-23.

Whether this is a practicable system of classification or no we have already discussed, but that it furnishes a fair parallel to what has taken place amongst the citizens of the world, we have little hesitation in admitting. These thoughts are not new to us. The unity of descent, and variety of form, of our domestic animals, not to say the consideration of the differences amongst our fellow-men, must have often directed the thoughts of many into this channel; but we owe Mr. Darwin many thanks for the steadiness of investigation, the thorough knowledge of natural history, and the comprehensive grasp of his subject which characterize the very remarkable book before

us.

ART. IV.-1. The Times Newspaper.

2. Le Pape et le Congrès. Paris, E. Dentu et Firmin Didot Frères, Fils et Cie. Libraires Editeurs, 1859.

3. La Question Romaine. Par E. About. Bruxelles, Meline, Cans & Cie. Libraires Editeurs, 1859.

4. Le Progres par le Christianisme, Conferences De Notre Dame de Paris. Par Le R. P. Felix de la Compagnie de Jesus. Années, 1856-1859. Paris, Librairie Adrien Le Clere & Cie.

THE HE king of journals, like the king of men, is grand and magniloquent in his wrath and in his triumph. Gifted with an unerring perception of the truest interests of mankind, and with a capacious heart open to all their sufferings and wrongs, what subject so calculated to enlist his sympathies and raise his eloquence to the pitch of

VOL. XLVIII-No. XCV,

6

sublimity, as the wrongs of Italy, groaning beneath the withering blight of Christianity? And what more worthy occasion for his voice to sound forth a song of hopeful triumph than the return to power of Count Cavour, the statesman whose counsels, backed by the heroic arm of the priest-hating Garibaldi," are vigorously employed in asserting the inalienable rights of man to freedom from every restraint,-above all from the galling chains of the yoke of Christ.

The Io Pœan of joy, mingled with righteous indignation against the enemies of man, which burst forth as it were by inspiration from the huge mouth of the oracular Times, among its leading articles of January 19th of the present year, to welcome back Cavour, contains a passage we were loath should become a "hidden gem," buried under the ponderous weight and accumulated dust of Times yet to come. We therefore extract it, and proudly enrol it in our pages, to shed its bright light upon our profound darkness. Its eloquence and its truth must be our excuse for its length. Its burden is Cavour and his services to Italy. Cavour and his return to office are the sum and substance of its joy, as being certain harbingers of the blessings which are to follow. Cavour has come back, and the Times must sing, and sound with exultation its loud timbrel over the enemies of freedom and Cavour.

Thus speaks our leading Journal on that auspicious

event:

"Matters are righting themselves. Civilization is once again marching ahead. Every event which now happens tends to dissipate doubts, to revive fainting hearts, and to spread throughout Europe a comfortable confidence that peace and order and reasonable liberty are coming back to spread their influence over the civilized world. Might is once again on the side of right. The great intellects of the age, and the honest minds of the age, are assuming their proper places-peacefully and as of right, and not spasmodically and by violence. As in those etchings which illustrate some

*According to the Univers this hero of liberalism informed the students of Pavia, "Austria will rise no more in Italy, but there remains to us a terrible enemy, the most terrible of all. . . . .he smiles on us with his satanic smile, and that enemy, O young men! it is the Priest!"