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NEW BOOKS.

The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection; or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles Darwin, M.A. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860.

This is but an abstract of a larger work on that much-vexed question, "The Origin of Species," in course of preparation by Mr. Darwin. His theory is, that "we need not go in search of any other causes than those which are at present in action for an explanation of the phenomena exhibited to us in the present distribution and past succession of life upon the globe; a principle of change being still at work, the continuous operation of which, through the countless ages of geological time, is sufficient to account for the production, from a small number of original types, of a vast multiplicity of diversified forms, succeeding one another by natural descent, and undergoing progressive changes, in accordance with the alterations progressively taking place in the external conditions of their existence."