Realists has been revived by the scientific men of the
present age, and once more the battle raging between the two schools has the war-cry of Species. And as in the former struggle, it seems possible that the opponents of Realism will get the best of it. Tho systematic researches of Darwin not only confirmed in a comprehensive manner the theory of Descent, which Lamarck and Goethe had independently put forth, but gave the logical ground for it in the doctrine of natural selection; if this bo a true hypothesis, the idea of the existence of borne species must be relegated to the lumber-room of untenable conceptions.
Accepting this theory, and all its deductions, our author has made the first attempt to trace the pedigree of the whole present flora and fauna of the world from primordial matter. The vastness of the undertaking, and the intimate knowledge it presupposes, would be enough to deter the boldest scientific adventurer from such an attempt, but Professor Haeekel's attainments are of no ordinary character. Ho is well known as a naturalist of the highest rank and a profound thinker, and his works have already obtained a classic eminence. By creation, the Professor understands only that of corporeal form, not cor- poreal matter, and he postulates the existence of two properties, Inheritance and Adaptation, in a certain chemical compound called albumen, upon whose interaction the whole of the phenomena of organic shape depends. In tracing the development of the highest organised beings and plants from the primary moneron—a shapeless mass of protoplasm—three principal considerations determine the relation of the individual to the primitive form and to other organisms, viz., its palaeontological history, its own development from the embryo, and comparative anatomy. Granting the hypothesis and the postulates, the whole work has a logical coherence, sufficient to induce the belief that there is a solid substratum of truth in the theory, in spite of the seeming breaks of continuity, which further research and tfio discovery of missing fossil links may possibly fill up. The pedigree of man, according to the Professor, is,—ape-like men, man-like apes, pouched animals, tailed and gilled amphibians, mud-fish, sac-worms, ciliated larvae, ammine, and monera. To our mind, the weakest part of the book is the treatment of spontaneous generation. The formation of a nucleus and cyst seems to imply a force in the plasma, other than chemical,
Previous page
