25 NOVEMBER 1882, Page 21

The Chain of Life in Geological Time. By J. W.

Dawson, LLD , F.R.S. (The Religiona Tract Society.)—The title of this book will almost suffice to explain its scope and contents. On opening the volume, we at once observe that the author does not adopt the hypothesis of evolution as ordinarily stated, while his twelfth and last chapter (pp. 252.270) contains a review of the history of life on the globe which certainly cannot be called Darwinian. But, on the other hand, Dr. Dawson's explanation of the term " creation " (p. 260), in its theological or Scriptural, as well as in its scientific sense, as a continued, but not uniform process of the introduction of new species by the operation of the cause or causes which introduced life at first, will not prove acceptable to those biologists who consider the theory of natural selection inadequate, to say the least. The arguments for an Intelligent Designer are stated with remarkable fairness and force on pages 263 to 267. It may be well to add that the whole volume is enriched with a large number of first-rate illustrations, amongst which are five drawings of the problematical

eozoon. •