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ment to another. All companies, assembled in any place or with any design whatsoever, should, within the hours of public worship, be dispersed, and no dallying on the part of those to whom is intrusted the maintenance of order should ever stimulate a single recusant to a second act of disobedience.

One of the largest and most successful camp-meetings in New England is conducted precisely according to the plan we have indicated, and more unexceptionable decorum we never saw, in an assemblage of a hundred people, than uniformly characterizes its proceedings. We have there seen more than six thousand people so attentively listening to the same discourse that every word was distinctly heard by the remotest auditor. To attempt to walk the space within the circle of tents was to encounter a policeman within ten seconds, and an immediate halt and a respectful silence alone saved the arrest of the ambulant party. It is not strange that the able and effective ministrations there employed, assisted by the admirable regulations we have described, should be divinely acknowledged by many immediate conversions, and by the frequent inauguration of powerful and sweeping revivals.

And the same policy ought to control every encampment, and might if every friend of the institution would promptly come to the rescue. If every minister would, once a year, make a timely appeal in its behalf to his congregation, urging its importance, exposing the errors and abuses that impede its progress, and suggesting whatever improvements may seem best adapted to modern requirements, the most beneficent results would speedily follow. Let the religious press take up the theme, and, disregarding the fearful contingency of losing a half-dozen subscribers, vigorously rebuke the evils in question, and the lapse of two years would not precede their general suppression. Thank God! the camp-meeting has nobly weathered the hostility of its enemies; we trust it may as triumphantly survive the mismanagement and folly of its friends.

ART. IV.-DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnæan, etc., Societies, author of "Journal of Researches during H.M.S. Beagle's Voyage round the World." London: John Murray. 1859. New York: Appleton & Co. 1860.

THE author of this ingenious book is a grandson of Dr. Darwin, the celebrated author of "The Botanical Garden," "The Loves of the Plants," "Zoonomia," and other poetical and scientific works, full of fanciful theories and rather suspicious theology. Whatever, therefore, may be his speculative eccentricities, we may fairly presume that he has come honestly by them. He has, however, for years occupied a very respectable position as a naturalist, and is favorably known to the scientific world by his narrative of the voyage of the Beagle, which he accompanied as naturalist, as well as by a number of valuable contributions to the publications of the Ray Society on various departments of natural history. His attention, he tells us, was first directed to this "mystery of mysteries" in zoology, the Origin of Species, during the voyage of the Beagle. On its return, in 1837, he devoted himself to "patiently accumulating and reflecting upon all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it," and he has been steadily pursuing the same object ever since. (Page 9.) This work is the result of these years of laborious investigation. It is, however, as he informs us, but an abstract of what he has done, to be followed soon by a much fuller work containing "in detail all the facts, with references," on which his conclusions have been founded. Though it has been but little over a year since its first publication, this book has had quite an exciting, and, if we are to judge by the rapidity of its sale, we may say a successful career. Perhaps no scientific work has ever been at once so extensively read, not only by the scientific few, but by the reading masses generally; and certainly no one has ever produced such a commotion. It has set savans and learned societies by the ears, and has been the theme of ani

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mated discussion in all sorts of magazines-literary, religious, and scientific. We have room for but a hasty glance at this discussion. The Edinburgh Review, (April, 1860,) while it rejects Darwin's theory upon scientific grounds, still hints its belief in "a constantly operating secondary creational law, not yet discovered; or, as Prof. Owen calls it, 'the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things." The North British (May, 1860) condemns it both scientifically and theologically, and declares that "it is in direct antagonism to all the findings of a natural theology founded on legitimate inductions in the study of the works of God; and it does open violence to everything which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures of truth of the methods and results of his workings." The Westminster, (April, 1860,) on the other hand, in accordance with its infidel proclivities, rejoices over it, for the very reason that, as it believes, it is opposed to the teachings of revelation, and does not accord with the orthodox scientific theories on the subject. According to it, "every philosophical thinker hails it as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armory of liberalism," while at the same time it confesses that the theory is far from being proved, and is yet but a probable hypothesis. Among our own periodicals, the North American Review (April, 1860) and the Christian Examiner (May, 1860) pronounce the book, in effect, atheistical; while the popular Atlantic Monthly (July, August, and October, 1860) very magnanimously takes up the cudgels in its defense, for the reason that enough will be found to attack, and but few to defend it. But the opinions of the scientific journals may be of more importance on such a question as this. M. Pictet, who discusses the subject with a great deal of ability and candor in the Bibliothèque Universelle, (March, 1860,) thinks the theory may be true within certain limits, but that Mr. Darwin has carried it entirely too far. Prof. Asa Grey, in a very kindly tempered article in the American Journal of Science, (March, 1860,) while doing ample justice to the candor and industry of the author, and defending him against the charge of atheism, is compelled, with evident reluctance, to decide against him scientifically. And lastly, Prof. Agassiz comes to the defense of his own system, which is brought into question in this dispute. Of course he has far more at stake than all others concerned.

This old theory of the transmutation of species, which he has so successfully opposed before, in its new form must expect no mercy from him. He can hold no parley whatever with it. Others may calmly discuss it, or coolly admit there may be some truth in it, but not so Agassiz. He must strangle it outright. Nothing short of annihilation will suit him. And most energetically does he set about the work, and most summarily does he finish it, winding up with the following sweeping condemnation: "Until the facts of nature are shown to have been mistaken by those who have collected them, and that they have a different meaning from that now generally assigned to them, I shall, therefore, consider the transmutation theory a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency." His answer to Darwin is contained in the forthcoming volume of his great work, but has been published in advance in the American Journal of Science, (July, 1860.) This, whatever may be said of some of its arguments, is perhaps the strongest and most authoritative reply yet made to Darwin's book.

Such a strong array as this against the new doctrine would certainly discourage most modest men, but Mr. Darwin is prepared even for this reception. He says in his Conclusion:

I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists, whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts, all viewed during a long course of years from a point of view directly opposite to mine.... A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to the young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides with impartiality.--P. 417.

But he is far from being without disciples-disciples, too, whose names are not without weight and influence in science. Dr. Joseph Hooker has confessed himself a convert to the new doctrine, and in the Introductory Essay to the Flora of New Zealand, has attempted an application of it. He also claims another, who, if not converted, is at least among the anxious. In acknowledging "the fact that all the most eminent palæontologists, namely, Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Bassande, Falconer, E. Forbes, etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often vehemently, main

tained the immutability of species," our author says: "But I have reason to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further reflection, entertains grave doubts on this subject." (Page 271.) We may safely conclude that if this heresy has found advocates in such high places, it must be more widely disseminated among the lower ranks of scientific men. The Edinburgh reviewer, quoted above, says that "perhaps the majority of our younger naturalists have been seduced into the acceptance of the homoeopathic form of the transmutative hypothesis now presented to them by Mr. Darwin under the phrase of 'natural selection."

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After the statement of the names and influence arrayed for and against Darwin's theory, those who take their opinions on authority may be satisfied; others may desire to inquire further into the subject. We will try to gratify the latter class. Of course, at this stage of the discussion we cannot hope to advance anything new; nor do we expect to contribute anything toward the final settlement of the question one way or the other. We will simply aim, in this article, to present to our readers as brief and clear a view as we are able of the two opposing theories of the origin of species-the commonly received, or orthodox theory of special creation, supported by Agassiz and others, and the development or transmutation theory advocated by Darwin and his followers. We will then, if our space permit, briefly examine some of the principal arguments advanced by Mr. Darwin in support of the latter doctrine.

It will be well for us, before entering upon the discussion of the Origin of Species, to endeavor to obtain, if possible, a definite idea of what is understood by the term species; for it is by taking advantage of a diversity of opinion, more ideal than prac tical, among naturalists on this point, that our author attempts to befog-and, we may say, pettifog-the whole question. This will necessarily involve a brief discussion of the principles of classification in natural history, which, however, may also enable us the better to contrast the two opposite theories. The commonly received system of classification is based upon the idea that certain original and distinct organic forms were created, and that these forms consisted of a single individual or pair, as the representatives of each species, which have transmitted to all their descendants their specific characteristics

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