"Not having been able to find any clue in Professor Huxley's writings to
the steps by which he passes from those vital phenomena, which consist
only, in their last analysis, of movements by particles of matter, to those
other phenomena which we term thought, sensation, or consciousness; but,
knowing that so positive an expression of opinion from him will have great
weight with many persons, I shall endeavour to show, with as much brevity
as is compatible with clearness, that this theory is not only incapable of
proof, but is also, as it appears to me, inconsistent with accurate
conceptions of molecular physics."
With all respect for Mr. Wallace, it appears to me that his remarks are
entirely beside the question. I really know nothing whatever, and never
hope to know anything, of the steps by which the passage from molecular
movement to states of consciousness is effected; and I entirely agree with
the sense of the passage which he quotes from Professor Tyndall, apparently
imagining that it is in opposition to the view I hold.
All that I have to say is, that, in my belief, consciousness and molecular
action are capable of being expressed by one another, just as heat and
mechanical action are capable of being expressed in terms of one another.
Whether we shall ever be able to express consciousness in foot-pounds, or
not, is more than I will venture to say; but that there is evidence of the
existence of some correlation between mechanical motion and consciousness,
is as plain as anything can be. Suppose the poles of an electric battery to
be connected by a platinum wire. A certain intensity of the current gives
rise in the mind of a bystander to that state of consciousness we call a
"dull red light"--a little greater intensity to another which we call a
"bright red light;" increase the intensity, and the light becomes white;
and, finally, it dazzles, and a new state of consciousness arises, which we
term pain. Given the same wire and the same nervous apparatus, and the
amount of electric force required to give rise to these several states of
consciousness will be the same, however often the experiment is repeated.
And as the electric force, the light waves, and the nerve-vibrations caused
by the impact of the light-waves on the retina, are all expressions of the
molecular changes which are taking place in the elements of the battery; so
consciousness is, in the same sense, an expression of the molecular changes
which take place in that nervous matter, which is the organ of
consciousness.
And, since this, and any number of similar examples that may be required,
prove that one form of consciousness, at any rate, is, in the strictest
sense, the expression of molecular change, it really is not worth while to
pursue the inquiry, whether a fact so easily established is consistent with
any particular system of molecular physics or not.
Mr. Wallace, in fact, appears to me to have mixed up two very distinct
propositions: the one, the indisputable truth that consciousness is
correlated with molecular changes in the organ of consciousness; the other,
that the nature of that correlation is known, or can be conceived, which is
quite another matter. Mr. Wallace, presumably, believes in that correlation
of phenomena which we call cause and effect as firmly as I do. But if he
has ever been able to form the faintest notion how a cause gives rise to
its effect, all I can say is that I envy him. Take the simplest case
imaginable--suppose a ball in motion to impinge upon another ball at rest.
I know very well, as a matter of fact, that the ball in motion will
communicate some of its motion to the ball at rest, and that the motion of
the two balls, after collision, is precisely correlated with the masses of
both balls and the amount of motion of the first. But how does this come
about? In what manner can we conceive that the _vis viva_ of the first
ball passes into the second? I confess I can no more form any conception of
what happens in this case, than I can of what takes place when the motion
of particles of my nervous matter, caused by the impact of a similar ball
gives rise to the state of consciousness I call pain. In ultimate analysis
everything is incomprehensible, and the whole object of science is simply
to reduce the fundamental incomprehensibilities to the smallest possible
number.
But to return to the Quarterly Reviewer. He admits that animals have
"mental images of sensible objects, combined in all degrees of complexity,
as governed by the laws of association." Presumably, by this confused and
imperfect statement the Reviewer means to admit more than the words imply.
For mental images of sensible objects, even though "combined in all degrees
of complexity," are, and can be, nothing more than mental images of
sensible objects. But judgments, emotions, and volitions cannot by any
possibility be included under the head of "mental images of sensible
objects." If the greyhound had no better mental endowment than the Reviewer
allows him, he might have the "mental image" of the "sensible object"--the
hare--and that might be combined with the mental images of other sensible
objects, to any degree of complexity, but he would have no power of judging
it to be at a certain distance from him; no power of perceiving its
similarity to his memory of a hare; and no desire to get at it.
Consequently he would stand stock still, and the noble art of coursing
would have no existence. On the other hand, as that art is largely
practised, it follows that greyhounds alone possess a number of mental
powers, the existence of which, in any animal, is absolutely denied by the
Quarterly Reviewer.
Finally, what are the mental powers which he reserves as the especial
prerogative of man? They are two. First, the recognition of "ourselves by
ourselves as affected and perceiving.--Self-consciousness."
Secondly. "The reflection upon our sensations and perceptions, and asking
what they are and why they are.--Reason."
To the faculty defined in the last sentence, the Reviewer, without
assigning the least ground for thus departing from both common usage and
technical propriety, applies the name of reason. But if man is not to be
considered a reasoning being, unless he asks what his sensations and
perceptions are, and why they are, what is a Hottentot, or an Australian
"black-fellow"; or what the "swinked hedger" of an ordinary agricultural
district? Nay, what becomes of an average country squire or parson? How
many of these worthy persons who, as their wont is, read the _Quarterly
Review_, would do other than stand agape, if you asked them whether they
had ever reflected what their sensations and perceptions are and why they
are?
So that if the Reviewer's new definition of reason be correct, the majority
of men, even among the most civilised nations, are devoid of that supreme
characteristic of manhood. And if it be as absurd as I believe it to be,
then, as reason is certainly not self-consciousness, and since it, as
certainly, is one of the "actions to which the nervous system ministers,"
we must, if the Reviewer's classification is to be adopted, seek it among
those four faculties which he allows animals to possess. And thus, for the
second time, he really surrenders, while seeming to defend, his position.
The Quarterly Reviewer, as we have seen, lectures the evolutionists upon
their want of knowledge of philosophy altogether. Mr. Mivart is not less
pained at Mr. Darwin's ignorance of moral science. It is grievous to him
that Mr. Darwin (and _nous autres_) should not have grasped the
elementary distinction between material and formal morality; and he lays
down as an axiom, of which no tyro ought to be ignorant, the position that
"acts, unaccompanied by mental acts of conscious will directed towards the
fulfilment of duty," are "absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree
of real or formal goodness."
Now this may be Mr. Mivart's opinion, but it is a proposition which really
does not stand on the footing of an undisputed axiom. Mr. Mill denies it in
his work on Utilitarianism. The most influential writer of a totally
opposed school, Mr. Carlyle, is never weary of denying it, and upholding
the merit of that virtue which is unconscious; nay, it is, to my
understanding, extremely hard to reconcile Mr. Mivart's dictum with that
noble summary of the whole duty of man--"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; and
thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." According to Mr. Mivart's
definition, the man who loves God and his neighbour, and, out of sheer love
and affection for both, does all he can to please them, is, nevertheless,
destitute of a particle of real goodness.
And it further happens that Mr. Darwin, who is charged by Mr. Mivart with
being ignorant of the distinction between material and formal goodness,
discusses the very question at issue in a passage which is well worth
reading (vol. i. p. 87), and also comes to a conclusion opposed to Mr.
Mivart's axiom. A proposition which has been so much disputed and
repudiated, should, under no circumstances, have been thus confidently
assumed to be true. For myself, I utterly reject it, inasmuch as the
logical consequence of the adoption of any such principle is the denial of
all moral value to sympathy and affection. According to Mr. Mivart's axiom,
the man who, seeing another struggling in the water, leaps in at the risk
of his own life to save him, does that which is "destitute of the most
incipient degree of real goodness," unless, as he strips off his coat, he
says to himself, "Now, mind, I am going to do this because it is my duty
and for no other reason;" and the most beautiful character to which
humanity can attain, that of the man who does good without thinking about
it, because he loves justice and mercy and is repelled by evil, has no
claim on our moral approbation. The denial that a man acts morally because
he does not think whether he does so or not, may be put upon the same
footing as the denial of the title of an arithmetician to the calculating
boy, because he did not know how he worked his sums. If mankind ever
generally accept and act upon Mr. Mivart's axiom, they will simply become a
set of most unendurable prigs; but they never have accepted it, and I
venture to hope that evolution has nothing so terrible in store for the
human race.
But if an action, the motive of which is nothing but affection or sympathy,
may be deserving of moral approbation and really good, who that has ever
had a dog of his own will deny that animals are capable of such actions?
Mr. Mivart indeed says:--"It may be safely affirmed, however, that there is
no trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which are not
explicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or by
personal affection" (p. 221). But it may be affirmed, with equal truth,
that there is no trace in men of any actions which are not traceable to the
same motives. If a man does anything, he does it either because he fears to
be punished if he does not do it, or because he hopes to obtain pleasure by
doing it, or because he gratifies his affections [Footnote: In separating
pleasure and the gratification of affection, I simply follow Mr. Mivart
without admitting the justice of the separation.] by doing it.
Assuming the position of the absolute moralists, let it be granted that
there is a perception of right and wrong innate in every man. This means,
simply, that when certain ideas are presented to his mind, the feeling of
approbation arises; and when certain others, the feeling of disapprobation.
To do your duty is to earn the approbation of your conscience, or moral
sense; to fail in your duty is to feel its disapprobation, as we all say.
Now, is approbation a pleasure or a pain? Surely a pleasure. And is
disapprobation a pleasure or a pain? Surely a pain. Consequently, all that
is really meant by the absolute moralists is that there is, in the very
nature of man, something which enables him to be conscious of these
particular pleasures and pains. And when they talk of immutable and eternal
principles of morality, the only intelligible sense which I can put upon
the words, is that the nature of man being what it is, he always has been,
and always will be, capable of feeling these particular pleasures and
pains. _À priori,_ I have nothing to say against this proposition.
Admitting its truth, I do not see how the moral faculty is on a different
footing from any of the other faculties of man. If I choose to say that it
is an immutable and eternal law of human nature that "ginger is hot in the
mouth," the assertion has as much foundation of truth as the other, though
I think it would be expressed in needlessly pompous language. I must
confess that I have never been able to understand why there should be such
a bitter quarrel between the intuitionists and the utilitarians. The
intuitionist is, after all, only a utilitarian who believes that a
particular class of pleasures and pains has an especial importance, by
reason of its foundation in the nature of man, and its inseparable
connection with his very existence as a thinking being. And as regards the
motive of personal affection: Love, as Spinoza profoundly says, is the
association of pleasure with that which is loved. [Footnote: "Nempe, Amor
nihil aliud est, quam Lætitia, concomitante idea causæ
externæ."--_Ethices_, III. xiii.] Or, to put it to the common sense of
mankind, is the gratification of affection a pleasure or a pain? Surely a
pleasure. So that whether the motive which leads us to perform an action is
the love of our neighbour, or the love of God, it is undeniable that
pleasure enters into that motive.
Thus much in reply to Mr. Mivart's arguments. I cannot but think that it is
to be regretted that he ekes them out by ascribing to the doctrines of the
philosophers with whom he does not agree, logical consequences which have
been over and over again proved not to flow from them: and when reason
fails him, tries the effect of an injurious nickname. According to the
views of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Mill, and Mr. Darwin, Mr. Mivart tells us,
"_virtue is a mere kind of retrieving:_" and, that we may not miss the
point of the joke, he puts it in italics. But what if it is? Does that make
it less virtue? Suppose I say that sculpture is a "mere way" of
stone-cutting, and painting a "mere way" of daubing canvas, and music a
"mere way" of making a noise, the statements are quite true; but they only
show that I see no other method of depreciating some of the noblest aspects
of humanity than that of using language in an inadequate and misleading
sense about them. And the peculiar inappropriateness of this particular
nickname to the views in question, arises from the circumstance which Mr.
Mivart would doubtless have recollected, if his wish to ridicule had not
for the moment obscured his judgment--that whether the law of evolution
applies to man or not, that of hereditary transmission certainly does. Mr.
Mivart will hardly deny that a man owes a large share of the moral
tendencies which he exhibits to his ancestors; and the man who inherits a
desire to steal from a kleptomaniac, or a tendency to benevolence from a
Howard, is, so far as he illustrates hereditary transmission, comparable to
the dog who inherits the desire to fetch a duck out of the water from his
retrieving sire. So that, evolution, or no evolution, moral qualities are
comparable to a "kind of retrieving;" though the comparison, if meant for
the purposes of casting obloquy on evolution, does not say much for the
fairness of those who make it.
The Quarterly Reviewer and Mr. Mivart base their objections to the
evolution of the mental faculties of man from those of some lower animal
form upon what they maintain to be a difference in kind between the mental
and moral faculties of men and brutes; and I have endeavoured to show, by
exposing the utter unsoundness of their philosophical basis, that these
objections are devoid of importance.
The objections which Mr. Wallace brings forward to the doctrine of the
evolution of the mental faculties of man from those of brutes by natural
causes, are of a different order, and require separate consideration.
If I understand him rightly, he by no means doubts that both the bodily and
the mental faculties of man have been evolved from those of some lower
animal; but he is of opinion that some agency beyond that which has been
concerned in the evolution of ordinary animals has been operative in the
case of man. "A superior intelligence has guided the development of man in
a definite direction and for a special purpose, just as man guides the
development of many animal and vegetable forms." [Footnote: "The Limits of
Natural Selection as applied to Man" (_loc. cit._ p. 359).] I
understand this to mean that, just as the rock-pigeon has been produced by
natural causes, while the evolution of the tumbler from the blue rock has
required the special intervention of the intelligence of man, so some
anthropoid form may have been evolved by variation and natural selection;
but it could never have given rise to man, unless some superior
intelligence had played the part of the pigeon-fancier.
According to Mr. Wallace, "whether we compare the savage with the higher
developments of man, or with the brutes around him, we are alike driven to
the conclusion, that, in his large and well-developed brain, he possesses
an organ quite disproportioned to his requirements" (p. 343); and he asks,
"What is there in the life of the savage but the satisfying of the cravings
of appetite in the simplest and easiest way? What thoughts, idea, or
actions are there that raise him many grades above the elephant or the
ape?" (p. 342.) I answer Mr. Wallace by citing a remarkable passage which
occurs in his instructive paper on "Instinct in Man and Animals."
"Savages make long journeys in many directions, and, their whole faculties
being directed to the subject, they gain a wide and accurate knowledge of
the topography, not only of their own district, but of all the regions
round about. Every one who has travelled in a new direction communicates
his knowledge to those who have travelled less, and descriptions of routes
and localities, and minute incidents of travel, form one of the main
staples of conversation around the evening fire. Every wanderer or captive
from another tribe adds to the store of information, and, as the very
existence of individuals and of whole families and tribes depends upon the
completeness of this knowledge, all the acute perceptive faculties of the
adult savage are directed to acquiring and perfecting it. The good hunter
or warrior thus comes to know the bearing of every hill and mountain range,
the directions and junctions of all the streams, the situation of each
tract characterised by peculiar vegetation, not only within the area he has
himself traversed, but perhaps for a hundred miles around it. His acute
observation enables him to detect the slightest undulations of the surface,
the various changes of subsoil and alterations in the character of the
vegetation that would be quite imperceptible to a stranger. His eye is
always open to the direction in which he is going; the mossy side of trees,
the presence of certain plants under the shade of rocks, the morning and
evening flight of birds, are to him indications of direction almost as sure
as the sun in the heavens" (pp. 207, 208).
I have seen enough of savages to be able to declare that nothing can be
more admirable than this description of what a savage has to learn. But it
is incomplete. Add to all this the knowledge which a savage is obliged to
gain of the properties of plants, of the characters and habits of animals,
and of the minute indications by which their course is discoverable:
consider that even an Australian can make excellent baskets and nets, and
neatly fitted and beautifully balanced spears; that he learns to use these
so as to be able to transfix a quartern loaf at sixty yards; and that very
often, as in the case of the American Indians, the language of a savage
exhibits complexities which a well-trained European finds it difficult to
master: consider that every time a savage tracks his game he employs a
minuteness of observation, and an accuracy of inductive and deductive
reasoning which, applied to other matters, would assure some reputation to
a man of science, and I think we need ask no further why he possesses such
a fair supply of brains. In complexity and difficulty, I should say that
the intellectual labour of a "good hunter or warrior" considerably exceeds
that of an ordinary Englishman. The Civil Service Examiners are held in
great terror by young Englishmen; but even their ferocity never tempted
them to require a candidate to possess such a knowledge of a parish as Mr.
Wallace justly points out savages may possess of an area a hundred miles or
more in diameter.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a savage has more brains than
seems proportioned to his wants, all that can be said is that the objection
to natural selection, if it be one, applies quite as strongly to the lower
animals. The brain of a porpoise is quite wonderful for its mass, and for
the development of the cerebral convolutions. And yet since we have ceased
to credit the story of Arion, it is hard to believe that porpoises are much
troubled with intellect: and still more difficult is it to imagine that
their big brains are only a preparation for the advent of some accomplished
cetacean of the future. Surely, again, a wolf must have too much brains, or
else how is it that a dog with only the same quantity and form of brain is
able to develop such singular intelligence? The wolf stands to the dog in
the same relation as the savage to the man; and, therefore, if Mr.
Wallace's doctrine holds good, a higher power must have superintended the
breeding up of wolves from some inferior stock, in order to prepare them to
become dogs.
Mr. Wallace further maintains that the origin of some of man's mental
faculties by the preservation of useful variations is not possible. Such,
for example, are "the capacity to form ideal conceptions of space and time,
of eternity and infinity; the capacity for intense artistic feelings of
pleasure in form, colour, and composition; and for those abstract notions
of form and number which render geometry and arithmetic possible." "How,"
he asks, "were all or any of these faculties first developed, when they
could have been of no possible use to man in his early stages of
barbarism?"
Surely the answer is not far to seek. The lowest savages are as devoid of
any such conceptions as the brutes themselves. What sort of conceptions of
space and time, of form and number, can be possessed by a savage who has
not got so far as to be able to count beyond five or six, who does not know
how to draw a triangle or a circle, and has not the remotest notion of
separating the particular quality we call form, from the other qualities of
bodies? None of these capacities are exhibited by men, unless they form
part of a tolerably advanced society. And, in such a society, there are
abundant conditions by which a selective influence is exerted in favour of
those persons who exhibit an approximation towards the possession of these
capacities.
The savage who can amuse his fellows by telling a good story over the
nightly fire, is held by them in esteem and rewarded, in one way or
another, for so doing--in other words, it is an advantage to him to possess
this power. He who can carve a paddle, or the figure-head of a canoe
better, similarly profits beyond his duller neighbour. He who counts a
little better than others, gets most yams when barter is going on, and
forms the shrewdest estimate of the numbers of an opposing tribe. The
experience of daily life shows that the conditions of our present social
existence exercise the most extraordinarily powerful selective influence in
favour of novelists, artists, and strong intellects of all kinds; and it
seems unquestionable that all forms of social existence must have had the
same tendency, if we consider the indisputable facts that even animals
possess the power of distinguishing form and number, and that they are
capable of deriving pleasure from particular forms and sounds. If we admit,
as Mr. Wallace does, that the lowest savages are not raised "many grades
above the elephant and the ape;" and if we further admit, as I contend must
be admitted, that the conditions of social life tend, powerfully, to give
an advantage to those individuals who vary in the direction of intellectual
or æsthetic excellence, what is there to interfere with the belief that
these higher faculties, like the rest, owe their development to natural
selection?
Finally, with respect to the development of the moral sense out of the
simple feelings of pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, with which the
lower animals are provided, I can find nothing in Mr. Wallace's reasonings
which has not already been met by Mr. Mill, Mr. Spencer, or Mr. Darwin.
I do not propose to follow the Quarterly Reviewer and Mr. Mivart through
the long string of objections in matters of detail which they bring against
Mr. Darwin's views. Every one who has considered the matter carefully will
be able to ferret out as many more "difficulties"; but he will also, I
believe, fail as completely as they appear to me to have done, in bringing
forward any fact which is really contradictory of Mr. Darwin's views.
Occasionally, too, their objections and criticisms are based upon errors of
their own. As, for example, when Mr. Mivart and the Quarterly Reviewer
insist upon the resemblances between the eyes of _Cephalopoda_ and
_Vertebrata_, quite forgetting that there are striking and altogether
fundamental differences between them; or when the Quarterly Reviewer
corrects Mr. Darwin for saying that the gibbons, "without having been
taught, can walk or run upright with tolerable quickness, though they move
awkwardly, and much less securely than man." The Quarterly Reviewer says,
"This is a little misleading, inasmuch as it is not stated that this
upright progression is effected by placing the enormously long arms behind
the head, or holding them out backwards as a balance in progression."
Now, before carping at a small statement like this, the Quarterly Reviewer
should have made sure that he was quite right. But he happens to be quite
wrong. I suspect he got his notion of the manner in which a gibbon walks
from a citation in "Man's Place in Nature." But at that time I had not seen
a gibbon walk. Since then I have, and I can testify that nothing can be
more precise than Mr. Darwin's statement. The gibbon I saw walked without
either putting his arms behind his head or holding them out backwards. All
he did was to touch the ground with the outstretched fingers of his long
arms now and then, just as one sees a man who carries a stick, but does not
need one, touch the ground with it as he walks along.
Again, a large number of the objections brought forward by Mr. Mivart and
the Quarterly Reviewer apply to evolution in general, quite as much as to
the particular form of that doctrine advocated by Mr. Darwin; or, to their
notions of Mr. Darwin's views and not to what they really are. An excellent
example of this class of difficulties is to be found in Mr. Mivart's
chapter on "Independent Similarities of Structure." Mr. Mivart says that
these cannot be explained by an "absolute and pure Darwinian," but "that an
innate power and evolutionary law, aided by the corrective action of
natural selection, should have furnished like needs with like aids, is not
at all improbable" (p. 82).
I do not exactly know what Mr. Mivart means by an "absolute and pure
Darwinian;" indeed Mr. Mivart makes that creature hold so many singular
opinions that I doubt if I can ever have seen one alive. But I find nothing
in his statement of the view which he imagines to be originated by himself,
which is really inconsistent with what I understand to be Mr. Darwin's
views.
I apprehend that the foundation of the theory of natural selection is the
fact that living bodies tend incessantly to vary. This variation is neither
indefinite, nor fortuitous, nor does it take place in all directions, in
the strict sense of these words.
Accurately speaking, it is not indefinite, nor does it take place in all
directions, because it is limited by the general characters of the type to
which the organism exhibiting the variation belongs. A whale does not tend
to vary in the direction of producing feathers, nor a bird in the direction
of developing whalebone. In popular language there is no harm in saying
that the waves which break upon the sea-shore are indefinite, fortuitous,
and break in all directions. In scientific language, on the contrary, such
a statement would be a gross error, inasmuch as every particle of foam is
the result of perfectly definite forces, operating according to no less
definite laws. In like manner, every variation of a living form, however
minute, however apparently accidental, is inconceivable except as the
expression of the operation of molecular forces or "powers" resident within
the organism. And, as these forces certainly operate according to definite
laws, their general result is, doubtless, in accordance with some general
law which subsumes them all. And there appears to be no objection to call
this an "evolutionary law." But nobody is the wiser for doing so, or has
thereby contributed, in the least degree, to the advance of the doctrine of
evolution, the great need of which is a theory of variation.
When Mr. Mivart tells us that his "aim has been to support the doctrine
that these species have been evolved by ordinary _natural laws_ (for
the most part unknown), aided by the _subordinate_ action of 'natural
selection'" (pp. 332-3), he seems to be of opinion that his enterprise has
the merit of novelty. All I can say is that I have never had the slightest
notion that Mr. Darwin's aim is in any way different from this. If I affirm
that "species have been evolved by variation [Footnote: Including under
this head hereditary transmission.] (a natural process, the laws of which
are for the most part unknown), aided by the subordinate action of natural
selection," it seems to me that I enunciate a proposition which constitutes
the very pith and marrow of the first edition of the "Origin of Species."
And what the evolutionist stands in need of just now, is not an iteration
of the fundamental principle of Darwinism, but some light upon the
questions, What are the limits of variation? and, If a variety has arisen,
can that variety be perpetuated, or even intensified, when selective
conditions are indifferent, or perhaps unfavourable to its existence? I
cannot find that Mr. Darwin has ever been very dogmatic in answering these
questions. Formerly, he seems to have inclined to reply to them in the
negative, while now his inclination is the other way. Leaving aside those
broad questions of theology, philosophy, and ethics, by the discussion of
which neither the Quarterly Reviewer nor Mr. Mivart can be said to have
damaged Darwinism--whatever else they have injured--this is what their
criticisms come to. They confound a struggle for some rifle-pits with an
assault on the fortress.
In some respects, finally, I can only characterise the Quarterly Reviewer's
treatment of Mr. Darwin as alike unjust and unbecoming. Language of this
strength requires justification, and on that ground I add the remarks which
follow.
The Quarterly Reviewer opens his essay by a careful enumeration of all
those points upon which, during the course of thirteen years of incessant
labour, Mr. Darwin has modified his opinions. It has often and justly been
remarked, that what strikes a candid student of Mr. Darwin's works is not
so much his industry, his knowledge, or even the surprising fertility of
his inventive genius; but that unswerving truthfulness and honesty which
never permit him to hide a weak place, or gloss over a difficulty, but lead
him, on all occasions, to point out the weak places in his own armour, and
even sometimes, it appears to me, to make admissions against himself which
are quite unnecessary. A critic who desires to attack Mr. Darwin has only
to read his works with a desire to observe, not their merits, but their
defects, and he will find, ready to hand, more adverse suggestions than are
likely ever to have suggested themselves to his own sharpness, without Mr.
Darwin's self-denying aid.
Now this quality of scientific candour is not so common that it needs to be
discouraged; and it appears to me to deserve other treatment than that
adopted by the Quarterly Reviewer, who deals with Mr. Darwin as an Old
Bailey barrister deals with a man against whom he wishes to obtain a
conviction, _per fas aut nefas_, and opens his case by endeavouring to
create a prejudice against the prisoner in the minds of the jury. In his
eagerness to carry out this laudable design, the Quarterly Reviewer cannot
even state the history of the doctrine of natural selection without an
oblique and entirely unjustifiable attempt to depreciate Mr. Darwin. "To
Mr. Darwin," says he, "and (through Mr. Wallace's reticence) to Mr. Darwin
alone, is due the credit of having first brought it prominently forward and
demonstrated its truth." No one can less desire than I do, to throw a doubt
upon Mr. Wallace's originality, or to question his claim to the honour of
being one of the originators of the doctrine of natural selection; but the
statement that Mr. Darwin has the sole credit of originating the doctrine
because of Mr. Wallace's reticence is simply ridiculous. The proof of this
is, in the first place, afforded by Mr. Wallace himself, whose noble
freedom from petty jealousy in this matter smaller folk would do well to
imitate, and who writes thus:--"I have felt all my life, and I still feel,
the most sincere satisfaction that Mr. Darwin had been at work long before
me and that it was not left for me to attempt to write the 'Origin of
Species.' I have long since measured my own strength, and know well that it
would be quite unequal to that task." So that if there was any reticence at
all in the matter, it was Mr. Darwin's reticence during the long twenty
years of study which intervened between the conception and the publication
of his theory, which gave Mr. Wallace the chance of being an independent
discoverer of the importance of natural selection. And, finally, if it be
recollected that Mr. Darwin's and Mr. Wallace's essays were published
simultaneously in the "Journal of the Linnæan Society" for 1858, it follows
that the Reviewer, while obliquely depreciating Mr. Darwin's deserts, has
in reality awarded to him a priority which, in legal strictness, does not
exist.
Mr. Mivart, whose opinions so often concur with those of the Quarterly
Reviewer, puts the case in a way, which I much regret to be obliged to say,
is, in my judgment, quite as incorrect; though the injustice may be less
glaring. He says that the theory of natural selection is, in general,
exclusively associated with the name of Mr. Darwin, "on account of the
noble self-abnegation of Mr. Wallace." As I have said, no one can honour
Mr. Wallace more than I do, both for what he has done and for what he has
not done, in his relation to Mr. Darwin. And perhaps nothing is more
creditable to him than his frank declaration that he could not have written
such a work as the "Origin of Species." But, by this declaration, the
person most directly interested in the matter repudiates, by anticipation,
Mr. Mivart's suggestion that Mr. Darwin's eminence is more or less due to
Mr. Wallace's modesty.