the American Census thinks that the population of the United States in the year 1900 will number 100,000,000. If by that period the balance should be turned in their favour, then the vast demands for coal will have stimulated a corresponding extension of coal-mining; and the Americans must open coal fields of far wider extent than our own.

The course of manufacturing supremacy, of wealth, and of power is directed by Coal. That wonderful mineral, of the possession of which Englishmen have hitherto thought so little, but wasted so much, is the modern realisation of the philosopher's stone. This chemical result of primeval vegetation has been the means by its abundance of raising this country to an unprecedented height of prosperity, and its deficiency might have the effect of lowering it to slow decline, while by greater abundance it raises another country in the Far West to a prosperity possibly greater than our own. It supplies food, force, heat, light, and motion-wonderful alike in its geological origin and in commercial and national influences. It raises up one people and casts down another; it makes railways on land and paths on the seas. It founds cities, it rules nations, it changes the course of empires. And along with all this physical and social efficiency, it reads us a grave and solemn admonition. There is a moral purpose and retribution in all its vicissitudes. Prodigality, wastefulness, lack of prudent calculation, social selfishness, embittered class interests, and the national neglect of social and moral as well as physical laws in relation to this one indispensable gift of nature, will assuredly bring retributive justice upon us all or upon our posterity.

as a consequence have bought less of our iron. In the first two months of 1872 they received 88,430 tons of our iron rails, while in the first two months of this year they took only 48,901 tons; thus showing a decrease of 39,529 tons; and as American orders largely go to Wales, we at once arrive at an important conclusion on the suicidal character of strikes in that country. It has recently come to light that in the English market iron is 37. per ton dearer than in the American market.

ART. VII.-The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S., &c. With Photographic and other Illustrations. London: 1872.

MR. R. DARWIN has added another volume of amusing stories and grotesque illustrations to the remarkable series of works already devoted to the exposition and defence of the evolutionary hypothesis. Few, however, except faithful disciples will regard this new work as contributing much either to the author's fame, the scientific treatment of expression, or the support of the general theory. For ourselves, we must confess to having risen from its perusal with a feeling of the profoundest disappointment. Knowing the point to which Sir Charles Bell's admirable essay had carried the exposition of the subject, and finding from Mr. Darwin's introduction that he had given special attention to it for upwards of thirty years, we naturally expected that the volume would throw some fresh light on the philosophy of expression. This anticipation has not been realised. Of course the work contains a number of the careful observations, ingenious reflections, and faithful analogies with which Mr. Darwin's writings abound. But with regard to the interpretation of expression in men or animals, there is no advance on previous inquiries; while in relation to the most important branch, human expression, the exposition is positively retrograde, sinking far below the high level already reached. In his zeal for his favourite theory, Mr. Darwin seems to regard the nobler and more distinguishing human emotions with a curious kind of jealousy, as though they had no right to scientific recognition. He dwells at large only on the lower and more animal aspects and elements of emotion, and seems at times almost unwilling to admit that an expression is human at all, unless he can verify its existence in some of the lower animals. His one-sided devotion to an à priori scheme of interpretation seems thus steadily tending to impair the author's hitherto unrivalled powers as an observer.

However this may be, most impartial critics will, we think, admit that there is a marked falling-off both in philosophical tone and scientific interest in the works produced since Mr. Darwin committed himself to the crude metaphysical conception so largely associated with his name. The Origin of Species contained a number of typical facts carefully selected, admirably described, and skilfully marshalled in support of the general argument. The tone of the exposition was moreover cautious, sober, and perfectly candid. No attempt

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was made to disguise the partial and provisional nature of the results arrived at. The conception of gradual evolution by means of natural selection was stated as an hypothesis towards which many facts seem to point, but which in the present state of our knowledge could not be positively verified. In The "Descent of Man,' while the relevant facts were far fewer, and the in the evidence wider and more serious, the tone of the gaps reasoning founded on them was confident even to dogmatism. In the present work, especially in the earlier or animal part, the facts, even when well established, are vague and ambiguous, while many of the more important are doubtful and disputed. A large proportion of them would indeed suit almost any other hypothesis quite as well as Mr. Darwin's, and many directly suggest a counter theory. Yet on the strength of this obscure and uncertain evidence Mr. Darwin claims to have established his general conclusion by even an excess of proof.

This significant result naturally suggests many reflections. Amongst others it raises the question as to the influence which the wholesale importation of hypotheses into many of its branches has had upon the development of modern science, and in particular the manner in which the leading hypothesis of evolution has affected the recent progress of the science of natural history. It has undoubtedly influenced very largely their whole spirit and procedure. During the last fifteen years not only have special branches been revolutionised, but science itself the very conception of what is scientific-appears to have undergone a very serious change. Instead of designating what is most rigorous, exact, and assured in human knowledge, natural science is fast becoming identified with what is most fluctuating, hypothetical, and uncertain in current opinion and belief. It is worth inquiring for a moment what amount of gain and loss is involved in the change, what are the relative advantages and disadvantages accruing to science from the disturbing element of speculative conjecture which the Darwin hypothesis has so largely introduced.

In the first place, there can be little doubt that the theory of evolution, like any large intellectual conception provisionally uniting widely sundered spheres of knowledge, may, under proper regulation, have a very salutary effect. If its true character be kept in view, the theory is likely to do good rather than harm. It will prompt inquiry after the links connecting various branches of science, and thus turn observation and research into wholly new directions. Under its influence attention will be fixed with interest and anticipation on the interspaces in the map of natural knowledge, which

The

would be neglected so long as the different provinces were held to be separate and independent kingdoms. In short, it would establish a sort of temporary federation between the different provinces of science, and thus suggest and encourage the prospect of their more intimate and lasting union. In this way such a conception helps to correct one of the most serious incidental evils connected with the rapid progress of sciencethe tendency to isolation and exclusiveness. It has long been a reproach against the votaries of physical research, that they are, as a rule, specialists, wise only in one, or at most one or two departments of inquiry, and thus taking a somewhat limited and one-sided view of nature's operations. The provinces of natural knowledge are too vast and varied to be mastered in detail by any single mind, and even accomplished students can at most have a first-hand acquaintance with comparatively few. With so many wide and prolific fields to cultivate, the division of labour becomes a necessity, and the ardent specialist, engrossed in his own work, is comparatively indifferent to other and more remote scenes of exertion. This absorption of mind in a single direction may be a secret of success in science, but it tends to narrow the vision to a particular area of inquiry and to give exaggerated importance to one class of results. kind of knowledge with which the specialist is most familiar comes almost unconsciously to be regarded as the only kind of real knowledge, its phenomena being the typical facts and its generalisations the ultimate laws of nature. The ignorance of other subjects even by proficients in science, may thus be denser and more hopeless than in minds of lower culture and intelligence. As Dr. Lyon Playfair has recently said, in discussing the mutual relation of professional and liberal studies, the focusing of light upon a particular spot, while it brilliantly 'illuminates that spot, intensifies the darkness all around.' And the darkness is usually most impenetrable at points further removed from the specialist's own field of vision. Continually engaged in the study of sensuous facts and the working of material forces, he becomes relatively insensible to the phenomena and powers of the moral and spiritual universe. He not unnaturally comes to regard these mental realities as altogether imaginary or wholly unknown, denying that they can ever become objects of science, or indeed knowledge in the limited meaning he attaches to the term. With such inquirers the terms metaphysical and theological are convenient and compendious epithets for describing their special ignorances and favourite aversions. They look, indeed, with impatience and suspicion on all theories designed to give a speculative basis

to the different branches of science, and unite all lines of investigation into a totality or universum of knowledge.

The doctrine of evolution acts as a corrective to this separatist tendency of analytical inquiry. It expands the horizon of science, and illuminates a wider prospect. For the old notion of nature as an aggregate of independent parts it substitutes the larger and more vital conception of all being mutually related and constituting an organic whole. The old lines of rigid difference, the hard isolating boundaries, including ultimate distinctions of form and substance, melt away before the incessant ebb and flow, flux and reflux, of common elements and common forces. The same constituents are found in the mightiest orbs above us as in the dust beneath our feet, and the same processes are illustrated in the formation alike of a star, a gem, or a flower. Man himself occupies a subordinate place in a vast secular procession which has moved on through interminable ages in the past, and, like the shadowy train that startled Macbeth in the Witches' Cavern, stretches out to the crack of doom in the future. Such a conception has undoubtedly a power and dignity of its own that, apart from definite evidence, would make it almost irresistibly attractive to a certain order of minds. If it seems at first sight to aggrandise nature at the expense of man, the unwelcome impression is soon removed by perceiving that it virtually annihilates the distinction between them. In the same way its bearing upon the moral universe is purposely left obscure in the ambiguity as to whether it may ultimately tend to materialise spirit or spiritualise matter. Ardent and imaginative minds, enamoured of natural inquiry, will not hesitate at speculative difficulties of this kind, or inquire too curiously about the links of proof. They will be fascinated by the novelty and grandeur of a conception that seems to rend the veil in nature's temple and reveal her hidden mysteries; that avowedly gathers the scattered rays of knowledge into a focus for the purpose of illuminating the past, the present, and the possible; that regards geological ages as moments in the rhythmical evolution of universal life, and planetary systems as mere specks in the fathomless abyss of infinite being. Such an hypothesis appeals quite as strongly to the imagination and the emotions as it does to the judgment and the reason, and hence the danger of its premature acceptance and indiscriminate application. Excitable but untrained minds would eagerly welcome it, and through the open avenues of fancy and feeling it will gain access to numbers who cannot estimate its value and know nothing of the evidence