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The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., &c. With Photographic and other Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1872.

WE can but give, at present, a brief notice of this very important work. Mr. Darwin has written nothing that is more indicative of his peculiar powers. As in former instances, it is not so much for the discovery of what is new, as for the novel application of what is old, that the book is remarkable. Its eminent author has followed a certain cumulative argument in his writings. The Origin of Species lays the foundation for The Descent of Man; and now man's development by evolution, through the agency of natural and sexual selection, is to be made manifest by showing that the instruments by which his emotions are expressed are not made for that purpose, but are inherited from the ancestral brute, and are used because they are there, rather than because they are given to be so used. It may suffice now to say that "Natural Selection" and the "Evolution" which it implies form the basis of all the inferences here made; but that a wholly different complexion may be given to the beautiful series of illustrations employed, we shall hope to show by a careful discussion of this volume in our next issue.