CHAPTER XXII._Evolution, Old & New Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin

THE CASE OF THE MADEIRA BEETLES AS ILLUSTRATING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

THE EVOLUTION OF LAMARCK AND OF MR. CHARLES DARWIN--CONCLUSION.

An island of no very great extent is surrounded by a sea which cuts it

off for many miles from the nearest land. It lies a good deal exposed to

winds, so that the beetles which live upon it are in continual danger of

being blown out to sea if they fly during the hours and seasons when the

wind is blowing. It is found that an unusually large proportion of the

beetles inhabiting this island are either without wings or have their

wings in a useless and merely rudimentary state; and that a large number

of kinds which are very common on the nearest mainland, but which are

compelled to use their wings in seeking their food, are here entirely

wanting. It is also observed that the beetles on this island generally

lie much concealed until the wind lulls and the sun shines. These are

the facts; let us now see how Lamarck would treat them.

Lamarck would say that the beetles once being on this island it became

one of the conditions of their existence that they should not get blown

out to sea. For once blown out to sea, they would be quite certain to be

drowned. Beetles, when they fly, generally fly for some purpose, and do

not like having that purpose interfered with by something which can

carry them all-whithers, whether they like it or no. If they are flying

and find the wind taking them in a wrong direction, or seaward--which

they know will be fatal to them--they stop flying as soon as may be, and

alight on _terra firma_. But if the wind is very prevalent the beetles

can find but little opportunity for flying at all: they will therefore

lie quiet all day and do as best they can to get their living on foot

instead of on the wing. There will thus be a long-continued disuse of

wings, and this will gradually diminish the development of the wings

themselves, till after a sufficient number of generations these will

either disappear altogether, or be seen in a rudimentary condition only.

For each beetle which has made but little use of its wings will be

liable to leave offspring with a slightly diminished wing, some other

organ which has been used instead of the wing becoming proportionately

developed. It is thus seen that the conditions of existence are the

indirect cause of the wings becoming rudimentary, inasmuch as they

preclude the beetles from using them; the disuse however on the part of

the beetles themselves is the direct cause.

Now let us see how Mr. Darwin deals with the same case. He writes:--

"In some cases we might easily set down to disuse, modifications of

structure which are _wholly_ or _mainly_ due to natural selection." Then

follow the facts about the beetles of Madeira, as I have given them

above. While we are reading them we naturally make up our minds that

the winglessness of the beetles will prove due either wholly, or at any

rate mainly, to natural selection, and that though it would be easy to

set it down to disuse, yet we must on no account do so. The facts having

been stated, Mr. Darwin continues:--"These several considerations make

me believe that the wingless condition of so many Madeira beetles is

mainly due to the action of natural selection," and when we go on to the

words that immediately follow, "combined probably with disuse," we are

almost surprised at finding that disuse has had anything to do with the

matter. We feel a languid wish to know exactly how much and in what way

it has entered into the combination; but we find it difficult to think

the matter out, and are glad to take it for granted that the part played

by disuse must be so unimportant that we need not consider it. Mr.

Darwin continues:--

"For during many successive generations each individual beetle which

flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less

perfectly developed, or from indolent habit, will have had the best

chance of surviving from not having been blown out to sea; and on the

other hand those beetles which most readily took to flight would

oftenest be blown out to sea and perish."[371]

So apt are we to believe what we are told, when it is told us gravely

and with authority, and when there is no statement at hand to contradict

it, that we fail to see that Mr. Darwin is all the time really

attributing the winglessness of the Madeira beetles either to the _qua_

him _unknown causes_ which have led to the "ever so little less perfect

development of wing" on the part of the beetles that leave

offspring--that is to say, is admitting that he can give no account of

the matter--or else to the "indolent habit" of the parent beetles which

has led them to disuse their wings, and hence gradually to lose

them--which is neither more nor less than the "erroneous grounds of

opinion," and "well-known doctrine" of Lamarck.

For Mr. Darwin cannot mean that the fact of some beetles being blown out

to sea is the most important means whereby certain other beetles come to

have smaller wings--that the Madeira beetles in fact come to have

smaller wings mainly because their large winged uncles and aunts--go

away.

But if he does not mean this, what becomes of natural selection?

For in this case we are left exactly where Lamarck left us, and must

hold that such beetles as have smaller wings have them because the

conditions of life or "circumstances" in which their parents were

placed, rendered it inconvenient to them to fly, and thus led them to

leave off using their wings.

Granted, that if there had been nothing to take unmodified beetles away,

there would have been less room and scope for the modified beetles; also

that unmodified beetles would have intermixed with the modified, and

impeded the prevalence of the modification. But anything else than such

removal of unmodified individuals would be contrary to our hypothesis.

The very essence of conditions of existence is that there _shall be_

something to take away those which do not comply with the conditions;

if there is nothing to render such and such a course a _sine qua non_

for life, there is no condition of existence in respect of this course,

and no modification according to Lamarck could follow, as there would be

no changed distribution of use.

I think that if I were to leave this matter here I should have said

enough to make the reader feel that Lamarck's system is direct,

intelligible and sufficient--while Mr. Darwin's is confused and

confusing. I may however quote Mr. Darwin himself as throwing his theory

about the Madeira beetles on one side in a later passage, for he

writes:--

"It is probable that _disuse has been the main agent in rendering organs

rudimentary_," or in other words that Lamarck was quite right--nor does

one see why if disuse is after all the main agent in rendering an organ

rudimentary, use should not have been the main agent in developing

it--but let that pass. "It (disuse) would at first lead," continues Mr.

Darwin, "by slow steps to the more and more complete reduction of a

part, until at last it became rudimentary--as in the case of the eyes of

animals inhabiting dark caverns, and of the wings of birds inhabiting

oceanic islands, which have seldom been forced by beasts of prey to take

flight, and have ultimately lost the power of flying. Again, an organ

useful under certain conditions, might become injurious under others,

_as with the wings of beetles living on small and exposed

islands_;"[372] so that the rudimentary condition of the Madeira

beetles' wings is here set down as mainly due to disuse--while above we

find it mainly due to natural selection--I should say that immediately

after the word "islands" just quoted, Mr. Darwin adds "and in this case

natural selection will have aided in reducing the organ, until it was

rendered harmless and rudimentary," but this is Mr. Darwin's manner, and

must go for what it is worth.

How refreshing to turn to the simple straightforward language of

Lamarck.

"Long continued disuse," he writes, "in consequence of the habits which

an animal has contracted, gradually reduces an organ, and leads to its

final disappearance....

"Eyes placed in the head form an essential part of that plan on which we

observe all vertebrate organisms to be constructed. Nevertheless the

mole which uses its vision very little, has eyes which are only very

small and hardly apparent.

"The _aspalax_ of Olivier, which lives underground like the mole, and

exposes itself even less than the mole to the light of day, has wholly

lost the use of its sight, nor does it retain more than mere traces of

visual organs, these traces again being hidden under the skin and under

certain other parts which cover them up and leave not even the smallest

access to the light. The Proteus, an aquatic reptile akin to the

Salamander and living in deep and obscure cavities under water, has,

like the aspalax, no longer anything but traces of eyes

remaining--traces which are again entirely hidden and covered up.[373]

"The following consideration should be decisive.

"Light cannot penetrate everywhere, and as a consequence, animals which

live habitually in places which it cannot reach, do not have an

opportunity of using eyes, even though they have got them; but animals

which form part of a system of organization which comprises eyes as an

invariable rule among its organs, must have had eyes originally. Since

then we find among these animals some which have lost their eyes, and

which have only concealed traces of these organs, it is evident that the

impoverishment, and even disappearance of the organs in question, must

be the effect of long-continued disuse.

"A proof of this is to be found in the fact that the organ of hearing is

never in like case with that of sight; we always find it in animals of

whose system of organization hearing is a component part; and for the

following reason, namely, that sound, which is the effect of vibration

upon the ear, can penetrate everywhere, and pass even through massive

intermediate bodies. Any animal, therefore, with an organic system of

which the ear is an essential part, can always find a use for its ears,

no matter where it inhabits. We never, therefore, come upon rudimentary

ears among the vertebrata, and when, going down the scale of life lower

than the vertebrata, we come to a point at which the ear is no longer to

be found; we never come upon ears again in any lower class.

"Not so with the organ of sight: we see this organ disappear, reappear,

and disappear again with the possibility or impossibility of using eyes

on the part of the creature itself.[374]

"The great development of mantle in the acephalous molluscs has rendered

eyes, and even a head, entirely useless to them. These organs, though

belonging to the type of the organism, and by rights included in it,

have had to disappear and become annihilated owing to continued default

of use.

. . . . . .

"Many insects which, by the analogy of their order and even genus,

should have wings, have nevertheless lost them more or less completely

through disuse. A number of coleoptera, orthoptera, hymenoptera, and

hemiptera give us examples, the habits of these animals never leading

them to use their wings."[375]

* * * * *

I will here bring this present volume to a conclusion, hoping, however,

to return to the same subject shortly, but to that part of it which

bears upon longevity and the phenomena of old age. In 'Life and Habit' I

pointed out that if differentiations of structure and instinct are

considered as due to the different desires under different circumstances

of an organism, which must be regarded as a single creature, though its

development has extended over millions of years, and which is guided

mainly by habit and memory until some disturbing cause compels

invention--then the longevity of each generation or stage of this

organism should depend upon the lateness of the average age of

reproduction in each generation; so that an organism (using the word in

its usual signification) which did not upon the average begin to

reproduce itself till it was twenty, should be longer lived than one

that on the average begins to reproduce itself at a year old. I also

maintained that the phenomena of old age should be referred to failure

of memory on the part of the organism, which in the embryonic stages,

infancy, youth, and early manhood, leans upon the memory of what it did

when it was in the persons of its ancestors; in middle life, carries its

action onward by means of the impetus, already received, and by the

force of habit; and in old age becomes puzzled, having no experience of

any past existence at seventy-five, we will say, to guide it, and

therefore forgetting itself more and more completely till it dies. I

hope to extend this, and to bring forward arguments in support of it in

a future work.

Of the importance of the theory put forward in 'Life and Habit'--I am

daily more and more convinced. Unless we admit oneness of personality

between parents and offspring, memory of the often repeated facts of

past existences, the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by the

presence of the associated ideas, or of a sufficient number of them, and

the far-reaching consequences of the unconsciousness which results from

habitual action, evolution does not greatly add to our knowledge as to

how we shall live here to the best advantage. Add these considerations,

and its value as a guide becomes immediately apparent; a new light is

poured upon a hundred problems of the greatest delicacy and difficulty.

Not the least interesting of these is the gradual extension of human

longevity--an extension, however, which cannot be effected till many

many generations as yet unborn have come and gone. There is nothing,

however, to prevent man's becoming as long lived as the oak if he will

persevere for many generations in the steps which can alone lead to this

result. Another interesting achievement which should be more quickly

attainable, though still not in our own time, is the earlier maturity of

those animals whose rapid maturity is an advantage to us, but whose

longevity is not to our purpose.

* * * * *

The question--Evolution or Direct Creation of all species?--has been

settled in favour of Evolution. A hardly less interesting and important

battle has now to be fought over the question whether we are to accept

the evolution of the founders of the theory--with the adjuncts hinted at

by Dr. Darwin and Mr. Matthew, and insisted on, so far as I can gather,

by Professor Hering and myself--or the evolution of Mr. Darwin, which

denies the purposiveness or teleology inherent in evolution as first

propounded. I am assured that such of my readers as I can persuade to

prefer the old evolution to the new will have but little reason to

regret their preference.

* * * * *

P.S.--As these sheets leave my hands, my attention is called to a review

of Professor Haeckel's 'Evolution of Man,' by Mr. A. E. Wallace, in the

'Academy' for April 12, 1879. "Professor Haeckel maintains," says Mr.

Wallace, "_that the struggle for existence in nature evolves new forms

without design, just as the will of man produces new varieties in

cultivation with design_." I maintain in preference with the older

evolutionists, that in consequence of change in the conditions of their

existence, _organisms design new forms for themselves, and carry those

designs out in additions to, and modifications of, their own bodies_.

"The science of rudimentary organs," continues Mr. Wallace, "which

Haeckel terms 'dysteleology, or the doctrine of purposelessness,' is

here discussed, and a number of interesting examples are given, the

conclusion being that they prove the mechanical or monistic conception

of the origin of organisms to be correct, and the idea of any 'all-wise

creative plan an ancient fable.'" I see no reason to suppose, or again

not to suppose, an all-wise creative plan. I decline to go into this

question, believing it to be not yet ripe, nor nearly ripe, for

consideration. I see purpose, however, in rudimentary organs as much as

in useful ones, but a spent or extinct purpose--a purpose which has been

fulfilled, and is now forgotten--the rudimentary organ being repeated

from force of habit, indolence, and dislike of change, so long as it

does not, to use the words of Buffon, "stand in the way of the fair

development" of other parts which are found useful and necessary. I

demur, therefore, to the inference of "purposelessness" which I gather

that Professor Haeckel draws from these organs.

In the 'Academy' for April 19, 1879, Mr. Wallace quotes Professor

Haeckel as saying that our "highly purposive and admirably-constituted

sense-organs have developed without premeditated aim; that they have

originated by the same mechanical process of Natural Selection, by the

same constant interaction of Adaptation and Heredity [what _is_ Heredity

but another word for unknown causes, unless it is explained in some such

manner as in 'Life and Habit'?] by which all the other purposive

contrivances of the animal organization have been slowly and gradually

evolved during the struggle for existence."

I see no evidence for "premeditated aim" at any modification very far in

advance of an existing organ, any more than I do for "premeditated aim"

on man's part at any as yet inconceivable mechanical invention; but as

in the case of man's inventions, so also in that of the organs of

animals and plants, modification is due to the accumulation of small,

well-considered improvements, as found necessary in practice, and the

conduct of their affairs. Each step having been purposive, the whole

road has been travelled purposively; nor is the purposiveness of such an

organ, we will say, as the eye, barred by the fact that invention has

doubtless been aided by some of those happy accidents which from time to

time happen to all who keep their wits about them, and know how to turn

the gifts of Fortune to account.

FOOTNOTES:

[371] 'Origin of Species,' p. 109.

[372] 'Origin of Species, p. 401.

[373] 'Phil. Zool.,' tom. i. p. 242.

[374] 'Phil. Zool.,' tom. i. p. 244.

[375] 'Phil. Zool.,' tom. i. p. 245.

APPENDIX.

CHAPTER I.

REVIEWS OF 'EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.'

Those who have been at the pains to read the foregoing book will,

perhaps, pardon me if I put before them a short account of the reception

it has met with: I will not waste time by arguing with my critics at any

length; it will be enough if I place some of their remarks upon my book

under the same cover as the book itself, with here and there a word or

two of comment.

The only reviews which have come under my notice appeared in the

'Academy' and the 'Examiner,' both of May 17, 1879; the 'Edinburgh Daily

Review,' May 23, 1879; 'City Press,' May 21, 1879; 'Field,' May 26,

1879; 'Saturday Review,' May 31, 1879; 'Daily Chronicle,' May 31, 1879;

'Graphic' and 'Nature,' both June 12, 1879; 'Pall Mall Gazette,' June

18, 1879; 'Literary World,' June 20, 1879; 'Scotsman,' June 24, 1879;

'British Journal of Homoeopathy' and 'Mind,' both July 1, 1879;

'Journal of Science,' July 18, 1879; 'Westminster Review,' July, 1879;

'Athenaeum,' July 26, 1879; 'Daily News,' July 29, 1879; 'Manchester

City News,' August 16, 1879; 'Nonconformist,' November 26, 1879;

'Popular Science Review,' Jan. 1, 1880; 'Morning Post,' Jan. 12, 1880.

Some of the most hostile passages in the reviews above referred to are

as follows:--

"From beginning to end, our eccentric author treats us to a dazzling

flood of epigram, invective, and what appears to be argument; and

finally leaves us without a single clear idea as to what he has been

driving at."

. . . . . .

"Mr. Butler comes forward, as it were, to proclaim himself a

professional satirist, and a mystifier who will do his best to leave you

utterly in the dark with regard to his system of juggling. Is he a

teleological theologian making fun of evolution? Is he an evolutionist

making fun of teleology? Is he a man of letters making fun of science?

Or is he a master of pure irony making fun of all three, and of his

audience as well? For our part we decline to commit ourselves, and

prefer to observe, as Mr. Butler observes of Von Hartmann, that if his

meaning is anything like what he says it is, we can only say that it has

not been given us to form any definite conception whatever as to what

that meaning may be."--'Academy,' May 17, 1879, Signed Grant Allen.

* * * * *

Here is another criticism of "Evolution, Old and New"--also, I believe I

am warranted in saying, by Mr. Grant Allen. These two criticisms

appeared on the same day; how many more Mr. Allen may have written later

on I do not know.

We find the writer who in the 'Academy' declares that he has been left

without "a single clear idea" as to what 'Evolution, Old and New,' has

been driving at saying on the same day in the 'Examiner' that

'Evolution, Old and New,' "has a more evident purpose than any of its

predecessors." If so, I am afraid the predecessors must have puzzled Mr.

Allen very unpleasantly. What the purpose of 'Evolution, Old and New,'

is, he proceeds to explain:--

"As to his (Mr. Butler's) main argument, it comes briefly to this:

natural selection does not originate favourable varieties, it only

passively permits them to exist; therefore it is the unknown cause which

produced the variations, not the natural selection which spared them,

that ought to count as the mainspring of evolution. That unknown cause

Mr. Butler boldly declares to be the will of the organism itself. An

intelligent ascidian wanted a pair of eyes,[376] so set to work and made

itself a pair, exactly as a man makes a microscope; a talented fish

conceived the idea of walking on dry land, so it developed legs, turned

its swim bladder into a pair of lungs, and became an amphibian; an

aesthetic guinea-fowl admired bright colours, so it bought a paint-box,

studied Mr. Whistler's ornamental designs, and, painting itself a gilded

and ocellated tail, was thenceforth a peacock. But how about plants? Mr.

Butler does not shirk even this difficulty. The theory must be

maintained at all hazards.... This is the sort of mystical nonsense

from which we had hoped Mr. Darwin had for ever saved us."--'Examiner,'

May 17, 1879.

* * * * *

In this last article, Mr. Allen has said that I am a man of genius,

"with the unmistakable signet-mark upon my forehead." I have been

subjected to a good deal of obloquy and misrepresentation at one time or

another, but this passage by Mr. Allen is the only one I have seen that

has made me seriously uneasy about the prospects of my literary

reputation.

I see Mr. Allen has been lately writing an article in the 'Fortnightly

Review' on the decay of criticism. Looking over it somewhat hurriedly,

my eye was arrested by the following:--

"Nowadays any man can write, because there are papers enough to give

employment to everybody. No reflection, no deliberation, no care; all is

haste, fatal facility, stock phrases, commonplace ideas, and a ready pen

that can turn itself to any task with equal ease, because supremely

ignorant of all alike."

. . . . . .

"The writer takes to his craft nowadays, not because he has taste for

literature, but because he has an incurable faculty for scribbling. He

has no culture, and he soon loses the power of taking pains, if he ever

possessed it. But he can talk with glib superficiality and imposing

confidence about every conceivable subject, from a play or a picture to

a sermon or a metaphysical essay. It is the utter indifference to

subject-matter, joined with the vulgar unscrupulousness of pretentious

ignorance, that strikes the keynote of our existing criticism. Men write

without taking the trouble to read or think."[377]

* * * * *

The 'Saturday Review' attacked 'Evolution, Old and New,' I may almost

say savagely. It wrote: "When Mr. Butler's 'Life and Habit' came before

us, we doubted whether his ambiguously expressed speculations belonged

to the regions of playful but possibly scientific imagination, or of

unscientific fancies; and we gave him the benefit of the doubt. In fact,

we strained a point or two to find a reasonable meaning for him. He has

now settled the question against himself. Not professing to have any

particular competence in biology, natural history, or the scientific

study of evidence in any shape whatever, and, indeed, rather glorying in

his freedom from any such superfluities, he undertakes to assure the

overwhelming majority of men of science, and the educated public who

have followed their lead, that, while they have done well to be

converted to the doctrine of the evolution and transmutation of species,

they have been converted on entirely wrong grounds."

. . . . . .

"When a writer who has not given as many weeks to the subject as Mr.

Darwin has given years [as a matter of fact, it is now twenty years

since I began to publish on the subject of Evolution] is not content to

air his own crude, though clever, fallacies, but presumes to criticize

Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young schoolmaster looking

over a boy's theme, it is difficult not to take him more seriously than

he deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. Butler was the

travelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin the pert

speculator, who takes all his facts at secondhand."

. . . . . .

"Let us once more consider how matters stood a year or two before the

'Origin of Species' first appeared. The continuous evolution of animated

Nature had in its favour the difficulty of drawing fixed lines between

species and even larger divisions, all the indications of comparative

anatomy and embryology, and a good deal of general scientific

presumption. Several well-known writers, and some eminent enough to

command respect, had expressed their belief in it. One or two far-seeing

thinkers, among whom the place of honour must be assigned to Mr. Herbert

Spencer, had done more. They had used their philosophic insight, which,

to science, is the eye of faith, to descry the promised land almost

within reach; they knew and announced how rich and spacious the heritage

would be, if once the entry could be made good. But on that 'if'

everything hung. Nature was not bound to give up her secret, or was

bound only in a mocking covenant with an impossible condition: _Si caelum

digito tetigeris_; if only some fortunate hand could touch the

inaccessible firmament, and bring down the golden chain to earth! But

fruition seemed out of sight. Even those who were most willing to

advance in this direction, could only regret that they saw no road

clear. There was a tempting vision, but nothing proven--many would have

said nothing provable. A few years passed, and all this was changed.

The doubtful speculation had become a firm and connected theory. In the

room of scattered foragers and scouts, there was an irresistibly

advancing column. Nature had surrendered her stronghold, and was

disarmed of her secret. And if we ask who were the men by whom this was

done, the answer is notorious, and there is but one answer possible: the

names that are for ever associated with this great triumph are those of

Charles Darwin and Wallace."[378]

I gave the lady or gentleman who wrote this an opportunity of

acknowledging the authorship; but she or he preferred, not I think

unnaturally, to remain anonymous.

The only other criticism of 'Evolution, Old and New,' to which I would

call attention, appeared in 'Nature,' in a review of 'Unconscious

Memory,' by Mr. Romanes, and contained the following passages:--

"But to be serious, if in charity we could deem Mr. Butler a lunatic, we

should not be unprepared for any aberration of common sense that he

might display.... A certain nobody writes a book ['Evolution, Old and

New'] accusing the most illustrious man in his generation of burying the

claims of certain illustrious predecessors out of the sight of all men.

In the hope of gaining some notoriety by deserving, and perhaps

receiving a contemptuous refutation from the eminent man in question, he

publishes this book which, if it deserved serious consideration, would

be not more of an insult to the particular man of science whom it

accuses of conscious and wholesale plagiarism [there is no such

accusation in 'Evolution, Old and New'] than it would be to men of

science in general for requiring such elementary instruction on some of

the most famous literature in science from an upstart ignoramus, who,

until two or three years ago, considered himself a painter by

profession."--'Nature,' Jan. 27, 1881.

* * * * *

In a subsequent letter to 'Nature,' Mr. Romanes said he had been "acting

the part of policeman" by writing as he had done. Any unscrupulous

reviewer may call himself a policeman if he likes, but he must not

expect those whom he assails to recognize his pretensions. 'Evolution,

Old and New,' was not written for the kind of people whom Mr. Romanes

calls men of science; if "men of science" means men like Mr. Romanes, I

trust they say well who maintain that I am not a man of science; I

believe the men to whom Mr. Romanes refers to be men, not of that kind

of science which desires to know, but of that kind whose aim is to

thrust itself upon the public as actually knowing. 'Evolution, Old and

New,' could be of no use to these; certainly, it was not intended as an

insult to them, but if they are insulted by it, I do not know that I am

sorry, for I value their antipathy and opposition as much as I should

dislike their approbation: of one thing, however, I am certain--namely,

that before 'Evolution, Old and New,' was written, Professors Huxley and

Tyndall, for example, knew very little of the earlier history of

Evolution. Professor Huxley, in his article on Evolution in the ninth

edition of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' published in 1878, says of the

two great pioneers of Evolution, that Buffon "contributed nothing to

the general doctrine of Evolution,"[379] and that Erasmus Darwin "can

hardly be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors."[380]

Professor Haeckel evidently knew little of Erasmus Darwin, and still

less, apparently, about Buffon.[381] Professor Tyndall,[382] in 1878,

spoke of Evolution as "Darwin's theory"; and I have just read Mr. Grant

Allen as saying that Evolutionism "is an almost exclusively English

impulse."[383]

Since 'Evolution, Old and New,' was published, I have observed several

of the so-called men of science--among them Professor Huxley and Mr.

Romanes--airing Buffon; but I never observed any of them do this till

within the last three years. I maintain that "men of science" were, and

still are, very ignorant concerning the history of Evolution; but,

whether they were or were not, I did not write 'Evolution, Old and New,'

for them; I wrote for the general public, who have been kind enough to

testify their appreciation of it in a sufficiently practical manner.

The way in which Mr. Charles Darwin met 'Evolution, Old and New,' has

been so fully dealt with in my book, 'Unconscious Memory;' in the

'Athenaeum,' Jan. 31, 1880; the 'St. James's Gazette,' Dec. 8, 1880; and

'Nature,' Feb. 3, 1881, that I need not return to it here, more

especially as Mr. Darwin has, by his silence, admitted that he has no

defence to make.

I have quoted by no means the moat exceptionable parts of Mr. Romanes'

article, and have given them a permanence they would not otherwise

attain, inasmuch as nothing can better show the temper of the kind of

men who are now--as I said in the body of the foregoing work--clamouring

for endowment, and who would step into the Pope's shoes to-morrow if we

would only let them.

FOOTNOTES:

[376] See p. 44, and the whole of chap. v., where I say of this

supposition, that "nothing could be conceived more foreign

to experience and common sense."

[377] 'Fortnightly Review,' March 1, 1882, pp. 344, 345.

[378] 'Saturday Review,' May 31, 1879, pp. 682-3.

[379] P. 748.

[380] _Ibid._

[381] See pp. 71-73.

[382] 'Nineteenth Century' for November, pp. 360, 361.

[383] 'Fortnightly Review,' March, 1882.

CHAPTER II.

ROME AND PANTHEISM.

Evolution would after all be a poor doctrine if it did not affect human

affairs at every touch and turn. I propose to devote the second chapter

of this Appendix to the consideration of an aspect of Evolution which

will always interest a very large number of people--the development of

the relation that may exist between religion and science.

If the Church of Rome would only develop some doctrine or, I know not

how, provide some means by which men like myself, who cannot pretend to

believe in the miraculous element of Christianity, could yet join her as

a conservative stronghold, I, for one, should gladly do so. I believe

the difference between her faith and that of all who can be called

gentlemen to be one of words rather than things. Our practical working

ideal is much the same as hers; when we use the word "gentleman" we mean

the same thing that the Church of Rome does; so that, if we get down

below the words that formulate her teaching, there are few points upon

which we should not agree. But, alas! words are often so very important.

How is it possible for myself, for example, to give people to understand

that I believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception or in the

Lourdes miracles? If the Pope could spare time to think about so

insignificant a person, would he wish me to pretend such beliefs or

think better of me if I did pretend them? I should be sorry to see him

turn suddenly round and deny his own faith, and I am persuaded that, in

like manner, he would have me continue to hold my own in peace;

nevertheless, the duty of subordinating private judgment to the

avoidance of schism is so obvious that, if we could see a practicable

way of bridging the gulf between ourselves and Rome, we should be

heartily glad to bridge it.

I speak as though the Church of Rome was the only one we can look to. I

do not see how it is easy to dispute this. Protestantism has been tried

and failed; it has long ceased to grow, but it has by no means ceased to

disintegrate. Note the manner in which it is torn asunder by

dissensions, and the rancour which these dissensions engender--a rancour

which finds its way into the political and social life of Europe, with

incalculable damage to the health and well-being of the world. Who can

doubt but that there will be a split even in the Church of England ere

so many years are over? Protestantism is like one of those drops of

glass which tend to split up into minuter and minuter fragments the

moment the bond that united them has been removed. It is as though the

force of gravity had lost its hold, and a universal power of repulsion

taken the place of attraction. This may, perhaps, come about some day in

the material as well as in the spiritual and political world, but the

spirit of the age is as yet one of aggregation; the spirit of

Protestantism is one of disintegration. I maintain, therefore, that it

is not likely to be permanent.

All the great powers of Europe have from numberless distinct tribes

become first a few kingdoms or dukedoms, then two or three nations, and

now homogeneous wholes, so that there is no chance of their further

dismemberment through internal discontent; a process which has been

going on for so many hundreds of years all over Europe is not likely to

be arrested without ample warning. True, during the Roman Empire the

world was practically bonded together, yet broke in pieces again; but

this, I imagine, was because the bonding was prophetic and superficial

rather than genuine. Nature very commonly makes one or two false starts,

and misses her aim a time or two before she hits it. She nearly hit it

in the time of Alexander the Great, but this was a short-lived success;

in the case of the Roman Empire she succeeded better and for longer

together. Where Nature has once or twice hit her mark as near as this

she will commonly hit it outright eventually; the disruption of the

Roman Empire, therefore, does not militate against the supposition that

the normal condition of right-minded people is one which tends towards

aggregation, or, in other words, towards compromise and the merging of

much of one's own individuality for the sake of union and concerted

action.

See, again, how Rome herself, within the limits of Italy, was an

aggregation, an aggregation which has now within these last few years

come together again after centuries of disruption; all middle-aged men

have seen many small countries come together in their own lifetime,

while in America a gigantic attempt at disruption has completely failed.

Success will, of course, sometimes attend disruption, but on the whole

the balance inclines strongly in favour of aggregation and homogeneity;

analogy points in the direction of supposing that the great civilized

nations of Europe, as they are the coalition of subordinate provinces,

so must coalesce themselves also to form a larger, but single empire.

Wars will then cease, and surely anything that seems likely to tend

towards so desirable an end deserves respectful consideration.

The Church of Rome is essentially a unifier. It is a great thing that

nations should have so much in common as the acknowledgment of the same

tribunal for the settlement of spiritual and religious questions, and

there is no head under which Christendom can unite with as little

disturbance as under Rome. Nothing more tends to keep men apart than

religious differences; this certainly ought not to be the case, but it

no less certainly is, and therefore we should strain many points and

subordinate our private judgment to a very considerable extent if called

upon to do so. A man, under these circumstances, is right in saying he

believes in much that he does not believe in. Nevertheless there are

limits to this, and the Church of Rome requires more of us at present

than we can by any means bring ourselves into assenting to.

It may be asked, Why have a Church at all? Why not unite in community of

negation rather than of assertion? When I wrote 'Evolution, Old and

New,' three years ago, I thought, as now, that the only possible Church

must be a development of the Church of Rome; and seeing no chance of

agreement between avowed free-thinkers, like myself, and Rome (for I

believed Rome immovable), I leaned towards absolute negation as the best

chance for unity among civilized nations; but even then, I expressed

myself as "having a strong feeling as though Professor Mivart's

conclusion is true, that 'the material universe is always and everywhere

sustained and directed by an infinite cause, for which to us the word

mind is the least inadequate and misleading symbol.'"[384]

I had hardly finished 'Evolution, Old and New,' before I began to deal

with this question according to my lights, in a series of articles upon

God[385] which appeared in the 'Examiner' during the summer of 1879, and

I returned to the same matter more than once in 'Unconscious Memory,' my

next succeeding work. The articles I intend recasting and rewriting, as

they go upon a false assumption; but subsequent reflection has only

confirmed me in the general result I arrived at--namely, the

omnipresence of mind in the universe.

I have therefore come to see that we can go farther than negation, and

in this case--a positive expression of faith as regards an invisible

universe of some sort being possible--a Church of some sort is also

possible, which shall formulate and express the general convictions as

regards man's position in respect of this faith. I think the instinct

which has led so many countries towards a double legislative chamber,

and ourselves, till at any rate quite recently, to a double system of

jurisprudence, law and equity, was not arrived at without having passed

through the stages of reason and reflection. There are a variety of

delicate, almost intangible, questions which belong rather to conscience

than to law, and for which a Church is a fitter tribunal--at any rate

for many ages hence--than a parliament or law court. There is room,

therefore, for both a State and a Church, each of which should be

influenced by the action of the other.

I do not say that I personally should like to see the Church of Rome as

at present constituted in the position which I should be glad to see

attained by an ideal Church. If it were in that position I would attack

it to the utmost of my power; but I have little hesitation in thinking

that the world with a very possible feasible Church, would be better

than the world with no Church at all; and, if so, I have still less

hesitation in concluding, for the reasons already given, that it is to

Rome we must turn as the source from which the Church of the future is

to be evolved, if it is to come at all.

For the new, if it is to strike deep root and be permanent, must grow

out of the old, without too violent a transition. Some violence there

will always be, even in the kindliest birth; but the less the better,

and a leap greater than the one from Judaism to Christianity is not

desirable, even if it were possible. As a free-thinker, therefore, but

also as one who wishes to take a practical view of the manner in which

things will, and ought to go, I neither expect to see the religions of

the world come once for all to an end with the belief in

Christianity--which to me is tantamount to saying with Rome--nor am I at

all sure that such a consummation is more desirable than likely to come

about. The ultimate fight will, I believe, be between Rome and

Pantheism; and the sooner the two contending parties can be ranged into

their opposite camps by the extinction of all intermediate creeds, the

sooner will an issue of some sort be arrived at. This will not happen in

our time, but we should work towards it.

When it arrives, what is to happen? Is Pantheism to absorb Rome, and, if

so, what sort of a religious formula is to be the result? or is Rome so

to modify her dogmas that the Pantheist can join her without doing too

much violence to his convictions? We who are outside the Church's pale

are in the habit of thinking that she will make little if any advances

in our direction. The dream of a Pantheistic Rome seems so wild as

hardly to be entertained seriously; nevertheless I am much mistaken if I

do not detect at least one sign as though more were within the bounds of

possibility than even the most sanguine of us could have hoped for a few

years back. We do not expect the Church to go our whole length; it is

the business of some to act as pioneers, but this is the last function a

Church should assume. A Church should be as the fly-wheel of a

steam-engine, which conserves, regulates and distributes energy, but

does not originate it. In all cases it is more moral and safer to be a

little behind the age than a little in front of it; a Church, therefore,

ought to cling to an old-established belief, even though her leaders

know it to be unfounded, so long as any considerable number of her

members would be shocked at its abandonment. The question is whether

there are any signs as though the Church of Rome thought the time had

come when she might properly move a step forward, and I rejoice to

think, as I have said above, that at any rate one such sign--and a very

important one--has come under my notice.

In his Encyclical of August 4, 1879, the Pope desires the Bishops and

Clergy to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas, and to spread

it far and wide. "Vos omnes," he writes, "Venerabiles Fratres, quam

enixe hortamur ut ad Catholicae fidei tutelam et decus, ad societatis

bonum, ad scientiarum omnium incrementum auream Sancti Thomae sapientiam

restituatis, et quam latissime propagetis." He proceeds then with the

following remarkable passage: "We say the wisdom of St. Thomas. For

whatever has been worked out with too much subtleness by the doctors of

the schools, or handed down inconsiderately, whatever is not consistent

with the teachings of a later age, or finally, is in any way NOT

PROBABLE, We in no wise intend to propose for acceptance in these

days."[386]

It would be almost possible to suppose that these words had been written

inadvertently, so the Pope practically repeats them thus: "We willingly

and gratefully declare that whatsoever can be excepted with advantage,

is to be excepted, no matter by whom it has been invented."[387]

The passage just quoted is so pregnant that a few words of comment may

be very well excused. In the first place, I cannot but admire the

latitude which the Pope not only tolerates, but enjoins: he defines

nothing, but declares point blank that if we find anything in St. Thomas

Aquinas "not consistent with the assured teachings of a later age, or

finally IN ANY WAY NOT PROBABLE"--(what is not involved here?)--we are

"in no wise to suppose" that it is being proposed for our acceptance.

But it is a small step from allowing latitude in accepting or rejecting

the parts of St. Thomas Aquinas which conflict with the assured result

of later discoveries to allowing a similar latitude in respect, we will

say, of St. Jude; and if of St. Jude, then of St. James the Less; and if

of St. James the Less, then surely ere very long of St. James the

Greater and St. John and St. Paul; nor will the matter stop there. How

marvellously closely are the two extremes of doctrine approaching to one

another! We, on the one hand, who begin with _tabulae rasae_ having made a

clean sweep of every shred of doctrine, lay hold of the first thing we

can grasp with any firmness, and work back from it. We grope our way to

evolution; through this to purposive evolution; through this to the

omnipresence of mind and design throughout the universe; what is this

but God? So that we can say with absolute freedom from _equivoque_ that

we are what we are through the will of God. The theologian, on the other

hand, starts with God, and finds himself driven through this to

evolution, as surely as we found ourselves driven through evolution to

the omnipresence of God.

Let us look a little more closely at the ground which the Church of Rome

and the Evolutionist hold in common. St. Paul speaks of there being "one

body and one spirit," and of one God as being "above all, and through

all, and in you all."[388] Again, he tells us that we are members of

God's body, "of his flesh and of his bones;"[389] in another place he

writes that God has reconciled us to himself, "in the body of his

flesh,"[390] and in yet another of the Spirit of God "dwelling in

us."[391] St. Paul indeed is continually using language which implies

the closest physical as well as spiritual union between God and those at

any rate of mankind who were Christians. Then he speaks of our "being

builded together for an habitation of God through the spirit,"[392] and

of our being "filled with the fulness of God."[393] He calls Christian

men's bodies "temples of the Holy Spirit,"[394] in fact it is not too

much to say that he regarded Christian men's limbs as the actual living

organs of God himself, for the expressions quoted above--and many others

could be given--come to no less than this. It follows that since any man

could unite himself to "the flesh and bones" of God by becoming a

Christian, Paul had a perception of the unity at any rate of human life;

and what Paul admitted I am persuaded the Church of Rome will not deny.

Granted that Paul's notion of the unity of all mankind in one spirit

animating, or potentially animating the whole was mystical, I submit

that the main difference between him and the Evolutionist is that the

first uses certain expressions more or less prophetically, and without

perhaps a full perception of their import; while the second uses the

same expressions literally, and with the ordinary signification attached

to the words that compose them. It is not so much that we do not hold

what Paul held, but that we hold it with the greater definiteness and

comprehension which modern discovery has rendered possible. We not only

accept his words, but we extend them, and not only accept them as

articles of faith to be taken on the word of others, but as so

profoundly entering into our views of the world around us that that

world loses the greater part of its significance if we may not take such

sayings as that "we are God's flesh and his bones" as meaning neither

more nor less than what appears upon the face of them. We believe that

what we call our life is part of the universal life of the Deity--which

is literally and truly made manifest to us in flesh that can be seen and

handled--ever changing, but the same yesterday, and to-day, and for

ever.

So much for the closeness with which we have come together on matters of

fact, and now for the _rapprochement_ between us in respect of how much

conformity is required for the sake of avoiding schism. We find

ourselves driven through considerations of great obviousness and

simplicity to the conclusion that a man both may and should keep no

small part of his opinions to himself, if they are too widely different

from those of other people for the sake of union and the strength gained

by concerted action; and we also find the Pope declaring of one of the

brightest saints and luminaries of the Church that we need not follow

him when it is plainly impossible for us to do so. Is it so very much to

hope that ere many years are over the approximation will become closer

still?

I have sometimes imagined that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility may

be the beginning of a way out of the difficulty, and that its promoters

were so eager for it, rather for the facilities it afforded for the

repealing of old dogmas than for the imposition of new ones. The Pope

cannot, even now, under any circumstances, declare a dogma of the Church

to be obsolete or untrue, but I should imagine he can, in council, _ex

cathedra_, modify the interpretation to be put upon any dogma, if he

should find the interpretation commonly received to be prejudicial to

the good of the Church: and if so, the manner in which Rome can put

herself more in harmony with the spirit of recent discoveries, without

putting herself in an illogical position, is not likely to escape eyes

so keen as those of the Catholic hierarchy. No sensible man will

hesitate to admit that many an interpretation which was natural to and

suitable for one age is unnatural to and unsuitable for another; as

circumstances are always changing, so men's moods and the meanings they

attach to words, and the state of their knowledge changes; and hence,

also, the interpretation of the dogmas in which their conclusions are

summarized. There is nothing to be ashamed of or that needs explaining

away in this; nothing can remain changeless under changed conditions;

and that institution is most likely to be permanent which contains

provision for such changes as time may prove to be expedient, with the

least disturbance. I can see nothing, therefore, illogical or that needs

concealment in the fact of an infallible Pope putting a widely different

interpretation upon a dogma now, to what a no less infallible Pope put

upon the same dogma fifteen hundred, or even fifteen years ago; it is

only right, reasonable, and natural that this should be so. The Church

of England may have made no provision for the virtual pruning off of

dogmas that have become rudimentary, but the Encyclical from which I

have just quoted leads me to think that the Church of Rome has found

one, and, in her own cautious way, is proceeding to make use of it. If

so, she may possibly in the end get rid of Protestantism by putting

herself more in harmony with the spirit of the age than Protestantism

can do. In this case, the spiritual reunion of Christendom under Rome

ceases to be impossible, or even, I should think improbable. I heartily

wish that my conjecture concerning future possibilities is not

unfounded.

Scientists have been right in preaching evolution, but they have

preached it in such a way as to make it almost as much of a

stumbling-block as of an assistance. For though the fact that animals

and plants are descended from a common stock is accepted by the greater

and more reasonable part of mankind, these same people feel that the

evidence in favour of design in the universe is no less strong than that

in favour of evolution, and our scientists, for the most part, uphold a

theory of evolution of which the cardinal doctrine is that design and

evolution have nothing to do with one another; the jar they raise,

therefore, is as bad as the jar they have allayed.

It has been the object of the foregoing work to show that those who take

this line are wrong, and that evolution not only tolerates design, but

cannot get on without it. The unscrupulousness with which I have been

attacked, together with the support given me by the general public, are

sufficient proofs that I have not written in vain.

FOOTNOTES:

[384] P. 371.

[385] Published as "God the Known and God the Unknown" in 1909.

(Fifield.)

[386] "Sapientiam Sancti Thomae dicimus: si quid enim est a doctoribus

scholasticis vel nimia subtilitate quaesitum, vel parum considerate

traditum, si quid cum exploratis posterioris aevi doctrinis minus

cohaerens, vel denique quoque modo non probabile, id nullo pacto in animo

est aetate nostra ad imitandum proponi."

[387] "Edicimus libenti gratoque animo excipiendum esse quidquid

utiliter fuerit a quopiam inventum atque excogitatum."

[388] Eph. iv. 3, 4, 5.

[389] Eph. v. 30.

[390] Col. i. 22.

[391] Rom. viii. 2.

[392] Eph. ii. 22.

[393] Eph. iii. 19.

[394] 1 Cor. vii. 19.

INDEX

ABORTION, neutralization of working bees an act of, 250

Accessory touches, varying Buffon on, 92

Accident, many of our best thoughts come thoughtlessly, 48, 384

---- profiting by, 51, 53

---- and discovery of theory connecting meteors with comets, 53

---- shaking the bag to see what will come out, 53

---- effects of, transmitted to offspring, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 224

---- and design, the line between these hard to draw, 384

Accidental variations thrown for as with dice, 3

Accumulation of variations, C. Darwin deals with the, and not with

the origin of, 340, 341

---- of small divergencies, Buffon on the, 103

Accurate, survival of fittest more accurate than Nat. Sel. and

_sometimes_ equally convenient, 9, 354, 365

Act of Parliament, Natural Selection compared to a certain kind of, 358

Age, old, the phenomena of, 67, 204, 381

Aggregation, the spirit of the age tends towards, 397, 398

Ahead, no organism sees very far, 44, 48, 54, 384

Aldrovandus, Buffon on the learned, 93

Alive, when we must not say that an animal is alive (to be

retracted), 279

Allen, Grant, on 'Evolution, Old and New,' 386-388

---- on the decay of criticism, 388

---- calls Evolutionism "an almost exclusively English impulse," 393

Alternations of fat and lean years, Buffon on, 125

Amoeba, the, did not conceive the idea of an eye and work towards

it, 43, 44, 384

Analogies, false, all words are apt to turn out to be, 365

Animals, contracts among, Dr. E. Darwin on, 205

Ape, the, and man, 90

Apes and monkeys, Buffon on, 153

---- and children fall on all-fours at the approach of danger, 312

Apparentibus, _de non_, _et non existentibus, &c._, 36

Appearances, rather superficial, our only guide to

classification, 34, 35, 36, 198, 204

Appetency, Paley's argument against the view that structures have been

developed through, 22, 45

Aristides, C. Darwin as just as, 363

Aristotle denied teleology, 4

Artificial and real foot, differences between, 25

Asceticism, virtue errs on the side of excess rather than on that of, 35

Ass, the, and horse, Buffon's pregnant passage on their

relationship, 80, 90, 91, 100, 101, 142, 143, 155, 164, 311

Authority, a hard thing to weigh, 253

BACON, F., on evolution, 69

Balzac, quotation from, on memory and instinct, 67

Bark, Erasmus Darwin's theory of, 208

Beaver, trowel incorporated into the beaver's organism, 8

Bees, neutralization of working, an act of abortion, 250

Beetles, Madeira, Lamarck and C. Darwin's views of their winglessness

compared, 373, 380

Begin, How could the eye _begin_? 46, 47

Beginnings, of complex structures, a difficulty in the way of natural

selection, 21, 22

---- difficulty of accounting for, 46, 47

---- a matter of conjecture and inference, 48

Behind, more moral to be behind the age than in front of it, 401

Best, making the best of whatever power one has, 50

Bird, how birds became web-footed, 48, 49, 51

---- a, will modify its nest a little, under altered circumstances, 55

---- Buffon on, 170, &c.

---- nests, Dr. Erasmus Darwin's failure to connect the power to make

them with memory, 201, 203

---- aquatic and wading, Lamarck on, 305

Bishop, and Eveque, common derivation of, 355

Blindfolded, we are so far, that we can see a few steps in front,

but no more, 44

---- us, C. Darwin has almost ostentatiously, 346

Blindly, forces interacting blindly, 59

Body and mind, Lamarck on, 338, 339, 341

Brain, Lamarck had brain upon the brain, 36

---- Buffon on the, 131, 133, &c.

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but, &c., 315

Breeding, and feeding, 222

Brown-Sequard, his experiments on guinea-pigs' legs, 303

Buds, individuality of, Dr. Erasmus Darwin on the, 207, 208

Buffalo, Buffon on the, 148, &c.

Buffon, profoundly superficial, 34

---- _plus il a su, plus il a pu, &c._, 44

---- _dans l'animal il y a moins de jugement que de sentiment_, 51

---- ignorance concerning, 61

---- memoir of, 74, &c.

---- on glory, genius, and style, 76, 77

---- ironical character of his work and method (_see_ Irony), 78,

&c., 171

---- on the ass, horse, and zebra, 80, 90, 91, 100, 101, 142,

143, 155, 164, 311

---- would not play the part of Rousseau or Voltaire, 81

---- Sir W. Jardine on, and the Sorbonne, 82

---- regards all animal and vegetable life as from one common source, 90

---- if a single species has ever been found under domestication,

&c., 91

---- on plaisanterie, and the learned Aldrovandus, 93, &c.

---- his compromise, 92

---- accessory touches, 92

---- "_especially_" the same, 96

---- fluctuation of opinion an unfounded charge, 97, &c., 164

---- on the accumulation of small divergencies, 103

---- began preaching evolution almost on his first page, 104

---- chapter on the _degeneration des animaux_, equivalent to "on

descent with modification," 104, &c.

---- difference of opinion between him and Erasmus Darwin and

Lamarck, 105

---- probably did not differ from Lamarck, 105

---- on direct action of changed conditions, 105, 145, 147

---- on man and the lower animals, 108

---- on classification, 108, 109, 141

---- on animals and plants, 109, 110

---- on reason and instinct, 110, 115

---- on final causes (the pig), 118, &c.

---- on hybridism, 117, 118

---- rudimentary organs, 120

---- on animals under domestication, 121, &c., 148

---- deals with these early, as giving him the best opportunities

for illustrating the theory of evolution, 276

---- approaches natural selection in his "by _some chance_ common

enough in Nature," 122

---- preaching on the hare when he should have preached on the rabbit

out of pure love of mischief, 123

---- resumption of feral characteristics, 123

---- on the geometrical ratio of increase, 123, &c.

---- alternation of fat and lean years, 125

---- equilibrium of Nature, 125

---- "au reel," 126

---- on violent death, 126

---- on sensation, 126, &c.

---- on the interaction of organ and sense, 127

---- the carnivora, 126

---- his criterion of what name a thing is to bear, 127

---- his criterion of perception and sensation, 127

---- on the unity of the individual, 127, 128

---- satirizes our habit of judging all things by our own standards, 129

---- the diaphragm, 129

---- on the stock and the diaphragm, 130

---- distinction between perception and sensation, 129, 130

---- on the meninges, 132

---- on the brain, 131, 133, &c.

---- on scientific orthodoxy and mystification, 138

---- on the relativity of science, 140

---- on nomenclature and knowledge, 141

---- on the genus _felis_, 143

---- on the lion and the tiger, 143, 145

---- on the animals of the old and new world, 145, &c.

---- on changed geographical distribution of land and water, 145, 164

---- on extinct species, 146

---- hates the new world, 146

---- on heredity and habit, 148, 159, 160, 161, 162

---- approaches Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, _re_ the Buffalo, Camel,

and Llama, 148, 160, 161

---- on oneness of personality between parents and offspring, 151

---- on the organic and inorganic, 153, &c.

---- on apes and monkeys, 153, &c.

---- on the causes or means of the transformation of species, 159, &c.

---- on generic (as well as specific) differences, 164

---- on plants under domestication, 167

---- on pigeons and fowls, 169

---- on birds, 170, &c.

---- the assistance he rendered to Lamarck, 237, 258

---- Isidore Geoffroy's failure to understand, 328

---- Colonel, 75

Bulk, a _sine qua non_ for success in literature or science, 315

Bull running, Tutbury, and Erasmus Darwin, 187

CAMEL, Buffon on the hereditary ills of the, 161

Cant, and rudimentary organs, 38

Captandum, all good things are done ad, 85

Carnivora, Buffon on the, 126

Carriage, Dr. Erasmus Darwin's, 181

Cat, family, Buffon on the, 142, &c.

---- with a mane and long tail, 143

Cataclysms, the good cells that get exterminated during the cataclysms

of our own development, 75

Catastrophes, Lamarck on, 277

Causes, or "means," of modification, 301

---- C. Darwin says that Buffon has not entered on the, 104, &c.

---- C. Darwin gets us into a fog about, 345, &c.

Change, under changed circumstances, Mr. Patrick Matthew on, 318

Charity, the greatest of these is, 77

Church, a, like a second chamber, 400

---- the world better with than without, 400

---- should be like the fly-wheel of a steam engine, 104

_Circonstances_ (_see_ Conditions of Existence), Lamarck on, 268, 281

Circumstance, suiting power, a, Mr. Patrick Matthew on, 318-321

Classification, rather superficial appearances our best guide

to, 34, 35, 36, 198, 204

---- Buffon on, 108, 109, 141

Clear, an ineradicable tendency to make things, 92

Clifford, Professor, on "Design," 6, 7

Climbing plants, the movements of, Dr. Erasmus Darwin on, 209

Coherency, the persistency of ideas the best argument in support of

their legitimate connection, 23

Coleridge, on "Darwinising," 21

Common terms, our, involve the connection between memory and

heredity, 201, 205

---- descent, the "hidden bond" of Lamarck, as also of C. Darwin, 271

Comparative anatomy, Lamarck on, 266, &c.

Complex structures, the incipiency of, a difficulty in the way of the

natural selection view of evolution, 21, 22

Compromise, Buffon's, 92

Conditions of existence, the very essence of condition involves that

there shall be penalty in case of non-fulfilment, 352, 376, 377

---- and the winglessness of Madeira beetles, 373, &c.

---- according to C. Darwin, "include" and yet "are fully embraced by"

natural selection, 355

---- identical with "natural selection," 351-354

---- Etienne Geoffroy, and Lamarck on, 326, 327, 328

---- Buffon on the, 103;

difference between Buffon's and Lamarck's view of their action, 105

---- direct action of changed, Buffon on the, 145, 147, 160

---- Lamarck on, 105, 268, 270, 271, 275, 277, 278, 281, 291,

292, 294, 295, 298, 299, 300, &c.

Continuity in discontinuity, and _vice versa_, 47

Contracts of animals, Dr. E. Darwin on the, 205

Contrivance, does organism show signs of this? 2

Convenient, not only _sometimes_, but always, more, 365

Corkscrew for corks, and lungs for respiration, Prof. Clifford on, 7.