The question is an interesting one, and has accordingly called forth a large literature in England, Germany, France, and Italy. Mr. Chapman’s book is, we believe, the only one written in this country, and professedly devoted to the advocacy of the theory that, to use the author’s own words, “the development of the higher forms of life from the lower has been brought about by natural selection, and that man has descended from a lower extinct form of which the gorilla and chimpanzee are the nearest living representatives”—which is Darwinism pure and simple, and which ought to be distinguished from the more general theory of “evolution.” That Mr. Chapman’s book has been published in America, and that we wish to say a few words on the question which it treats, and especially on the bearings of that question on revealed religion, constitute its only claims on our attention; for neither the style of the writer nor the lucidity of his argument, much less its originality, entitles it to any particular notice. The work is a mere compilation, which, however, may be of service to those who desire to possess in a convenient shape the facts, and to examine the nature of the reasoning, by which the Darwinian hypothesis is supported. When we have said this, and that Mr. Chapman devotes a chapter of his book to the argument from zoology, geology, embryology, etc., respectively, in favor of Darwinism; that these arguments are neither as elegant, scholarly, or cogent as they might be made; that he has followed the materialists of Germany in their version of the theory, and further than there is even the shadow of a warrant to follow it, we have said all that we wish to say about his book, and bestowed upon it the highest praise it is in our power to bestow consistently with truth.