For ourselves, we dread the chill, and have some misgiving about the consequences of the reaction.  We find ourselves in the “singular position” acknowledged by Pictet,—­that is, confronted with a theory which, although it can really explain much, seems inadequate to the heavy task it so boldly assumes, but which, nevertheless, appears better fitted than any other that has been broached to explain, if it be possible to explain, somewhat of the manner in which organized beings may have arisen and succeeded each other.  In this dilemma we might take advantage of Mr. Darwin’s candid admission, that he by no means expects to convince old and experienced people, whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed during a long course of years from the old point of view.  This is nearly our case.  So, owning no call to a larger faith than is expected of us, but not prepared to pronounce the whole hypothesis untenable, under such construction as we should put upon it, we naturally sought to attain a settled conviction through a perusal of several proffered refutations of the theory.  At least, this course seemed to offer the readiest way of bringing to a head the various objections to which the theory is exposed.  On several accounts some of these opposed reviews specially invite examination.  We propose, accordingly, to conclude our task with an article upon “Darwin and his Reviewers.”

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Modern Painters.  By J. RUSKIN.  Vol.  V. Smith, Elder, & Co.  London.

The completion of a work of the importance of the “Modern Painters,” which has occupied in its production the thought and a large portion of the labor of fourteen years, is an event of more interest than it often falls to the lot of a book to excite; but when, as in this case, the result shows the development of an individual taste and critical ability entirely without peer in the history of art-letters, the value of the whole work is immensely enhanced by the time which its publication covers.

The first volume of “Modern Painters” was, as everybody will remember, one of the sensation-books of the time, and fell upon the public opinion of the day like a thunderbolt from the clear sky.  Denying, and in many instances overthrowing, the received canons of criticism, and defying all the accepted authorities in it, the author excited the liveliest astonishment and the bitterest hostility of the professional critics in general, and at once divided the world of art, so far as his influence reached, into two parts:  the one embracing most of the reverent and conservative minds, and by far the larger; the other, most of the enthusiastic, the radical, and earnest; but this, small in numbers at first, was increased, and still increases, by the force of those qualities of enthusiasm and earnestness, until now, in England, it embraces nearly