CURRENT LITERATURE.
Primitive Man. By Louis Figuier. (Chapman and Hall.)—This book is written with all the liveliness and force, the lucidity and the felicity of illustration which distinguish M. Figuier and, we may add, not a few of the savants who belong to the samo nationality. Compared with others which treat of the same subject, or of others allied to it—with that, for instance, of Sir John Lubbock—it is popular in its method and style but it is in nowise superficial. M. Figuier, it should be observed, is strongly opposed to the "development" theory. That opposition we are by no means disposed to censure, but it possibly accounts for &blemish in the volume, not uncommon, indeed, in French books of science, which suggests the only adverse criticism which we desire to make upon it. The pictures are of a sensational and unreal kind. Did M. Figuier, by way of protesting that man is not descended from the ape, direct his artist to give to his representation of the primitive tribes such a mag- nificent development ? We have nothing to show nowadays so superb. If prehistoric man was so noble of aspect, we:must be descending to the level of the ape, instead of having risen from it.
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