set the words of Job alongside of the discoveries of palæontology, they become as deeply suggestive as when read in the connection in which they are used by him :

"Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee:
And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee:
And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee."

However many links there may be between man and those forms whose remains are still met with in "scarped cliff and quarried stone," it has not been his lot to make his grave with them. And, as we peer eagerly into the future, touching the destiny of our race, the poet's query at once gets sympathy-" Shall man," he asks,

"Who loved, who suffered countless ills,

Who battled for the True, the Just,

Be blown about the desert dust,

Or sealed within the iron hills?"

Thoughts of the resurrection propose an answer, but this lies far away from our present task.

ON THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT, AND
ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

T the close of our notes on Genesis i. and ii. reference was made to certain current Schemes of Life, which have been proposed by their authors, in the room of the account of the origin and progress of animated Being contained in these chapters. Two merits are held to distinguish them from the Scripture account. On the one hand, they are alleged to satisfy the demands of advanced science, and, on the other hand, to be in harmony with the enlightened intelligence of the age. We claim both features for the sacred narrative.

The theories are two, namely, the scheme of natural law, well known as "The Theory of Development," and "The Darwinian Theory of Species." Generally, they are to be regarded as wholly opposed to the utterances of the Bible on these topics.

I. The Theory of Development.-A few years ago it was almost universally believed, that the views of life which characterize this scheme had ceased to be at all influential. It was thought, that as so many facts had been marshalled against it, and the errors involved in it been set in so many lights, it would not be heard of again. It has, however, been very recently reproduced both in this country and in America, claiming the support of science and, generally, the attention of thinkers. Moreover, there is good reason to believe, that though the theory is not now generally in vogue in, so called, learned circles, it has a place in much of the literature of popularized science, and that in this form it may be influencing, to some extent, the minds of a class in whom the main strength of every state will be found. The speculations associated with this scheme have even been favourites with the wandering stars in the firmament of science-as Oken, Virey, Lamarck, &c. It would be unfair to these men to rank the author of "The Vestiges" along with them on the platform of science. They worked in the wide field of nature. His sphere was mainly the

library. The history of this theory points to its origin in some views of creation current in Greece and in Italy, at a time anterior to the Christian era. We, however, are mainly concerned with its aspects in modern times. Two works are chiefly to be noticed in connection with it. These are "The Philosophy of Zoology," by J. B. Lamarck ("Philosophie zoologique; ou Exposition des considerations relatives à l'histoire naturelle des animaux," 1809), and the more recent English work, "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." The latter is mainly a reproduction of the principles of the former, with illustrations drawn from a state of science much more advanced. The Frenchman's scheme bears mainly on man-the development of man from the ape, through the incidental modification of bodily organs, and the enlargement of the faculties enjoyed by brutes, whose instincts are held to be of the same nature as the intellectual powers of man. They have only the ill luck to differ greatly in quantity from those of man, but no doubt the chimpanzee has the strong hope of a step onwards some day, and of a mental condition equal to its present august descendants! How it comes to pass that in all history we can find no trace of the period of change, and that in all efforts at monkey-training the teacher has met with no success either in modifying organization, or in developing mind, M. Lamarck wisely does not attempt to answer. But the puzzle is not with the ape only. It is equally mysterious when we look at man. We have reliable information, touching both his bodily organization and his moral and mental character, reaching through thousands of years; but all this goes to show, that what man was four thousand years ago he is yet, having the same, and no other, relations in structure and in instincts to the ape of to-day as to the ape of that remote period. He has not succeeded in developing the race to a point more remote from the gorilla (Troglodytes gorilla), orang-outang (Simia satyrus), or the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), than he had attained four thousand years ago. See Plate XX., Figs. 1, 2, 3. The figures tell their own tale, even though they are indebted to the artist for what they have of distant resemblance to man-a remark equally true of the graphic illustrations of Professor Huxley's recent work, "Man's Place in Nature" (1863). It is easy enough for an artist to invest the apes in his own imaginings, and then to assign to them a peculiarly man-like aspect in form and attitude.

Some of M. Lamarck's views have been reproduced by Professor Huxley, who has brought his almost unrivalled attainments in anatomical zoology to the illustration of the structural resemblances between

WILLIAM MACKENZE GLASGOW. EDINBURGH ONDON & NEW YORK

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