with suggestions of what "might have been " (which soon becomes “must have been ") under unknown or impossible conditions.* Professor Haeckel pronounces upon man's pedigree with the most unhesitating confidence. He speaks of "our ancestors as Monera, our ancestors" as worms, our ancestors as fishes, &c., &c., with the greatest freedom. We are reminded that when we speak of "poor worms" or "miserable worms," we should. remember that "without any doubt a long series of extinct worms were our direct ancestors." He recognizes twenty-two distinct stages in our evolution, which I will briefly recapitulate, as comprising the latest data of philosophy on this subject. Of these, eight belong to the invertebrate, and fourteen to the vertebrate sub-kingdom. What follows is only an abstract of the chapter before referred to.

matter.

66

1. The Monera is the earliest form of life. It arose in the Laurentian epoch by spontaneous generation from inorganic Its acceptance as our earliest ancestor is necessary on the most weighty general grounds." 2. The Amabæ; and 3. The Compound Amabæ come next. They are to be accepted on embryological considerations; as are also 4. The Planæada, represented by some ciliated animalculæ. 5. The Gastroa (Urdarmthiere) are a purely imaginary class of animals. They are placed here because required as ancestors for the Gastrula, itself an imaginary order, derived from embryological exigencies. 6. The Archelminthes, or earliest worms, represented now by the Turbellaria. 7. The Scolecida, the actual annelidan representatives of which are not known. 8. The Chordonia, noticed above, also a purely imaginary type, having no known extinct or living representatives, but being undoubtedly the progenitors of all the Vertebrata, through the Ascidians.

9. The Acrania, represented by the Amphioxus, the lowest form of vertebrate animal, a rudimentary fish, having certain resemblances to the Ascidians. 10. The Monorhina, which was the parent stem of the sharks, through the Amphirhina, represented by the modern lampreys. 11. The Selachii, or shark tribes, from which sprung-12. The Dipneusta, or Lepidosirens, from which originated-13. The true Amphibia, and-14. The Sozura, another order of Amphibia, interpolated here "because required as a necessary transition stage between the true Amphibia," and-15. The Protamniota, or general stem of the mammalia, reptiles, and

Those who are interested to know to what lengths zeal for theory will occasionally carry its supporters, may find an illustration in Nature for November 2nd, p. 18. The subject is scarcely adapted for quotation.

Anthropogenic, p. 399.

The reader is requested not to view this as a gloss or caricature on the text. It is as nearly a precise abstract as I can make it; and the work in question is considered one of the most philosophical treatises on biology of modern times.

birds.

"What the Protamniota were like," says Professor Huxley, "I do not suppose any one is in a position to say,"* but they are proved to have existed, because they were the necessary forerunners of-16. The Pro-mammalia, the earliest progenitors of all the Mammalia. The nearest living genera are the Echidna and Ornithorynchus. 17. Marsupialia, or kangaroos. 18. The Prosimiæ, or half-apes, as the indris and loris. 19. The Menocerca, or tailed apes. 20. The Anthropoides, or man-like apes, represented by the modern orang, gibbon, gorilla, and chimpanzee, amongst which, however, we are not to look "for the direct ancestors of man, but amongst the unknown extinct apes of the Miocene." 21. The Fithecanthropi, or dumb ape-men-an unknown race-the nearest modern representatives of which are cretins and idiots!! (p. 592). They must have lived, as a necessary transition to-22. The Homines, or true men, who "developed themselves from the last class, by the gradual conversion of brute howlings into articulate speech," &c., &c.

With regard to the immediate ape-like ancestors of man, it is distinctly and very emphatically set forth (p. 577) that none of the modern anthropoid apes can be regarded as our direct progenitors:

"This opinion is never held by thoughtful supporters of the descenttheory, although often attributed to them by their thoughtless opponents. Our ape-like ancestors are long since extinct. Perchance their fossil remains may some time be found in the tertiary deposits of Southern Asia or Africa. They must nevertheless be ranked amongst the tailless catarhine anthropoid apes."

It is perhaps scarcely necessary again to state that such a scheme of progression as that just briefly sketched has no existence in nature. There is no evidence of it in existing forms of life; there is no indication of it in fossil remains; and there is no possibility of such a progression, even as a matter of theory, in accordance with the recognized laws of morphology. There are at least four distinct types of animal life, the Calenterata, the Mollusca, the Annulosa, and the Vertebrata, between no two of which is there any transition form or forms, either known or conceivable—that is, if morphology be a science at all, or anything beyond an incoherent aggregation of irrelevant and unconnected details of structure.

The reader is now in position to judge of the value of the evidence, which I have endeavoured fairly to epitomize, both as to evolution in general and the pedigree of man in particular; and also to determine whether it is necessary to do more than to leave both the original and the derived doctrine to perish from

inherent weakness. The connection of these doctrines with human automatism is nothing new or strange. All that has been said. by Professor Huxley is very little more than an amplification of what was most clearly and tersely set forth by Lamarck more than sixty years ago.

Lamarck discerned with perfect clearness the strict logical dependence of human automatism upon a physical theory of life. It will be evident from a consideration of the following extracts from the introduction to his "Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres," how little progress has been made in this department of biological science since his days:

"Every fact or phenomenon that can be observed is essentially physical. All movement or change, every acting force, and every effect whatever, are due necessarily to mechanical causes, governed by laws. Every fact or phenomenon observed in a living body is at once a physical phenomenon and a product of organization." (Preface, pp. 11 et seq.) He further refers to these physical phenomena as "constituting life” (p. 12), and to sensation and thought being due to changes in a “particular system of organs capable of giving rise to these physical, mechanical, and organic phenomena.” From these general principles the conclusions are natural and inevitable, that "all living bodies or organisms are subject to the same natural laws as are lifeless or inorganic bodies; that the ideas and faculties of the mind generally are but manifestations of movements in the central nervous system;" and finally, that "the Will is in truth never free."

But be the doctrine new or old, it cannot be denied that it is a strictly logical deduction from the postulate.

If man is but the product of the molecular forces of matter, from which he is evolved without the "intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes;" if he is merely a "co-ordinated term of Nature's great progression," or a result of "the interaction of organism and environment through cosmic ranges of time;" then is he indeed, hopelessly and helplessly, a mere automaton, with neither choice, will, nor responsibility. But if, on the other hand, it has been or can be proved that such doctrines find no support from science, from observation, from experiment, or from reason, then the doctrine of Human Automatism is relegated to the domain of all such "figments of the imagination," and man may trust implicitly to the consciousness which tells him that he is no mere machine; but a responsible free agent, with duties to perform to his God, his neighbour, and himself; and a conscience to prick him if he performs them not. CHARLES ELAM.

N his vigorous article in the November number of the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, Mr. Gladstone practically asked for a suspension of judgment on the charges brought by Mr. Schuyler against General Kauffmann as respects his conduct of the Turkoman campaign; but most of those who have followed with attention the discussion that has ensued, or, better still, have ascended for themselves, as near as possible, to the fountain-head, will probably, whatever their prepossessions, have arrived at the conclusion that, while there may have been some exaggeration in the details, there is unfortunately no room for doubt as to the general truth of the indictment. I gladly admit with Mr. Gladstone, that the barbarous proceedings which Mr. MacGahan and Mr. Schuyler have revealed to us on the part of the Russians, are nowadays exceptional, and that, on the whole, they have been humane in their dealings in Central Asia, but there have been parallels to the Khivan doings within the memory of younger men than Mr. Gladstone, alike in Poland and in the Caucasus. There is little danger, as Mr. Gladstone fears, that the masses of the English people will be led away by the hasty assertion of an editorial article, or the heedless rhetoric of Parliament when "out of session," to compare the massacre in Turkestan with the cold-blooded torturings and the unutterable depravities in Bulgaria; but there is danger lest, in ignorance of the full facts, or in excessive indignation, or in a short-sighted desire for peace at any price, they should allow those

to enter on the inheritance of the offender, or at all events to have the chief voice in the disposal of his effects, who, in their rage for territorial aggrandisement, air their humanity in Bulgaria while they come red-handed from Turkestan.

On the other hand, I say not a word for the Turkish Government; it is at once impotent and violent, cruel and corrupt. To ensure any permanent settlement, and to restore even a modicum. of prosperity to the fair provinces, and to their unhappy populations which have been so long subject to the Turks, it is clear that they must be put under the strictest tutelage. The "integrity and independence" of the Turkish Empire must be interpreted in a sense which these words do not usually bear. The teeth of the tiger must be drawn and his claws pared, and the Tartar must be kept in order with a firm but kindly hand; not till he is driven, as St. Louis wished to drive him, to the Tartarus from whence he came; but till such time as he is ready to take his place peaceably, on terms of social and religious equality, among the nations that make up his empire.

It is not a question, be it remembered, as is often imagined, of Mohammedan as against Christian; it is a question of the ruling Turk as against all his subjects alike, whether Christian or Mohammedan. The Ansayrians and the Yezidis are as much victims of Turkish cruelty and oppression as are the Bosnians and the Bulgarians. In Anatolia and Syria, in Mesopotamia and Armenia, the most ordinary duties of government are as much neglected as they are in European Turkey. Atrocities take place there which unfortunately there are no Schuylers or Daily News' correspondents to report; there, as in Turkey in Europe, are unprincipled and sensual Pashas, exorbitant and brutal Zaptiehs; there, if anywhere, rulers are a terror not to the evil works, but to the good. The peasant cuts down his olive or his fig-trees because he knows he will not be allowed to reap their fruit; they only serve the tax-gatherer with a fresh pretext for exaction or enormity. There is there no accumulation because there is no safety; the peasant is afraid to surround himself with anything which does not bear the appearance of the most abject poverty. He is best off who manages to support life on the barest pittance. Nor are the life of the peasant, and the honour of his wife and daughters, much safer than is his property. The Muslim himself is little better off than the Christian; if he is exempt from the most grinding of the taxes he is liable to a far heavier blood-tax, in the shape of the conscrip tion, and the bread-winners of a village may be taken away at one fell swoop for as long a time as the Government may require their services. This is one reason, and not the least important reason, for the appearance, as travellers tell us, of the even greater misery and desolation commonly presented by the houses