the eleventh chapter several instances are given of the Pope's charity for the afflicted. In this chapter are found the details of the remarkable case of a Sacred Heart nun in Dublin who was cured in a wonderful way owing, it is piously believed, to the prayers of the Pope. The final chapter is devoted to the last illness and death of the saintly pontiff. The author has given us a very interesting life of Pius X, and we can promise those who read it that they will be instructed, edified, and entertained. Might not the statesman who grows eloquent on the theory of equality and the rights of man quote the rise of this poor village postmaster's son to the Papal throne, and point to the Catholic Church as the kingdom wherein theory and practice are combined?

D.

DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART. By Rev. Joseph J. C. Petrovits, J.C.B., S.TD. London: Herder.

THIS work was submitted to the Catholic University of America for the Doctorate. It is not therefore a devotional book in the popular sense, but a scientific thesis on the theology, history, and philosophy of devotion to the Sacred Heart. The questions treated of, such as the material and formal object, and the primary and secondary object of the devotion, are of interest chiefly to priests and to those of the educated laity who have a technical knowledge of theology. Many who know accurately the theological basis of the devotion will turn at once to the chapters on the Twelfth Promise about the 'Nine Fridays.' Having first given a summary of the arguments for and against the authenticity of the Great Promise, the author proceeds to discuss the contents of the letter in which the Twelfth Promise is alleged to have been revealed. A particularly interesting chapter deals with the interpretation of the Promise, assuming that it is authentic. In the final chapters the author explains the meaning of the formal approbation given to the writings of the Blessed Margaret Mary, and states his own conclusions on the questions previously discussed. Cardinal Gibbons, in a brief preface, hopes that these printed pages will promote the ideal purpose for which they were written '—a hope to which we venture humbly to subscribe.

D.

YOUR SOUL'S SALVATION and YOUR INTERESTS ETERNAL. By Father Garesché. New York: Benziger Brothers.

FATHER GARESCHE has admirably described these two volumes. They are, as he says, conferences of an informal, direct, and chatty kind between the writer and the reader, and are intended to be kept at one's elbow and to fill in a leisure or a quiet hour. These little talks on all sorts of spiritual topics are simple, practical, and attractively written. The titles of many of the chapters not only betray the domicilium originis of the conferences, but arouse a laudable curiosity as to what the chapter is about, for example, Especially Yours,' 'Everybody Does,' 'Just Going To.'

D.

MATER CHRISTI. By Mother St. Paul.

London: Longmans,

Green & Co.

MOTHER ST. PAUL'S name is well known, especially to religious, by her two previous meditation books. In this new work are contained thirty-one meditations on the Blessed Virgin, beginning with a Meditation on her Immaculate Conception, and giving a separate meditation for each event in her life. The meditations, as Father Rickaby tells us in his short Preface,' are composed on the Ignatian plan of visualising what Our Lord did, said, and suffered.' For those accustomed to only a half-hour's meditation, the three points will be found too long-any one point will supply enough materials for fruitful consideration for the half-hour.

D.

THE CROWN OF SORROW. By Rev. Alban Goodier, S.J. London: R. & T. Washbourne.

THIS is a book of meditations on the Passion of Our Lord, prefaced by the story of the Passion in the words of the four Evangelists. Each of the fifty-two meditations is introduced by a quotation from the story of the Passion, and each is concluded by three short sentences as a 'Summary of the three points of the meditation. Meditation books are very much a matter of personal taste. But we are sure that many will find this little book of Father Goodier's excellent as a help to meditation, and original in its practical application of the events of the Passion to their life and conduct.

D.

AN EIGHT DAYS' RETREAT.

By H. Hurter, S.J.
B. Herder.

London :

THE object of Father Hurter is to provide a help for those who make an eight days' retreat alone. Father Hurter follows the plan of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, and merely professes to develop the points of these meditations. Three meditations are assigned to each day, and after the second meditation are given a few pages of 'Spiritual Reading,' followed by a Consideration.' We cannot prophesy how valuable these meditations will be to those who use them for a retreat : Father Hurter himself recognizes that they will not be equally useful to all. Those who are called on to conduct a retreat according to the plan of St. Ignatius should find the book a useful companion. The name of the distinguished author is a sufficient guarantee of the solidity of the work.

D.

BOOKS, ETC., RECEIVED

America: A Catholic Review (April).

The Ecclesiastical Review (April). U.S.A.

The Rosary Magazine (April). Somerset, Ohio.

The Catholic World (April).
The Austral Light (March).
The Ave Maria (March).
The Irish Monthly (April).
The Catholic Bulletin (April).

New York.
Melbourne.

Notre Dame, Indiana.

Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd.
Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd.

The Month (April). London: Longmans.

Études (April). Paris: 12 Rue Oudinot (VII).

Revue Pratique d'Apologetique (April). Paris: Beauchesne.
Revue du Clergé Français (April). Paris: Letouzey et Ané.
The Fortnightly Review. (April). St. Louis, Mo.

The Lamp (April). Garrison, N.Y.

Revue des Jeunes (April).

Paris: 3 Rue de Luynes.

The Homiletic Monthly (April). London: Buns & Oates.

Various Discourses, by the Rev. T. J. Campbell, S.J. London: Herder. From the Cenacle to the Tomb, by the Rev. M. S. Smith. New York: Herder. Our Refuge, by Rev. A. Sprigler. London: Herde".

Handbook of Canon Law, by D. J. Lanslots, O.S.B. London: Herder. Some Notes on Modernism, by Rev. L. D. Strappini, S.J. London: Washbourne.

Religio Religiosi, by Cardinal Gasquet. London: Washbourne.

The Catholic Student's 'Aids' to the Study of the Bible, by Hugh Pope. Vol. II. London: Washbourne.

GENESIS AND EVOLUTION

BY REV. T. J. AGIUS, S.J.

As the heading of this essay sounds a little ambitious, it may be as well to state at once its proper scope. Taking the ascertained facts of science and those theories which are held to be probably true at the present day, it will be our purpose to examine the relations of these scientific conclusions with the cosmic narratives in Genesis, as well as with the doctrine of the Church. Hence, no attempt will be made to offer detailed criticism of the scientific speculations current to-day, but merely to outline the general features of the doctrine of Evolution, so as to be able to fix the Catholic point of view all the more accurately. The term evolution' has acquired a great number of meanings which it will be more convenient to keep quite distinct the one from the other. We find the most general and most widely held meaning to be that of Descent or Development. By this theory nearly all naturalists to-day understand that if all the individual plants and animals which exist, and have ever existed on the globe, were to be viewed together, it would be impossible to arrange them in groups or species at all, since they would be found to form one continuous series of gradations. In other words, naturalists consider the present varieties of animals and of plants to be the transformed derivations from some original type or types of living organism; and the present species are even now being imperceptibly changed into other, quite different, forms.

This theory, which is held by almost all naturalists of note, rests on three main lines of argument, derived from observed facts of natural history :

(1) Comparative Anatomy goes to show that animals exhibit several distinct types of structure, which, in fact, mark off the main divisions of the animal kingdom. Within any one of these main divisions may be found almost endless structural diversities, all of them obviously different modifications of the same fundamental plan. Thus, for FIFTH SERIES, VOL, XIII-JUNE, 1919

example, the foreleg of a lizard, the wing of a bird and of a bat, the burrowing shovel of a mole, the flipper of a whale, the foreleg of a horse and the human arm and hand can be readily shown, despite their apparent disparity, to belong to the same plan, so modified as to serve different uses-running, flying, burrowing, swimming, and grasping.

The argument is strengthened by the observation of so-called rudimentary organs and degenerative processes. Amongst the former are to be classed those structures which subserve no function whatever, and whose only meaning in this connection is that they are vestiges of former organs whose function had ceased to be of advantage to the species. Thus, in the whale tribe, while forelimbs have been converted into swimming paddles, the hind-limbs appear outwardly to have vanished completely. Internal examination, however, shows traces of hip, thigh, and shin-bone in the Greenland right whale; of the hipbone and of a minute rudiment of the thigh-bone in the Fin whale; while in the toothed whales only an almost unrecognizable remnant of the hip-bone is left, and in one of the dolphins even this vestige has disappeared.

Of degenerative processes a striking instance is that of the parasite Saeculina, the body of which in the adult form is reduced to a mere bag, with root-like fibres through which nourishment is absorbed from its host. However, when its development is observed, it is found that from the egg a free-swimming larva is hatched, possessing jointed appendages, nervous, muscular and digestive systems, just as complicated as that of a barnacle, the adult form being a degenerative process due to parasitic conditions. It would be impossible to account for this development, it is argued, on any other hypothesis than that of evolutionary adaptation.

(2) Historical Geography, taken in its widest sense of space and time, proves that fossil remains of animals are not evenly distributed among the one or two hundred thousand feet or so of deposits, but that invertebrate animals are the first to be observed among the most ancient strata, to be followed in due order by fishes, amphibious animals, reptiles, birds, mammals, and finally man, in the most recent of deposits. This order, it should be noticed, corresponds with the degree of complexity of the classes described; and the impression made on the investigator is that of a constant though not always uniform advance