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THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,

By CHARLES DARWIN.

A new American edition of "The Origin of Species," later than the latest English edition, has just been published, with the author's most recent corrections and additions.

In the whole history or the progress of knowledge there is no case so remarkable of a system or doctrines, at first generally condemned as false and absurd, coming into general acceptance in the scientific world in a single decade. From the following statements, the reader will infer the estimate that is now placed upon the man and his works by the highest authorities.

"Personally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in geology; a student of geographical distribution, not on maps and in museums only, but by long voyages and laborious collection; having largely advanced each of these branches of science, and having spent many years in gathering and sifting materials for his present work, the store of accurately-registered facts upon which the author of the 'Origin of Species' is able to draw at will is prodigious."—Prof. T. H. HUXLEY.

[(Huxley, T. H.) 1860. Darwin on the origin of Species. Westminster Review 17 (n.s.): 541-70.]

"Far abler men than myself may confess that they have not that untiring patience in accumulating, and that wonderful skill in using, large masses of facts of the most varied kind—that wide and accurate physiological knowledge—that acuteness in devising, that skill in carrying out experiments, and that admirable style of composition, at once clear, persuasive, and judicial, qualities which, in their harmonious combination, mark out Mr. Darwin as the man, perhaps of all men now living, best fitted for the great work he has undertaken and accomplished."—ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.

[Wallace, A. R. 1870. Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays. London & New York: Macmillan & Co.]

In Germany these views are rapidly extending. Prof. GIEKIE, a distinguished British geologist, attended the recent Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians, at Innspruck, in which some eight hundred savants were present, and thus writes:

"What specially struck me was the universal sway which the writings of Darwin now exercise over the German mind. You see it on every side, in private conversation, in printed papers, in all the many sections into which such a meeting as that at Innspruck divides. Darwin's name is often mentioned, and always with the profoundest veneration. But even where no allusion is specially made to him, nay, even more markedly, where such allusion be absent, we see how thoroughly his doctrines have permeated the scientific mind, even in those departments of knowledge which might seem at first sight to be farthest from natural history. 'You are still discussing in England,' said a German friend to me, 'whether or not the theory of Darwin can be true. We have got a long way beyond that here. His theory is now our common starting-point.' And, so far as my experience went, I found it to be so."

[Geikie, Archibald. 1869. The meeting of German Naturalists and Physicians at Innsbruck, Tyrol. Nature 22 (4 November): 22-3.]

D. APPLETON & CO,. Publishers.