would run off to the joiner to convince him of the unity of plan on which he had been so unconsciously working. It was a bold step of our author's to adduce the geographical distribution of the several species of animals as a proof of his law of development. To most minds it would have immediately occurred as an objection. Each region of the earth has its own peculiar _fauna_, and this difference is not accountable on any known influence of soil or climate. What can explain the peculiar fauna of New Holland? If all the varieties of animal life spring from one and the same germ under the uniform laws of nature, how is it that in some regions, fitted in every respect for the support of animal life, no animals whatever of the higher order are found? "New Zealand, which may be compared in dimensions to Ireland united with Scotland, which extends over more than 700 miles in latitude, and is in its many parts 90 miles broad, with varied stations, a fine climate, and land of all heights, from 14,000 feet downwards, does not possess one indigenous quadruped, with the exception of a small rat."--_Lyell's Principles of Geology_, Vol. i. p. 102. Other instances equally striking might be mentioned. How are we to explain them upon our author's hypothesis? Are we to make supposition upon supposition, and presume that the land of New Zealand had not been long enough emerged from the sea to allow of the ample development of the original germ of life; and that, if the rat had been left to himself, he would in process of time have peopled the whole region with dogs, and horses, and oxen, or some other analogous quadrupeds? But our readers have perhaps heard sufficient of an hypothesis which is built only on a series of conjectures, and we ourselves are wearied with a too easy victory. There are many other topics in the book which would far better reward discussion than the one we have chosen--as, for instance, the geological views here put forward, the claims of phrenology, and the difference between instinct and intelligence; but if disposed to treat these subjects, we could have found other and more suitable opportunities; we thought it fit to select that which forms the peculiarity of the present work. But absurd as the matter is, we must complete the account which the author gives of the development of that race in which we are chiefly interested--man. We have seen, that according to his law of progressive generation, and as an instance of what he denominates "a modest and simple phenomenon," man was one day born of the monkey or the ape. But this discovered law has not only thus happily introduced the human being upon the earth, it also throws light upon the diversities which exist in the family of man.