essential to life as the structure advances are due temperature, due
nutriment of the nervous organs, and due access to the atmospheric air.
Without, therefore, pursuing further this part of the inquiry, we shall
remark that the question at issue between the _Vestiges_ and its
opponents is one of facts--of conflicting evidence--to be tried by the
jury of the public, or rather by those who, from science or professional
pursuits, are competent to form an authoritative opinion. Our own
conclusion is, that in face of the testimony adduced against it, the
author's hypothesis is not yet established.

For proof that species do change, and that even new species have been
actually and recently produced, the author has adduced statements
certainly as questionable and little satisfactory as his representation
of foetal phenomena. We can only briefly enumerate them. First we are
told that oats sown at midsummer, if kept cropped down, so as to be
prevented shooting into ear, and then allowed to remain in the ground
over winter, will spring up next year in the form of rye (p. 226). This
need not be disputed about; the experiment can be easily tried; but if
rye were the result, it would be no conclusive proof of a translation of
species. Perhaps the oat-plants perished under the operation of repeated
cuttings, and the rye seed was dormant in the earth and sprung up in its
place; or, if not so, oats and rye may not be different species, only
varieties of the same species. They are scarcely more dissimilar than
the primrose, the cowslip, and the oxlip, which have all been raised
from the seed of the same plant, and are now regarded by botanists as
varieties instead of species.

When lime is laid on waste ground we are told that white clover will
spring up spontaneously, and in situations where no clover-seed could
have been left dormant in the soil (p. 182). But how is this to be