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D. Appleton & Co., New York. THE DESCENT OF MAN. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. Vol. II.

In addition to a most elaborate argument in favor of the descent of man from some lowly-organised form, remotely from the most primitive of the vertebrates, and more recently from an ape-like creature, the first volume of this work contained a few chapters on the part which the principle of sexual selection has played in the history of man. The discussion of this subject is continued in and occupies the whole of this, the second and concluding, volume of the work.Although his own conclusion is that this of all the causes which have led to the differences in external appearance between the races of man, and to a certain extent between man and the lower animals, has been the most efficient, he admits that the views he advances want scientific precision. They certainly do. As we intimated in regard to the first part of the work, his argument is a very ingenious one, but it is not convincing. As a salve to the dignity of the many persons to whom he regrets to think his main conclusion will be highly distasteful, he offers the following in his concluding paragraph:- "Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future."Claxton, Remsen & Co. have the volume on sale.