CHAPTER XV

DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN

General identity of human and animal structure--Rudiments and

variations showing relation of man to other mammals--The

embryonic development of man and other mammalia--Diseases common

to man and the lower animals--The animals most nearly allied to

man--The brains of man and apes--External differences of man and

apes--Summary of the animal characteristics of man--The

geological antiquity of man--The probable birthplace of man--The

origin of the moral and intellectual nature of man--The argument

from continuity--The origin of the mathematical faculty--The

origin of the musical and artistic faculties--Independent proof

that these faculties have not been developed by natural

selection--The interpretation of the facts--Concluding remarks.

Our review of modern Darwinism might fitly have terminated with the

preceding chapter; but the immense interest that attaches to the origin

of the human race, and the amount of misconception which prevails

regarding the essential teachings of Darwin's theory on this question,

as well as regarding my own special views upon it, induce me to devote a

final chapter to its discussion.

To any one who considers the structure of man's body, even in the most

superficial manner, it must be evident that it is the body of an animal,

differing greatly, it is true, from the bodies of all other animals, but

agreeing with them in all essential features. The bony structure of man

classes him as a vertebrate; the mode of suckling his young classes him

as a mammal; his blood, his muscles, and his nerves, the structure of

his heart with its veins and arteries, his lungs and his whole

respiratory and circulatory systems, all closely correspond to those of

other mammals, and are often almost identical with them. He possesses

the same number of limbs terminating in the same number of digits as

belong fundamentally to the mammalian class. His senses are identical

with theirs, and his organs of sense are the same in number and occupy

the same relative position. Every detail of structure which is common to

the mammalia as a class is found also in man, while he only differs from

them in such ways and degrees as the various species or groups of

mammals differ from each other. If, then, we have good reason to believe

that every existing group of mammalia has descended from some common

ancestral form--as we saw to be so completely demonstrated in the case

of the horse tribe,--and that each family, each order, and even the

whole class must similarly have descended from some much more ancient

and more generalised type, it would be in the highest degree

improbable--so improbable as to be almost inconceivable--that man,

agreeing with them so closely in every detail of his structure, should

have had some quite distinct mode of origin. Let us, then, see what

other evidence bears upon the question, and whether it is sufficient to

convert the probability of his animal origin into a practical certainty.

_Rudiments and Variations as Indicating the Relation of Man to other

Mammals._

All the higher animals present rudiments of organs which, though useless

to them, are useful in some allied group, and are believed to have

descended from a common ancestor in which they were useful. Thus there

are in ruminants rudiments of incisor teeth which, in some species,

never cut through the gums; many lizards have external rudimentary legs;

while many birds, as the Apteryx, have quite rudimentary wings. Now man

possesses similar rudiments, sometimes constantly, sometimes only

occasionally present, which serve intimately to connect his bodily

structure with that of the lower animals. Many animals, for example,

have a special muscle for moving or twitching the skin. In man there are

remnants of this in certain parts of the body, especially in the

forehead, enabling us to raise our eyebrows; but some persons have it in

other parts. A few persons are able to move the whole scalp so as to

throw off any object placed on the head, and this property has been

proved, in one case, to be inherited. In the outer fold of the ear there

is sometimes a projecting point, corresponding in position to the

pointed ear of many animals, and believed to be a rudiment of it. In the

alimentary canal there is a rudiment--the vermiform appendage of the

caecum--which is not only useless, but is sometimes a cause of disease

and death in man; yet in many vegetable feeding animals it is very long,

and even in the orang-utan it is of considerable length and convoluted.

So, man possesses rudimentary bones of a tail concealed beneath the

skin, and, in some rare cases, this forms a minute external tail.

The variability of every part of man's structure is very great, and many

of these variations tend to approximate towards the structure of other

animals. The courses of the arteries are eminently variable, so that for

surgical purposes it has been necessary to determine the probable

proportion of each variation. The muscles are so variable that in fifty

cases the muscles of the foot were found to be not strictly alike in any

two, and in some the deviations were considerable; while in thirty-six

subjects Mr. J. Wood observed no fewer than 558 muscular variations. The

same author states that in a single male subject there were no fewer

than seven muscular variations, all of which plainly represented muscles

proper to various kinds of apes. The muscles of the hands and

arms--parts which are so eminently characteristic of man--are extremely

liable to vary, so as to resemble the corresponding muscles of the lower

animals. That such variations are due to reversion to a former state of

existence Mr. Darwin thinks highly probable, and he adds: "It is quite

incredible that a man should, through mere accident, abnormally resemble

certain apes in no less than seven of his muscles, if there had been no

genetic connection between them. On the other hand, if man is descended

from some ape-like creature, no valid reason can be assigned why certain

muscles should not suddenly reappear after an interval of many thousand

generations, in the same manner as, with horses, asses, and mules, dark

coloured stripes suddenly reappear on the legs and shoulders, after an

interval of hundreds, or more probably of thousands of

generations."[218]

_The Embryonic Development of Man and other Mammalia._

The progressive development of any vertebrate from the ovum or minute

embryonic egg affords one of the most marvellous chapters in Natural

History. We see the contents of the ovum undergoing numerous definite

changes, its interior dividing and subdividing till it consists of a

mass of cells, then a groove appears marking out the median line or

vertebral column of the future animal, and thereafter are slowly

developed the various essential organs of the body. After describing in

some detail what takes place in the case of the ovum of the dog,

Professor Huxley continues: "The history of the development of any other

vertebrate animal, lizard, snake, frog, or fish tells the same story.

There is always to begin with, an egg having the same essential

structure as that of the dog; the yelk of that egg undergoes division or

segmentation, as it is called, the ultimate products of that

segmentation constitute the building materials for the body of the young

animal; and this is built up round a primitive groove, in the floor of

which a notochord is developed. Furthermore, there is a period in which

the young of all these animals resemble one another, not merely in

outward form, but in all essentials of structure, so closely, that the

differences between them are inconsiderable, while in their subsequent

course they diverge more and more widely from one another. And it is a

general law that the more closely any animals resemble one another in

adult structure, the larger and the more intimately do their embryos

resemble one another; so that, for example, the embryos of a snake and

of a lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a snake and

a bird; and the embryos of a dog and of a cat remain like one another

for a far longer period than do those of a dog and a bird, or of a dog

and an opossum, or even than those of a dog and a monkey."[219]

We thus see that the study of development affords a test of affinity in

animals that are externally very much unlike each other; and we

naturally ask how this applies to man. Is he developed in a different

way from other mammals, as we should certainly expect if he has had a

distinct and altogether different origin? "The reply," says Professor

Huxley, "is not doubtful for a moment. Without question, the mode of

origin and the early stages of the development of man are identical with

those of the animals immediately below him in the scale." And again he

tells us: "It is very long before the body of the young human being can

be readily discriminated from that of the young puppy; but at a

tolerably early period the two become distinguishable by the different

forms of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois;" and after

describing these differences he continues: "But exactly in those

respects in which the developing man differs from the dog, he resembles

the ape.... So that it is only quite in the latter stages of development

that the young human being presents marked differences from the young

ape, while the latter departs as much from the dog in its development as

the man does. Startling as this last assertion may appear to be, it is

demonstrably true, and it alone appears to me sufficient to place beyond

all doubt the structural unity of man with the rest of the animal world,

and more particularly and closely with the apes."[220]

A few of the curious details in which man passes through stages common

to the lower animals may be mentioned. At one stage the os coccyx

projects like a true tail, extending considerably beyond the rudimentary

legs. In the seventh month the convolutions of the brain resemble those

of an adult baboon. The great toe, so characteristic of man, forming the

fulcrum which most assists him in standing erect, in an early stage of

the embryo is much shorter than the other toes, and instead of being

parallel with them, projects at an angle from the side of the foot, thus

corresponding with its permanent condition in the quadrumana. Numerous

other examples might be quoted, all illustrating the same general law.

_Diseases Common to Man and the Lower Animals._

Though the fact is so well known, it is certainly one of profound

significance that many animal diseases can be communicated to man, since

it shows similarity, if not identity, in the minute structure of the

tissues, the nature of the blood, the nerves, and the brain. Such

diseases as hydrophobia, variola, the glanders, cholera, herpes, etc.,

can be transmitted from animals to man or the reverse; while monkeys are

liable to many of the same non-contagious diseases as we are. Rengger,

who carefully observed the common monkey (Cebus Azarae) in Paraguay,

found it liable to catarrh, with the usual symptoms, terminating

sometimes in consumption. These monkeys also suffered from apoplexy,

inflammation of the bowels, and cataract in the eye. Medicines produced

the same effect upon them as upon us. Many kinds of monkeys have a

strong taste for tea, coffee, spirits, and even tobacco. These facts

show the similarity of the nerves of taste in monkeys and in ourselves,

and that their whole nervous system is affected in a similar way. Even

the parasites, both external and internal, that affect man are not

altogether peculiar to him, but belong to the same families or genera as

those which infest animals, and in one case, scabies, even the same

species.[221] These curious facts seem quite inconsistent with the idea

that man's bodily structure and nature are altogether distinct from

those of animals, and have had a different origin; while the facts are

just what we should expect if he has been produced by descent with

modification from some common ancestor.

_The Animals most nearly Allied to Man._

By universal consent we see in the monkey tribe a caricature of

humanity. Their faces, their hands, their actions and expressions

present ludicrous resemblances to our own. But there is one group of

this great tribe in which this resemblance is greatest, and they have

hence been called the anthropoid or man-like apes. These are few in

number, and inhabit only the equatorial regions of Africa and Asia,

countries where the climate is most uniform, the forests densest, and

the supply of fruit abundant throughout the year. These animals are now

comparatively well known, consisting of the orang-utan of Borneo and

Sumatra, the chimpanzee and the gorilla of West Africa, and the group of

gibbons or long-armed apes, consisting of many species and inhabiting

South-Eastern Asia and the larger Malay Islands. These last are far

less like man than the other three, one or other of which has at various

times been claimed to be the most man-like of the apes and our nearest

relations in the animal kingdom. The question of the degree of

resemblance of these animals to ourselves is one of great interest,

leading, as it does, to some important conclusions as to our origin and

geological antiquity, and we will therefore briefly consider it.

If we compare the skeletons of the orang or chimpanzee with that of man,

we find them to be a kind of distorted copy, every bone corresponding

(with very few exceptions), but altered somewhat in size, proportions,

and position. So great is this resemblance that it led Professor Owen to

remark: "I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading

similitude of structure--every tooth, every bone, strictly

homologous--which makes the determination of the difference between

_Homo_ and _Pithecus_ the anatomist's difficulty."

The actual differences in the skeletons of these apes and that of

man--that is, differences dependent on the presence or absence of

certain bones, and not on their form or position--have been enumerated

by Mr. Mivart as follows:--(1) In the breast-bone consisting of but two

bones, man agrees with the gibbons; the chimpanzee and gorilla having

this part consisting of seven bones in a single series, while in the

orang they are arranged in a double series of ten bones. (2) The normal

number of the ribs in the orang and some gibbons is twelve pairs, as in

man, while in the chimpanzee and gorilla there are thirteen pairs. (3)

The orang and the gibbons also agree with man in having five lumbar

vertebrae, while in the gorilla and the chimpanzee there are but four,

and sometimes only three. (4) The gorilla and chimpanzee agree with man

in having eight small bones in the wrist, while the orang and the

gibbons, as well as all other monkeys, have nine.[222]

The differences in the form, size, and attachments of the various bones,

muscles, and other organs of these apes and man are very numerous and

exceedingly complex, sometimes one species, sometimes another agreeing

most nearly with ourselves, thus presenting a tangled web of affinities

which it is very difficult to unravel. Estimated by the skeleton alone,

the chimpanzee and gorilla seem nearer to man than the orang, which last

is also inferior as presenting certain aberrations in the muscles. In

the form of the ear the gorilla is more human than any other ape, while

in the tongue the orang is the more man-like. In the stomach and liver

the gibbons approach nearest to man, then come the orang and chimpanzee,

while the gorilla has a degraded liver more resembling that of the lower

monkeys and baboons.

_The Brains of Man and Apes._

We come now to that part of his organisation in which man is so much

higher than all the lower animals--the brain; and here, Mr. Mivart

informs us, the orang stands highest in rank. The height of the orang's

cerebrum in front is greater in proportion than in either the chimpanzee

or the gorilla. "On comparing the brain of man with the brains of the

orang, chimpanzee, and baboon, we find a successive decrease in the

frontal lobe, and a successive and very great increase in the relative

size of the occipital lobe. Concomitantly with this increase and

decrease, certain folds of brain substance, called 'bridging

convolutions,' which in man are conspicuously interposed between the

parietal and occipital lobes, seem as utterly to disappear in the

chimpanzee, as they do in the baboon. In the orang, however, though much

reduced, they are still to be distinguished.... The actual and absolute

mass of the brain is, however, slightly greater in the chimpanzee than

in the orang, as is the relative vertical extent of the middle part of

the cerebrum, although, as already stated, the frontal portion is higher

in the orang; while, according to M. Gratiolet, the gorilla is not only

inferior to the orang in cerebral development, but even to his smaller

African congener, the chimpanzee."[223]

On the whole, then, we find that no one of the great apes can be

positively asserted to be nearest to man in structure. Each of them

approaches him in certain characteristics, while in others it is widely

removed, giving the idea, so consonant with the theory of evolution as

developed by Darwin, that all are derived from a common ancestor, from

which the existing anthropoid apes as well as man have diverged. When,

however, we turn from the details of anatomy to peculiarities of

external form and motions, we find that, in a variety of characters, all

these apes resemble each other and differ from man, so that we may

fairly say that, while they have diverged somewhat from each other, they

have diverged much more widely from ourselves. Let us briefly enumerate

some of these differences.

_External Differences of Man and Apes._

All apes have large canine teeth, while in man these are no longer than

the adjacent incisors or premolars, the whole forming a perfectly even

series. In apes the arms are proportionately much longer than in man,

while the thighs are much shorter. No ape stands really erect, a posture

which is natural in man. The thumb is proportionately larger in man, and

more perfectly opposable than in that of any ape. The foot of man

differs largely from that of all apes, in the horizontal sole, the

projecting heel, the short toes, and the powerful great toe firmly

attached parallel to the other toes; all perfectly adapted for

maintaining the erect posture, and for free motion without any aid from

the arms or hands. In apes the foot is formed almost exactly like our

hand, with a large thumb-like great toe quite free from the other toes,

and so articulated as to be opposable to them; forming with the long

finger-like toes a perfect grasping hand. The sole cannot be placed

horizontally on the ground; but when standing on a level surface the

animal rests on the outer edge of the foot with the finger and

thumb-like toes partly closed, while the hands are placed on the ground

resting on the knuckles. The illustration on the next page (Fig. 37)

shows, fairly well, the peculiarities of the hands and feet of the

chimpanzee, and their marked differences, both in form and use, from

those of man.

The four limbs, with the peculiarly formed feet and hands, are those of

arboreal animals which only occasionally and awkwardly move on level

ground. The arms are used in progression equally with the feet, and the

hands are only adapted for uses similar to those of our hands when the

animal is at rest, and then but clumsily. Lastly, the apes are all hairy

animals, like the majority of other mammals, man alone having a smooth

and almost naked skin. These numerous and striking differences, even

more than those of the skeleton and internal anatomy, point to an

enormously remote epoch when the race that was ultimately to develop

into man diverged from that other stock which continued the animal type

and ultimately produced the existing varieties of anthropoid apes.

[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger).]

_Summary of the Animal Characteristics of Man._

The facts now very briefly summarised amount almost to a demonstration

that man, in his bodily structure, has been derived from the lower

animals, of which he is the culminating development. In his possession

of rudimentary structures which are functional in some of the mammalia;

in the numerous variations of his muscles and other organs agreeing with

characters which are constant in some apes; in his embryonic

development, absolutely identical in character with that of mammalia in

general, and closely resembling in its details that of the higher

quadrumana; in the diseases which he has in common with other mammalia;

and in the wonderful approximation of his skeleton to those of one or

other of the anthropoid apes, we have an amount of evidence in this

direction which it seems impossible to explain away. And this evidence

will appear more forcible if we consider for a moment what the rejection

of it implies. For the only alternative supposition is, that man has

been specially created--that is to say, has been produced in some quite

different way from other animals and altogether independently of them.

But in that case the rudimentary structures, the animal-like variations,

the identical course of development, and all the other animal

characteristics he possesses are deceptive, and inevitably lead us, as

thinking beings making use of the reason which is our noblest and most

distinctive feature, into gross error.

We cannot believe, however, that a careful study of the facts of nature

leads to conclusions directly opposed to the truth; and, as we seek in

vain, in our physical structure and the course of its development, for

any indication of an origin independent of the rest of the animal world,

we are compelled to reject the idea of "special creation" for man, as

being entirely unsupported by facts as well as in the highest degree

improbable.

_The Geological Antiquity of Man._

The evidence we now possess of the exact nature of the resemblance of

man to the various species of anthropoid apes, shows us that he has

little special affinity for any one rather than another species, while

he differs from them all in several important characters in which they

agree with each other. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is,

that his points of affinity connect him with the whole group, while his

special peculiarities equally separate him from the whole group, and

that he must, therefore, have diverged from the common ancestral form

before the existing types of anthropoid apes had diverged from each

other. Now, this divergence almost certainly took place as early as the

Miocene period, because in the Upper Miocene deposits of Western Europe

remains of two species of ape have been found allied to the gibbons, one

of them, Dryopithecus, nearly as large as a man, and believed by M.

Lartet to have approached man in its dentition more than the existing

apes. We seem hardly, therefore, to have reached, in the Upper Miocene,

the epoch of the common ancestor of man and the anthropoids.

The evidence of the antiquity of man himself is also scanty, and takes

us but very little way back into the past. We have clear proof of his

existence in Europe in the latter stages of the glacial epoch, with many

indications of his presence in interglacial or even pre-glacial times;

while both the actual remains and the works of man found in the

auriferous gravels of California deep under lava-flows of Pliocene age,

show that he existed in the New World at least as early as in the

Old.[224] These earliest remains of man have been received with doubt,

and even with ridicule, as if there were some extreme improbability in

them. But, in point of fact, the wonder is that human remains have not

been found more frequently in pre-glacial deposits. Referring to the

most ancient fossil remains found in Europe--the Engis and Neanderthal

crania,--Professor Huxley makes the following weighty remark: "In

conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of Man hitherto

discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower

pithecoid form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become

what he is." The Californian remains and works of art, above referred

to, give no indication of a specially low form of man; and it remains an

unsolved problem why no traces of the long line of man's ancestors, back

to the remote period when he first branched off from the pithecoid type,

have yet been discovered.

It has been objected by some writers--notably by Professor Boyd

Dawkins--that man did not probably exist in Pliocene times, because

almost all the known mammalia of that epoch are distinct species from

those now living on the earth, and that the same changes of the

environment which led to the modification of other mammalian species

would also have led to a change in man. But this argument overlooks the

fact that man differs essentially from all other mammals in this

respect, that whereas any important adaptation to new conditions can be

effected in them only by a change in bodily structure, man is able to

adapt himself to much greater changes of conditions by a mental

development leading him to the use of fire, of tools, of clothing, of

improved dwellings, of nets and snares, and of agriculture. By the help

of these, without any change whatever in his bodily structure, he has

been able to spread over and occupy the whole earth; to dwell securely

in forest, plain, or mountain; to inhabit alike the burning desert or

the arctic wastes; to cope with every kind of wild beast, and to provide

himself with food in districts where, as an animal trusting to nature's

unaided productions, he would have starved.[225]

It follows, therefore, that from the time when the ancestral man first

walked erect, with hands freed from any active part in locomotion, and

when his brain-power became sufficient to cause him to use his hands in

making weapons and tools, houses and clothing, to use fire for cooking,

and to plant seeds or roots to supply himself with stores of food, the

power of natural selection would cease to act in producing modifications

of his body, but would continuously advance his mind through the

development of its organ, the brain. Hence man may have become truly

man--the species, Homo sapiens--even in the Miocene period; and while

all other mammals were becoming modified from age to age under the

influence of ever-changing physical and biological conditions, he would

be advancing mainly in intelligence, but perhaps also in stature, and by

that advance alone would be able to maintain himself as the master of

all other animals and as the most widespread occupier of the earth. It

is quite in accordance with this view that we find the most pronounced

distinction between man and the anthropoid apes in the size and

complexity of his brain. Thus, Professor Huxley tells us that "it may be

doubted whether a healthy human adult brain ever weighed less than 31

or 32 ounces, or that the heaviest gorilla brain has exceeded 20

ounces," although "a full-grown gorilla is probably pretty nearly twice

as heavy as a Bosjes man, or as many an European woman."[226] The

average human brain, however, weighs 48 or 49 ounces, and if we take the

average ape brain at only 2 ounces less than the very largest gorilla's

brain, or 18 ounces, we shall see better the enormous increase which has

taken place in the brain of man since the time when he branched off from

the apes; and this increase will be still greater if we consider that

the brains of apes, like those of all other mammals, have also increased

from earlier to later geological times.

If these various considerations are taken into account, we must conclude

that the essential features of man's structure as compared with that of

apes--his erect posture and free hands--were acquired at a comparatively

early period, and were, in fact, the characteristics which gave him his

superiority over other mammals, and started him on the line of

development which has led to his conquest of the world. But during this

long and steady development of brain and intellect, mankind must have

continuously increased in numbers and in the area which they

occupied--they must have formed what Darwin terms a "dominant race." For

had they been few in numbers and confined to a limited area, they could

hardly have successfully struggled against the numerous fierce carnivora

of that period, and against those adverse influences which led to the

extinction of so many more powerful animals. A large population spread

over an extensive area is also needed to supply an adequate number of

brain variations for man's progressive improvement. But this large

population and long-continued development in a single line of advance

renders it the more difficult to account for the complete absence of

human or pre-human remains in all those deposits which have furnished,

in such rich abundance, the remains of other land animals. It is true

that the remains of apes are also very rare, and we may well suppose

that the superior intelligence of man led him to avoid that extensive

destruction by flood or in morass which seems to have often overwhelmed

other animals. Yet, when we consider that, even in our own day, men are

not unfrequently overwhelmed by volcanic eruptions, as in Java and

Japan, or carried away in vast numbers by floods, as in Bengal and

China, it seems impossible but that ample remains of Miocene and

Pliocene man do exist buried in the most recent layers of the earth's

crust, and that more extended research or some fortunate discovery will

some day bring them to light.

_The Probable Birthplace of Man._

It has usually been considered that the ancestral form of man originated

in the tropics, where vegetation is most abundant and the climate most

equable. But there are some important objections to this view. The

anthropoid apes, as well as most of the monkey tribe, are essentially

arboreal in their structure, whereas the great distinctive character of

man is his special adaptation to terrestrial locomotion. We can hardly

suppose, therefore, that he originated in a forest region, where fruits

to be obtained by climbing are the chief vegetable food. It is more

probable that he began his existence on the open plains or high plateaux

of the temperate or sub-tropical zone, where the seeds of indigenous

cereals and numerous herbivora, rodents, and game-birds, with fishes and

molluscs in the lakes, rivers, and seas supplied him with an abundance

of varied food. In such a region he would develop skill as a hunter,

trapper, or fisherman, and later as a herdsman and cultivator,--a

succession of which we find indications in the palaeolithic and

neolithic races of Europe.

In seeking to determine the particular areas in which his earliest

traces are likely to be found, we are restricted to some portion of the

Eastern hemisphere, where alone the anthropoid apes exist, or have

apparently ever existed.

There is good reason to believe, also, that Africa must be excluded,

because it is known to have been separated from the northern continent

in early tertiary times, and to have acquired its existing fauna of the

higher mammalia by a later union with that continent after the

separation from it of Madagascar, an island which has preserved for us a

sample, as it were, of the early African mammalian fauna, from which not

only the anthropoid apes, but all the higher quadrumana are

absent.[227] There remains only the great Euro-Asiatic continent; and

its enormous plateaux, extending from Persia right across Tibet and

Siberia to Manchuria, afford an area, some part or other of which

probably offered suitable conditions, in late Miocene or early Pliocene

times, for the development of ancestral man.

It is in this area that we still find that type of mankind--the

Mongolian--which retains a colour of the skin midway between the black

or brown-black of the negro, and the ruddy or olive-white of the

Caucasian types, a colour which still prevails over all Northern Asia,

over the American continents, and over much of Polynesia. From this

primary tint arose, under the influence of varied conditions, and

probably in correlation with constitutional changes adapted to peculiar

climates, the varied tints which still exist among mankind. If the

reasoning by which this conclusion is reached be sound, and all the

earlier stages of man's development from an animal form occurred in the

area now indicated, we can better understand how it is that we have as

yet met with no traces of the missing links, or even of man's existence

during late tertiary times, because no part of the world is so entirely

unexplored by the geologist as this very region. The area in question is

sufficiently extensive and varied to admit of primeval man having

attained to a considerable population, and having developed his full

human characteristics, both physical and mental, before there was any

need for him to migrate beyond its limits. One of his earliest important

migrations was probably into Africa, where, spreading westward, he

became modified in colour and hair in correlation with physiological

changes adapting him to the climate of the equatorial lowlands.

Spreading north-westward into Europe the moist and cool climate led to a

modification of an opposite character, and thus may have arisen the

three great human types which still exist. Somewhat later, probably, he

spread eastward into North-West America and soon scattered himself over

the whole continent; and all this may well have occurred in early or

middle Pliocene times. Thereafter, at very long intervals, successive

waves of migration carried him into every part of the habitable world,

and by conquest and intermixture led ultimately to that puzzling

gradation of types which the ethnologist in vain seeks to unravel.

_The Origin of the Moral and Intellectual Nature of Man._

From the foregoing discussion it will be seen that I fully accept Mr.

Darwin's conclusion as to the essential identity of man's bodily

structure with that of the higher mammalia, and his descent from some

ancestral form common to man and the anthropoid apes. The evidence of

such descent appears to me to be overwhelming and conclusive. Again, as

to the cause and method of such descent and modification, we may admit,

at all events provisionally, that the laws of variation and natural

selection, acting through the struggle for existence and the continual

need of more perfect adaptation to the physical and biological

environments, may have brought about, first that perfection of bodily

structure in which he is so far above all other animals, and in

co-ordination with it the larger and more developed brain, by means of

which he has been able to utilise that structure in the more and more

complete subjection of the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms to his

service.

But this is only the beginning of Mr. Darwin's work, since he goes on to

discuss the moral nature and mental faculties of man, and derives these

too by gradual modification and development from the lower animals.

Although, perhaps, nowhere distinctly formulated, his whole argument

tends to the conclusion that man's entire nature and all his faculties,

whether moral, intellectual, or spiritual, have been derived from their

rudiments in the lower animals, in the same manner and by the action of

the same general laws as his physical structure has been derived. As

this conclusion appears to me not to be supported by adequate evidence,

and to be directly opposed to many well-ascertained facts, I propose to

devote a brief space to its discussion.

_The Argument from Continuity._

Mr. Darwin's mode of argument consists in showing that the rudiments of

most, if not of all, the mental and moral faculties of man can be

detected in some animals. The manifestations of intelligence, amounting

in some cases to distinct acts of reasoning, in many animals, are

adduced as exhibiting in a much less degree the intelligence and reason

of man. Instances of curiosity, imitation, attention, wonder, and memory

are given; while examples are also adduced which may be interpreted as

proving that animals exhibit kindness to their fellows, or manifest

pride, contempt, and shame. Some are said to have the rudiments of

language, because they utter several different sounds, each of which has

a definite meaning to their fellows or to their young; others the

rudiments of arithmetic, because they seem to count and remember up to

three, four, or even five. A sense of beauty is imputed to them on

account of their own bright colours or the use of coloured objects in

their nests; while dogs, cats, and horses are said to have imagination,

because they appear to be disturbed by dreams. Even some distant

approach to the rudiments of religion is said to be found in the deep

love and complete submission of a dog to his master.[228]

Turning from animals to man, it is shown that in the lowest savages many

of these faculties are very little advanced from the condition in which

they appear in the higher animals; while others, although fairly well

exhibited, are yet greatly inferior to the point of development they

have reached in civilised races. In particular, the moral sense is said

to have been developed from the social instincts of savages, and to

depend mainly on the enduring discomfort produced by any action which

excites the general disapproval of the tribe. Thus, every act of an

individual which is believed to be contrary to the interests of the

tribe, excites its unvarying disapprobation and is held to be immoral;

while every act, on the other hand, which is, as a rule, beneficial to

the tribe, is warmly and constantly approved, and is thus considered to

be right or moral. From the mental struggle, when an act that would

benefit self is injurious to the tribe, there arises conscience; and

thus the social instincts are the foundation of the moral sense and of

the fundamental principles of morality.[229]

The question of the origin and nature of the moral sense and of

conscience is far too vast and complex to be discussed here, and a

reference to it has been introduced only to complete the sketch of Mr.

Darwin's view of the continuity and gradual development of all human

faculties from the lower animals up to savages, and from savage up to

civilised man. The point to which I wish specially to call attention is,

that to prove continuity and the progressive development of the

intellectual and moral faculties from animals to man, is not the same as

proving that these faculties have been developed by natural selection;

and this last is what Mr. Darwin has hardly attempted, although to

support his theory it was absolutely essential to prove it. Because

man's physical structure has been developed from an animal form by

natural selection, it does not necessarily follow that his mental

nature, even though developed _pari passu_ with it, has been developed

by the same causes only. To illustrate by a physical analogy. Upheaval

and depression of land, combined with sub-aerial denudation by wind and

frost, rain and rivers, and marine denudation on coastlines, were long

thought to account for all the modelling of the earth's surface not

directly due to volcanic action; and in the early editions of Lyell's

_Principles of Geology_ these are the sole causes appealed to. But when

the action of glaciers was studied and the recent occurrence of a

glacial epoch demonstrated as a fact, many phenomena--such as moraines

and other gravel deposits, boulder clay, erratic boulders, grooved and

rounded rocks, and Alpine lake basins--were seen to be due to this

altogether distinct cause. There was no breach of continuity, no sudden

catastrophe; the cold period came on and passed away in the most gradual

manner, and its effects often passed insensibly into those produced by

denudation or upheaval; yet none the less a new agency appeared at a

definite time, and new effects were produced which, though continuous

with preceding effects, were not due to the same causes. It is not,

therefore, to be assumed, without proof or against independent evidence,

that the later stages of an apparently continuous development are

necessarily due to the same causes only as the earlier stages. Applying

this argument to the case of man's intellectual and moral nature, I

propose to show that certain definite portions of it could not have been

developed by variation and natural selection alone, and that, therefore,

some other influence, law, or agency is required to account for them.

If this can be clearly shown for any one or more of the special

faculties of intellectual man, we shall be justified in assuming that

the same unknown cause or power may have had a much wider influence, and

may have profoundly influenced the whole course of his development.

_The Origin of the Mathematical Faculty._

We have ample evidence that, in all the lower races of man, what may be

termed the mathematical faculty is, either absent, or, if present, quite

unexercised. The Bushmen and the Brazilian Wood-Indians are said not to

count beyond two. Many Australian tribes only have words for one and

two, which are combined to make three, four, five, or six, beyond which

they do not count. The Damaras of South Africa only count to three; and

Mr. Galton gives a curious description of how one of them was hopelessly

puzzled when he had sold two sheep for two sticks of tobacco each, and

received four sticks in payment. He could only find out that he was

correctly paid by taking two sticks and then giving one sheep, then

receiving two sticks more and giving the other sheep. Even the

comparatively intellectual Zulus can only count up to ten by using the

hands and fingers. The Ahts of North-West America count in nearly the

same manner, and most of the tribes of South America are no further

advanced.[230] The Kaffirs have great herds of cattle, and if one is

lost they miss it immediately, but this is not by counting, but by

noticing the absence of one they know; just as in a large family or a

school a boy is missed without going through the process of counting.

Somewhat higher races, as the Esquimaux, can count up to twenty by using

the hands and the feet; and other races get even further than this by

saying "one man" for twenty, "two men" for forty, and so on, equivalent

to our rural mode of reckoning by scores. From the fact that so many of

the existing savage races can only count to four or five, Sir John

Lubbock thinks it improbable that our earliest ancestors could have

counted as high as ten.[231]

When we turn to the more civilised races, we find the use of numbers

and the art of counting greatly extended. Even the Tongas of the South

Sea islands are said to have been able to count as high as 100,000. But

mere counting does not imply either the possession or the use of

anything that can be really called the mathematical faculty, the

exercise of which in any broad sense has only been possible since the

introduction of the decimal notation. The Greeks, the Romans, the

Egyptians, the Jews, and the Chinese had all such cumbrous systems, that

anything like a science of arithmetic, beyond very simple operations,

was impossible; and the Roman system, by which the year 1888 would be

written MDCCCLXXXVIII, was that in common use in Europe down to the

fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and even much later in some places.

Algebra, which was invented by the Hindoos, from whom also came the

decimal notation, was not introduced into Europe till the thirteenth

century, although the Greeks had some acquaintance with it; and it

reached Western Europe from Italy only in the sixteenth century.[232] It

was, no doubt, owing to the absence of a sound system of numeration that

the mathematical talent of the Greeks was directed chiefly to geometry,

in which science Euclid, Archimedes, and others made such brilliant

discoveries. It is, however, during the last three centuries only that

the civilised world appears to have become conscious of the possession

of a marvellous faculty which, when supplied with the necessary tools in

the decimal notation, the elements of algebra and geometry, and the

power of rapidly communicating discoveries and ideas by the art of

printing, has developed to an extent, the full grandeur of which can be

appreciated only by those who have devoted some time (even if

unsuccessfully) to the study.

The facts now set forth as to the almost total absence of mathematical

faculty in savages and its wonderful development in quite recent times,

are exceedingly suggestive, and in regard to them we are limited to two

possible theories. Either prehistoric and savage man did not possess

this faculty at all (or only in its merest rudiments); or they did

possess it, but had neither the means nor the incitements for its

exercise. In the former case we have to ask by what means has this

faculty been so rapidly developed in all civilised races, many of which

a few centuries back were, in this respect, almost savages themselves;

while in the latter case the difficulty is still greater, for we have to

assume the existence of a faculty which had never been used either by

the supposed possessors of it or by their ancestors.

Let us take, then, the least difficult supposition--that savages

possessed only the mere rudiments of the faculty, such as their ability

to count, sometimes up to ten, but with an utter inability to perform

the very simplest processes of arithmetic or of geometry--and inquire

how this rudimentary faculty became rapidly developed into that of a

Newton, a La Place, a Gauss, or a Cayley. We will admit that there is

every possible gradation between these extremes, and that there has been

perfect continuity in the development of the faculty; but we ask, What

motive power caused its development?

It must be remembered we are here dealing solely with the capability of

the Darwinian theory to account for the origin of the _mind_, as well as

it accounts for the origin of the _body_ of man, and we must, therefore,

recall the essential features of that theory. These are, the

preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life; that no

creature can be improved beyond its necessities for the time being; that

the law acts by life and death, and by the survival of the fittest. We

have to ask, therefore, what relation the successive stages of

improvement of the mathematical faculty had to the life or death of its

possessors; to the struggles of tribe with tribe, or nation with nation;

or to the ultimate survival of one race and the extinction of another.

If it cannot possibly have had any such effects, then it cannot have

been produced by natural selection.

It is evident that in the struggles of savage man with the elements and

with wild beasts, or of tribe with tribe, this faculty can have had no

influence. It had nothing to do with the early migrations of man, or

with the conquest and extermination of weaker by more powerful peoples.

The Greeks did not successfully resist the Persian invaders by any aid

from their few mathematicians, but by military training, patriotism, and

self-sacrifice. The barbarous conquerors of the East, Timurlane and

Gengkhis Khan, did not owe their success to any superiority of intellect

or of mathematical faculty in themselves or their followers. Even if the

great conquests of the Romans were, in part, due to their systematic

military organisation, and to their skill in making roads and

encampments, which may, perhaps, be imputed to some exercise of the

mathematical faculty, that did not prevent them from being conquered in

turn by barbarians, in whom it was almost entirely absent. And if we

take the most civilised peoples of the ancient world--the Hindoos, the

Arabs, the Greeks, and the Romans, all of whom had some amount of

mathematical talent--we find that it is not these, but the descendants

of the barbarians of those days--the Celts, the Teutons, and the

Slavs--who have proved themselves the fittest to survive in the great

struggle of races, although we cannot trace their steadily growing

success during past centuries either to the possession of any

exceptional mathematical faculty or to its exercise. They have indeed

proved themselves, to-day, to be possessed of a marvellous endowment of

the mathematical faculty; but their success at home and abroad, as

colonists or as conquerors, as individuals or as nations, can in no way

be traced to this faculty, since they were almost the last who devoted

themselves to its exercise. We conclude, then, that the present gigantic

development of the mathematical faculty is wholly unexplained by the

theory of natural selection, and must be due to some altogether distinct

cause.

_The Origin of the Musical and Artistic Faculties._

These distinctively human faculties follow very closely the lines of the

mathematical faculty in their progressive development, and serve to

enforce the same argument. Among the lower savages music, as we

understand it, hardly exists, though they all delight in rude musical

sounds, as of drums, tom-toms, or gongs; and they also sing in

monotonous chants. Almost exactly as they advance in general intellect,

and in the arts of social life, their appreciation of music appears to

rise in proportion; and we find among them rude stringed instruments and

whistles, till, in Java, we have regular bands of skilled performers

probably the successors of Hindoo musicians of the age before the

Mahometan conquest. The Egyptians are believed to have been the earliest

musicians, and from them the Jews and the Greeks, no doubt, derived

their knowledge of the art; but it seems to be admitted that neither the

latter nor the Romans knew anything of harmony or of the essential

features of modern music.[233] Till the fifteenth century little

progress appears to have been made in the science or the practice of

music; but since that era it has advanced with marvellous rapidity, its

progress being curiously parallel with that of mathematics, inasmuch as

great musical geniuses appeared suddenly among different nations, equal

in their possession of this special faculty to any that have since

arisen.

As with the mathematical, so with the musical faculty, it is impossible

to trace any connection between its possession and survival in the

struggle for existence. It seems to have arisen as a _result_ of social

and intellectual advancement, not as a _cause_; and there is some

evidence that it is latent in the lower races, since under European

training native military bands have been formed in many parts of the

world, which have been able to perform creditably the best modern music.

The artistic faculty has run a somewhat different course, though

analogous to that of the faculties already discussed. Most savages

exhibit some rudiments of it, either in drawing or carving human or

animal figures; but, almost without exception, these figures are rude

and such as would be executed by the ordinary inartistic child. In fact,

modern savages are, in this respect hardly equal to those prehistoric

men who represented the mammoth and the reindeer on pieces of horn or

bone. With any advance in the arts of social life, we have a

corresponding advance in artistic skill and taste, rising very high in

the art of Japan and India, but culminating in the marvellous sculpture

of the best period of Grecian history. In the Middle Ages art was

chiefly manifested in ecclesiastical architecture and the illumination

of manuscripts, but from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries

pictorial art revived in Italy and attained to a degree of perfection

which has never been surpassed. This revival was followed closely by the

schools of Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, and England, showing

that the true artistic faculty belonged to no one nation, but was fairly

distributed among the various European races.

These several developments of the artistic faculty, whether manifested

in sculpture, painting, or architecture, are evidently outgrowths of the

human intellect which have no immediate influence on the survival of

individuals or of tribes, or on the success of nations in their

struggles for supremacy or for existence. The glorious art of Greece did

not prevent the nation from falling under the sway of the less advanced

Roman; while we ourselves, among whom art was the latest to arise, have

taken the lead in the colonisation of the world, thus proving our mixed

race to be the fittest to survive.

_Independent Proof that the Mathematical, Musical, and Artistic

Faculties have not been Developed under the Law of Natural Selection._

The law of Natural Selection or the survival of the fittest is, as its

name implies, a rigid law, which acts by the life or death of the

individuals submitted to its action. From its very nature it can act

only on useful or hurtful characteristics, eliminating the latter and

keeping up the former to a fairly general level of efficiency. Hence it

necessarily follows that the characters developed by its means will be

present in all the individuals of a species, and, though varying, will

not vary very widely from a common standard. The amount of variation we

found, in our third chapter, to be about one-fifth or one-sixth of the

mean value--that is, if the mean value were taken at 100, the variations

would reach from 80 to 120, or somewhat more, if very large numbers were

compared. In accordance with this law we find, that all those characters

in man which were certainly essential to him during his early stages of

development, exist in all savages with some approach to equality. In the

speed of running, in bodily strength, in skill with weapons, in

acuteness of vision, or in power of following a trail, all are fairly

proficient, and the differences of endowment do not probably exceed the

limits of variation in animals above referred to. So, in animal instinct

or intelligence, we find the same general level of development. Every

wren makes a fairly good nest like its fellows; every fox has an average

amount of the sagacity of its race; while all the higher birds and

mammals have the necessary affections and instincts needful for the

protection and bringing-up of their offspring.

But in those specially developed faculties of civilised man which we

have been considering, the case is very different. They exist only in a

small proportion of individuals, while the difference of capacity

between these favoured individuals and the average of mankind is

enormous. Taking first the mathematical faculty, probably fewer than one

in a hundred really possess it, the great bulk of the population having

no natural ability for the study, or feeling the slightest interest in

it.[234] And if we attempt to measure the amount of variation in the

faculty itself between a first-class mathematician and the ordinary run

of people who find any kind of calculation confusing and altogether

devoid of interest, it is probable that the former could not be

estimated at less than a hundred times the latter, and perhaps a

thousand times would more nearly measure the difference between them.

The artistic faculty appears to agree pretty closely with the

mathematical in its frequency. The boys and girls who, going beyond the

mere conventional designs of children, draw what they _see_, not what

they _know_ to be the shape of things; who naturally sketch in

perspective, because it is thus they see objects; who see, and represent

in their sketches, the light and shade as well as the mere outlines of

objects; and who can draw recognisable sketches of every one they know,

are certainly very few compared with those who are totally incapable of

anything of the kind. From some inquiries I have made in schools, and

from my own observation, I believe that those who are endowed with this

natural artistic talent do not exceed, even if they come up to, one per

cent of the whole population.

The variations in the amount of artistic faculty are certainly very

great, even if we do not take the extremes. The gradations of power

between the ordinary man or woman "who does not draw," and whose

attempts at representing any object, animate or inanimate, would be

laughable, and the average good artist who, with a few bold strokes, can

produce a recognisable and even effective sketch of a landscape, a

street, or an animal, are very numerous; and we can hardly measure the

difference between them at less than fifty or a hundred fold.

The musical faculty is undoubtedly, in its lower forms, less uncommon

than either of the preceding, but it still differs essentially from the

necessary or useful faculties in that it is almost entirely wanting in

one-half even of civilised men. For every person who draws, as it were

instinctively, there are probably five or ten who sing or play without

having been taught and from mere innate love and perception of melody

and harmony.[235] On the other hand, there are probably about as many

who seem absolutely deficient in musical perception, who take little

pleasure in it, who cannot perceive discords or remember tunes, and who

could not learn to sing or play with any amount of study. The

gradations, too, are here quite as great as in mathematics or pictorial

art, and the special faculty of the great musical composer must be

reckoned many hundreds or perhaps thousands of times greater than that

of the ordinary "unmusical" person above referred to.

It appears then, that, both on account of the limited number of persons

gifted with the mathematical, the artistic, or the musical faculty, as

well as from the enormous variations in its development, these mental

powers differ widely from those which are essential to man, and are, for

the most part, common to him and the lower animals; and that they could

not, therefore, possibly have been developed in him by means of the law

of natural selection.

* * * * *

We have thus shown, by two distinct lines of argument, that faculties

are developed in civilised man which, both in their mode of origin,

their function, and their variations, are altogether distinct from those

other characters and faculties which are essential to him, and which

have been brought to their actual state of efficiency by the necessities

of his existence. And besides the three which have been specially

referred to, there are others which evidently belong to the same class.

Such is the metaphysical faculty, which enables us to form abstract

conceptions of a kind the most remote from all practical applications,

to discuss the ultimate causes of things, the nature and qualities of

matter, motion, and force, of space and time, of cause and effect, of

will and conscience. Speculations on these abstract and difficult

questions are impossible to savages, who seem to have no mental faculty

enabling them to grasp the essential ideas or conceptions; yet whenever

any race attains to civilisation, and comprises a body of people who,

whether as priests or philosophers, are relieved from the necessity of

labour or of taking an active part in war or government, the

metaphysical faculty appears to spring suddenly into existence,

although, like the other faculties we have referred to, it is always

confined to a very limited proportion of the population.

In the same class we may place the peculiar faculty of wit and humour,

an altogether natural gift whose development appears to be parallel with

that of the other exceptional faculties. Like them, it is almost unknown

among savages, but appears more or less frequently as civilisation

advances and the interests of life become more numerous and more

complex. Like them, too, it is altogether removed from utility in the

struggle for life, and appears sporadically in a very small percentage

of the population; the majority being, as is well known, totally unable

to say a witty thing or make a pun even to save their lives.[236]

_The Interpretation of the Facts._

The facts now set forth prove the existence of a number of mental

faculties which either do not exist at all or exist in a very

rudimentary condition in savages, but appear almost suddenly and in

perfect development in the higher civilised races. These same faculties

are further distinguished by their sporadic character, being well

developed only in a very small proportion of the community; and by the

enormous amount of variation in their development, the higher

manifestations of them being many times--perhaps a hundred or a thousand

times--stronger than the lower. Each of these characteristics is totally

inconsistent with any action of the law of natural selection in the

production of the faculties referred to; and the facts, taken in their

entirety, compel us to recognise some origin for them wholly distinct

from that which has served to account for the animal

characteristics--whether bodily or mental--of man.

The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point to the

existence in man of something which he has not derived from his animal

progenitors--something which we may best refer to as being of a

spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive development under

favourable conditions. On the hypothesis of this spiritual nature,

superadded to the animal nature of man, we are able to understand much

that is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible in regard to him,

especially the enormous influence of ideas, principles, and beliefs over

his whole life and actions. Thus alone we can understand the constancy

of the martyr, the unselfishness of the philanthropist, the devotion of

the patriot, the enthusiasm of the artist, and the resolute and

persevering search of the scientific worker after nature's secrets. Thus

we may perceive that the love of truth, the delight in beauty, the

passion for justice, and the thrill of exultation with which we hear of

any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings within us of a

higher nature which has not been developed by means of the struggle for

material existence.

It will, no doubt, be urged that the admitted continuity of man's

progress from the brute does not admit of the introduction of new

causes, and that we have no evidence of the sudden change of nature

which such introduction would bring about. The fallacy as to new causes

involving any breach of continuity, or any sudden or abrupt change, in

the effects, has already been shown; but we will further point out that

there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world

when some new cause or power must necessarily have come into action.

The first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, when the

earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of which it arose,

first appeared. This is often imputed to a mere increase of complexity

of chemical compounds; but increase of complexity, with consequent

instability, even if we admit that it may have produced protoplasm as a

chemical compound, could certainly not have produced _living_

protoplasm--protoplasm which has the power of growth and of

reproduction, and of that continuous process of development which has

resulted in the marvellous variety and complex organisation of the whole

vegetable kingdom. There is in all this something quite beyond and

apart from chemical changes, however complex; and it has been well said

that the first vegetable cell was a new thing in the world, possessing

altogether new powers--that of extracting and fixing carbon from the

carbon-dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefinite reproduction, and,

still more marvellous, the power of variation and of reproducing those

variations till endless complications of structure and varieties of form

have been the result. Here, then, we have indications of a new power at

work, which we may term _vitality_, since it gives to certain forms of

matter all those characters and properties which constitute Life.

The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely beyond

all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and forces. It is the

introduction of sensation or consciousness, constituting the fundamental

distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of

mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the

question. We feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a

certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary

result of that complexity alone, an _ego_ should start into existence, a

thing that _feels_, that is _conscious_ of its own existence. Here we

have the certainty that something new has arisen, a being whose nascent

consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definiteness till it

has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal explanation or attempt

at explanation--such as the statement that life is the result of the

molecular forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic

universe from the amaeba up to man was latent in the fire-mist from

which the solar system was developed--can afford any mental

satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the mystery.

The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man of a number of

his most characteristic and noblest faculties, those which raise him

furthest above the brutes and open up possibilities of almost indefinite

advancement. These faculties could not possibly have been developed by

means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development

of the organic world in general, and also of man's physical

organism.[237]

These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of

matter and motion up to man, point clearly to an unseen universe--to a

world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate.

To this spiritual world we may refer the marvellously complex forces

which we know as gravitation, cohesion, chemical force, radiant force,

and electricity, without which the material universe could not exist for

a moment in its present form, and perhaps not at all, since without

these forces, and perhaps others which may be termed atomic, it is

doubtful whether matter itself could have any existence. And still more

surely can we refer to it those progressive manifestations of Life in

the vegetable, the animal, and man--which we may classify as

unconscious, conscious, and intellectual life,--and which probably

depend upon different degrees of spiritual influx. I have already shown

that this involves no necessary infraction of the law of continuity in

physical or mental evolution; whence it follows that any difficulty we

may find in discriminating the inorganic from the organic, the lower

vegetable from the lower animal organisms, or the higher animals from

the lowest types of man, has no bearing at all upon the question. This

is to be decided by showing that a change in essential nature (due,

probably, to causes of a higher order than those of the material

universe) took place at the several stages of progress which I have

indicated; a change which may be none the less real because absolutely

imperceptible at its point of origin, as is the change that takes place

in the curve in which a body is moving when the application of some new

force causes the curve to be slightly altered.

_Concluding Remarks._

Those who admit my interpretation of the evidence now adduced--strictly

scientific evidence in its appeal to facts which are clearly what ought

_not_ to be on the materialistic theory--will be able to accept the

spiritual nature of man, as not in any way inconsistent with the theory

of evolution, but as dependent on those fundamental laws and causes

which furnish the very materials for evolution to work with. They will

also be relieved from the crushing mental burthen imposed upon those

who--maintaining that we, in common with the rest of nature, are but

products of the blind eternal forces of the universe, and believing also

that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and all life on

the earth necessarily cease--have to contemplate a not very distant

future in which all this glorious earth--which for untold millions of

years has been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate

at last in man--shall be as if it had never existed; who are compelled

to suppose that all the slow growths of our race struggling towards a

higher life, all the agony of martyrs, all the groans of victims, all

the evil and misery and undeserved suffering of the ages, all the

struggles for freedom, all the efforts towards justice, all the

aspirations for virtue and the wellbeing of humanity, shall absolutely

vanish, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack

behind."

As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who

accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as

a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of

spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us,

the whole purpose, the only _raison d'être_ of the world--with all its

complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress,

the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the

ultimate appearance of man--was the development of the human spirit in

association with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of

man--the man himself--_is_ so developed, we may well believe that this

is the only, or at least the best, way for its development; and we may

even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, one of the most

efficient means of its growth. For we know that the noblest faculties of

man are strengthened and perfected by struggle and effort; it is by

unceasing warfare against physical evils and in the midst of difficulty

and danger that energy, courage, self-reliance, and industry have become

the common qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with

moral evil in all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler

qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and self-sacrifice have been

steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strengthened

by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capable of such

noble development, are surely destined for a higher and more permanent

existence; and we may confidently believe with our greatest living

poet--

That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And heated hot with burning fears,

And dipt in baths of hissing tears,

And batter'd with the shocks of doom

To shape and use.

We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its

extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a

decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us

how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form

under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we

possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so

developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can

only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 218: _Descent of Man_, pp. 41-43; also pp. 13-15.]

[Footnote 219: _Man's Place in Nature_, p. 64.]

[Footnote 220: _Man's Place in Nature_, p. 67. See Figs. of Embryos of

Man and Dog in Darwin's _Descent of Man_, p. 10.]

[Footnote 221: _The Descent of Man_, pp. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 222: _Man and Apes._ By St. George Mivart, F.R.S., 1873. It is

an interesting fact (for which I am indebted to Mr. E.B. Poulton) that

the human embryo possesses the extra rib and wrist-bone referred to

above in (2) and (4) as occurring in some of the apes.]

[Footnote 223: _Man and Apes_, pp. 138, 144.]

[Footnote 224: For a sketch of the evidence of Man's Antiquity in

America, see _The Nineteenth Century_ for November 1887.]

[Footnote 225: This subject was first discussed in an article in the

_Anthropological Review_, May 1864, and republished in my _Contributions

to Natural Selection_, chap, ix, in 1870.]

[Footnote 226: _Man's Place in Nature_, p. 102.]

[Footnote 227: For a full discussion of this question, see the author's

_Geographical Distribution of Animals_, vol. i. p. 285.]

[Footnote 228: For a full discussion of all these points, see _Descent

of Man_, chap. iii.]

[Footnote 229: _Descent of Man_, chap. iv.]

[Footnote 230: Lubbock's _Origin of Civilisation_, fourth edition, pp.

434-440; Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, chap. vii.]

[Footnote 231: It has been recently stated that some of these facts are

erroneous, and that some Australians can keep accurate reckoning up to

100, or more, when required. But this does not alter the general fact

that many low races, including the Australians, have no words for high

numbers and never require to use them. If they are now, with a little

practice, able to count much higher, this indicates the possession of a

faculty which could not have been developed under the law of utility

only, since the absence of words for such high numbers shows that they

were neither used nor required.]

[Footnote 232: Article Arithmetic in _Eng. Cyc. of Arts and Sciences_.]

[Footnote 233: See "History of Music," in _Eng. Cyc._, Science and Arts

Division.]

[Footnote 234: This is the estimate furnished me by two mathematical

masters in one of our great public schools of the proportion of boys who

have any special taste or capacity for mathematical studies. Many more,

of course, can be drilled into a fair knowledge of elementary

mathematics, but only this small proportion possess the natural faculty

which renders it possible for them ever to rank high as mathematicians,

to take any pleasure in it, or to do any original mathematical work.]

[Footnote 235: I am informed, however, by a music master in a large

school that only about one per cent have real or decided musical talent,

corresponding curiously with the estimate of the mathematicians.]

[Footnote 236: In the latter part of his essay on Heredity (pp. 91-93 of

the volume of _Essays_), Dr. Weismann refers to this question of the

origin of "talents" in man, and, like myself, comes to the conclusion

that they could not be developed under the law of natural selection. He

says: "It may be objected that, in man, in addition to the instincts

inherent in every individual, special individual predispositions are

also found, of such a nature that it is impossible they can have arisen

by individual variations of the germ-plasm. On the other hand, these

predispositions--which we call talents--cannot have arisen through

natural selection, because life is in no way dependent on their

presence, and there seems to be no way of explaining their origin except

by an assumption of the summation of the skill attained by exercise in

the course of each single life. In this case, therefore, we seem at

first sight to be compelled to accept the transmission of acquired

characters." Weismann then goes on to show that the facts do not support

this view; that the mathematical, musical, or artistic faculties often

appear suddenly in a family whose other members and ancestors were in no

way distinguished; and that even when hereditary in families, the talent

often appears at its maximum at the commencement or in the middle of the

series, not increasing to the end, as it should do if it depended in any

way on the transmission of acquired skill. Gauss was not the son of a

mathematician, nor Handel of a musician, nor Titian of a painter, and

there is no proof of any special talent in the ancestors of these men of

genius, who at once developed the most marvellous pre-eminence in their

respective talents. And after showing that such great men only appear at

certain stages of human development, and that two or more of the special

talents are not unfrequently combined in one individual, he concludes

thus--

"Upon this subject I only wish to add that, in my opinion,

talents do not appear to depend upon the improvement of any

special mental quality by continued practice, but they are the

expression, and to a certain extent the bye-product, of the

human mind, which is so highly developed in all directions."

It will, I think, be admitted that this view hardly accounts for the

existence of the highly peculiar human faculties in question.]

[Footnote 237: For an earlier discussion of this subject, with some

wider applications, see the author's _Contributions to the Theory of

Natural Selection_, chap. x.]

INDEX

=A=

Abbott, Dr. C.C., instability of habits of birds, 76

on American water-thrushes (Seiurus), 117

Mr., drawings of caterpillars and their food plants, 203

Accessory plumes, development and display of, 293

Acclimatisation, 94

Achatinellidae, Gulick on variations in, 147

Acquired characters, non-heredity of, 440

Acraeidae, mimicry of, 247

Adaptation to conditions at various periods of life, 112

Adolias dirtea, sexual diversity of, 271

Aegeriidae, mimicry by, 240

Agaristidae, mimicry of, 246

Agassiz, on species, 5

on North American weeds, 15.

Agelaeus phoeniceus, diagram showing variations of, 56;

proportionate numbers which vary, 64

Albatross, courtship of great, 287

Allen, Mr. Grant, on forms of leaves, 133

on degradation of wind-fertilised from insect-fertilised flowers,

325 (note)

on insects and flowers, 332

on production of colour through the agency of the colour sense, 334

Mr. J.A., on the variability of birds, 50

Allen, Mr. J.A., on colour as influenced by climate, 228

Alluring coloration, 210

American school of evolutionists, 420

Anemone nemorosa, variability of, 78

Animal coloration, a theory of, 288

general laws of, 296

intelligence, supposed action of, 425

characteristics of man, 454

Animals, the struggle among, 18

wild, their enjoyment of life, 39

usually die painless deaths, 38

constitutional variation of, 94

uses of colours of, 134

supposed effects of disuse in wild, 415

most allied to man, 450

Antelopes, recognition marks of, 219

Anthrocera filipendula inedible, 235

Apples, variations of, 87

Arctic animals, supposed causes of white colour of, 191

Argyll, Duke of, on goose reared by a golden eagle, 75

Artemia salina and A. milhausenii, 426

Asclepias curassavica, spread of, 28

Asses running wild in Quito, 28

Attractive fruits, 306

Australia, spread of the Cape-weed in, 29

fossil and recent mammals of, 392

Azara, on cause of horses and cattle not running wild in Paraguay, 19

Azores, flora of, supports aerial transmission of seeds, 368

=B=

Baker, Mr. J.G., on rarity of spiny plants in Mauritius, 432

Ball, Mr., on cause of late appearance of exogens, 400

Barber, Mrs., on variable colouring of pupae of Papilio nireus, 197

on protective colours of African sun-birds, 200

Barbs, 91

Barriers, importance of, in questions of distribution, 341

Bates, Mr. H.W., on varieties of butterflies, 44

on inedibility of Heliconidae, 234

on a conspicuous caterpillar, 236

on mimicry, 240, 243, 249

Bathmism or growth-force, Cope on, 421

Beddard, Mr. F.E., variations of earthworms, 67

on plumes of bird of paradise, 292

Beech trees, aggressive in Denmark, 21

Beetle and wasp (figs.), 259

Beetle, fossil in coal measures of Silesia, 404

Beginnings of important organs, 128

Belt, Mr., on leaf-like locust, 203

on birds avoiding Heliconidae, 234

Belt's frog, 266

Birds, rate of increase of, 25

how destroyed, 26

variation among, 49

variation of markings of, 52

variation of wings and tails of, 53

diagram showing variation of tarsus and toes, 60

use of structural peculiarities of, 135

eggs, coloration of, 212

recognition marks of, 222

and butterflies, white in tropical islands, 230

sometimes seize inedible butterflies, 255

mimicry among, 263

Birds, sexual coloration of, 275

cause of dull colour of female, 277

choice of female not known to be determined by colour, etc., 285

decorative plumage of, 285

antics of unornamented, 287

which fertilise flowers, 319

colours of, not dependent on the colours of flowers, 336

no proof of aesthetic tastes in, 336

dispersal of, 355

and insects at sea, 357

of oceanic islands, 358

carrying seeds on their feet, 361

ancestral forms of, 407

Birthplace, probable, of man, 459

Bombyx regia, protective form of larva of, 210

Boyd Dawkins, on development of deer's horns, 389

on origin of man, 456

Brady, Mr. George, on protective colouring of starfishes, 209

Brain development, progressive, 390

Brains of man and apes, 452

Branner, Mr. J.C., on supposed proofs of glaciation in Brazil, 370

Brazil, supposed proof of glaciation in, 370

Brewer, Professor W.H., on want of symmetry in colours of animals, 217

Bromelia, animals inhabiting leaves of, 118

Bronn, Professor, on supposed uselessness of variations of ears

and tails, 136

Butler, Mr. A.G., on inedibility of conspicuous caterpillars, 237

Butterflies, varieties of, 44

small, of Isle of Man, 106

special protective colouring of, 206

recognition by, 226

inedibility of some, 234

mimicry among, 240, 249

colour development of, 274

sexual coloration of, 271

=C=

Caddis-fly larvae inhabiting bromelia leaves, 118

Callophis, harmless mimicking poisonous species, 262

Candolle, Alp. de, on variation in oaks, 77

on variability of Papaver bracteatum, 79

Cardinalis virginianus, diagram showing proportionate numbers

which vary, 65;

variations of, 58

Carpenter, Dr. W.B., on variation in the Foraminifera, 43

Carriers, 91

Caterpillars, resemblance of, to their food plants, 203-205

inedible, 236

Cattle, how they prevent the growth of trees, 18

increase of, in St. Domingo, Mexico, and the pampas, 27

Ceylon, spread of Lantana mixta in, 29

Chaffinch, change of habit of, in New Zealand, 76

Chambers, Robert, on origin of species, 3

Chance rarely determines survival, 123

Change of conditions, utility of, 326

Characters, non-adaptive, 131

transferred from useless to useful class, 132

Charaxes psaphon persecuted by a bird, 235

Chile, numerous red tubular flowers in, 320

Chimpanzee, figure of, 454

Clark, Mr. Edwin, on cause of absence of forests on the pampas, 23

on the struggle for life in the South American valleys, 24

Cleistogamous flowers, 322

Close interbreeding, supposed evil results of, 326

Clover, white, spread of, in New Zealand, 28

Co-adaptation of parts by variation, no real difficulty, 418

Cobra, use of hood of, 262

Coccinella mimicked by grasshopper, (figure), 260

Collingwood, Mr., on butterflies recognising their kind, 226

Coloration, alluring, 210

of birds' eggs, 212

a theory of animal, 288

Colour correlated with sterility, 169

correlated with constitutional peculiarities, 170

in nature, the problem to be solved, 188

constancy, in animals indicates utility, 189

and environment, 190

general theories of animal, 193

animal, supposed causes of, 193

obscure, of many tropical animals, 194

produced by surrounding objects, 195

adaptations, local, 199

for recognition, 217

of wild animals not quite symmetrical, 217 (note)

as influenced by locality or climate, 228

development in butterflies, 274

more variable than habits, 278

and nerve distribution, 290

and tegumentary appendages, 291

of flowers, 308

change of, in flowers when fertilised, 317

in nature, concluding remarks on, 299, 333

of fruits, 304

of flowers growing together contrasted, 318

Complexity of flowers due to alternate adaptation to insect

and self-fertilisation, 328

Composite, a, widely dispersed without pappus, 367

Confinement, affecting fertility, 154

Continental and oceanic areas, 346

Continents and oceans cannot have changed places, 345

possible connections between, 349

Continuity does not prove identity of origin, 463

Cope, Dr. E.D., on non-adaptive characters, 131

on fundamental laws of growth, 420

on bathmism or growth-force, 421

on use producing structural change, 422

on law of centrifugal growth, 422

on origin of the feet of ungulates, 423

on action of animal intelligence, 425

Correlations in pigeons, horses, etc., 140

Corvus frugilegus, 2

corone, 2

Coursers, figures of secondary quills, 224

Cowslip, two forms of, 157

Crab, sexual diversity of colour of, 269

Cretaceous period, dicotyledons of, 400

Crisp, Dr., on variations of gall bladder and alimentary canal, 69

Crosses, a cause of variation, 99

reciprocal, 155

Cross-fertilisation, modes of securing, 310

difference in, 155

Crossing and changed conditions,

parallelism of, 166

Cruciferae, variations of structure in, 80

Cuckoo, eggs of, 216

Cuckoos mimick hawks, 263

Cultivated plants, origin of useful, 97

Curculionidae mimicked by various insects (figs.), 260

Curves of variation, 64

=D=

Dana, Professor, on the permanence of continents, 342

Danaidae little attacked by mites, 235

mimicry of, 246

Darwin, change of opinion effected by, 8

the Newton of Natural History, 9

his view of his own work, 10

on the enemies of plants, 16

on fir-trees destroyed by cattle, 17

on change of plants and animals caused by planting, 18

on absence of wild cattle in Paraguay, 19

on cats and red clover, 20

on variety of plants in old turf, 35

on the beneficent action of the struggle for existence, 40

on variability of wild geraniums, 79

on variability of common species, 80

his non-recognition of extreme variability of wild species, 82

on races of domestic pigeon, 90

on constitutional variation in plants, 95

on unconscious selection, 96

on a case of divergence, 105

on advantage of diversification of structure in inhabitants

of one region, 110

on species of plants in turf, 110

on isolation, 119

on origin of mammary glands, 129

on eyes of flatfish, 129

on origin of the eye, 130

on useless characters, 131

on use of ears and tails, 136

on disappearance of sports, 140

on tendency to vary in one direction, 141

on rare perpetuation of sports, 142

on utility of specific characters, 142 (note)

on importance of biological environment, 148

on variable fertility of plants, 155

on fertile hybrids among plants, 164

Darwin, on correlation of sterility and colour, 169

on selective association, 172

on infertility and natural selection, 174

on cause of infertility of hybrids, 185

on white tail of rabbit, 218

on conspicuous caterpillars, 236

on sexual selection in insects, 274

on decorative plumage of male birds, 285

on development of ocelli, 290

on value of cross-fertilisation, 309

on limits to utility of intercrossing, 326

on flowers due to insects, 332

on oceanic islands, 342

on effects of disuse in domestic animals, 415, 435

on direct action of environment, 419

on unintelligibility of theory of retardation and acceleration,

421 (note)

on origin of man's moral nature, 461

Mr. George, on intermarriages of British aristocracy, 326

Darwinian theory, statement of, 10

not opposed to spiritual nature of man, 478

Dawkins, Professor Boyd, on development of deer's horns, 389

on recent origin of man, 456

Dawson, Sir W., on determination of fossil plants by leaves, 398 (note)

Death of wild animals usually painless, 38

De Candolle, definition of species, 1

on difficulty of naturalising plants, 15

on war between plants, 16

on origin of useful cultivated plants, 97

Deer's horns, development of, 389

Degeneration, 121

Delboeuf's law of variation, 141

Dendraeca coronata, variation of wing-feathers of, 51

Denmark, struggle between trees in, 20

Denudation, evidences of, 379

Desert animals, colour of, 192

Deserts, effect of goats and camels in destroying vegetation in, 17

Development and display of accessory plumes, 293

Diadema anomala, 271

misippus, great diversity of sexes in, 271

Diaphora mendica mimics Spilosoma menthrasti, 249

Difficulties in the facts of fertilisation of flowers, 325

Dimorphism and trimorphism, 156

Dippers, probable origin of, 116

Disease and markings, 290

Diseases common to man and animals, 449

Display of decorative plumage, 287

Distribution of organisms should be explained by theory of descent, 338

conditions which have determined the, 341

of marsupials, 350

of tapirs, 352

Disuse, effects of, among wild animals, 415

no proof that the effects of, are inherited, 417

Divergence of character, 105-109

leads to maximum of forms of life in each area, 109

Diversity of fauna and flora with geographical proximity, 339

Dixon, Mr. C, changed habits of chaffinch in New Zealand, 76

Dogs, origin of, 88

varieties of, 89

Dolichonyx oryzivorus, diagram showing variations of, 55

Domestic animals, varieties of, 88

Draba verna, varieties of, 77

Dress of men not determined by female choice, 286

Dust from Krakatoa, size of particles of, 363

=E=

Eastern butterflies, variation of, 45

Eaton, Rev. A.E., on Kerguelen insects, 106

Edwards, Mr. W.H., on dark forms of Papilio turnus, 248

Eggs protectively coloured, 214, 215

theory of varied colours of, 216

Elaps mimicked by harmless snakes, 261

Embryonic development of man and other mammalia, 448

Ennis, Mr. John, on willows driving out watercresses from

rivers of New Zealand, 24

Entomostraca, in bromelia leaves, 118

Environment never identical for two species, 149

direct action of, 418

direct influence of, 426

as initiator of variations, 436

action of, overpowered by natural selection, 437

Ethical aspect of the struggle for existence, 36

Euchelia jacobeae inedible, 235

Everett, Mr. A., on a caterpillar resembling moss, 205

Evidence of evolution that may be expected among fossil forms, 380

Evolutionists, American school of, 420

Exogens, possible cause of sudden late appearance of, 400

External differences of man and apes, 453

Extinct animals, number of species of, 376

Extinction of large animals, cause of, 394

Eye, origin of, 130

Eyes, explanation of loss of in cave animals, 416

=F=

Facts of natural selection, summary of, 122

Falcons illustrating divergence, 108

and butcher birds, hooked and toothed beaks of, 422

Fantails, 91

Female birds, why often dull coloured, 277

Female birds, what their choice of mates is determined by, 286

butterflies, why dull coloured, 272

brighter than male bird, 281

choice a doubtful agent in selection, 283

preference neutralised by natural selection, 294

Fertility of domestic animals, 154

Flatfish, eyes of, 129

Flesh-fly, enormous increase of, 25

Floral structure, great differences of, in allied genera and species, 329

Flowers, variations of, 88

colours of, 308

with sham nectaries, 317

changing colour when fertilised, 317

adapted to bees or to butterflies, 318

contrasted colours of, at same season and locality, 318

fertilisation of, by birds, 319

self-fertilisation of, 321

once insect-fertilised now self-fertile, 323

how the struggle for existence acts among, 328

repeatedly modified during whole Tertiary period, 331

the product of insect agency, 332

Forbes, Mr. H.O., on protective colour of a pigeon, 200

on spider imitating birds' dropping, 211

Fossil shells, complete series of transitional forms of, 381

crocodiles afford evidence of evolution, 383

horses in America, 386

and living animals, local relations of, 391

Fowl, early domestication of, 97

Frill-back, Indian, 93

Frog inhabiting bromelia leaves, 118

Fruits, use of characters of, 133

colours of, 304

edible or attractive, 306

poisonous, 307

Fulica atra, protectively coloured eggs of, 215

Fulmar petrel, abundance of, 30

=G=

Gallinaceae, ornamental plumes of, 292

Galton, Mr. F., diagrams of variability used by, 74

on markings of zebra, 220 (note)

on regression towards mediocrity, 414

theory of heredity by, 443 (note)

on imperfect counting of the Damaras, 464

Gaudry on extinct animals at Pikermi, 377

Gay, Mons. T., on variations of structure in Cruciferae, 80

Gazella soemmerringi (figure), 219

Gazelles, recognition marks of, 218

Geddes, Professor, on variation in plants, 428

objection to theory of, 430

Geikie, Dr. Archibald, on formation of marine stratified rocks, 344

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, on species, 6

Geological evidences of evolution, 376, 381

record, causes of imperfection of, 379

distribution of insects, 403

antiquity of man, 455

Ghost-moth, colours of, 270

Glaciation, no proofs of, in Brazil, 370

Glow-worm, light a warning of inedibility, 287

Gomphia oleaefolia, variability of, 79

Goose eating flesh, 75

Gosse, Mr. P.H., on variation in the sea-anemones, 43

on sea-anemone and bullhead, 265

Gould, Mr., on colours of coast and inland birds, 228

Grant Allen, on forms of leaves, 133

on insects and flowers, 332

Graphite in Laurentian implies abundant plant life, 398

Gray, Dr. Asa, on naturalised plants in the United States, 110

Dr. J.E., on variation of skulls of mammalia, 71

Great fertility not essential to rapid increase, 30

Great powers of increase of animals, 27

Green colour of birds in tropical forests, 192

Grouse, red, recent divergence of, 106

Gulick, Rev. J.T., on variation of land-shells, 43

on isolation and variation, 147, 150

on divergent evolution, 148

=H=

Habits of animals, variability of, 74

Hairy caterpillars inedible, 237

Hanbury, Mr. Thomas, on a remarkable case of wind

conveyance of seed, 373 (note)

Hansten-Blangsted, on succession of trees in Denmark, 21

Harvest mice, prehensile tails of young, 136

Hawkweed, species and varieties of British, 77

Hector, Sir James, use of horns of deer, 137

Heliconidae, warning colours of, 234

mimicry of, 240

Helix nemoralis, varieties of, 43

hortensis, varieties of, 43

Hemsley, Mr., on rarity of spines in oceanic islands, 432

Henslow, Professor G., on vigour of self-fertilised plants, 323

on wind-fertilised as degradations from insect-fertilised flowers, 324

on origin of forms and structures of flowers, 434 (note)

Herbert, Dean, on species, 6

on plant hybrids, 164

Herbivora, recognition marks of, 218

Heredity, 11

Weismann's theory of, 437

Herschel, Sir John, on species, 3

Hooker, Sir Joseph, on attempts at naturalising Australian

plants in New Zealand, 16

Home, Mr. C, on inedibility of an Indian locust, 267

Horns of deer, uses of, 136

Horse tribe, pedigree of, 384

ancestral forms of, 386

Humming-birds, recognition marks of, 226

Huth, Mr., on close interbreeding, 160

Huxley, Professor on the struggle for existence, 37

on fossil crocodiles, 383

on anatomical peculiarities of the horse tribe, 384

on development of vertebrates, 448

on early man, 456

on brains of man and the gorilla, 457

Hybridity, remarks on facts of, 166

summary on, 184

Hybrids, infertility of, supposed test of distinct species, 152

fertility of, 159

fertile among animals, 162

between sheep and goat, 162

fertile between distinct species of moths, 163

fertile among plants, 163

Hymenopus bicornis, resembling flower, 212

=I=

Icterus Baltimore, diagram showing proportionate numbers which

vary, 63

Imitative resemblances, how produced, 205

Increase of organisms in a geometrical ratio, 25

Inedible fruits rarely coloured, 308

Insect and self-fertilisation, alternation of, in flowers, 328

Insect-fertilisation, facts relating to, 316

Insects, coloured for recognition, 226

warning colours of, 233

sexual coloration of, 269

importance of dull colours to female, 272

visiting one kind of flower at a time, 318

and flowers, the most brilliant not found together, 335

Insects, no proof of love of colour by, 336

and birds at sea, 357

in mid-ocean, 359

at great altitudes, 360

geological distribution of, 403

ancestral in Silurian, 405

fossil support evolution, 405

Instability of useless characters, 138

Instinct, the theory of, 441

Insular organisms illustrate powers of dispersal, 354

Interbreeding, close, injurious effects of, 160

supposed evil results of close, 326

Intercrossing, swamping effects of, 142

not necessarily useful, 325

Intermediate forms, why not found, 380

Islands, all oceanic are volcanic or coralline, 342

Isle of Man, small butterflies of, 106

Isolation, the importance of, 119

to prevent intercrossing, 144

by variations of habits, etc., 145

Rev. J.G. Gulick on, 147

when ineffective, 150

Ituna Ilione and Thyridia megisto, figures of wings of, 251

=J=

Jacobin, 93

Jenyns, Rev. L., on internal variations of mammalia, 69

Jordan, Mons. A., on varieties of Draba verna, 77

Judd, Professor, on dust fallen at Genoa, 363

on Hungarian fossil lacustrine shells, 381

=K=

Kerguelen Island, wingless insects of, 106

Kerivoula picta, protective colour of, 201

Kerner, Professor, on use of external characters of plants, 133

on seeds found on glaciers, 366

Kingfishers illustrating divergence of character, 109

=L=

Lacerta muralis, diagram of variation of, 47

Lagopus scoticus, origin of, 107

Lamarck, on origin of species, 3

Land debris deposited near coasts, 343

and ocean, diagram showing comparative height and depth of, 345

Large animals, cause of extinction of, 394

Larvae of moths, variability of, 46

Laughers, Frill-backs, Nuns, Spots, and Swallows, 93

Law of relation of colour and nest, 278, 279

Laws of animal coloration, 296

Lawson Tait, on uses of tails, 136

Leaf-butterflies, 207

Leguminosae, rare in oceanic islands, 368

Lemuria, an unsound hypothesis, 354

Lepidoptera, variation of, 44

Leyden Museum, diagram showing variability of birds in, 61

Life, Weismann on duration of, 437 (note)

Limenitis misippus mimics Danais archippus, 248

ursula mimics Papilio philenor, 248

Linnaeus, on rapid increase of the flesh-fly, 25

Livingstone, his sensations when seized by a lion, 38

Lizards, variation among, 46

diagram of variation of, 48

sexual colours of, 281

Local colour adaptations, 199

Locusts with warning colours inedible, 267

Longicorns mimic Malacoderms, 257

Low, Mr., on effects of close interbreeding, 160

Low, Mr., on fertile crosses between sheep and goat, 162

on selective association, 172

Low forms of life, continued existence of, explained, 114

forms, persistence of, 121

temperature of tropics not needed to explain plant dispersal, 370

Lower types, extinction of, among the higher animals, 114

Lubbock, Sir John, on forms of leaves, 133

on imperfect counting of early man, 464

Lyell, Sir Charles, on variation of species, 4

on the shifting of continents, 342

=M=

Madagascar and New Zealand, 347

Madeira, wingless beetles of, 105

Maize, origin of, 98

Male rivalry, a real cause of selection, 283

Males of many animals fights together, 282

Malm, on eyes of flatfish, 129

Mammalia, variation of, 65

sexual colours of, 281, 282

afford crucial tests of theories of distribution, 353

early forms of, 407

geological distribution of, 408

Mammary glands, supposed origin of, 129

Man, summary of animal characteristics of, 454

geological antiquity of, 455

early remains of, in California, 456

probably as old as the Miocene, 457

probable birthplace of, 459

origin of moral and intellectual nature of, 461

possesses mental qualities not derived exclusively

from his animal progenitors, 474

Man's body that of an animal, 444

development similar to that of animals, 449

structure compared with that of the anthropoid apes, 451

Mania typica refused by lizards, 238

Mantidae resembling flowers, 212

Marcgravia nepenthoides fertilised by birds (woodcut), 320

Marine animals, protective resemblance among, 208

with warning colours, 266

Marsh, Mr., on destructiveness to vegetation of goats and camels, 17

Professor O., on the development of the horse tribe, 386

on brain development of Tertiary mammals, 391

on specialised forms dying out, 395

Marsupials, distribution of, 350

Mathematical faculty, the origin of the, 464

how developed, 466

not developed by law of natural selection, 469

Mathematics, late development of, 465

Meldola, Professor R., on variable protective colouring, 196

on mimicry among British moths, 249 (note)

on an extension of the theory of mimicry, 255 (note)

Melons, variations of, 87

Methona psidii and Leptalis orise (figs.), 241

Meyer, Dr. A.B., on mimicry of snakes, 262

Milne Edwards, on variation of lizards, 46

Mimicking birds deceive naturalists, 264

butterfly, figure of, 241

Mimicry, 239

how it has been produced, 242

among protected genera, 249

extension of, 255

in various orders of insects, 257

among vertebrata, 261

among birds, 263

objections to theory of, 264

Mineral particles carried by wind, 363

Miocene fossils of North America, 378

Missing links, character of, 380

Mivart, Dr. St. George, on variation of ribs and dorsal vertebrae, 69

on supposed useless characters, 138 (note)

on resemblance of man and apes, 451

Modifications for special purposes, 113

Mongrels, sterility of, 165

Monkeys affected by medicines as are men, 450

Monocotyledons degradations from dicotyledons, 325 (note)

scarcity of, in Rocky Mountains, 401

scarcity of, in Alpine flora, 401

Moral nature of man, origin of, 461

Morse, Professor E.T., on protective colouring of marine mollusca, 209

Moseley, Professor, on protective resemblance among marine

animals, 208

on courtship of Great Albatross, 287

Moths, protected groups of, 235

Mountains, remote, with identical plants, 369

Müller, Dr. Fritz, on inhabitants of bromelia leaves, 118

on butterfly, deceived by its mimic, 245

his explanation of mimicry among protected genera, 252

Dr. Hermann, on variability of Myosurus minimus, 78

Murray, Mr. John, on bulk of land and ocean, 344

on quartz particles on ocean floor, 363

Rev. R.P., variation in the neuration of butterflies' wings, 45

Musical and artistic faculties, origin of, 467

Myosurns minimus, variability of, 78

=N=

Natural selection with changed and unchanged conditions, 103

and sterility, 173

overpowers effects of use and disuse, 435

the most important agency in modifying species, 444

Naturalist deceived by a mimicking insect, 259

by mimicking birds, 264

Naudin, M., on varieties of melons, 87

Nectarinea amethystina, protective colouring of, 201

Nestor notabilis, variation of habits of, 75

Nests of birds influence the colour of females, 278

New species, conditions favourable to origin of, 115

Newton, Professor A., on fertile hybrid ducks, 162

New Zealand, European plants in, 15

spread of white clover in, 28

effects of introduced plants in, 29

native rat and fly exterminated by European species, 34

many plants of, incapable of self-fertilisation, 321

fauna of, 348

few spiny plants in, 433

Nocturnal animals, colours of, 193

Non-adaptive characters, instability of, 138

Normandy pigs, fleshy appendages to jaws of, 139

North America, Miocene fossils of, 378

Northern plants in southern hemisphere, 368

Nostus Borbonicus, variability of, 80

Number of individuals which vary, 62

Nutmeg, how dispersed, 307

Nuts, not meant to be eaten, 305

=O=

Oaks, great variability of, 78

Objections to Darwin's theory, 126

Ocean floor, deposits on, 343

Oceanic animals, colours of, 193

and continental areas, 346

islands have no mammals or batrachia, 342

Oceans, the permanence of, 341

Oedicnemus, figures of wings of, 223

Opthalmis lincea and Artaxa simulans (figs.), 247

Orang-utans, variations of skull of, 69

Orchideae, why scarce on oceanic islands, 367

Orchis pyramidalis, mode of fertilisation of, 314

figures illustrating fertilisation of, 315

Organic development, three stages of, involving new cause or power, 474

world, the development of, implies a spiritual world, 476

Organisation, advance of, by natural selection, 120

degradation in, 121

Origin of species, objections, 7

of accessory plumes, 291

Orioles mimicking honey-suckers, 263

Ornamental plumes and vitality, 293

=P=

Pachyrhynchi subjects of mimicry, 261

Pampas, effects of drought in, 23

Papaver bracteatum, variability of, 79

Papilio, use of forked tentacle of larva of, 210

protected groups of, 235

mimicry of, 247

Paraguay, absence of wild cattle and horses, 19

Parnassia palustris, sham nectaries of, 317

Parrot, change of habits of New Zealand, 75

Parus, species of, illustrate divergence, of character, 107

Passenger-pigeon, account of its breeding-places and numbers, 31

Pelagic animals, colours of, 193

Phasmidae, resemblance of, to sticks and leaves, 203

Physiological selection, 180

Pickard-Cambridge, Rev. O., on sexual selection, 296 (note)

Pieridae, sexual diversity among, 271

Pigeons, varieties of, 89

domestic, derived from wild rock-pigeons, 90

curious correlations in, 140

white eggs of, protective, 213

Pigs, great increase of, in South America and New Zealand, 28

Pikermi, extinct animals of, 377

Pipits as illustrating divergence, 108

Planorbidae, variations of, 44

Plants, the enemies of, 16

variability of, 76

constitutional variation of, 94

colour relations of, 302

true mimicry rare in, 303

exotic rarely naturalised in Europe, 356

dispersal of, 361

northern, in southern hemisphere, 368

identical on summits of remote mountains, 369

progressive development of, 397

geological development of (diagram), 402

Plovers, recognition marks of (figure), 221

Plumes, origin of accessory, 291

muscular relation of ornamental, 292

Poisonous fruits, 307

Porto Santo, rabbits of, 326

Poulton, Mr. E.B., on variable colours of larvae and pupae, 196, 198

on concealments of insects by resemblance to environment, 202

on protective form of Notodonta ziczac, 210

on inedibility of conspicuous larvae, 237

Pouters, 90

Primulaceae, variations of structure in, 79

Problem, the, before Darwin, 6

Problems in variation and heredity, 410

Progression in plants and animals, 395

Protection by terrifying enemies, 209

Protective colouring, variable, 195

of white-headed fruit-pigeon, 200

of African sun-birds, 200

of Kerivoula picta, 201

of sloths, 201

of larva of Sphinx ligustri, 202

of stick and leaf insects, 203

of caterpillars, 203, 205

of butterflies, 206

Ptilopus cinctus, protective colour of, 200

Pugnacity of birds with accessory plumes, 294

=R=

Rabbit, use of white tail of, 218

Rapid increase of plants, 28

Raspail, M., on variability in a grass, 80

Rat, black, spread of, 34

Rattlesnake, use of rattle of, 262

Raven, why black in arctic regions, 191

Reciprocal crosses, 155

Recognition marks of herbivora, 218

of birds, 222

of tropical forest birds, 224

of insects, 226

Reproductive functions, susceptibility of, 153

Reptiles, geological distribution of, 406

Rhinoceroses, evidence of evolution afforded by fossil, 383

Rocks, all stratified formed in shallow water, 344

Rocky Mountains, scarcity of monocotyledons in, 401

Rodents, prevent woody vegetation in the pampas, 23

Romanes, Professor G.J., on useless characters, 131, 139

on meaningless peculiarities of structure, 140

on supposed absence of simultaneous variations, 142

on physiological selection, 180

Rook and crow, 2

Roses, Mr. Baker on varieties of, 77

Rubus, Bentham and Babington on species and varieties of, 77

Rudiments and variations in man, 446

Runts, 91

Rutaceae, variation of structure in, 79

=S=

St. Helena, destruction of forests by goats, 17

St. Hilaire, M. Aug., variability of Gomphia oleaefolia, 79

Saxicola, divergence of character in species of, 108

recognition marks of, 222

Scientific opinion before Darwin, 4

Scolopax, figures of tails of, 225

Scudder, Mr. S.H., on inedibility of Danais archippus, 238

on fossil insects, 403

Seebohm, Mr., on swamping effects of intercrossing, 143

Seeds, how dispersed, 306

how protected, 307

floating great distances, 361

dispersal of, by wind, 362

weight and dimensions of, 364

importance of wind-carriage of, 372

remarkable case of wind-carriage of, 373

Seiurus carolinensis, diagram of variation, 67

sp., habits of, 117

Selection, artificial, 84

by man, circumstances favourable to, 96

unconscious, 96

Selective association, isolation by, 171

Self-fertilisation of flowers, 321

Semper, Professor, on casting hairs of reptiles and Crustacea, 137 (note)

on direct influence of environment, 426

Sesiidae, mimicry by, 240

Sex colour and nests of birds, 277

Sex, colours characteristic of, 269

Sexual colours of insects, probable causes of, 273

of birds, 275

characters due to natural selection, 283

diversity the cause of variation, 439

Sexual selection and colour, 274

by struggles of males, 282

neutralised by natural selection, 294-296

restricted to male struggles, 296

Shetland Islands, variety of ghost-moth in, 270

Shrews and field-mice, internal variations of, 69

Shrikes, recognition marks of, 222

Similarity of forms of life not due to similarity of conditions, 339

Singing of male birds, use of, 284

Skull of wolf, diagram of variations of, 70

of Ursus labiatus, diagram of variations of, 72

of Sus cristatus, diagram of variations of, 73

Skunk an illustration of warning colour, 233

Slack, Baron von, on protective markings of sloths, 201

Sloth, protective colour and marking of, 201

Snakes, mimicry of poisonous, 261

Snipe, tails of two species (figs.), 225

Sounds and odours peculiar to male,

how useful, 284

produced by peculiar feathers, 284

South America, fossil and recent mammals of, 393

Species, definition of, 1, 2

origin of, 2, 6

Lyell on, 4

Agassiz on, 5

transmutation of, 6

Geoffroy St. Hilaire on, 6

Dean Herbert on, 6

Professor Grant on, 6

Von Buch on, 6

allied, found in distinct areas, 36

Species, which vary little, 80

closely allied inhabit distinct areas, 111

vigour and fertility of, how kept up, 327

Spencer, Mr. Herbert, on factors of organic evolution, 411

on effects of disuse, 413

on difficulty as to co-adaptation of parts, 417

on direct action of environment, 418

Sphingidae, protective attitudes of larvae, 210

Sphinx ligustri, general resemblance of larva to food plant, 202

Spider, alluring coloration of, 211

Spines, on origin of, 431

rarity of, in oceanic islands, 432

Spiny plants abundant in South Africa and Chile, 433

Spots a primitive ornamentation of animals, 289

Sprengel on flowers and insects, 309

Staphylinidae, protective habit of, 210

Sterility of mongrels, 165

correlated with colour, etc., 168

and natural selection, 173

of hybrids produced by natural selection, 179

Struggle for existence, 14

among plants, 15

for life, illustrations of, 18

for existence on the pampas, 22

for life between closely allied forms most severe, 33

for existence, ethics of, 36

how it acts among flowers, 328

Summary of facts of colouring for protection and recognition, 227

Survival of the fittest, 11, 122, 123

Swainson, definition of species, 2

Swamping effects of intercrossing, 142

Sweden, destruction of grass by larvae of moths in, 17

Swinhoe, Mr., on protective colouring of a bat, 201

Symmetry, bilateral in colours of animals needful for recognition, 217

=T=

Tails used as respirators, 136

Tapirs, distribution of, 352

Tegetmeier, Mr., on feeding habits of pigeons and fowls, 75

on sparrows and crocuses, 75

on curious correlations in pigeons, 140

Tegumentary appendages and colour, 291

Thousand-fathom line divides oceanic from continental islands, 347

the teachings of, 348

map showing, 349

Thwaites, Mr., on spread of Lantana mixta in Ceylon, 30

Tiger, use of stripes of, 199

Titmice as illustrating divergence, 107

Transformation of species of crustacea, 427

Transmutationists, the early, 3

Travers, Mr. W.L., on effects of introduced plants in New Zealand, 29

Trees, great variety of, in many forests, 36

Trimen, Mr., on butterfly deceived by its mimic, 245

on mimicry, 247

Tropical animals, why brilliantly coloured, 299

Tropics, no proof of lower temperature of, 369

Tropidorhynchi mimicked by orioles, 263

Trumpeter, 93

Tumblers, 91

Turbits and owls, 91

Tylor, Mr. A., on _Coloration in Animals and Plants_, 285

=U=

Ungulates, origin of feet of, 423

Use and disuse, effects of, overpowered by natural selection, 435

Useless characters, 131

not specific, 132

Useless specific characters, no proof of existence of, 141

Utriculariae inhabiting bromelias, 118

=V=

Vanessa callirhoe, small variety in Porto Santo, 106

Variability of the lower animals, 42

of the Foraminifera, 43

of sea-anemones, 43

of land mollusca, 43

of insects, 44

of lizards, 46

of birds, 49

of primary wing-feathers, 51

of wings and tail, 53

of Dolichonyx oryzivorus, 55

of Agelaeus phoeniceus, 56

of Cardinalis virginianus, 58

of tarsus and toes, 60

of birds in Leyden Museum, 61

of Sciurus carolinensis, 67

of skulls of wolf, 70

of skulls of a bear, 72

of skulls of Sus cristatus, 73

of plants, 76

of oaks, 77

Variation, Lyell on, 4

in internal organs, 66

the facts of, 83

proofs of generality of, 85

of vegetables and fruits, 86

of apples and melons, 87

under domestication accords with that under nature, 100

coincident not necessary, 127

and heredity, problems of, 410

Professor Geddes's theory of, 428

the cause of, 439

Variations of flowers, 88

of domestic animals, 88

of domestic pigeons, 89

conditions favourable to production of, 98

beneficial, 143

Varieties, importance of, 41

of same species adapted to self or to insect-fertilisation, 330

Vegetables, variation of, 86

Vegetation and reproduction, antagonism of, 428

Vertebrata, mimicry among, 261

geological succession of, 405

_Vestiges of Creation_, 3

Viola odorata, 2

canina, 2

Violets, as illustrating species, 2

Von Buch on species, 6

=W=

Wallace, Dr. Alexander, on absence of choice by female moths, 275

Ward, Mr. Lester F., on progressive development of plants, 398

Warning coloration, 232

Warning colours of marine animals, 265

Wasps and bees, mimicry of, 258

poisonous with warning colours, 287

Water-cress, chokes rivers in New Zealand, 24

driven out by willows, 24

Water-ouzels, probable origin of, 116

Weale, Mr. Mansel, on protective colours of butterflies, 206

Weeds of United States, 15

Weir, Mr. Jenner, on deceptive resemblance of a caterpillar to

a twig, 204

on inedibility of conspicuous caterpillars, 236

on birds disregarding inedible larvae, 254

Weismann on progressive adaptation of colours of larva, 206

on non-heredity of acquired characters, 440

and Galton's theories of heredity almost identical, 443 (note)

on origin of the mathematical faculty, 472 (note)

Weismann's theory of heredity, 437

Westwood, Professor, on variation of insects, 44

deceived by a mimicking cricket, 259

White coloration of insular birds and butterflies, 230

Whymper, Mr., his sensations when falling on the Matterhorn, 38

Willows, species and varieties of British, 77

Wilson, Alexander, his account of the passenger-pigeon in North

America, 31

Wind-carriage of seeds explains many facts of plant distribution,

371

Wind-dispersal of seeds, objections to, 365

Wind-fertilised degraded from insect-fertilised flowers, 324

Wings of stone-curlews (figure), 223 why small but useless are

retained, 416

Wit and humour, origin of faculties of, 472

Wollaston, Mr. T.W., on variation of beetles, 44 on small

butterfly in Porto Santo, 106

Wolves, varieties of in Catskill Mountains, 105

Wood, Mr. J., on muscular variations, 447

Mr. T.W., on variable colouring of pupae of cabbage butterflies,

197

Woodward, Dr. S.P., on variation of mollusca, 43

=Y=

Youatt, on breeds of sheep, 97

Young animals often spotted, 289

=Z=

Zebra, markings for recognition and protection, 220 (note)

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Darwinism (1889), by Alfred Russel Wallace