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246 think he underestimates the potency of a smaller number, for certainly, before a score had made their appearance, "The Modern Huxleys," whose skins are so ruthlessly stripped off, would call upon their eternal protoplasmic firmament to fall upon them and hide them forever from the calamities to come.

The author of the performance before us is of a most conservative temper, and refrains from altering even by a hair's-breadth any of the questions he has undertaken to discuss. All the conflicts, confusions, and obscurities of the subject, are faithfully reflected in his pages. For the alleged stripping off of disguises and plucking out the core of things, we have sought in vain, our impression being that this is exactly what the author has avoided. The assiduity with which he leaves things as he finds them is remarkable, and this trait gives a special value to his treatment of the subject. What is denounced by many people, Mr. Leifchild denounces, and what is indorsed by many other people, Mr. Leifchild indorses, and, if it happen to be the same thing, that is none of his business. Mr. Lyell's views of species are quoted, and then it is naively stated that Mr. Lyell has abandoned them—with Mr. Lyell be all the responsibility. His book may therefore be taken as having some value in indicating the various drifts of public opinion. Mr. Herbert Spencer is freely denounced by certain parties as the prince of materialists and the arch-enemy of all religion, because he is the leading exponent of the doctrine of evolution, and Mr. Leifchild joins in the condemnation, and quotes President Porter, of Yale, exultingly as the great "Spencer-crusher." But there are others who maintain that the doctrine of evolution is not necessarily atheistic, or materialistic, or destructive of religion, and with these also Mr. Leifchild is in equal accord. Lest the readers of Chancellor Crosby's introduction should be puzzled at this statement, and perhaps a little skeptical about it, we quote the following passages from "The Great Problem:"