his work it must be confessed that the attention which might at first
be dutifully, soon becomes willingly, given, so clear is the author's
thought, so outspoken his conviction, so honest and fair the candid
expression of his doubts. Those who would judge the book must read it;
we shall endeavour only to make its line of argument and its
philosophical position intelligible to the general reader in our own
way.

The Baker-street Bazaar has just been exhibiting its familiar annual
spectacle. Straight-backed, small-headed, big-barrelled oxen, as
dissimilar from any wild species as can well be imagined, contended for
attention and praise with sheep of half-a-dozen different breeds and
styes of bloated preposterous pigs, no more like a wild boar or sow than
a city alderman is like an ourang-outang. The cattle show has been,
and perhaps may again be, succeeded by a poultry show, of whose crowing
and clucking prodigies it can only be certainly predicated that they
will be very unlike the aboriginal 'Phasianus gallus'. If the seeker
after animal anomalies is not satisfied, a turn or two in Seven Dials
will convince him that the breeds of pigeons are quite as extraordinary
and unlike one another and their parent stock, while the Horticultural
Society will provide him with any number of corresponding vegetable
aberrations from nature's types. He will learn with no little surprise,
too, in the course of his travels, that the proprietors and producers
of these animal and vegetable anomalies regard them as distinct
species, with a firm belief, the strength of which is exactly
proportioned to their ignorance of scientific biology, and which is the
more remarkable as they are all proud of their skill in 'originating'
such "species."

On careful inquiry it is found that all these, and the many other