f all the branches of physics, of chemistry, of
medicine, but a narration of the steps by which the human mind has been
compelled, often sorely against its will, to recognize the operation
of secondary causes in events where ignorance beheld an immediate
intervention of a higher power? And when we know that living things are
formed of the same elements as the inorganic world, that they act
and react upon it, bound by a thousand ties of natural piety, is it
probable, nay is it possible, that they, and they alone, should have no
order in their seeming disorder, no unity in their seeming multiplicity,
should suffer no explanation by the discovery of some central and
sublime law of mutual connexion?

Questions of this kind have assuredly often arisen, but it might have
been long before they received such expression as would have commanded
the respect and attention of the scientific world, had it not been for
the publication of the work which prompted this article. Its author, Mr.
Darwin, inheritor of a once celebrated name, won his spurs in science
when most of those now distinguished were young men, and has for the
last 20 years held a place in the front ranks of British philosophers.
After a circumnavigatory voyage, undertaken solely for the love of
his science, Mr. Darwin published a series of researches which at
once arrested the attention of naturalists and geologists; his
generalizations have since received ample confirmation, and now command
universal assent, nor is it questionable that they have had the most
important influence on the progress of science. More recently Mr.
Darwin, with a versatility which is among the rarest of gifts, turned
his attention to a most difficult question of zoology and minute
anatomy; and no living naturalist and anatomist has published a better
monograph than that which resulted from his labours. Such a man, at all
events, has not entered the sanctuary with unwashed hands, and when he
lays before us the results of 20 years' investigation and reflection we
must listen even though we be disposed to strike. But, in reading his
work it must be confessed that the attention which might at first be
dutifully, soon becomes willingly, given, so clear is the author's
thought, so outspoken his conviction, so honest and fair the candid
expression of his doubts. Those who would judge the book must read
it; we shall endeavour only to make its line of argument and its
philosophical position intelligi