1.—“... _Evolution_ ...”
“We now know that Nature, as an anthropomorphic being, does not exist;
that the great forces called natural are unconscious; that their blind
action results, however, in the world of life, in a choice, a
selection, a progressive evolution, or, to sum up, in the survival of
the individuals best adapted to the conditions of their
existence.”—Letourneau (“The Evolution of Marriage,” Chap. I., Part
II.).
_Id._... “Robert Chambers’s common-sense view of evolution as a process
of continued growing.”—Professor Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson
(“The Evolution of Sex,” p. 302).
3.—“_By Art_ ...”
“Other implements of Palæolithic age are formed of bone and horn. Among
these are harpoon-heads, barbed on one or both sides, awls, pins, and
needles with well-formed eyes. But by far the most noteworthy objects of
this class are the fragments of bone, horn, ivory, and stone, which
exhibit outlined and even shaded sketches of various animals. These
engravings have been made with a sharp-pointed implement, and are often
wonderfully characteristic representations of the creatures they
pourtray. The figures are sometimes single, in other cases they are
drawn in groups. We find representations of a fish, a seal, an ibex, the
red-deer, the great Irish elk or deer, the bison, the horse, the
cave-bear, the reindeer, and the mammoth or woolly elephant. Besides
engravings, we meet also with sculptures.... It is impossible to say to
what use all these objects were put. Some of them may have been handles
for knives, while others are mere fragments, and only vague guesses can
be made as to the nature of the original implements. It is highly
probable, however, that many of these works of art may have been
designed simply as such, for the pleasure and amusement of the
draughtsman and his fellows.”—James Geikie (“Prehistoric Europe,” Chap.
II.).
_Id._... The culture or appreciation of Art is of itself evidence of a
higher nature in man; “a soul, a psyche, a something which aspires,” as
Richard Jefferies calls it. For though the professional pursuit of Art
may be occasionally not unmingled with mercenary motives, or with the
pourtrayal of incentives to lower desire, yet the ultimate appeal of
every truly beautiful picture or object of Art is, at any rate, not to
man’s mercenary or meaner nature. As Jefferies again says, “The ascetics
are the only persons who are impure. The soul is the higher even by
gazing on beauty.”—(“The Story of My Heart,” Chap. VII.)
7.—“... _the soul_ ...”
“The mind of man is infinite. Beyond this, man has a soul. I do not use
this word in the common-sense which circumstances have given to it. I
use it as the only term to express that inner consciousness which
aspires.”—Richard Jefferies (“The Story of My Heart,” Chap. IX.).
8.—“... _from lower flush of lust_.”
“The fact to be insisted upon is this, that the vague sexual attraction
of the lowest organisms has been evolved into a definite reproductive
impulse, into a desire often predominating over even that of
self-preservation; that this, again, enhanced by more and more subtle
additions, passes by a gentle gradient into the love of the highest
animals, and of the average human individual.”—Geddes and Thomson
(“Evolution of Sex,” p. 267).