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MR. DARWIN ON THE DESCENT OF MAN.

Mr. Charles Darwin's new work, entitled "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex," has been published, and is an elaboration of the author's previous work, "The Origin of Species." Mr. Darwin, in the preface, points out that notwithstanding the prejudice excited against his views originally, many of the rising naturalists now accept the agency of natural selection. His object is threefold: - "To consider, firstly, whether man, like every other species, is descended from some pre-existing form: secondly, the manner of his development; and thirdly, the value of the difference between the so-called race of men." The pith of his theory is thus given: - "Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World." Mr. Darwin half apologises for having given to his fellow-creatures a pedigree of prodigious length, but "not of noble quality." Lady readers of his book, however, will learn with satisfaction that they are not necessarily related to any existing ape or monkey. On the contrary, it is more probable that the ancestors of the Simian stock (for man is supposed to have diverged from the Caterhine or Old World division of the Simiadæ, which bestows upon us all a pedigree extending rather beyond the time of William the Conqueror) were unlike any ape or monkey who can now be found in Shoreditch or the Zoological Gardens. Our progenitors, we are told, probably lived in Africa, and were distinguished by that ornament the loss of which received Lord Monboddo's serious attention. "I have given the evidence to the best of my ability," says Mr. Darwin, "and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humbles living creature, with his God-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system - with all these exalted powers - man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."