BOTANIC GARDEN, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., June, 1876.

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I

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF

NATURAL SELECTION [I-1]

(American Journal of Science and Arts, March, 1860)



This book is already exciting much attention. Two American editions are
announced, through which it will become familiar to many of our readers,
before these pages are issued. An abstract of the argument--for "the whole
volume is one long argument," as the author states--is unnecessary in such
a case; and it would be difficult to give by detached extracts. For the
volume itself is an abstract, a prodromus of a detailed work upon which the
author has been laboring for twenty years, and which "will take two or
three more years to complete." It is exceedingly compact; and although
useful summaries are appended to the several chapters, and a general
recapitulation contains the essence of the whole, yet much of the aroma
escapes in the treble distillation, or is so concentrated that the flavor
is lost to the general or even to the scientific reader. The volume
itself--the proof-spirit--is just condensed enough for its purpose. It will
be far more widely read, and perhaps will make deeper impression, than the