at a given moment, he attributes to them wrong effects, his further observations will in due time cure him of his error. Thus the errors of the evolutionists are sure to be discovered and corrected, for they consist, and can consist, only in wrong suppositions as to the relations between material phenomena—phenomena which are open to the study of all, and which have no habit of hiding themselves behind a veil of mystery. But what remedy is there for the errors of superstition? What can we say to the man who believes in the uncaused, to whom the universe is full of facts that bear on them no stamp save that of arbitrary will? His superstition is a pillar round which reason will chase him in vain.
To say that every vegetable and animal species is the special result of a distinct divine fiat is to put a veto upon all scientific inquiry in the region of biology. But to-day such a veto comes too late. The world has learned too much under the guidance of the doctrine of evolution, too many regions of knowledge have been fertilized by it, too many individual minds have found in it a never-failing spring of instruction and intellectual stimulation, for any overthrow, or even any obscuration, of the idea to be possible. What, we ask, have its opponents to teach? They are compelled to recognize the general principle of evolution in history, geology, and many other fields of research, and, so far as they do, their intelligence has free scope. But what do they teach instead of it in the field of biology? Absolutely nothing. They simply draw a line and say, "Here begin wonder, miracle, mystery, all that is arbitrary and thought-confounding." To the opponent of evolution the resemblances, analogies, and homologies that run through animated nature are simply so many false lights, ignes fatui, suggesting community of origin where community of origin there is none, Rudimentary organs signify nothing, neither
do the facts of embryology. All that can be said is that God made things as they are, rudimentary organs and all, just as suited himself. If different species and genera show resemblances, it is simply because the same ideas kept running through the Divine Mind. Such is the sum and substance of anti-evolutionist teaching. That it is anti-scientific, and that it tends to nothing less than paralysis of the intellectual powers, is evident at a glance. Fortunately, it is confined nowadays to synods and conferences, and even there is not received with entire favor. At the recent Œcumenical gathering of Methodists at Washington an earnest divine from the Southern States found some of his brethren, particularly those from England, badly infected with evolutionary ideas. A similar discovery might be made in almost any similar assembly to-day. Evolutionists may therefore proceed very contentedly with their studies. They are in the right path, because they believe in the universality of natural causation; and, if they fall into error, they will work their way out again without any abandonment of their cardinal principle.
The History of Human Marriage. By Edward Westermarck. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 644. Price, $4.
The words of Pope—"The noblest study of mankind is man"—long used as a motto by the cultivators of the so-called humanities, are in full agreement with the disposition of scientific research to give increasing attention to the field of anthropology. Folk lore, family and tribal customs, the evolution of religions, the origin and development of races, heredity, etc., are preeminently the scientific topics of the time. The many who are interested in this department of science will welcome the work of Dr. Westermarck, concerning which A. R. Wallace says in an introductory note, "I have seldom read a more thorough or a more philosophic discussion of some of the most difficult and at the
