Evolution, Old & New

 "The want of a practical acquaintance with Natural History leads the author to take an erroneous view of the bearing of his own theories on those of Mr. Darwin. --_Review of 'Life and Habit, ' by Mr. A. R. Wallace, in 'Nature, ' March 27, 1879. _

 "Neither lastly would our observer be driven out of his conclusion, or from his confidence in its truth, by being told that he knows nothing at all about the matter. He knows enough for his argument; he knows the utility of the end; he knows the subserviency and adaptation of the means to the end. These points being known, his ignorance concerning other points, his doubts concerning other points, affect not the certainty of his reasoning. The consciousness of knowing little need not beget a distrust of that which he does know. "

 Paley's '_Natural Theology_, ' chap. I. 

Evolution, Old & New

Or the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin

_by_

Samuel Butler

 New York E. P. Dutton & Company 681 Fifth Avenue

_Made and printed in Great Britain_

NOTE

 The demand for a new edition of "Evolution, Old and New, " gives me an opportunity of publishing Butler's latest revision of his work. The second edition of "Evolution, Old and New, " which was published in 1882 and re-issued with a new title-page in 1890, was merely a re-issue of the first edition with a new preface, an appendix, and an index. At a later date, though I cannot say precisely when, Butler revised the text of the book in view of a future edition. The corrections that he made are mainly verbal and do not, I think, affect the argument to any considerable extent. Butler, however, attached sufficient importance to them to incur the expense of having the stereos of more than fifty pages cancelled and new stereos substituted. I have also added a few entries to the index, which are taken from a copy of the book, now in my possession, in which Butler made a few manuscript notes. 

 R. A. STREATFEILD. 

 _October, 1911. _

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

TO

THE SECOND EDITION

Since the proof-sheets of the Appendix to this book left my hands, finally corrected, and too late for me to be able to recast the first ofthe two chapters that compose it, I hear, with the most profound regret, of the death of Mr. Charles Darwin. 

It being still possible for me to refer to this event in a preface, Ihasten to say how much it grates upon me to appear to renew my attackupon Mr. Darwin under the present circumstances. 

I have insisted in each of my three books on Evolution upon theimmensity of the service which Mr. Darwin rendered to thattranscendently important theory. In "Life and Habit, " I said: "To theend of time, if the question be asked, 'Who taught people to believe inEvolution?' the answer must be that it was Mr. Darwin. " This is true;and it is hard to see what palm of higher praise can be awarded to anyphilosopher. 

I have always admitted myself to be under the deepest obligations to Mr. Darwin's works; and it was with the greatest reluctance, not to sayrepugnance, that I became one of his opponents. I have partaken of hishospitality, and have had too much experience of the charming simplicityof his manner not to be among the readiest to at once admire and envyit. It is unfortunately true that I believe Mr. Darwin to have behavedbadly to me; this is too notorious to be denied; but at the same time Icannot be blind to the fact that no man can be judge in his own case, and that after all Mr. Darwin may have been right, and I wrong. 

At the present moment, let me impress this latter alternative upon mymind as far as possible, and dwell only upon that side of Mr. Darwin'swork and character, about which there is no difference of opinion amongeither his admirers or his opponents. 

_April 21, 1882. _

PREFACE. 

Contrary to the advice of my friends, who caution me to avoid allappearance of singularity, I venture upon introducing a practice, theexpediency of which I will submit to the judgment of the reader. It isone which has been adopted by musicians for more than a century--to thegreat convenience of all who are fond of music--and I observe thatwithin the last few years two such distinguished painters as Mr. Alma-Tadema and Mr. Hubert Herkomer have taken to it. It is a matter forregret that the practice should not have been general at an earlierdate, not only among painters and musicians, but also among the peoplewho write books. It consists in signifying the number of a piece ofmusic, picture, or book by the abbreviation "Op. " and the numberwhatever it may happen to be. 

No work can be judged intelligently unless not only the author'srelations to his surroundings, but also the relation in which the workstands to the life and other works of the author, is understood andborne in mind; nor do I know any way of conveying this information at aglance, comparable to that which I now borrow from musicians. When wesee the number against a work of Beethoven, we need ask no further to beinformed concerning the general character of the music. The same holdsgood more or less with all composers. Handel's works were notnumbered--not at least his operas and oratorios. Had they been so, thesignificance of the numbers on Susanna and Theodora would have been atonce apparent, connected as they would have been with the number onJephthah, Handel's next and last work, in which he emphaticallyrepudiates the influence which, perhaps in a time of self-distrust, hehad allowed contemporary German music to exert over him. Many paintershave dated their works, but still more have neglected doing so, and someof these have been not a little misconceived in consequence. As forauthors, it is unnecessary to go farther back than Lord Beaconsfield, Thackeray, Dickens, and Scott, to feel how much obliged we should havebeen to any custom that should have compelled them to number their worksin the order in which they were written. When we think of Shakespeare, any doubt which might remain as to the advantage of the proposedinnovation is felt to disappear. 

My friends, to whom I urged all the above, and more, met me by sayingthat the practice was doubtless a very good one in the abstract, butthat no one was particularly likely to want to know in what order mybooks had been written. To which I answered that even a bad book whichintroduced so good a custom would not be without value, though the valuemight lie in the custom, and not in the book itself; whereon, seeingthat I was obstinate, they left me, and interpreting their doing so intoat any rate a modified approbation of my design, I have carried it intopractice. 

The edition of the 'Philosophie Zoologique' referred to in the followingvolume, is that edited by M. Chas. Martins, Paris, Librairie F. Savy, 24, Rue de Hautefeuille, 1873. 

The edition of the 'Origin of Species' is that of 1876, unless anotheredition be especially named. 

The italics throughout the book are generally mine, except in thequotations from Miss Seward, where they are all her own. 

I am anxious also to take the present opportunity of acknowledging theobligations I am under to my friend Mr. H. F. Jones, and to otherfriends (who will not allow me to mention their names, lest more errorsshould be discovered than they or I yet know of), for the invaluableassistance they have given me while this work was going through thepress. If I am able to let it go before the public with any comfort orpeace of mind, I owe it entirely to the carefulness of theirsupervision. 

I am also greatly indebted to Mr. Garnett, of the British Museum, forhaving called my attention to many works and passages of which otherwiseI should have known nothing. 

_March 31, 1879. _

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

 Statement of the Question--Current Opinion adverse to Teleology 1

CHAPTER II. 

 The Teleology of Paley and the Theologians 12

CHAPTER III. 

 Impotence of Paley's Conclusion--The Teleology of the Evolutionist 24

CHAPTER IV. 

 Failure of the First Evolutionists to see their Position as Teleological 34

CHAPTER V. 

 The Teleological Evolution of Organism--The Philosophy of the Unconscious 43

CHAPTER VI. 

 Scheme of the Remainder of the Work--Historical Sketch of the Theory of Evolution 60

CHAPTER VII. 

 Pre-Buffonian Evolution, and some German Writers 68

CHAPTER VIII. 

 Buffon--Memoir 74

CHAPTER IX. 

 Buffon's Method--The Ironical Character of his Work 78

CHAPTER X. 

 Supposed Fluctuations of Opinion--Causes or Means of the Transformation of Species 97

CHAPTER XI. 

 Buffon--Puller Quotations 107

CHAPTER XII. 

 Sketch of Dr. Erasmus Darwin's Life 173

CHAPTER XIII. 

 Philosophy of Dr. Erasmus Darwin 195

CHAPTER XIV. 

 Fuller Quotations from the 'Zoonomia' 214

CHAPTER XV. 

 Memoir of Lamarck 235

CHAPTER XVI. 

 General Misconception concerning Lamarck--His Philosophical Position 244

CHAPTER XVII. 

 Summary of the 'Philosophie Zoologique' 261

CHAPTER XVIII. 

 Mr. Patrick Matthew, MM. Étienne and Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and Mr. Herbert Spencer 315

CHAPTER XIX. 

 Main Points of Agreement and of Difference between the Old and New Theories of Evolution 335

CHAPTER XX. 

 Natural Selection considered as a Means of Modification--The Confusion which this Expression occasions 345

CHAPTER XXI. 

 Mr. Darwin's Defence of the Expression, Natural Selection--Professor Mivart and Natural Selection 362

CHAPTER XXII. 

 The Case of the Madeira Beetles as illustrating the Difference between the Evolution of Lamarck and of Mr. Charles Darwin--Conclusion 373

APPENDIX 385

INDEX 409

EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW

CHAPTER I. 

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. CURRENT OPINION ADVERSE TO TELEOLOGY. 

Of all the questions now engaging the attention of those whose destinyhas commanded them to take more or less exercise of mind, I know of nonemore interesting than that which deals with what is calledteleology--that is to say, with design or purpose, as evidenced by thedifferent parts of animals and plants. 

The question may be briefly stated thus:--

Can we or can we not see signs in the structure of animals and plants, of something which carries with it the idea of contrivance so stronglythat it is impossible for us to think of the structure, without at thesame time thinking of contrivance, or design, in connection with it?

It is my object in the present work to answer this question in theaffirmative, and to lead my reader to agree with me, perhaps mainly, byfollowing the history of that opinion which is now supposed to be fatalto a purposive view of animal and vegetable organs. I refer to thetheory of evolution or descent with modification. 

Let me state the question more at large. 

When we see organs, or living tools--for there is no well-developedorgan of any living being which is not used by its possessor as aninstrument or tool for the effecting of some purpose which he considersor has considered for his advantage--when we see living tools which areas admirably fitted for the work required of them, as is the carpenter'splane for planing, or the blacksmith's hammer and anvil for thehammering of iron, or the tailor's needle for sewing, what conclusionshall we adopt concerning them?

Shall we hold that they must have been designed or contrived, notperhaps by mental processes indistinguishable from those by which thecarpenter's saw or the watch has been designed, but still by processesso closely resembling these that no word can be found to express thefacts of the case so nearly as the word "design"? That is to say, shallwe imagine that they were arrived at by a living mind as the result ofscheming and contriving, and thinking (not without occasional mistakes)which of the courses open to it seemed best fitted for the occasion, orare we to regard the apparent connection between such an organ, we willsay, as the eye, and the sight which is affected by it, as in no way dueto the design or plan of a living intelligent being, but as causedsimply by the accumulation, one upon another, of an almost infiniteseries of small pieces of good fortune?

In other words, shall we see something for which, as Professor Mivarthas well said, "to us the word 'mind' is the least inadequate andmisleading symbol, " as having given to the eagle an eyesight which canpierce the sun, but which, in the night is powerless; while to the owlit has given eyes which shun even the full moon, but find a softbrilliancy in darkness? Or shall we deny that there has been any purposeor design in the fashioning of these different kinds of eyes, and seenothing to make us believe that any living being made the eagle's eyeout of something which was not an eye nor anything like one, or thatthis living being implanted this particular eye of all others in theeagle's head, as being most in accordance with the habits of thecreature, and as therefore most likely to enable it to live contentedlyand leave plenitude of offspring? And shall we then go on to maintainthat the eagle's eye was formed little by little by a series ofaccidental variations, each one of which was thrown for, as it were, with dice?

We shall most of us feel that there must have been a little cheatingsomewhere with these accidental variations before the eagle could havebecome so great a winner. 

I believe I have now stated the question at issue so plainly that therecan be no mistake about its nature, I will therefore proceed to show asbriefly as possible what have been the positions taken in regard to itby our forefathers, by the leaders of opinion now living, and what Ibelieve will be the next conclusion that will be adopted for any lengthof time by any considerable number of people. 

In the times of the ancients the preponderance of opinion was in favourof teleology, though impugners were not wanting. Aristotle[1] leanttowards a denial of purpose, while Plato[2] was a firm believer indesign. From the days of Plato to our own times, there have been but fewobjectors to the teleological or purposive view of nature. If an animalhad an eye, that eye was regarded as something which had been designedin order to enable its owner to see after such fashion as should be mostto its advantage. 

This, however, is now no longer the prevailing opinion either in thiscountry or in Germany. 

Professor Haeckel holds a high place among the leaders of Germanphilosophy at the present day. He declares a belief in evolution and inpurposiveness to be incompatible, and denies purpose in language whichholds out little prospect of a compromise. 

"As soon, in fact, " he writes, "as we acknowledge the exclusive activityof the physico-chemical causes in living (organic) bodies as well as inso-called inanimate (inorganic) nature, "--and this is what ProfessorHaeckel holds we are bound to do if we accept the theory of descent withmodification--"we concede exclusive dominion to that view of theuniverse, which we may designate as _mechanical_, and which is opposedto the teleological conception. If we compare all the ideas of theuniverse prevalent among different nations at different times, we candivide them all into two sharply contrasted groups--a _causal_ or_mechanical_, and a _teleological_ or _vitalistic_. The latter hasprevailed generally in biology until now, and accordingly the animal andvegetable kingdoms have been considered as the products of a creativepower, acting for a definite purpose. In the contemplation of everyorganism, the unavoidable conviction seemed to press itself upon us, that such a wonderful machine, so complicated an apparatus for motion asexists in the organism, could only be produced by a power analogous to, but infinitely more powerful than the power of man in the constructionof his machines. "[3]

A little lower down he continues:--

"_I maintain with regard to_" this "_much talked of 'purpose in nature'that it has no existence but for those persons who observe phenomena inplants and animals in the most superficial manner_. Without going moredeeply into the matter, we can see at once that the rudimentary organsare a formidable obstacle to this theory. And, indeed, anyone who makesa really close study of the organization and mode of life of the variousanimals and plants, . . . Must necessarily come to the conclusion, thatthis 'purposiveness' no more exists than the much talked of'beneficence' of the Creator. "[4]

Professor Haeckel justly sees no alternative between, upon the one hand, the creation of independent species by a Personal God--by a "Creator, "in fact, who "becomes an organism, who designs a plan, reflects upon andvaries this plan, and finally forms creatures according to it, as ahuman architect would construct his building, "[5]--and the denial of allplan or purpose whatever. There can be no question but that he is righthere. To talk of a "designer" who has no tangible existence, no organismwith which to think, no bodily mechanism with which to carry hispurposes into effect; whose design is not design inasmuch as it has tocontend with no impediments from ignorance or impotence, and who thuscontrives but by a sort of make-believe in which there is nocontrivance; who has a familiar name, but nothing beyond a name whichany human sense has ever been able to perceive--this is an abuse ofwords--an attempt to palm off a shadow upon our understandings as thoughit were a substance. It is plain therefore that there must either be adesigner who "becomes an organism, designs a plan, &c. , " or that therecan be no designer at all and hence no design. 

We have seen which of these alternatives Professor Haeckel has adopted. He holds that those who accept evolution are bound to reject all"purposiveness. " And here, as I have intimated, I differ from him, forreasons which will appear presently. I believe in an organic andtangible designer of every complex structure, for so long a time past, as that reasonable people will be incurious about all that occurred atany earlier time. 

Professor Clifford, again, is a fair representative of opinions whichare finding favour with the majority of our own thinkers. He writes:--

"There are here some words, however, which require careful definition. And first the word purpose. A thing serves a purpose when it is adaptedfor some end; thus a corkscrew is adapted to the end of extracting corksfrom bottles, and our lungs are adapted to the end of respiration. Wemay say that the extraction of corks is the purpose of the corkscrew, and that respiration is the purpose of the lungs, but here we shall haveused the word in two different senses. A man made the corkscrew with apurpose in his mind, and he knew and intended that it should be used forpulling out corks. _But nobody made our lungs with a purpose in his mindand intended that they should be used for breathing. _ The respiratoryapparatus was adapted to its purpose by natural selection, namely, bythe gradual preservation of better and better adaptations, and by thekilling-off of the worse and imperfect adaptations. "[6]

No denial of anything like design could be more explicit. For ProfessorClifford is well aware that the very essence of the "Natural Selection"theory, is that the variations shall have been mainly accidental andwithout design of any sort, but that the adaptations of structure toneed shall have come about by the accumulation, through naturalselection, of any variation that _happened_ to be favourable. 

It will be my business on a later page not only to show that the lungsare as purposive as the corkscrew, but furthermore that if drawing corkshad been a matter of as much importance to us as breathing is, the listof our organs would have been found to comprise one corkscrew at theleast, and possibly two, twenty, or ten thousand; even as we see thatthe trowel without which the beaver cannot plaster its habitation insuch fashion as alone satisfies it, is incorporate into the beaver's ownbody by way of a tail, the like of which is to be found in no otheranimal. 

To take a name which carries with it a far greater authority, that ofMr. Charles Darwin. He writes:--

"It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. Weknow that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continuedefforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that theeye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not thisinference be presumptuous? Have we any right to declare that the Creatorworks by intellectual powers like those of man?"[7]

Here purposiveness is not indeed denied point-blank, but the intentionof the author is unmistakable, it is to refer the wonderful result tothe gradual accumulation of small accidental improvements which were notdue as a rule, if at all, to anything "analogous" to design. 

"Variation, " he says, "will cause the slight alterations;" that is tosay, the slight successive variations whose accumulation results in sucha marvellous structure as the eye, are caused by--variation; or in otherwords, they are indefinite, due to nothing that we can lay our handsupon, and therefore certainly not due to design. "Generation, " continuesMr. Darwin, "will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selectionwill pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process goon for millions of years, and during each year on millions ofindividuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living opticalinstrument might be thus formed as superior to one of glass, as theworks of the Creator are to those of man?"[8]

The reader will observe that the only skill--and this involvesdesign--supposed by Mr. Darwin to be exercised in the foregoing process, is the "unerring skill" of natural selection. Natural selection, however, is, as he himself tells us, a synonym for the survival of thefittest, which last he declares to be the "more accurate" expression, and to be "sometimes" equally convenient. [9] It is clear then that heonly speaks metaphorically when he here assigns "unerring skill" to thefact that the fittest individuals commonly live longest and transmitmost offspring, and that he sees no evidence of design in the numerousslight successive "alterations"--or variations--which are "caused byvariation. "

It were easy to multiply quotations which should prove that the denialof "purposiveness" is commonly conceived to be the inevitableaccompaniment of a belief in evolution. I will, however, content myselfwith but one more--from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire. 

"Whoever, " says this author, "holds the doctrine of final causes, will, if he is consistent, hold also that of the immutability of species; andagain, the opponent of the one doctrine will oppose the other also. "[10]

Nothing can be plainer; I believe, however, that even without quotationthe reader would have recognized the accuracy of my contention that abelief in the purposiveness or design of animal and vegetable organs iscommonly held to be incompatible with the belief that they have all beenevolved from one, or at any rate, from not many original, and low, formsof life. Generally, however, as this incompatibility is accepted, it isnot unchallenged. From time to time a voice is uplifted in protest, whose tones cannot be disregarded. 

"I have always felt, " says Sir William Thomson, in his address to theBritish Association, 1871, "that this hypothesis" (natural selection)"does not contain the true theory of evolution, if indeed evolutionthere has been, in biology. Sir John Herschel, in expressing afavourable judgment on the hypothesis of zoological evolution (withhowever some reservation in respect to the origin of man), objected tothe doctrine of natural selection on the ground that it was too like theLaputan method of making books, and that it did not sufficiently takeinto account a continually guiding and controlling intelligence. Thisseems to me a most valuable and instructive criticism. _I feelprofoundly convinced that the argument of design has been greatly toomuch lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. _ Reaction againstthe frivolities of teleology such as are to be found in the notes of thelearned commentators on Paley's 'Natural Theology, ' has, I believe, hada temporary effect in turning attention from the solid and irrefragableargument so well put forward in that excellent old book. Butoverpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lieall around us, "[11] &c. Sir William Thomson goes on to infer that allliving beings depend on an ever-acting Creator and Ruler--meaning, I amafraid, a Creator who is not an organism. Here I cannot follow him, butwhile gladly accepting his testimony to the omnipresence of intelligentdesign in almost every structure, whether of animal or plant, I shallcontent myself with observing the manner in which plants and animals actand with the consequences that are legitimately deducible from theiraction. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See note to Mr. Darwin, Historical Sketch, &c. , 'Origin of Species, p. Xiii. Ed. 1876, and Arist. 'Physicæ Auscultationes, ' lib. Ii. Cap. Viii. S. 2. 

[2] See Phædo and Timæus. 

[3] 'History of Creation, ' vol. I. P. 18 (H. S. King and Co. , 1876). 

[4] Ibid. P. 19. 

[5] 'History of Creation, ' vol. I. P. 73 (H. S. King and Co. , 1876). 

[6] 'Fortnightly Review, ' new series, vol. Xviii. P. 795. 

[7] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 146, ed. 1876. 

[8] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 146, ed. 1876. 

[9] Page 49. 

[10] 'Vie et Doctrine scientifique d'Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire, ' byIsidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Paris, 1847, p. 344. 

[11] Address to the British Association, 1871. 

CHAPTER II

THE TELEOLOGY OF PALEY AND THE THEOLOGIANS. 

Let us turn for a while to Paley, to whom Sir W. Thomson has referredus. His work should be so well known that an apology is almost due forquoting it, yet I think it likely that at least nine out of ten of myreaders will (like myself till reminded of it by Sir W. Thomson'saddress) have forgotten its existence. 

"In crossing a heath, " says Paley, "suppose I pitched my foot against astone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possiblyanswer that for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of thisanswer. But suppose I had found a _watch_ upon the ground, and it shouldbe inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardlythink of the answer I had before given--that for anything I knew thewatch might have been always there. Yet, why should not this answerserve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not asadmissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and forno other, viz. That when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (whatwe could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framedand put together for a purpose, e. G. That they are so formed andadjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to pointout the hour of the day: that if the different parts had beendifferently shaped from what they are, of a different size from whatthey are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order, thanthat in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have beencarried on in the machine, or none that would have answered the usewhich is now served by it. To reckon up a few of the plainest of theseparts, and of their offices all tending to one result: we see acylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring, which, by itsendeavours to relax itself, turns round the box. We next observe aflexible chain (artificially wrought for the sake of flexure)communicating the action of the spring from the box to the fusee. Wethen find a series of wheels the teeth of which catch in, and apply toeach other, conducting the motion from the fusee to the balance, andfrom the balance to the pointer; and at the same time by the size andshape of those wheels so regulating the motion as to terminate incausing an index, by an equable and measured progression, to pass over agiven space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels are made ofbrass in order to keep them from rust; the springs of steel, no othermetal being so elastic; that over the face of the watch there is placeda glass, a material employed on no other part of the work, but in theroom of which if there had been any other than a transparent substance, the hour could not have been observed without opening the case. Thismechanism being observed, . . . The inference, we think, is inevitablethat the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at_some time, and at some place or other, an artificer_ or artificers whoformed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; whocomprehended its construction and designed its use. "[12]

 . . . . . . 

"That an animal is a machine, is a proposition neither correctly truenor wholly false. . . . I contend that there is a mechanism in animals;that this mechanism is as properly such, as it is in machines made byart; that this mechanism is intelligible and certain; that it is not theless so because it often begins and terminates with something which isnot mechanical; that wherever it is intelligible and certain, itdemonstrates intention and contrivance, as well in the works of natureas in those of art; and that it is the best demonstration which eithercan afford. "[13]

There is only one legitimate inference deducible from these premises ifthey are admitted as sound, namely, that there must have existed "_atsome time, and in some place, an artificer_" who formed the animalmechanism after much the same mental processes of observation, endeavour, successful contrivance, and after a not wholly unlikesuccession of bodily actions, as those with which a watchmaker has madea watch. Otherwise the conclusion is impotent, and the whole argumentbecomes a mere juggle of words. 

"Now, supposing or admitting, " continues Paley, "that we know nothing ofthe proper internal constitution of a gland, or of the mode of itsacting upon the blood; then our situation is precisely like that of anunmechanical looker-on who stands by a stocking loom, a corn mill, acarding machine, or a threshing machine, at work, the fabric andmechanism of which, as well as all that passes within, is hidden fromhis sight by the outside case; or if seen, would be too complicated forhis uninformed, uninstructed understanding to comprehend. And what isthat situation? This spectator, ignorant as he is, sees at one end amaterial enter the machine, as unground grain the mill, raw cotton thecarding machine, sheaves of unthreshed corn the threshing machine, andwhen he casts his eye to the other end of the apparatus, he sees thematerial issuing from it in a new state and what is more, a statemanifestly adapted for its future uses: the grain in meal fit for themaking of bread, the wool in rovings fit for the spinning into threads, the sheaf in corn fit for the mill. Is it necessary that this man, inorder to be convinced that design, that intention, that contrivance hasbeen employed about the machine, should be allowed to pull it to pieces, should be enabled to examine the parts separately, explore their actionupon one another, or their operation, whether simultaneous orsuccessive, upon the material which is presented to them? He may long todo this to satisfy his curiosity; he may desire to do it to improve histheoretic knowledge; . . . But for the purpose of ascertaining theexistence of counsel and design in the formation of the machine, hewants no such intromission or privity. The effect upon the material, thechange produced in it, the utility of the change for futureapplications, abundantly testify, be the concealed part of the machine, or of its construction, what it will, _the hand and agency of acontriver_. "[14]

This is admirably put, but it will apply to the mechanism of animal andvegetable bodies only, if it is used to show that they too must have hada contriver who has a hand, or something tantamount to one; who doesact; who, being a contriver, has what all other contrivers must have, ifthey are to be called contrivers--a body which can suffer more or lesspain or chagrin if the contrivance is unsuccessful. If this is whatPaley means, his argument is indeed irrefragable; but if he does notintend this, his words are frivolous, as so clear and acute a reasonermust have perfectly well known. 

Whether Paley's argument will prove a source of lasting strength tohimself or no, is a point which my readers will decide presently; but Iam very clear about its usefulness to my own position. I know fewwriters whom I would willingly quote more largely, or from whom I findit harder to leave off quoting when I have once begun. A few morepassages, however, must suffice. 

"I challenge any man to produce in the joints and pivots of the mostcomplicated or the most flexible machine that ever was contrived, aconstruction _more artificial_" (here we have it again), "or moreevidently artificial than the human neck. Two things were to be done. The head was to have the power of bending forward and backward as in theact of nodding, stooping, looking upwards or downwards; and at the sametime of turning itself round upon the body to a certain extent, thequadrant, we will say, or rather perhaps a hundred and twenty degrees ofa circle. For these two purposes two distinct contrivances are employed. First the head rests immediately upon the uppermost part of thevertebra, and is united to it by a hinge-joint; upon this joint the headplays freely backward and forward as far either way as is necessary oras the ligaments allow, which was the first thing required. 

"But then the rotatory motion is thus unprovided for; therefore, secondly, to make the head capable of this a further mechanism isintroduced, not between the head and the uppermost bone of the neck, where the hinge is, but between that bone and the next underneath it. Itis a mechanism resembling a tenon and mortise. This second or uppermostbone but one has what the anatomists call a process, viz. A projectionsomewhat similar in size and shape to a tooth, which tooth, entering acorresponding hollow socket in the bone above it, forms a pivot or axle, upon which that upper bone, together with the head which it supports, turns freely in a circle, and as far in the circle as the attachedmuscles permit the head to turn. Thus are both motions perfect withoutinterfering with each other. When we nod the head we use thehinge-joint, which lies between the head and the first bone of the neck. When we turn the head round, we use the tenon and mortise, which runsbetween the first bone of the neck and the second. We see the samecontrivance and the same principle employed in the frame or mounting ofa telescope. It is occasionally requisite that the object end of theinstrument be moved up and down as well as horizontally or equatorially. For the vertical motion there is a hinge upon which the telescope plays, for the horizontal or equatorial motion, an axis upon which thetelescope and the hinge turn round together. And this is exactly themechanism which is applied to the action of the head, nor will anyonehere doubt of the existence of counsel and design, except it be by thatdebility of mind which can trust to its own reasonings in nothing. "[15]

 . . . . . . 

"The patella, or knee-pan, is a curious little bone; in its form andoffice unlike any other bone in the body. It is circular, the size of acrown-piece, pretty thick, a little convex on both sides, and coveredwith a smooth cartilage. It lies upon the front of the knee, and thepowerful tendons by which the leg is brought forward pass through it (orrather make it a part of their continuation) from their origin in thethigh to their insertion in the tibia. It protects both the tendon andthe joint from any injury which either might suffer by the rubbing ofone against the other, or by the pressure of unequal surfaces. It alsogives to the tendons a very considerable mechanical advantage byaltering the line of their direction, and by advancing it farther out ofthe centre of motion; and this upon the principles of the resolution offorce, upon which all machinery is founded. These are its uses. But whatis most observable in it is that it appears to be supplemental, as itwere, to the frame; added, as it should almost seem, afterwards; notquite necessary, but very convenient. It is separate from the otherbones; that is, it is not connected with any other bones by the commonmode of union. It is soft, or hardly formed in infancy; and is producedby an ossification, of the inception or progress of which no account canbe given from the structure or exercise of the part. "[16]

It is positively painful to me to pass over Paley's description of thejoints, but I must content myself with a single passage from thisadmirable chapter. 

"The joints, or rather the ends of the bones which form them, displayalso in their configuration another use. The nerves, blood-vessels, andtendons which are necessary to the life, or for the motion of the limbs, must, it is evident in their way from the trunk of the body to the placeof their destination, travel over the moveable joints; and it is no lessevident that in this part of their course they will have from suddenmotions, and from abrupt changes of curvature, to encounter the dangerof compression, attrition, or laceration. To guard fibres so tenderagainst consequences so injurious, their path is in those partsprotected with peculiar care; and that by a provision in the figure ofthe bones themselves. The nerves which supply the fore arm, especiallythe inferior cubital nerves, are at the elbow conducted by a kind ofcovered way, between the condyle, or rather under the innerextuberances, of the bone which composes the upper part of the arm. Atthe knee the extremity of the thigh-bone is divided by a sinus or cliffinto two heads or protuberances; and these heads on the back part standout beyond the cylinder of the bone. Through the hollow which liesbetween the hind parts of these two heads, that is to say, under theham, between the ham strings, and within the concave recess of the boneformed by the extuberances on either side; in a word, along a defilebetween rocks pass the great vessels and nerves which go to the leg. Wholed these vessels by a road so defended and secured? In the joint at theshoulder, in the edge of the cup which receives the head of the bone, isa notch which is covered at the top with a ligament. Through this holethus guarded the blood-vessels steal to their destination in the arminstead of mounting over the edge of the concavity. "[17]

 . . . . . . 

"What contrivance can be more mechanical than the following, viz. : aslit in one tendon to let another tendon pass through it? This structureis found in the tendons which move the toes and fingers. The longtendon, as it is called in the foot, which bends the first joint of thetoe, passes through the short tendon which bends the second joint; whichcourse allows to the sinews more liberty and a more commodious actionthan it would otherwise have been capable of exerting. There is nothing, I believe, in a silk or cotton mill, in the belts or straps or ropes bywhich the motion is communicated from one part of the machine to anotherthat is more artificial, or more evidently so, than this perforation. 

"The next circumstance which I shall mention under this head ofmuscular arrangement, is so decidedly a mark of intention, that italways appeared to me to supersede in some measure the necessity ofseeking for any other observation upon the subject; and thatcircumstance is the tendons which pass from the leg to the foot beingbound down by a ligament at the ankle, the foot is placed at aconsiderable angle with the leg. It is manifest, therefore, thatflexible strings passing along the interior of the angle, if left tothemselves, would, when stretched, start from it. The obvious" (and itmust not be forgotten that the preventive _was_ obvious) "preventive isto tie them down. And this is done in fact. Across the instep, or ratherjust above it, the anatomist finds a strong ligament, under which thetendons pass to the foot. The effect of the ligament as a bandage can bemade evident to the senses, for if it be cut the tendons start up. Thesimplicity, yet the clearness of this contrivance, its exact resemblanceto established resources of art, place it amongst the most indubitablemanifestations of design with which we are acquainted. "

Then follows a passage which is interesting, as being the earliestattempt I know of to bring forward an argument against evolution, whichwas, even in Paley's day, called "Darwinism, " after Dr. Erasmus Darwinits propounder. [18] The argument, I mean, which is drawn from thedifficulty of accounting for the incipiency of complex structures. Thishas been used with greater force by the Rev. J. J. Murphy, ProfessorMivart, and others, against that (as I believe) erroneous view ofevolution which is now generally received as Darwinism. 

"There is also a further use, " says Paley, "to be made of this presentexample, and that is as it precisely contradicts the opinion, that theparts of animals may have been all formed by what is called appetency, i. E. Endeavour, perpetuated and imperceptibly working its effectthrough an incalculable series of generations. We have here noendeavour, but the reverse of it; a constant resistency and reluctance. The endeavour is all the other way. The pressure of the ligamentconstrains the tendons; the tendons react upon the pressure of theligament. It is impossible that the ligament should ever have beengenerated by the exercise of the tendons, or in the course of thatexercise, forasmuch as the force of the tendon perpendicularly resiststhe fibre which confines it, and is constantly endeavouring not to formbut to rupture and displace the threads of which the ligament iscomposed. "[19]

This must suffice. 

"True theories, " says M. Flourens, inspired by a passage fromFontenelle, which he proceeds to quote, "true theories make themselves, "they are not made, but are born and grow; they cannot be stopped frominsisting upon their vitality by anything short of intellectualviolence, nor will a little violence only suffice to kill them. "Truetheories, " he continues, "are but the spontaneous mental comingtogether of facts, which have combined with one another by virtue onlyof their own natural affinity. "[20]

When a number of isolated facts, says Fontenelle, take form, groupthemselves together coherently, and present the mind so vividly with anidea of their interdependence and mutual bearing upon each other, thatno matter how violently we tear them asunder they insist on comingtogether again; then, and not till then, have we a theory. 

Now I submit that there is hardly one of my readers who can beconsidered as free from bias or prejudice, who will not feel that theidea of design--or perception by an intelligent living being, of ends tobe obtained and of the means of obtaining them--and the idea of thetendons of the foot and of the ligament which binds them down, cometogether so forcibly, that no matter how strongly Professors Haeckel andClifford and Mr. Darwin may try to separate them, they are no soonerpulled asunder than they straightway fly together again of themselves. 

I shall argue, therefore, no further upon this head, but shall assume itas settled, and shall proceed at once to the consideration that nextsuggests itself. 

FOOTNOTES:

[12] 'Natural Theology, ' ch. I. § 1. 

[13] Ch. Vii. 

[14] Ch. Vii. 

[15] 'Natural Theology. ' ch. Viii. 

[16] 'Natural Theology, ' ch. Viii. 

[17] 'Natural Theology, ' ch. Viii. 

[18] "What!" says Coleridge, in a note on Stillingfleet, to which Mr. Garnett, of the British Museum, has kindly called my attention, "Did SirWalter Raleigh believe that a male and female ounce (and if so why nottwo tigers and lions, &c. ?) would have produced in course of generationsa cat, or a cat a lion? This is Darwinising with a vengeance. "--See'Athenæum, ' March 27, 1875, p. 423. 

[19] 'Natural Theology, ' ch. Ix. 

[20] "La vraie théorie n'est que l'enchaînement naturel des faits, quidès qu'ils sont assez nombreux, se touchent, et se lient, les uns auxautres par leur seule vertu propre. "--Flourens, 'Buffon, Hist. De sesTravaux. ' Paris, 1844, p. 82. 

CHAPTER III. 

IMPOTENCE OF PALEY'S CONCLUSION. THE TELEOLOGY OF THE EVOLUTIONIST. 

Though the ideas of design, and of the foot, have come together in ourminds with sufficient spontaneity, we yet feel that there is adifference--and a wide difference if we could only lay our hands uponit--between the design and manufacture of the ligament and tendons ofthe foot on the one hand, and on the other the design, manufacture, andcombination of artificial strings, pieces of wood, and bandages, wherebya model of the foot might be constructed. 

If we conceive of ourselves as looking simultaneously upon a real foot, and upon an admirably constructed artificial one, placed by the side ofit, the idea of design, and design by an intelligent living being with abody and soul (without which, as has been already insisted on, the useof the word design is delusive), will present itself strongly to ourminds in connection both with the true foot, and with the model; but wefind another idea asserting itself with even greater strength, namely, that the design of the true foot is far more intricate, and yet iscarried into execution in far more masterly manner than that of themodel. We not only feel that there is a wider difference between theability, time, and care which have been lavished on the real foot andupon the model, than there is between the skill and the time taken toproduce Westminster Abbey, and that bestowed upon a gingerbread cakestuck with sugar plums so as to represent it, but also that these twoobjects must have been manufactured on different principles. We do notfor a moment doubt that the real foot was designed, but we are soastonished at the dexterity of the designer that we are at a loss forsome time to think who could have designed it, where he can live, inwhat manner he studied, for how long, and by what processes he carriedout his design, when matured, into actual practice. Until recently itwas thought that there was no answer to many of these questions, moreespecially to those which bear upon the mode of manufacture. For thelast hundred years, however, the importance of a study has beenrecognized which does actually reveal to us in no small degree theprocesses by which the human foot is manufactured, so that in theendeavour to lay our hands upon the points of difference between thekind of design with which the foot itself is designed, and the design ofthe model, we turn naturally to the guidance of those who have made thisstudy their specialty; and a very wide difference does this study, embryology, at once reveal to us. 

Writing of the successive changes through which each embryo is forced topass, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes says that "none of these phases have anyadaptation to the future state of the animal, but are in positivecontradiction to it or are simply purposeless; whereas all show stampedon them the unmistakable characters of _ancestral_ adaptation, and theprogressions of organic evolution. What does the fact imply? There isnot a single known example of a complex organism which is not developedout of simpler forms. Before it can attain the complex structure whichdistinguishes it, there must be an evolution of forms similar to thosewhich distinguish the structure of organisms lower in the series. On thehypothesis of a plan which prearranged the organic world, nothing couldbe more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability toconstruct an organism at once, without making several previous tentativeefforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and_repeating for centuries the same tentatives in the same succession_. Donot let us blink this consideration. There is a traditional phrase muchin vogue among the anthropomorphists, which arose naturally enough froma tendency to take human methods as an explanation of the Divine--aphrase which becomes a sort of argument--'The Great Architect. ' But ifwe are to admit the human point of view, a glance at the facts ofembryology must produce very uncomfortable reflections. For what shouldwe say to an architect who was unable, or being able was obstinatelyunwilling, to erect a palace except by first using his materials in theshape of a hut, then pulling them down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding story to story and room to room, _not_ with any reference tothe ultimate purposes of the palace, but wholly with reference to theway in which houses were constructed in ancient times? What should wesay to the architect who could not form a museum out of bricks andmortar, but was forced to begin as if going to construct a mansion, andafter proceeding some way in this direction, altered his plan into apalace, and that again into a museum? Yet this is the sort of successionon which organisms are constructed. The fact has long been familiar; howhas it been reconciled with infinite wisdom? Let the following passageanswer for a thousand:--'The embryo is nothing like the miniature of theadult. For a long while the body in its entirety and in its details, presents the strangest of spectacles. Day by day and hour by hour, theaspect of the scene changes, and this instability is exhibited by themost essential parts no less than by the accessory parts. One would saythat nature feels her way, and only reaches the goal after many timesmissing the path' (on dirait que la nature tâtonne et ne conduit sonoeuvre à bon fin, qu'après s'être souvent trompée). "[21]

The above passage does not, I think, affect the evidence for designwhich we adduced in the preceding chapter. However strange the processof manufacture may appear, when the work comes to be turned out thedesign is too manifest to be doubted. 

If the reader were to come upon some lawyer's deed which dealt withmatters of such unspeakable intricacy, that it baffled his imaginationto conceive how it could ever have been drafted, and if in spite of thishe were to find the intricacy of the provisions to be made, exceededonly by the ease and simplicity with which the deed providing for themwas found to work in practice; and after this, if he were to discoverthat the deed, by whomsoever drawn, had nevertheless been drafted uponprinciples which at first seemed very foreign to any according to whichhe was in the habit of drafting deeds himself, as for example, that thedraftsman had begun to draft a will as a marriage settlement, and soforth--yet an observer would not, I take it, do either of two things. Hewould not in the face of the result deny the design, making himselfjudge rather of the method of procedure than of the achievement. Nor yetafter insisting in the manner of Paley, on the wonderful proofs ofintention and on the exquisite provisions which were to be found inevery syllable--thus leading us up to the highest pitch ofexpectation--would he present us with such an impotent conclusion asthat the designer, though a living person and a true designer, was yetimmaterial and intangible, a something, in fact, which proves to be anothing: an omniscient and omnipotent vacuum. 

Our observer would feel he need not have been at such pains to establishhis design if this was to be the upshot of his reasoning. He wouldtherefore admit the design, and by consequence the designer, but wouldprobably ask a little time for reflection before he ventured to say who, or what, or where the designer was. Then gaining some insight into themanner in which the deed had been drawn, he would conclude that thedraftsman was a specialist who had had long practice in this particularkind of work, but who now worked almost as it might be saidautomatically and without consciousness, and found it difficult todepart from a habitual method of procedure. 

We turn, then, on Paley, and say to him: "We have admitted your designand your designer. Where is he? Show him to us. If you cannot show himto us as flesh and blood, show him as flesh and sap; show him as aliving cell; show him as protoplasm. Lower than this we should notfairly go; it is not in the bond or _nexus_ of our ideas that somethingutterly inanimate and inorganic should scheme, design, contrive, andelaborate structures which can make mistakes: it may elaborate lowunerring things, like crystals, but it cannot elaborate those which havethe power to err. Nevertheless, we will commit such abuse with ourunderstandings as to waive this point, and we will ask you to show himto us as air which, if it cannot be seen, yet can be felt, weighed, handled, transferred from place to place, be judged by its effects, andso forth; or if this may not be, give us half a grain of hydrogen, diffused through all space and invested with some of the minorattributes of matter; or if you cannot do this, give us an imponderablelike electricity, or even the higher mathematics, but give us somethingor throw off the mask and tell us fairly out that it is your paidprofession to hoodwink us on this matter if you can, and that you arebut doing your best to earn an honest living. "

We may fancy Paley as turning the tables upon us and as saying: "But youtoo have admitted a designer--you too then must mean a designer with abody and soul, who must be somewhere to be found in space, and who mustlive in time. Where is this your designer? Can you show him more than Ican? Can you lay your finger on him and demonstrate him so that a childshall see him and know him, and find what was heretofore an isolatedidea concerning him, combine itself instantaneously with the idea of thedesigner, we will say, of the human foot, so that no power on earthshall henceforth tear those two ideas asunder? Surely if you cannot dothis, you too are trifling with words, and abusing your own mind andthat of your reader. Where, then, is your designer of man? Who made him?And where, again, is your designer of beasts and birds, of fishes, andof plants?"

Our answer is simple enough; it is that we can and do point to a livingtangible person with flesh, blood, eyes, nose, ears, organs, senses, dimensions, who did of his own cunning after infinite proof of everykind of hazard and experiment scheme out, and fashion each organ of thehuman body. This is the person whom we claim as the designer andartificer of that body, and he is the one of all others the best fittedfor the task by his antecedents, and his practical knowledge of therequirements of the case--for he is man himself. 

Not man, the individual of any given generation, but man in the entiretyof his existence from the dawn of life onwards to the present moment. Inlike manner we say that the designer of all organisms is so incorporatewith the organisms themselves--so lives, moves, and has its being inthose organisms, and is so one with them--they in it, and it inthem--that it is more consistent with reason and the common use ofwords to see the designer of each living form in the living form itself, than to look for its designer in some other place or person. 

Thus we have a third alternative presented to us. 

Mr. Charles Darwin and his followers deny design, as having anyappreciable share in the formation of organism at all. 

Paley and the theologians insist on design, but upon a designer outsidethe universe and the organism. 

The third opinion is that suggested in the first instance, and carriedout to a very high degree of development by Buffon. It was improved, and, indeed, made almost perfect by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, but too muchneglected by him after he had put it forward. It was borrowed, as Ithink we may say with some confidence, from Dr. Darwin by Lamarck, andwas followed up by him ardently thenceforth, during the remainder of hislife, though somewhat less perfectly comprehended by him than it hadbeen by Dr. Darwin. It is that the design which has designed organisms, has resided within, and been embodied in, the organisms themselves. 

With but a very little change in the present signification of words, thequestion resolves itself into this. 

Shall we see God henceforth as embodied in all living forms; as dwellingin them; as being that power in them whereby they have learnt to fashionthemselves, each one according to its ideas of its own convenience, andto make itself not only a microcosm, or little world, but a littleunwritten history of the universe from its own point of view into thebargain? From everlasting, in time past, only in so far as life haslasted; invisible, only in so far as the ultimate connection between thewill to do and the thing which does is invisible; imperishable, only inso far as life as a whole is imperishable; omniscient and omnipotent, within the limits only of a very long and large experience, but ignorantand impotent in respect of all else--limited in all the above respects, yet even so incalculably vaster than anything that we can conceive?

Or shall we see God as we were taught to say we saw him when we werechildren--as an artificial and violent attempt to combine ideas whichfly asunder and asunder, no matter how often we try to force them intocombination?

"The true mainspring of our existence, " says Buffon, "lies not in thosemuscles, veins, arteries, and nerves, which have been described with somuch minuteness, it is to be found in the more hidden forces which arenot bounden by the gross mechanical laws which we would fain set overthem. Instead of trying to know these forces by their effects, we haveendeavoured to uproot even their very idea, so as to banish them utterlyfrom philosophy. But they return to us and with renewed vigour; theyreturn to us in gravitation, in chemical affinity, in the phenomena ofelectricity, &c. Their existence rests upon the clearest evidence; theomnipresence of their action is indisputable, but that action is hiddenaway from our eyes, and is a matter of inference only; we cannotactually see them, therefore we find difficulty in admitting that theyexist; we wish to judge of everything by its exterior; we imagine thatthe exterior is the whole, and deeming that it is not permitted us togo beyond it, we neglect all that may enable us to do so. "[22]

Or may we not say that the unseen parts of God are those deep buriedhistories, the antiquity and the repeatedness of which go as far beyondthat of any habit handed down to us from our earliest protoplasmicancestor, as the distance of the remotest star in space transcends ourdistance from the sun?

By vivisection and painful introspection we can rediscover many a longburied history--rekindling that sense of novelty in respect of itsaction, whereby we can alone become aware of it. But there are otherremoter histories, and more repeated thoughts and actions, before whichwe feel so powerless to reawaken fresh interest concerning them, that wegive up the attempt in despair, and bow our heads, overpowered by thesense of their immensity. Thus our inability to comprehend God iscoextensive with our difficulty in going back upon the past--and oursense of him is a dim perception of our own vast and now inconceivablyremote history. 

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Quatrefages, 'Metamorphoses de l'Homme et des Animaux, ' 1862, p. 42; G. H. Lewes, 'Physical Basis of Mind, ' 1877, p. 83. 

[22] Tom. Ii. P. 486, 1794. 

CHAPTER IV. 

FAILURE OF THE FIRST EVOLUTIONISTS TO SEE THEIR POSITION ASTELEOLOGICAL. 

It follows necessarily from the doctrine of Dr. Erasmus Darwin andLamarck, if not from that of Buffon himself, that the greater number oforgans are as purposive to the evolutionist as to the theologian, andfar more intelligibly so. Circumstances, however, prevented thesewriters from acknowledging this fact to the world, and perhaps even tothemselves. Their _crux_ was, as it still is to so many evolutionists, the presence of rudimentary organs, and the processes of embryologicaldevelopment. They would not admit that rudimentary and therefore uselessorgans were designed by a Creator to take their place once and for everas part of a scheme whose main idea was, that every animal structure wasto serve some useful end in connection with its possessor. 

This was the doctrine of final causes as then commonly held; in the faceof rudimentary organs it was absurd. Buffon was above all things else aplain matter of fact thinker, who refused to go far beyond the obvious. Like all other profound writers, he was, if I may say so, profoundlysuperficial. He felt that the aim of research does not consist in theknowing this or that, but in the easing of the desire to know orunderstand more completely--in the peace of mind which passeth allunderstanding. His was the perfection of a healthy mental organism bywhich over effort is felt instinctively to be as vicious andcontemptible as indolence. He knew this too well to know the grounds ofhis knowledge, but we smaller people who know it less completely, cansee that such felicitous instinctive tempering together of the two greatcontradictory principles, love of effort and love of ease, has underlainevery step of all healthy growth through all conceivable time. Nothingis worth looking at which is seen either too obviously or with too muchdifficulty. Nothing is worth doing or well done which is not done fairlyeasily, and some little deficiency of effort is more pardonable than anyvery perceptible excess; for virtue has ever erred rather on the side ofself-indulgence than of asceticism, and well-being has ever advancedthrough the pleasures rather than through austerity. 

According to Buffon, then--as also according to Dr. Darwin, who was justsuch another practical and genial thinker, and who was distinctly apupil of Buffon, though a most intelligent and original one--if an organafter a reasonable amount of inspection appeared to be useless, it wasto be called useless without more ado, and theories were to be orderedout of court if they were troublesome. In like manner, if animals bredfreely _inter se_ before our eyes, as for example the horse and ass, thefact was to be noted, but no animals were to be classed as capable ofinterbreeding until they had asserted their right to such classificationby breeding with tolerable certainty. If, again, an animal looked as ifit felt, that is to say, if it moved about pretty quickly or made anoise, it must be held to feel; if it did neither of these things, itdid not look as if it felt and therefore it must be said not to feel. _De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est lex_ was one of thechief axioms of their philosophy; no writers have had a greater horrorof mystery or of ideas that have not become so mastered as to be, or tohave been, superficial. Lamarck was one of those men of whom I believeit has been said that they have brain upon the brain. He had his theorythat an animal could not feel unless it had a nervous system, and atleast a spinal marrow--and that it could not think at all without abrain--all his facts, therefore, have to be made to square with this. With Buffon and Dr. Darwin we feel safe that however wrong they maysometimes be, their conclusions have always been arrived at on thatfairly superficial view of things in which, as I have elsewhere said, our nature alone permits us to be comforted. 

To these writers, then, the doctrine of final causes for rudimentaryorgans was a piece of mystification and an absurdity; no less fatal toany such doctrine were the processes of embryological development. Itwas plain that the commonly received teleology must be given up; but theidea of design or purpose was so associated in their minds withtheological design that they avoided it altogether. They seem to haveforgotten that an internal teleology is as much teleology as an externalone; hence, unfortunately, though their whole theory of development isintensely purposive, it is the fact rather than the name of teleologywhich has hitherto been insisted upon, even by the greatest writers onevolution--the name having been denied even by those who were mostinsisting on the thing itself. 

It is easy to understand the difficulty felt by the fathers of evolutionwhen we remember how much had to be seen before the facts could lie wellbefore them. It was necessary to attain, firstly, to a perception of theunity of person between parents and offspring in successive generations;secondly, it must be seen that an organism's memory goes back forgenerations beyond its birth, to the first beginnings in fact, of whichwe know anything whatever; thirdly, the latency of that memory, as ofmemory generally till the associated ideas are reproduced, must bebrought to bear upon the facts of heredity; and lastly, theunconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be performed, mustbe assigned as the explanation of the unconsciousness with which we growand discharge most of our natural functions. 

Buffon was too busy with the fact that animals descended withmodification at all, to go beyond the development and illustration ofthis great truth. I doubt whether he ever saw more than the first, andthat dimly, of the four considerations above stated. 

Dr. Darwin was the first to point out the first two considerations withsome clearness, but he can hardly be said to have understood their fullimportance: the two latter ideas do not appear to have occurred to him. 

Lamarck had little if any perception of any one of the four. When, however, they are firmly seized and brought into their due bearings oneupon another, the facts of heredity become as simple as those of a manmaking a tobacco pipe, and rudimentary organs are seen to be essentiallyof the same character as the little rudimentary protuberance at thebottom of the pipe to which I referred in 'Erewhon. '[23]

These organs are now no longer useful, but they once were so, and weretherefore once purposive, though not so now. They are the expressions ofa bygone usefulness; sayings, as it were, about which there was at onetime infinite wrangling, as to what both the meaning and the expressionshould best be, so that they then had living significance in the mouthsof those who used them, though they have become such mere shibbolethsand cant formulæ to ourselves that we think no more of their meaningthan we do of Julius Cæsar in the month of July. They continue to bereproduced through the force of habit, and through indisposition to getout of any familiar groove of action until it becomes too unpleasant forus to remain in it any longer. It has long been felt that embryology andrudimentary structures indicated community of descent. Dr. Darwin andLamarck insisted on this, as have all subsequent writers on evolution;but the explanation of why and how the structures come to berepeated--namely, that they are simply examples of the force ofhabit--can only be perceived intelligently by those who admit so muchunity between parents and offspring that the self-development of thelatter can be properly called habitual (as being a repetition of an actby one and the same individual), and can only be fully sympathized withby those who recognize that if habit be admitted as the key to the factat all, the unconscious manner in which the habit comes to be repeatedis only of a piece with all our other observations concerning habit. Forthe fuller development of the foregoing, I must refer the reader to mywork 'Life and Habit. '

The purposiveness, which even Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck still less, seemnever to have quite recognized in spite of their having insisted so muchon what amounts to the same thing, now comes into full view. It is seenthat the organs external to the body, and those internal to it are, thesecond as much as the first, things which we have made for our ownconvenience, and with a prevision that we shall have need of them; themain difference between the manufacture of these two classes of organsbeing, that we have made the one kind so often that we can no longerfollow the processes whereby we make them, while the others are newthings which we must make introspectively or not at all, and which arenot yet so incorporate with our vitality as that we should think theygrow instead of being manufactured. The manufacture of the tool, and themanufacture of the living organ prove therefore to be but two species ofthe same genus, which, though widely differentiated, have descended asit were from one common filament of desire and inventive faculty. Thegreater or less complexity of the organs goes for very little. It isonly a question of the amount of intelligence and voluntaryself-adaptation which we must admit, and this must be settled rather byan appeal to what we find in organism, and observe concerning it, thanby what we may have imagined _à priori_. 

Given a small speck of jelly with some kind of circumstance-suitingpower, some power of slightly varying its actions in accordance withslightly varying circumstances and desires--given such a jelly-speckwith a power of assimilating other matter, and thus, of reproducingitself, given also that it should be possessed of a memory, and we canshow how the whole animal world can have descended it may be from anamoeba without interference from without, and how every organ in everycreature is designed at first roughly and tentatively but finallyfashioned with the most consummate perfection, by the creature which hashad need of that organ, which best knew what it wanted, and was neversatisfied till it had got that which was the best suited to its varyingcircumstances in their entirety. We can even show how, if it becomesworth the Ethiopian's while to try and change his skin, or the leopard'sto change his spots, they can assuredly change them within a notunreasonable time and adapt their covering to their own will andconvenience, and to that of none other; thus what is commonly conceivedof as direct creation by God is moved back to a time and spaceinconceivable in their remoteness, while the aim and design so obviousin nature are shown to be still at work around us, growing ever busierand busier, and advancing from day to day both in knowledge and power. 

It was reserved for Mr. Darwin and for those who have too rashlyfollowed him to deny purpose as having had any share in the developmentof animal and vegetable organs; to see no evidence of design in thosewonderful provisions which have been the marvel and delight of observersin all ages. The one who has drawn our attention more than perhaps anyother living writer to those very marvels of coadaptation, is theforemost to maintain that they are the result not of desire and design, either within the creature or without it, but of blind chance, workingno whither, and due but to the accumulation of innumerable luckyaccidents. 

"There are men, " writes Professor Tyndall in the 'Nineteenth Century, 'for last November, "and by no means the minority, who, however wealthyin regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; andthey are sometimes intolerant of those that can. They are formed to plodmeritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of thepinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realize the mentalact--the act of inspiration it might well be called--by which a man ofgenius, after long pondering and proving, reaches a theoretic conceptionwhich unravels and illuminates the tangle of centuries of observationand experiment. There are minds, it may be said in passing, who, at thepresent moment, stand in this relation to Mr. Darwin. "

The more rhapsodical parts of the above must go for what they are worth, but I should be sorry to think that what remains conveyed a censurewhich might fall justly on myself. As I read the earlier part of thepassage I confess that I imagined the conclusion was going to be verydifferent from what it proved to be. Fresh from the study of the oldermen and also of Mr. Darwin himself, I failed to see that Mr. Darwin had"unravelled and illuminated" a tangled skein, but believed him, on thecontrary, to have tangled and obscured what his predecessors had made ingreat part, if not wholly, plain. With the older writers, I had felt asthough in the hands of men who wished to understand themselves and tomake their reader understand them with the smallest possible exertion. The older men, if not in full daylight, at any rate saw in what quarterof the sky the dawn was breaking, and were looking steadily towards it. It is not they who have put their hands over their own eyes and ours, and who are crying out that there is no light, but chance and blindnesseverywhere. 

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Page 210, first edition. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE TELEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF ORGANISM--THE PHILOSOPHY OF THEUNCONSCIOUS. 

I have stated the foregoing in what I take to be an extreme logicaldevelopment, in order that the reader may more easily perceive theconsequences of those premises which I am endeavouring to re-establish. But it must not be supposed that an animal or plant has ever conceivedthe idea of some organ widely different from any it was yet possessedof, and has set itself to design it in detail and grow towards it. 

The small jelly-speck, which we call the amoeba, has no organs savewhat it can extemporize as occasion arises. If it wants to get atanything, it thrusts out part of its jelly, which thus serves it as anarm or hand: when the arm has served its purpose, it is absorbed intothe rest of the jelly, and has now to do the duty of a stomach byhelping to wrap up what it has just purveyed. The small roundjelly-speck spreads itself out and envelops its food, so that the wholecreature is now a stomach, and nothing but a stomach. Having digestedits food, it again becomes a jelly-speck, and is again ready to turnpart of itself into hand or foot as its next convenience may dictate. Itis not to be believed that such a creature as this, which is probablyjust sensitive to light and nothing more, should be able to form aconception of an eye and set itself to work to grow one, any more thanit is believable that he who first observed the magnifying power of adew drop, or even he who first constructed a rude lens, should have hadany idea in his mind of Lord Rosse's telescope with all its parts andappliances. Nothing could be well conceived more foreign to experienceand common sense. Animals and plants have travelled to their presentforms as man has travelled to any one of his own most complicatedinventions. Slowly, step by step, through many blunders and mischanceswhich have worked together for good to those that have persevered inelasticity. They have travelled as man has travelled, with but littleperception of a want till there was also some perception of a power, andwith but little perception of a power till there was a dim sense ofwant; want stimulating power, and power stimulating want; and both sobased upon each other that no one can say which is the true foundation, but rather that they must be both baseless and, as it were, meteoric inmid air. They have seen very little ahead of a present power or need, and have been then most moral, when most inclined to pierce a littleinto futurity, but also when most obstinately declining to pierce toofar, and busy mainly with the present. They have been so far blindfoldedthat they could see but for a few steps in front of them, yet so farfree to see that those steps were taken with aim and definitely, and notin the dark. 

"Plus il a su, " says Buffon, speaking of man, "plus il a pu, mais aussimoins il a fait, moins il a su. " This holds good wherever life holdsgood. Wherever there is life there is a moral government of rewards andpunishments understood by the amoeba neither better nor worse than byman. The history of organic development is the history of a moralstruggle. 

We know nothing as yet about the origin of a creature able to feel wantand power, nor yet what want and power spring from. It does not seemworth while to go into these questions until an understanding has beencome to as to whether the interaction of want and power in some low formor forms of life which could assimilate matter, reproduce themselves, vary their actions, and be capable of remembering, will or will notsuffice to explain the development of the varied organs and desireswhich we see in the higher vertebrates and man. When this question hasbeen settled, then it will be time to push our inquiries farther back. 

But given such a low form of life as here postulated, and there is noforce in Paley's pretended objection to the Darwinism of his time. 

"Give our philosopher, " he says, "appetencies; give him a portion ofliving irritable matter (a nerve or the clipping of a nerve) to workupon; give also to his incipient or progressive forms the power ofpropagating their like in every stage of their alteration; and if he isto be believed, he could replenish the world with all the vegetable andanimal productions which we now see in it. "[24]

After meeting this theory with answers which need not detain us, hecontinues:--

"The senses of animals appear to me quite incapable of receiving theexplanation of their origin which this theory affords. Including underthe word 'sense' the organ and the perception, we have no account ofeither. How will our philosopher get at vision or make an eye? Or, suppose the eye formed, would the perception follow? The same of theother senses. And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you willto the hand of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow to beobserved by man, or brought within any comparison which he is able tomake of past things with the present. Concede what you please to thesearbitrary and unattested superstitions, how will they help you? Here isno inception. No laws, no course, no powers of nature which prevail atpresent, nor any analogous to these would give commencement to a newsense; and it is in vain to inquire how that might proceed which wouldnever _begin_. "

In answer to this, let us suppose that some inhabitants of another worldwere to see a modern philosopher so using a microscope that they shouldbelieve it to be a part of the philosopher's own person, which he couldcut off from and join again to himself at pleasure, and suppose therewere a controversy as to how this microscope had originated, and thatone party maintained the man had made it little by little because hewanted it, while the other declared this to be absurd and impossible; Iask, would this latter party be justified in arguing that microscopescould never have been perfected by degrees through the preservation ofand accumulation of small successive improvements, inasmuch as mencould not have begun to want to use microscopes until they had had amicroscope which should show them that such an instrument would beuseful to them, and that hence there is nothing to account for the_beginning_ of microscopes, which might indeed make some progress whenonce originated, but which could never originate?

It might be pointed out to such a reasoner, firstly, that as regards anyacquired power the various stages in the acquisition of which he mightbe supposed able to remember, he would find that, logic notwithstanding, the wish did originate the power, and yet was originated by it, bothcoming up gradually out of something which was not recognisable aseither power or wish, and advancing through vain beating of the air, toa vague effort, and from this to definite effort with failure, and fromthis to definite effort with success, and from this to success withlittle consciousness of effort, and from this to success with suchcomplete absence of effort that he now acts unconsciously and withoutpower of introspection, and that, do what he will, he can rarely ornever draw a sharp dividing line whereat anything shall be said tobegin, though none less certain that there has been a continuity indiscontinuity, and a discontinuity in continuity between it and certainother past things; moreover, that his opponents postulated so muchbeginning of the microscope as that there should be a dew drop, even asour evolutionists start with a sense of touch, of which sense all theothers are modifications, so that not one of them but is resolvable intotouch by more or less easy stages; and secondly, that the question isone of fact and of the more evident deductions therefrom, and should notbe carried back to those remote beginnings where the nature of the factsis so purely a matter of conjecture and inference. 

No plant or animal, then, according to our view, would be able toconceive more than a very slight improvement on its organization at agiven time, so clearly as to make the efforts towards it that wouldresult in growth of the required modification; nor would these effortsbe made with any far-sighted perception of what next and next and after, but only of what next; while many of the happiest thoughts would comelike all other happy thoughts--thoughtlessly; by a chain of reasoningtoo swift and subtle for conscious analysis by the individual, as willbe more fully insisted on hereafter. Some of these modifications wouldbe noticeable, but the majority would involve no more noticeabledifference than can be detected between the length of the shortest day, and that of the shortest but one. 

Thus a bird whose toes were not webbed, but who had under force ofcircumstances little by little in the course of many generations learnedto swim, either from having lived near a lake, and having learnt the artowing to its fishing habits, or from wading about in shallow pools bythe sea-side at low water, and finding itself sometimes a little out ofits depth and just managing to scramble over the intermediate yard or sobetween it and safety--such a bird did not probably conceive the idea ofswimming on the water and set itself to learn to do so, and thenconceive the idea of webbed feet and set itself to get webbed feet. Thebird found itself in some small difficulty, out of which it either saw, or at any rate found that it could extricate itself by striking outvigorously with its feet and extending its toes as far as ever it could;it thus began to learn the art of swimming and conceived the idea ofswimming synchronously, or nearly so; or perhaps wishing to get over ayard or two of deep water, and trying to do so without being at thetrouble of rising to fly, it would splash and struggle its way over thewater, and thus practically swim, though without much perception of whatit had been doing. Finding that no harm had come to it, the bird woulddo the same again, and again; it would thus presently lose fear, andwould be able to act more calmly; then it would begin to find out thatit could swim a little, and if its food lay much in the water so that itwould be of great advantage to it to be able to alight and rest withoutbeing forced to return to land, it would begin to make a practice ofswimming. It would now discover that it could swim the more easilyaccording as its feet presented a more extended surface to the water; itwould therefore keep its toes extended whenever it swam, and as far asin it lay, would make the most of whatever skin was already at the baseof its toes. After very many generations it would become web-footed, ifdoing as above described should have been found continuously convenient, so that the bird should have continuously used the skin about its toesas much as possible in this direction. 

For there is a margin in every organic structure (and perhaps more thanwe imagine in things inorganic also), which will admit of references, as it were, side notes, and glosses upon the original text. It is onthis margin that we may err or wander--the greatness of a mistakedepending rather upon the extent of the departure from the originaltext, than on the direction that the departure takes. A little error onthe bad side is more pardonable, and less likely to hurt the organismthan a too great departure upon the right one. This is a fundamentalproposition in any true system of ethics, the question what is too muchor too sudden being decided by much the same higgling as settles theprice of butter in a country market, and being as invisible as the linkwhich connects the last moment of desire with the first of power andperformance, and with the material result achieved. 

It is on this margin that the fulcrum is to be found, whereby we obtainthe little purchase over our structure, that enables us to achieve greatresults if we use it steadily, with judgment, and with neither toolittle effort nor too much. It is by employing this that those who havea fancy to move their ears or toes without moving other organs learn todo so. There is a man at the Agricultural Hall now playing the violinwith his toes, and playing it, as I am told, sufficiently well. The eyeof the sailor, the wrist of the conjuror, the toe of the professionalmedium, are all found capable of development to an astonishing degree, even in a single lifetime; but in every case success has been attainedby the simple process of making the best of whatever power a man has hadat any given time, and by being on the look out to take advantage ofaccident, and even of misfortune. If a man would learn to paint, he mustnot theorize concerning art, nor think much what he would do beforehand, but he must do _something_--it does not matter what, except that itshould be whatever at the moment will come handiest and easiest to him;and he must do that something as well as he can. This will presentlyopen the door for something else, and a way will show itself which noconceivable amount of searching would have discovered, but which yetcould never have been discovered by sitting still and taking no pains atall. "Dans l'animal, " says Buffon, "il y a moins de jugement que desentiment. "[25]

It may appear as though this were blowing hot and cold with the samebreath, inasmuch as I am insisting that important modifications ofstructure have been always purposive; and at the same time am denyingthat the creature modified has had any purpose in the greater part ofall those actions which have at length modified both structure andinstinct. Thus I say that a bird learns to swim without having anypurpose of learning to swim before it set itself to make those movementswhich have resulted in its being able to do so. At the same time Imaintain that it has only learned to swim by trying to swim, and thisinvolves the very purpose which I have just denied. The reconciliationof these two apparently irreconcilable contentions must be found in theconsideration that the bird was not the less trying to swim, merelybecause it did not know the name we have chosen to give to the artwhich it was trying to master, nor yet how great were the resources ofthat art. A person, who knew all about swimming, if from some bank hecould watch our supposed bird's first attempt to scramble over a shortspace of deep water, would at once declare that the bird was trying toswim--if not actually swimming. Provided then that there is a verylittle perception of, and prescience concerning, the means whereby thenext desired end may be attained, it matters not how little in advancethat end may be of present desires or faculties; it is still reachedthrough purpose, and must be called purposive. Again, no matter how manyof these small steps be taken, nor how absolute was the want of purposeor prescience concerning any but the one being actually taken at anygiven moment, this does not bar the result from having been arrived atthrough design and purpose. If each one of the small steps is purposivethe result is purposive, though there was never purpose extended overmore than one, two, or perhaps at most three, steps at a time. 

Returning to the art of painting for an example, are we to say that theproficiency which such a student as was supposed above will certainlyattain, is not due to design, merely because it was not until he hadalready become three parts excellent that he knew the full purport ofall that he had been doing? When he began he had but vague notions ofwhat he would do. He had a wish to learn to represent nature, but theline into which he has settled down has probably proved very differentfrom that which he proposed to himself originally. Because he has takenadvantage of his accidents, is it, therefore, one whit the less truethat his success is the result of his desires and his design? The'Times' pointed out not long ago that the theory which now associatesmeteors and comets in the most unmistakable manner, was suggested by oneaccident, and confirmed by another. But the writer added well that "suchaccidents happen only to the zealous student of nature's secrets. " Inthe same way the bird that is taking to the habit of swimming, and ofmaking the most of whatever skin it already has between its toes, willhave doubtless to thank accidents for no small part of its progress; butthey will be such accidents as could never have happened to, or beentaken advantage of by any creature which was not zealously trying tomake the most of itself--and between such accidents as this, and design, the line is hard to draw; for if we go deep enough we shall find thatmost of our design resolves itself into as it were a shaking of the bagto see what will come out that will suit our purpose, and yet at thesame time that most of our shaking of the bag resolves itself into adesign that the bag shall contain only such and such things, orthereabouts. 

Again, the fact that animals are no longer conscious ofdesign and purpose in much that they do, but act unreflectingly, and as we sometimes say concerning ourselves "automatically" or"mechanically"--that they have no idea whatever of the steps wherebythey have travelled to their present state, and show no sign of doubtabout what must have been at one time the subject of all manner ofdoubts, difficulties, and discussions--that whatever sign of reflectionthey now exhibit is to be found only in case of some novel feature ordifficulty presenting itself; these facts do not bar that the resultsachieved should be attributed to an inception in reason, design, andpurpose, no matter how rapidly and as we call it instinctively, thecreatures may now act. 

For if we look closely at such an invention as the steam engine in itslatest and most complicated developments, about which there can be nodispute but that they are achievements of reason, purpose, and design, we shall find them present us with examples of all those features thepresence of which in the handiwork of animals is too often held to barreason and purpose from having had any share therein. 

Assuredly such men as the Marquis of Worcester and Captain Savery hadvery imperfect ideas as to the upshot of their own action. The simpleststeam engine now in use in England is probably a marvel of ingenuity ascompared with the highest development which appeared possible to thesetwo great men, while our newest and most highly complicated engineswould seem to them more like living beings than machines. Many, again, of the steps leading to the present development have been due to actionwhich had but little heed of the steam engine, being the inventions ofattendants whose desire was to save themselves the trouble of turningthis or that cock, and who were indifferent to any other end than theirown immediate convenience. No step in fact along the whole route wasever taken with much perception of what would be the next step after theone being taken at any given moment. 

Nor do we find that an engine made after any old and well-known patternis now made with much more consciousness of design than we can suppose abird's nest to be built with. The greater number of the parts of anysuch engine, are made by the gross as it were like screws and nuts, which are turned out by machinery and in respect of which the labour ofdesign is now no more felt than is the design of him who first inventedthe wheel. It is only when circumstances require any modification in thearticle to be manufactured that thought and design will come into playagain; but I take it few will deny that if circumstances compel a birdeither to give up a nest three-parts built altogether, or to make sometrifling deviation from its ordinary practice, it will in nine cases outof ten make such deviation as shall show that it had thought the matterover, and had on the whole concluded to take such and such a course, that is to say, that it had reasoned and had acted with such purpose asits reason had dictated. 

And I imagine that this is the utmost that anyone can claim even forman's own boasted powers. Set the man who has been accustomed to makeengines of one type, to make engines of another type without anyintermediate course of training or instruction, and he will make nobetter figure with his engines than a thrush would do if commanded byher mate to make a nest like a blackbird. It is vain then to contendthat the ease and certainty with which an action is performed, eventhough it may have now become matter of such fixed habit that it cannotbe suddenly and seriously modified without rendering the wholeperformance abortive, is any argument against that action having been anachievement of design and reason in respect of each one of the stepsthat have led to it; and if in respect of each one of the steps then asregards the entire action; for we see our own most reasoned actionsbecome no less easy, unerring, automatic, and unconscious, than theactions which we call instinctive when they have been repeated asufficient number of times. 

This has been often pointed out, but I insisted upon it and developed itin 'Life and Habit, ' more I believe than has been done hitherto, at thesame time making it the key to many phenomena of growth and hereditywhich without such key seem explained by words rather than by anycorresponding peace of mind in our ideas concerning them. Seeing that Idwelt much on the importance of bearing in mind the vanishing tendencyof consciousness, volition, and memory upon their becoming intense, atendency which no one after five minutes' reflection will venture todeny, some reviewers have imagined that I am advocating the same viewsas have been put forward by Von Hartmann under the title of 'thePhilosophy of the Unconscious. ' Unless, however, I am much mistaken, their opinion is without foundation. For so far as I can gather, VonHartmann personifies the unconscious and makes it act and think--in factdeifies it--whereas I only infer a certain history for certain of ourgrowths and actions in consequence of observing that often repeatedactions come in time to be performed unconsciously. I cannot think Ihave done more than note a fact which all must acknowledge, and drawnfrom it an inference which may or may not be true, but which is at anyrate perfectly intelligible, whereas if Von Hartmann's meaning isanything like what Mr. Sully says it is, [26] I can only say that it hasnot been given to me to form any definite conception whatever as to whatthat meaning may be. I am encouraged moreover to hope that I am not inthe same condemnation with Von Hartmann--if, indeed, Von Hartmann is tobe condemned, about which I know nothing--by the following extract froma German Review of 'Life and Habit. '

 "Der erste dieser beiden Erklärungsversuche, ist eine wahre 'Philosophie des Unbewussten' nicht des Hartmann'schen Unbewussten welches hellsehend und wunderthätig von aussen in die natürliche Entwickelung der Organismen eingreift, sondern eines Unbewussten welches wie der Verfasser zeigt, in allen organischen Wesen anzunehmen unsere eigene Erfahrung und die Stufenfolge der Organismen von den Moneren und Amoeben bis zu den höchsten Pflanzen und Thieren und uns selbst aufwärts--uns gestattet, wenn nicht uns nöthigt. Der Gedankengang dieser neuen oder wenigstens in diesem Sinne wohl zum ersten Male consequent im Einzelnen durchgeführten Philosophie des Unbewussten ist, seinen Hauptzügen nach kurz angedeutet, folgender. "[27]

Even here I am made to personify more than I like; I do not wish to saythat the unconscious does this or that, but that when we have done thisor that sufficiently often we do it unconsciously. 

If the foregoing be granted, and it be admitted that the unconsciousnessand seeming automatism with which any action may be performed is no barto its having a foundation in memory, reason, and at one timeconsciously recognized effort--and this I believe to be the chiefaddition which I have ventured to make to the theory of Buffon and Dr. Erasmus Darwin--then the wideness of the difference between theDarwinism of eighty years ago and the Darwinism of to-day becomesimmediately apparent, and it also becomes apparent, how important andinteresting is the issue which is raised between them. 

According to the older Darwinism the lungs are just as purposive as thecorkscrew. They, no less than the corkscrew, are a piece of mechanismdesigned and gradually improved upon and perfected by an intelligentcreature for the gratification of its own needs. True there are manyimportant differences between mechanism which is part of the body, andmechanism which is no such part, but the differences are such as do notaffect the fact that in each case the result, whether, for example, lungs or corkscrew, is due to desire, invention, and design. 

And now I will ask one more question, which may seem, perhaps, to havebut little importance, but which I find personally interesting. I havebeen told by a reviewer, of whom upon the whole I have little reason tocomplain, that the theory I put forward in 'Life and Habit, ' and which Iam now again insisting on, is pessimism--pure and simple. I have a veryvague idea what pessimism means, but I should be sorry to believe that Iam a pessimist. Which, I would ask, is the pessimist? He who sees loveof beauty, design, steadfastness of purpose, intelligence, courage, andevery quality to which success has assigned the name of "worth, " ashaving drawn the pattern of every leaf and organ now and in all pasttime, or he who sees nothing in the world of nature but a chapter ofaccidents and of forces interacting blindly?

FOOTNOTES:

[24] 'Nat. Theol. , ' ch. Xxiii. 

[25] 'Oiseaux, ' vol. I. P. 5. 

[26] 'Westminster Review, ' vol. Xlix. P. 124. 

[27] Translation: "The first of these two attempts is a true 'philosophyof the unconscious, ' not Hartmann's unconscious, which influences thenatural evolution of organism from without as though by Providence andmiracle, but of an unconscious, which, as the author shows, our ownexperience and the progressive succession of organisms from the monadsand amoebæ up to the highest plants and animals, including ourselves, allows, if it does not compel us to assume [as obtaining] in all organicbeings. This philosophy of the unconscious is new, or at any rate nowfor the first time carried out consequentially in detail; its mainfeatures, briefly stated are as follows. "

CHAPTER VI. 

SCHEME OF THE REMAINDER OF THE WORK. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE THEORY OFEVOLUTION. 

I have long felt that evolution must stand or fall according as it ismade to rest or not on principles which shall give a definite purposeand direction to the variations whose accumulation results in specific, and ultimately in generic differences. In other words, according as itis made to stand upon the ground first clearly marked out for it by Dr. Erasmus Darwin and afterwards adopted by Lamarck, or on that taken byMr. Charles Darwin. 

There is some reason to fear that in consequence of the disfavour intowhich modern Darwinism is seen to be falling by those who are moreclosely watching the course of opinion upon this subject, evolutionitself may be for a time discredited as something inseparable from thetheory that it has come about mainly through "the means" of naturalselection. If people are shown that the arguments by which a somewhatstartling conclusion has been reached will not legitimately lead to thatconclusion, they are very ready to assume that the conclusion must bealtogether unfounded, especially when, as in the present case, there isa vast mass of vested interests opposed to the conclusion. Few know thatthere are other great works upon descent with modification besides Mr. Darwin's. Not one person in ten thousand has any distinct idea of whatBuffon, Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck propounded. Their names have beendiscredited by the very authors who have been most indebted to them;there is hardly a writer on evolution who does not think it incumbentupon him to warn Lamarck off the ground which he at any rate made hisown, and to cast a stone at what he will call the "shallow speculations"or "crude theories" or the "well-known doctrine" of the foremostexponent of Buffon and Dr. Darwin. Buffon is a great name, Dr. Darwin isno longer even this, and Lamarck has been so systematically laughed atthat it amounts to little less than philosophical suicide for anyone tostand up in his behalf. Not one of our scientific elders or chiefpriests but would caution a student rather to avoid the three great menwhom I have named than to consult them. It is a perilous task thereforeto try and take evolution from the pedestal on which it now appears tostand so securely, and to put it back upon the one raised for it by itspropounders; yet this is what I believe will have to be done sooner orlater unless the now general acceptance of evolution is to be shakenmore rudely than some of its upholders may anticipate. I proposetherefore to give a short biographical sketch of the three writers whoseworks form new departures in the history of evolution, with a somewhatfull _résumé_ of the positions they took in regard to it. I will alsotouch briefly upon some other writers who have handled the same subject. The reader will thus be enabled to follow the development of a greatconception as it has grown up in the minds of successive men of genius, and by thus growing with it, as it were, through its embryonic stages, he will make himself more thoroughly master of it in all its bearings. 

I will then contrast the older with the newer Darwinism, and will showwhy the 'Origin of Species, ' though an episode of incalculable value, cannot, any more than the 'Vestiges of Creation, ' take permanent rank inthe literature of evolution. 

It will appear that the evolution of evolution has gone through thefollowing principal stages:--

I. A general conception of the fact that specific types were not alwaysimmutable. 

This was common to many writers, both ancient and modern; it has beenoccasionally asserted from the times of Anaximander and Lucretius tothose of Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh. 

II. A definite conception that animal and vegetable forms were soextensively mutable that few (and, if so, perhaps but one) could claimto be of an original stock; the direct effect of changed conditionsbeing assigned as the cause of modification, and the importantconsequences of the struggle for existence being in many respects fullyrecognized. The fact of design or purpose in connection with organism, as causing habits and thus as underlying all variation, was alsoindicated with some clearness, but was not thoroughly understood. 

This phase must be identified with the name of Buffon, who, as I willshow reason for believing, would have carried his theory much further ifhe had not felt that he had gone as far in the right direction as wasthen desirable. Buffon put forward his opinions, with great reserve andyet with hardly less frankness, in volume after volume from 1749 to1788, the year of his death, but they do not appear to have taken rootat once in France. They took root in England, and were thencetransplanted back to France. 

III. A development in England of the Buffonian system, marked byglimpses of the unity between offspring and parents, and broadsuggestions to the effect that the former must be considered as capableof remembering, under certain circumstances, what had happened to it, and what it did, when it was part of the personality of those from whomit had descended. 

A definite belief, openly expressed, that not only are many speciesmutable, but that all living forms, whether animal or vegetable, aredescended from a single, or at any rate from not many, original lowforms of life, and this as the direct consequence of the actions andrequirements of the living forms themselves, and as the indirectconsequence of changed conditions. A definite cause is thus supposed tounderlie variations, and the resulting adaptations become purposive; butthis was not said, nor, I am afraid, seen. 

This is the original Darwinism of Dr. Erasmus Darwin. It was put forwardin his 'Zoonomia, ' in 1794, and was adopted almost in its entirety byLamarck, who, when he had caught the leading idea (probably through aFrench translation of the 'Loves of the Plants, ' which appeared in1800), began to expound it in 1801; in 1802, 1803, 1806, and 1809, hedeveloped it with greater fulness of detail than Dr. Darwin had done, but perhaps with a somewhat less nice sense of some important points. Till his death, in 1831, Lamarck, as far as age and blindness wouldpermit, continued to devote himself to the exposition of the theory ofdescent with modification. 

IV. A more distinct perception of the unity of parents and offspring, with a bolder reference of the facts of heredity (whether of structureor instinct), to memory pure and simple; a clearer perception of theconsequences that follow from the survival of the fittest, and a justview of the relation in which those consequences stand to "thecircumstance-suiting" power of animals and plants; a reference of thevariations whose accumulation results in species, to the volition of theanimal or plant which varies, and perhaps a dawning perception that alladaptations of structure to need must therefore be considered as"purposive. "

This must be connected with Mr. Matthew's work on 'Naval Timber andArboriculture, ' which appeared in 1831. The remarks which it contains inreference to evolution are confined to an appendix, but when broughttogether, as by Mr. Matthew himself, in the 'Gardeners' Chronicle' forApril 7, 1860, they form one of the most perfect yet succinctexpositions of the theory of evolution that I have ever seen. I shalltherefore give them in full. [28] This book was well received, and wasreviewed in the 'Quarterly Review, '[29] but seems to have been valuedrather for its views on naval timber than on evolution. Mr. Matthew'smerit lies in a just appreciation of the importance of each one of theprincipal ideas which must be present in combination before we can havea correct conception of evolution, and of their bearings upon oneanother. In his scheme of evolution I find each part kept in duesubordination to the others, so that the whole theory becomes morecoherent and better articulated than I have elsewhere found it; but I donot detect any important addition to the ideas which Dr. Darwin andLamarck had insisted upon. 

I pass over the 'Vestiges of Creation, ' which should be mentioned onlyas having, as Mr. Charles Darwin truly says, "done excellent service inthis country, in calling attention to this subject, in removingprejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception ofanalogous views. "[30] The work neither made any addition to ideas whichhad been long familiar, nor arranged old ones in a satisfactory manner. Such as it is, it is Dr. Darwin and Lamarck, but Dr. Darwin and Lamarckspoiled. The first edition appeared in 1844. 

I also pass over Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire's 'Natural History, ' whichappeared 1854-62, and the position of which is best described by callingit intermediate between the one which Buffon thought fit to pretend totake, and that actually taken by Lamarck. The same may be said also ofÉtienne Geoffroy. I will, however, just touch upon these writers lateron. 

A short notice, again, will suffice for the opinions of Goethe, Treviranus, and Oken, none of whom can I discover as having originatedany important new idea; but knowing no German, I have taken thisopinion from the résumé of each of these writers, given by ProfessorHaeckel in his 'History of Creation. '

V. A time of retrogression, during which we find but little apparentappreciation of the unity between parents and offspring; no reference tomemory in connection with heredity, whether of instinct or structure; anexaggerated view of the consequences which may be deduced from the factthat the fittest commonly survive in the struggle for existence; thedenial of any known principle as underlying variations; comparativelylittle appreciation of the circumstance-suiting power of plants andanimals, and a rejection of purposiveness. By far the most importantexponent of this phase of opinion concerning evolution is Mr. CharlesDarwin, to whom, however, we are more deeply indebted than to any otherliving writer for the general acceptance of evolution in one shape oranother. The 'Origin of Species' appeared in 1859, the same year, thatis to say, as the second volume of Isidore Geoffroy's 'HistoireNaturelle Générale. '

VI. A reaction against modern Darwinism, with a demand for definitepurpose and design as underlying variations. The best known writers whohave taken this line are the Rev. J. J. Murphy and Professor Mivart, whose 'Habit and intelligence' and 'Genesis of Species' appeared in 1869and 1871 respectively. In Germany Professor Hering has revived the ideaof memory as explaining the phenomena of heredity satisfactorily, without probably having been more aware that it had been advancedalready than I was myself when I put it forward recently in 'Life andHabit. ' I have never seen the lecture in which Professor Hering hasreferred the phenomena of heredity to memory, but will give an extractfrom it which appeared in the 'Athenæum, ' as translated by Professor RayLankester. [31] The only new feature which I believe I may claim to haveadded to received ideas concerning evolution, is a perception of thefact that the unconsciousness with which we go through our embryonic andinfantile stages, and with which we discharge the greater number andmore important of our natural functions, is of a piece with what weobserve concerning all habitual actions, as well as concerning memory;an explanation of the phenomena of old age; and of the main principlewhich underlies longevity. I may, perhaps, claim also to have more fullyexplained the passage of reason into instinct than I yet know of itshaving been explained elsewhere. [32]

FOOTNOTES:

[28] See ch. Xviii. Of this volume. 

[29] Vol. Xlix. P. 125. 

[30] 'Origin of Species, ' Hist. Sketch, xvii. 

[31] See page 199 of this volume. 

[32] Apropos of this, a friend has kindly sent me the following extractfrom Balzac:--"Historiquement, les paysans sont encore au lendemain dela Jacquerie, leur défaite est restée inscrite dans leur cervelle. _Ilsne se souviennent plus du fait, il est passé à l'état d'idéeinstinctive. _"--Balzac, 'Les Paysans, ' v. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PRE-BUFFONIAN EVOLUTION, AND SOME GERMAN WRITERS. 

Let us now proceed to the fuller development of the foregoing sketch. 

"Undoubtedly, " says Isidore Geoffroy, "from the most ancient times manyphilosophers have imagined vaguely that one species can be transformedinto another. This doctrine seems to have been adopted by the Ionianschool from the sixth century before our era. . . . Undoubtedly also thesame opinion reappeared on several occasions in the middle ages, and inmodern times; it is to be found in some of the hermetic books, where thetransmutation of animal and vegetable species, and that of metals, aretreated as complementary to one another. In modern times we again findit alluded to by some philosophers, and especially by Bacon, whoseboldness is on this point extreme. Admitting it as 'incontestable thatplants sometimes degenerate so far as to become plants of anotherspecies, ' Bacon did not hesitate to try and put his theory intopractice. He tried, in 1635, to give 'the rules' for the art of changing'plants of one species into those of another. '"

This must be an error. Bacon died in 1626. The passage of Bacon referredto is in 'Nat. Hist. , ' Cent. Vi. ("Experiments in consort touching thedegenerating of plants, and the transmutation of them one intoanother"), and is as follows:--

"518. This rule is certain, that plants for want of culture degenerateto be baser in the same kind; and sometimes so far as to change intoanother kind. 1. The standing long and not being removed maketh themdegenerate. 2. Drought unless the earth, of itself, be moist doth thelike. 3. So doth removing into worse earth, or forbearing to compost theearth; as we see that water mint turneth into field mint, and thecolewort into rape by neglect, &c. "

"525. It is certain that in very steril years corn sown will grow toanother kind:--

 'Grandia sæpe quibus mandavimus hordea sulcis, Infelix lolium, et steriles dominantur avenæ. '

And generally it is a rule that plants that are brought forth forculture, as corn, will sooner change into other species, than those thatcome of themselves; for that culture giveth but an adventitious nature, which is more easily put off. "

Changed conditions, according to Bacon (though he does not use thesewords), appear to be "the first rule for the transmutation of plants. "

"But how much value, " continues M. Geoffroy, "ought to be attached tosuch prophetic glimpses, when they were neither led up to, nor justifiedby any serious study? They are conjectures only, which, while bearingevidence to the boldness or rashness of those who hazarded them, remainalmost without effect upon the advance of science. Bacon excepted, theyhardly deserve to be remembered. As for De Maillet, who makes birdsspring from flying fishes, reptiles from creeping fishes, and men fromtritons, his dreams, taken in part from Anaximander, should have theirplace not in the history of science, but in that of the aberrations ofthe human mind. "[33]

A far more forcible and pregnant passage, however, is the following, from Sir Walter Raleigh's 'History of the World, ' which Mr. Garnett hasbeen good enough to point out to me:--

"For mine owne opinion I find no difference but only in magnitudebetween the Cat of Europe, and the Ounce of India; and even those doggeswhich are become wild in Hispagniola, with which the Spaniards used todevour the naked Indians, are now changed to Wolves, and begin todestroy the breed of their Cattell, and doe often times teare asundertheir owne children. The common crow and rooke of India is full of redfeathers in the droun'd and low islands of Caribana, and the blackbirdand thrush hath his feathers mixt with black and carnation in the northparts of Virginia. The Dog-fish of England is the Sharke of the SouthOcean. For if colour or magnitude made a difference of Species, thenwere the Negroes, which wee call the Blacke-Mores, _non animaliarationalia_, not Men but some kind of strange Beasts, and so the giantsof the South America should be of another kind than the people of thispart of the World. We also see it dayly that the nature of fruits arechanged by transplantation. "[34]

For information concerning the earliest German writers on evolution, Iturn to Professor Haeckel's 'History of Creation, ' and find Goethe'sname to head the list. I do not gather, however, that Goethe added muchto the ideas which Buffon had already made sufficiently familiar. Professor Haeckel does not seem to be aware of Buffon's work, and quotesGoethe as making an original discovery when he writes, in the year1796:--"Thus much then we have gained, that we may assert withouthesitation that all the more perfect organic natures, such as fishes, amphibious animals, birds, mammals, and man at the head of the last, were all formed upon one original type, which only varies more or lessin parts which were none the less permanent, and still daily changes andmodifies its form by propagation. "[35] But these, as we shall see, arealmost Buffon's own words--words too that Buffon insisted on for manyyears. Again Professor Haeckel quotes Goethe as writing in the year1807:--

"If we consider plants and animals in their most imperfect condition, they can hardly be distinguished. " This, however, had long been insistedupon by Bonnet and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the first of whom was anaturalist of world-wide fame, while the 'Zoonomia' of Dr. Darwin hadbeen translated into German between the years 1795 and 1797, and couldhardly have been unknown to Goethe in 1807, who continues: "But thismuch we may say, that the creatures which by degrees emerge as plantsand animals out of a common phase where they are barely distinguishable, arrive at perfection in two opposite directions, so that the plant inthe end reaches its highest glory in the tree, which is immovable andstiff, the animal in man who possesses the greatest elasticity andfreedom. " Professor Haeckel considers this to be a remarkable passage, but I do not think it should cause its author to rank among the foundersof the evolution theory, though he may justly claim to have been one ofthe first to adopt it. Goethe's anatomical researches appear to havebeen more important, but I cannot find that he insisted on any newprinciple, or grasped any unfamiliar conception, which had not been longsince grasped and widely promulgated by Buffon and by Dr. ErasmusDarwin. 

Treviranus (1776-1837), whom Professor Haeckel places second to Goethe, is clearly a disciple of Buffon, and uses the word "degeneration" in thesame sense as Buffon used it many years earlier, that is to say, as"descent with modification, " without any reference to whether theoffspring was, as Buffon says, "perfectionné ou dégradé. " He cannotclaim, any more than Goethe, to rank as a principal figure in thehistory of evolution. 

Of Oken, Professor Haeckel says that his 'Naturphilosophie, ' whichappeared in 1809--in the same year, that is to say, as the 'PhilosophieZoologique' of Lamarck--was "the nearest approach to the natural theoryof descent, newly established by Mr. Charles Darwin, " of any work thatappeared in the first decade of our century. But I do not detect anyimportant difference of principle between his system and that of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, among whose disciples he should be reckoned. 

"We now turn, " says Professor Haeckel after referring to a few moreGerman writers who adopted a belief in evolution, "from the German tothe French nature-philosophers who have likewise held the theory ofdescent, since the beginning of this century. At their head stands JeanLamarck, who occupies the first place next to Darwin and Goethe in thehistory of the doctrine of Filiation. "[36] This is rather a surprisingassertion, but I will leave the reader of the present volume to assignthe value which should be attached to it. 

Professor Haeckel devotes ten lines to Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who hedeclares "expresses views very similar to those of Goethe and Lamarck, without, however, _then_ knowing anything about these two men;" which isall the more strange inasmuch as Dr. Darwin preceded them, and was agood deal better known to them, probably, than they to him; but it isplain Professor Haeckel has no acquaintance with the 'Zoonomia' of Dr. Erasmus Darwin. From all, then, that I am able to collect, I concludethat I shall best convey to the reader an idea of the different phaseswhich the theory of descent with modification has gone through, byconfining his attention almost entirely to Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Mr. Charles Darwin. 

FOOTNOTES:

[33] 'Hist. Nat. Gen. , ' vol. Ii. P. 385, 1859. 

[34] 'History of the World, ' bk. I. Ch. Vii. § 9 ('Athenæum, ' March 27, 1875). 

[35] 'History of Creation, ' vol. I. P. 91. 

[36] 'History of Creation, ' bk. I. Ch. Iii. (H. S. King, 1876). 

CHAPTER VIII. 

BUFFON--MEMOIR. 

Buffon, says M. Flourens, was born at Montbar, on the 7th of September, 1707; he died in Paris, at the Jardin du Roi, on the 16th of April, 1788, aged 81 years. More than fifty of these years, as he used himselfto say, he had passed at his writing-desk. His father was a councillorof the parliament of Burgundy. His mother was celebrated for her wit, and Buffon cherished her memory. 

He studied at Dijon with much _éclat_, and shortly after leaving becameaccidentally acquainted with the Duke of Kingston, a young Englishman ofhis own age, who was travelling abroad with a tutor. The three travelledtogether in France and Italy, and Buffon then passed some months inEngland. 

Returning to France, he translated Hales's 'Vegetable Statics' andNewton's 'Treatise on Fluxions. ' He refers to several English writers onnatural history in the course of his work, but I see he repeatedlyspells the English name Willoughby, "Willulghby. " He was appointedsuperintendent of the Jardin du Roi in 1739, and from thenceforthdevoted himself to science. 

In 1752 Buffon married Mdlle. De Saint Bélin, whose beauty and charm ofmanner were extolled by all her contemporaries. One son was born tohim, who entered the army, became a colonel, and I grieve to say, wasguillotined at the age of twenty-nine, a few days only before theextinction of the Reign of Terror. 

Of this youth, who inherited the personal comeliness and ability of hisfather, little is recorded except the following story. Having falleninto the water and been nearly drowned when he was about twelve yearsold, he was afterwards accused of having been afraid: "I was so littleafraid, " he answered, "that though I had been offered the hundred yearswhich my grandfather lived, I would have died then and there, if I couldhave added one year to the life of my father;" then thinking for aminute, a flush suffused his face, and he added, "but I should petitionfor one quarter of an hour in which to exult over the thought of what Iwas about to do. "

On the scaffold he showed much composure, smiling half proudly, halfreproachfully, yet wholly kindly upon the crowd in front of him. "Citoyens, " he said, "Je me nomme Buffon, " and laid his head upon theblock. 

The noblest outcome of the old and decaying order, overwhelmed in themost hateful birth frenzy of the new. So in those cataclysms andrevolutions which take place in our own bodies during their development, when we seem studying in order to become fishes and suddenly make, as itwere, different arrangements and resolve on becoming men--so, doubtless, many good cells must go, and their united death cry comes up, it may be, in the pain which an infant feels on teething. 

But to return. The man who could be father of such a son, and who couldretain that son's affection, as it is well known that Buffon retainedit, may not perhaps always be strictly accurate, but it will be as wellto pay attention to whatever he may think fit to tell us. These are theonly people whom it is worth while to look to and study from. 

"Glory, " said Buffon, after speaking of the hours during which he hadlaboured, "glory comes always after labour if she can--_and shegenerally can_. " But in his case she could not well help herself. "Hewas conspicuous, " says M. Flourens, "for elevation and force ofcharacter, for a love of greatness and true magnificence in all he did. His great wealth, his handsome person, and graceful manners seemed incorrespondence with the splendour of his genius, so that of all thegifts which Fortune has it in her power to bestow she had denied himnothing. "

Many of his epigrammatic sayings have passed into proverbs: for example, that "genius is but a supreme capacity for taking pains. " Another andstill more celebrated passage shall be given in its entirety and withits original setting. 

"Style, " says Buffon, "is the only passport to posterity. It is notrange of information, nor mastery of some little known branch ofscience, nor yet novelty of matter that will ensure immortality. Worksthat can claim all this will yet die if they are conversant abouttrivial objects only, or written without taste, genius and true nobilityof mind; for range of information, knowledge of details, novelty ofdiscovery are of a volatile essence and fly off readily into otherhands that know better how to treat them. The matter is foreign to theman, and is not of him; the manner is the man himself. "[37]

"Le style, c'est l'homme même. " Elsewhere he tells us what true styleis, but I quote from memory and cannot be sure of the passage. "Lestyle, " he says, "est comme le bonheur; il vient de la douceur del'âme. "

Is it possible not to think of the following?--

"But whether there be prophecies they shall fail; whether there betongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanishaway . . . And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but thegreatest of these is charity. "[38]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] 'Discours de Réception à l'Académie Française. '

[38] 1 Cor. Xiii. 8, 13. 

CHAPTER IX. 

BUFFON'S METHOD--THE IRONICAL CHARACTER OF HIS WORK. 

Buffon's idea of a method amounts almost to the denial of thepossibility of method at all. "The true method, " he writes, "is thecomplete description and exact history of each particular object, "[39]and later on he asks, "is it not more simple, more natural and more trueto call an ass an ass, and a cat a cat, than to say, without knowingwhy, that an ass is a horse, and a cat a lynx. "[40]

He admits such divisions as between animals and vegetables, or betweenvegetables and minerals, but that done, he rejects all others that canbe founded on the nature of things themselves. He concludes that one whocould see things in their entirety and without preconceived opinions, would classify animals according to the relations in which he foundhimself standing towards them:--

"Those which he finds most necessary and useful to him will occupy thefirst rank; thus he will give the precedence among the lower animals tothe dog and the horse; he will next concern himself with those whichwithout being domesticated, nevertheless occupy the same country andclimate as himself, as for example stags, hares, and all wild animals;nor will it be till after he has familiarized himself with all thesethat curiosity will lead him to inquire what inhabitants there may be inforeign climates, such as elephants, dromedaries, &c. The same will holdgood for fishes, birds, insects, shells, and for all nature's otherproductions; he will study them in proportion to the profit which he candraw from them; he will consider them in that order in which they enterinto his daily life; he will arrange them in his head according to thisorder, which is in fact that in which he has become acquainted withthem, and in which it concerns him to think about them. This order--themost natural of all--is the one which I have thought it well to followin this volume. My classification has no more mystery in it than thereader has just seen . . . It is preferable to the most profound andingenious that can be conceived, for there is none of all theclassifications which ever have been made or ever can be, which has notmore of an arbitrary character than this has. Take it for all in all, "he concludes, "it is more easy, more agreeable, and more useful, toconsider things in their relation to ourselves than from any otherstandpoint. "[41]

"Has it not a better effect not only in a treatise on natural history, but in a picture or any work of art to arrange objects in the order andplace in which they are commonly found, than to force them intoassociation in virtue of some theory of our own? Is it not better to letthe dog which has toes, come after the horse which has a single hoof, in the same way as we see him follow the horse in daily life, than tofollow up the horse by the zebra, an animal which is little known to us, and which has no other connection with the horse than the fact that ithas a single hoof?"[42]

Can we suppose that Buffon really saw no more connection than this? Thewriter whom we shall presently find[43] declining to admit any essentialdifference between the skeletons of man and of the horse, can here seeno resemblance between the zebra and the horse, except that they eachhave a single hoof. Is he to be taken at his word?

It is perhaps necessary to tell the reader that Buffon carried theforegoing scheme into practice as nearly as he could in the firstfifteen volumes of his 'Natural History. ' He begins with man--and thengoes on to the horse, the ass, the cow, sheep, goat, pig, dog, &c. Onewould be glad to know whether he found it always more easy to decide inwhat order of familiarity this or that animal would stand to themajority of his readers than other classifiers have found it to knowwhether an individual more resembles one species or another; probably henever gave the matter a thought after he had gone through the firstdozen most familiar animals, but settled generally down into aclassification which becomes more and more specific--as when he treatsof the apes and monkeys--till he reaches the birds, when he openlyabandons his original idea, in deference, as he says, to the opinion of"le peuple des naturalistes. "

Perhaps the key to this piece of apparent extravagance is to be foundin the word "mystérieuse. "[44] Buffon wished to raise a standing protestagainst mystery mongering. Or perhaps more probably, he wished at once"to turn to animals and plants under domestication, " so as to insistearly on the main object of his work--the plasticity of animal forms. 

I am inclined to think that a vein of irony pervades the whole, or muchthe greater part of Buffon's work, and that he intended to convey, onemeaning to one set of readers, and another to another; indeed, it isoften impossible to believe that he is not writing between his lines forthe discerning, what the undiscerning were not intended to see. It mustbe remembered that his 'Natural History' has two sides, --a scientificand a popular one. May we not imagine that Buffon would be unwilling todebar himself from speaking to those who could understand him, and yetwould wish like Handel and Shakespeare to address the many, as well asthe few? But the only manner in which these seemingly irreconcilableends could be attained, would be by the use of language which should beself-adjusting to the capacity of the reader. So keen an observer canhardly have been blind to the signs of the times which were alreadyclose at hand. Free-thinker though he was, he was also a powerful memberof the aristocracy, and little likely to demean himself--for so he woulddoubtless hold it--by playing the part of Voltaire or Rousseau. He wouldhelp those who could see to see still further, but he would not dazzleeyes that were yet imperfect with a light brighter than they couldstand. He would therefore impose upon people, as much as he thought wasfor their good; but, on the other hand, he would not allow inferior mento mystify them. 

"In the private character of Buffon, " says Sir William Jardine in acharacteristic passage, "we regret there is not much to praise; hisdisposition was kind and benevolent, and he was generally beloved by hisinferiors, followers, and dependents, which were numerous over hisextensive property; he was strictly honourable, and was an affectionateparent. In early youth he had entered into the pleasures anddissipations of life, and licentious habits seem to have been retainedto the end. But the great blemish in such a mind was his declaredinfidelity; it presents one of those exceptions among the persons whohave been devoted to the study of nature; and it is not easy to imaginea mind apparently with such powers, scarcely acknowledging a Creator, and when noticed, only by an arraignment for what appeared wanting ordefective in his great works. So openly, indeed, was the freedom of hisreligious opinions expressed, that the indignation of the Sorbonne wasprovoked. He had to enter into an explanation which he in some wayrendered satisfactory; and while he afterwards attended to the outwardordinances of religion, he considered them as a system of faith for themultitude, and regarded those most impolitic who most opposed them. "[45]

This is partly correct and partly not. Buffon was a free-thinker, and asI have sufficiently explained, a decided opponent of the doctrine thatrudimentary and therefore useless organs were designed by a Creator inorder to serve some useful end throughout all time to the creature inwhich they are found. 

He was not, surely, to hide the magnificent conceptions which he hadbeen the first to grasp, from those who were worthy to receive them; onthe other hand he would not tell the uninstructed what they wouldinterpret as a license to do whatever they pleased, inasmuch as therewas no God. What he did was to point so irresistibly in the rightdirection, that a reader of any intelligence should be in no doubt as tothe road he ought to take, and then to contradict himself so flatly asto reassure those who would be shocked by a truth for which they werenot yet ready. If I am right in the view which I have taken of Buffon'swork, it is not easy to see how he could have formed a finer scheme, norhave carried it out more finely. 

I should, however, warn the reader to be on his guard against acceptingmy view too hastily. So far as I know I stand alone in taking it. Neither Dr. Darwin nor Flourens, nor Isidore Geoffroy, nor Mr. CharlesDarwin see any subrisive humour in Buffon's pages; but it must beremembered that Flourens was a strong opponent of mutability, andprobably paid but little heed to what Buffon said on this question;Isidore Geoffroy is not a safe guide, as will appear presently; Mr. Charles Darwin seems to have adopted the one half of Isidore Geoffroy'sconclusions without verifying either; and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who has nosmall share of a very pleasant conscious humour, yet sometimes rises tosuch heights of unconscious humour, that Buffon's puny labour may wellhave been invisible to him. Dr. Darwin wrote a great deal of poetry, some of which was about the common pump. Miss Seward tells us, as weshall see later on, that he "illustrated this familiar object with apicture of Maternal Beauty administering sustenance to her infant. "Buffon could not have done anything like this. 

Buffon never, then, "arraigned the Creator for what was wanting ordefective in His works;" on the contrary, whenever he has led up by anirresistible chain of reasoning to conclusions which should make menrecast their ideas concerning the Deity, he invariably retreats undercover of an appeal to revelation. Naturally enough, the Sorbonneobjected to an artifice which even Buffon could not conceal completely. They did not like being undermined; like Buffon himself, they preferredimposing upon the people, to seeing others do so. Buffon made his peacewith the Sorbonne immediately, and, perhaps, from that time forward, contradicted himself a little more impudently than heretofore. 

It is probably for the reasons above suggested that Buffon did notpropound a connected scheme of evolution or descent with modification, but scattered his theory in fragments up and down his work in theprefatory remarks with which he introduces the more striking animals orclasses of animals. He never wastes evolutionary matter in the prefaceto an uninteresting animal; and the more interesting the animal, themore evolution will there be commonly found. When he comes to describethe animal more familiarly--and he generally begins a fresh chapter orhalf chapter when he does so--he writes no more about evolution, butgives an admirable description, which no one can fail to enjoy, andwhich I cannot think is nearly so inaccurate as is commonly supposed. These descriptions are the parts which Buffon intended for the generalreader, expecting, doubtless, and desiring that such a reader shouldskip the dry parts he had been addressing to the more studious. It istrue the descriptions are written _ad captandum_, as are all greatworks, but they succeed in captivating, having been composed with allthe pains a man of genius and of great perseverance could bestow uponthem. If I am not mistaken, he looked to these parts of his work to keepthe whole alive till the time should come when the philosophical side ofhis writings should be understood and appreciated. 

Thus the goat breeds with the sheep, and may therefore serve as the textfor a dissertation on hybridism, which is accordingly given in thepreface to this animal. The presence of rudimentary organs under a pig'shoof suggests an attack upon the doctrine of final causes in so far asit is pretended that every part of every animal or plant was speciallydesigned with a view to the wants of the animal or plant itself once andfor ever throughout all time. The dog with his great variety of breedsgives an opportunity for an article on the formation of breeds andsub-breeds by man's artificial selection. The cat is not honoured withany philosophical reflections, and comes in for nothing but abuse. Thehare suggests the rabbit, and the rabbit is a rapid breeder, althoughthe hare is an unusually slow one; but this is near enough, so the hareshall serve us for the theme of a discourse on the geometrical ratio ofincrease and the balance of power which may be observed in nature. Whenwe come to the carnivora, additional reflections follow upon thenecessity for death, and even for violent death; this leads to thequestion whether the creatures that are killed suffer pain; here, then, will be the proper place for considering the sensations of animalsgenerally. 

Perhaps the most pregnant passage concerning evolution is to be found inthe preface to the ass, which is so near the beginning of the work as tobe only the second animal of which Buffon treats after having describedman himself. It points strongly in the direction of his having believedall animal forms to have been descended from one single common ancestraltype. Buffon did not probably choose to take his very first opportunityin order to insist upon matter that should point in this direction; butthe considerations were too important to be deferred long, and areaccordingly put forward under cover of the ass, his second animal. 

When we consider the force with which Buffon's conclusion is led up to;the obviousness of the conclusion itself when the premises are onceadmitted; the impossibility that such a conclusion should be again lostsight of if the reasonableness of its being drawn had been onceadmitted; the position in his scheme which is assigned to it by itspropounder; the persistency with which he demonstrates during fortyyears thereafter that the premises, which he has declared shouldestablish the conclusion in question, are indisputable;--when weconsider, too, that we are dealing with a man of unquestionable genius, and that the times and circumstances of his life were such as would gofar to explain reserve and irony--is it, I would ask, reasonable tosuppose that Buffon did not, in his own mind, and from the first, drawthe inference to which he leads his reader, merely because from time totime he tells the reader, with a shrug of the shoulders, that _he_ drawsno inferences opposed to the Book of Genesis? Is it not more likely thatBuffon intended his reader to draw his inferences for himself, andperhaps to value them all the more highly on that account?

The passage to which I am alluding is as follows:--

"If from the boundless variety which animated nature presents to us, wechoose the body of some animal or even that of man himself to serve as amodel with which to compare the bodies of other organized beings, weshall find that though all these beings have an individuality of theirown, and are distinguished from one another by differences of which thegradations are infinitely subtle, there exists at the same time aprimitive and general design which we can follow for a long way, and thedepartures from which (_dégénérations_) are far more gentle than thosefrom mere outward resemblance. For not to mention organs of digestion, circulation, and generation, which are common to all animals, andwithout which the animal would cease to be an animal, and could neithercontinue to exist nor reproduce itself--there is none the less even inthose very parts which constitute the main difference in outwardappearance, a striking resemblance which carries with it irresistiblythe idea of a single pattern after which all would appear to have beenconceived. The horse, for example--what can at first sight seem moreunlike mankind? Yet when we compare man and horse point by point anddetail by detail, is not our wonder excited rather by the points ofresemblance than of difference that are to be found between them? Takethe skeleton of a man; bend forward the bones in the region of thepelvis, shorten the thigh bones, and those of the leg and arm, lengthenthose of the feet and hands, run the joints together, lengthen the jaws, and shorten the frontal bone, finally, lengthen the spine, and theskeleton will now be that of a man no longer, but will have become thatof a horse--for it is easy to imagine that in lengthening the spine andthe jaws we shall at the same time have increased the number of thevertebræ, ribs, and teeth. It is but in the number of these bones, whichmay be considered accessory, and by the lengthening, shortening, or modeof attachment of others, that the skeleton of the horse differs fromthat of the human body. . . . We find ribs in man, in all the quadrupeds, in birds, in fishes, and we may find traces of them as far down as theturtle, in which they seem still to be sketched out by means of furrowsthat are to be found beneath the shell. Let it be remembered that thefoot of the horse, which seems so different from a man's hand, is, nevertheless, as M. Daubenton has pointed out, composed of the samebones, and that we have at the end of each of our fingers a nailcorresponding to the hoof of a horse's foot. Judge, then, whether thishidden resemblance is not more marvellous than any outwarddifferences--whether this constancy to a single plan of structure whichwe may follow from man to the quadrupeds, from the quadrupeds to thecetacea, from the cetacea to birds, from birds to reptiles, fromreptiles to fishes--in which all such essential parts as heart, intestines, spine, are invariably found--whether, I say, this does notseem to indicate that the Creator when He made them would use but asingle main idea, though at the same time varying it in everyconceivable way, so that man might admire equally the magnificence ofthe execution and the simplicity of the design. [46]

"If we regard the matter thus, not only the ass and the horse, _but evenman himself, the apes, the quadrupeds, and all animals might be regardedbut as forming members of one and the same family_. But are we toconclude that within this vast family which the Creator has called intoexistence out of nothing, there are other and smaller families, projected as it were by Nature, and brought forth by her in the naturalcourse of events and after a long time, of which some contain but twomembers, as the ass and the horse, others many members, as the weasel, martin, stoat, ferret, &c. , and that on the same principle there arefamilies of vegetables, containing ten, twenty, or thirty plants, as thecase may be? If such families had any real existence they could havebeen formed only by crossing, by the accumulation of successivevariations (_variation successive_), and by degeneration from anoriginal type; but if we once admit that there are families of plantsand animals, so that the ass may be of the family of the horse, andthat the one may only differ from the other through degeneration from acommon ancestor, we might be driven to admit that the ape is of thefamily of man, that he is but a degenerate man, and that he and man havehad a common ancestor, even as the ass and horse have had. It wouldfollow then that every family, whether animal or vegetable, had sprungfrom a single stock, which after a succession of generations, had becomehigher in the case of some of its descendants and lower in that ofothers. "

What inference could be more aptly drawn? But it was not one whichBuffon was going to put before the general public. He had said enoughfor the discerning, and continues with what is intended to make theconclusions they should draw even plainer to them, while it concealsthem still more carefully from the general reader. 

"The naturalists who are so ready to establish families among animalsand vegetables, do not seem to have sufficiently considered theconsequences which should follow from their premises, for these wouldlimit direct creation to as small a number of forms as anyone mightthink fit (reduisoient le produit immédiat de la création, à un nombred'individus aussi petit que l'on voudroit). _For if it were once shownthat we had right grounds for establishing these families; if the pointwere once gained that among animals and vegetables there had been, I donot say several species, but even a single one, which had been producedin the course of direct descent from another species; if for example itcould be once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from thehorse--then there is no further limit to be set to the power of nature, and we should not be wrong in supposing that with sufficient time shecould have evolved all other organized forms from one primordial type(et l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer, que d'un seul être elle a sutirer avec le temps tous les autres êtres organisés). _"

Buffon now felt that he had sailed as near the wind as was desirable. His next sentence is as follows:--

"But no! It is certain _from revelation_ that all animals have alikebeen favoured with the grace of an act of direct creation, and that thefirst pair of every species issued full formed from the hands of theCreator. "[47]

This might be taken as _bonâ fide_, if it had been written by Bonnet, but it is impossible to accept it from Buffon. It is only those whojudge him at second hand, or by isolated passages, who can hold that hefailed to see the consequences of his own premises. No one could haveseen more clearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice toshow a sympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to. Even whenironical, his irony is not the ill-natured irony of one who is merelyamusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious andlegitimate irony of one who must either limit the circle of those towhom he appeals, or must know how to make the same language appealdifferently to the different capacities of his readers, and who truststo the good sense of the discerning to understand the difficulty of hisposition, and make due allowance for it. 

The compromise which he thought fit to put before the public was that"Each species has a type of which the principal features are engraved inindelible and eternally permanent characters, while all accessorytouches vary. "[48] It would be satisfactory to know where an accessorytouch is supposed to begin and end. 

And again:--

"The essential characteristics of every animal have been conservedwithout alteration in their most important parts. . . . The individuals ofeach genus still represent the same forms as they did in the earliestages, especially in the case of the larger animals" (so that the genericforms even of the larger animals prove not to be the same, but only'especially' the same as in the earliest ages). [49]

This transparently illogical position is maintained ostensibly fromfirst to last, much in the same spirit as in the two foregoing passages, written at intervals of thirteen years. But they are to be read by thelight of the earlier one--placed as a lantern to the wary upon thethreshold of his work in 1753--to the effect that a single, wellsubstantiated case of degeneration would make it conceivable that allliving beings were descended from a single common ancestor. If afterhaving led up to this by a remorseless logic, a man is foundfive-and-twenty years later still substantiating cases of degeneration, as he has been substantiating them unceasingly in thirty quartos duringthe whole interval, there should be little question how seriously weare to take him when he wishes us to stop short of the conclusions hehas told us we ought to draw from the premises that he has made it thebusiness of his life to establish--especially when we know that he has aSorbonne to keep a sharp eye upon him. 

I believe that if the reader will bear in mind the twofold, serious andironical, character of Buffon's work he will understand it, and feel anadmiration for it which will grow continually greater and greater themore he studies it, otherwise he will miss the whole point. 

Buffon on one of the early pages of his first volume protested againstthe introduction of either "_plaisanterie_" or "_équivoque_" (p. 25)into a serious work. But I have observed that there is an unconsciousirony in most disclaimers of this nature. When a writer begins by sayingthat he has "an ineradicable tendency to make things clear, " we mayinfer that we are going to be puzzled; so when he shows that he ishaunted by a sense of the impropriety of allowing humour to intrude intohis work, we may hope to be amused as well as interested. As showing howfar the objection to humour which he expressed upon his twenty-fifthpage succeeded in carrying him safely over his twenty-sixth andtwenty-seventh, I will quote the following, which begins on pagetwenty-six:--

"Aldrovandus is the most learned and laborious of all naturalists; aftersixty years of work he has left an immense number of volumes behind him, which have been printed at various times, the greater number of themafter his death. It would be possible to reduce them to a tenth part ifwe could rid them of all useless and foreign matter, and of a prolixitywhich I find almost overwhelming; were this only done, his books shouldbe regarded as among the best we have on the subject of natural historyin its entirety. The plan of his work is good, his classificationdistinguished for its good sense, his dividing lines well marked, hisdescriptions sufficiently accurate--monotonous it is true, butpainstaking; the historical part of his work is less good; it is oftenconfused and fabulous, and the author shows too manifestly the creduloustendencies of his mind. 

"While going over his work, I have been struck with that defect, orrather excess, which we find in almost all the books of a hundred or acouple of hundred years ago, and which prevails still among theGermans--I mean with that quantity of useless erudition with which theyintentionally swell out their works, and the result of which is thattheir subject is overlaid with a mass of extraneous matter on which theyenlarge with great complacency, but with no consideration whatever fortheir readers. They seem, in fact, to have forgotten what they have tosay in their endeavour to tell us what has been said by other people. 

"I picture to myself a man like Aldrovandus, after he has once conceivedthe design of writing a complete natural history. I see him in hislibrary reading, one after the other, ancients, moderns, philosophers, theologians, jurisconsults, historians, travellers, poets, and readingwith no other end than with that of catching at all words and phraseswhich can be forced from far or near into some kind of relation with hissubject. I see him copying all these passages, or getting them copiedfor him, and arranging them in alphabetical order. He fills manyportfolios with all manner of notes, often taken without eitherdiscrimination or research, and at last sets himself to write with aresolve that not one of all these notes shall remain unused. The resultis that when he comes to his account of the cow or of the hen, he willtell us all that has ever yet been said about cows or hens; all that theancients ever thought about them; all that has ever been imaginedconcerning their virtues, characters, and courage; every purpose towhich they have ever yet been put; every story of every old woman thathe can lay hold of; all the miracles which certain religions haveascribed to them; all the superstitions they have given rise to; all themetaphors and allegories which poets have drawn from them; theattributes that have been assigned to them; the representations thathave been made of them in hieroglyphics and armorial bearings, in a wordall the histories and all fables in which there was ever yet any mentioneither of a cow or hen. How much natural history is likely to be foundin such a lumber room? and how is one to lay one's hand upon the littlethat there may actually be?"[50]

It is hoped that the reader will see Buffon, much us Buffon saw thelearned Aldrovandus. He should see him going into his library, &c. , andquietly chuckling to himself as he wrote such a passage as the one inwhich we lately found him saying that the larger animals had"especially" the same generic forms as they had always had. And thereader should probably see Daubenton chuckling also. 

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Tom. I. P. 24, 1749. 

[40] Tom. I. P. 40, 1749. 

[41] Vol. I. P. 34, 1749. 

[42] Tom. I. P. 36. 

[43] See p. 88 of this volume; see also p. 155, and 164. 

[44] Tom. I. P. 33. 

[45] 'The Naturalist's Library, ' vol. Ii. P. 23, Edinburgh, 1843. 

[46] Tom. Iv. P. 381, 1753. 

[47] Tom. Iv. P. 383, 1753 (this was the first volume on the loweranimals). 

[48] Tom. Xiii. P. Ix. 1765. 

[49] Sup. Tom. V. P. 27, 1778. 

[50] Tom. I. P. 28, 1749. 

CHAPTER X. 

SUPPOSED FLUCTUATIONS OF OPINION--CAUSES OR MEANS OF THE TRANSFORMATIONOF SPECIES. 

Enough, perhaps, has been already said to disabuse the reader's mind ofthe common misconception of Buffon, namely, that he was more or less ofan elegant trifler with science, who cared rather about the language inwhich his ideas were clothed than about the ideas themselves, and thathe did not hold the same opinions for long together; but the accusationof instability has been made in such high quarters that it is necessaryto refute it still more completely. 

Mr. Darwin, for example, in his "Historical Sketch of the RecentProgress of Opinion on the Origin of Species" prefixed to all the latereditions of his own 'Origin of Species, ' says of Buffon that he "was thefirst author who, in modern times, has treated" the origin of species"in a scientific spirit. But, " he continues, "as his opinions fluctuatedgreatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes ormeans of the transformation of species, I need not here enter ondetails. "[51]

Mr. Darwin seems to have followed the one half of Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire's "full account of Buffon's conclusions" upon the subject ofdescent with modification, [52] to which he refers with approval on thesecond page of his historical sketch. [53]

Turning, then, to Isidore Geoffroy's work, I find that in like manner hetoo has been following the one half of what Buffon actually said. Buteven so, he awards Buffon very high praise. 

"Buffon, " he writes, "is to the doctrine of the mutability of specieswhat Linnæus is to that of its fixity. It is only since the appearanceof Buffon's 'Natural History, ' and in consequence thereof, that themutability of species has taken rank among scientific questions. "[54]

 . . . . . . 

"Buffon, who comes next in chronological order after Bacon, follows himin no other respect than that of time. He is entirely original inarriving at the doctrine of the variability of organic types, and inenouncing it after long hesitation, during which one can watch thelabour of a great intelligence freeing itself little by little from theyoke of orthodoxy. 

"But from this source come difficulties in the interpretation ofBuffon's work which have misled many writers. Buffon expressesabsolutely different opinions in different parts of his naturalhistory--so much so that partisans and opponents of the doctrine of thefixity of species have alike believed and still believe themselves atliberty to claim Buffon as one of the great authorities upon theirside. "

Then follow the quotations upon which M. Geoffroy relies--to which Iwill return presently--after which the conclusion runs thus:--

"The dates, however, of the several passages in question are sufficientto explain the differences in their tenor, in a manner worthy of Buffon. Where are the passages in which Buffon affirms the immutability ofspecies? At the beginning of his work. His first volume on animals[55]is dated 1753. The two following are those in which Buffon still sharesthe views of Linnæus; they are dated 1755 and 1756. Of what date arethose in which Buffon declares for variability? From 1761 to 1766. Andthose in which, after having admitted variability and declared in favourof it, he proceeds to limit it? From 1765 to 1778. 

"The inference is sufficiently simple. Buffon does but correct himself. He does not fluctuate. He goes once for all from one opinion to theother, from what he accepted at starting on the authority of another towhat he recognized as true after twenty years of research. If whiletrying to set himself free from the prevailing notions, he in the firstinstance went, like all other innovators, somewhat to the oppositeextreme, he essays as soon as may be to retrace his steps in somemeasure, and thenceforward to remain unchanged. 

"Let the reader cast his eye over the general table of contents whereinBuffon, at the end of his 'Natural History, ' gives a _résumé_ of all ofit that he is anxious to preserve. He passes over alike the passages inwhich he affirms and those in which he unreservedly denies theimmutability of species, and indicates only the doctrine of thepermanence of essential features and the variability of details (toutesles touches accessoires); he repeats this eleven years later in his'Époques de la Nature'" (published 1778). [56]

But I think I can show that the passages which M. Geoffroy bringsforward, to prove that Buffon was in the first instance a supporter ofinvariability, do not bear him out in the deduction he has endeavouredto draw from them. 

"What author, " he asks, "has ever pronounced more decidedly than Buffonin favour of the invariability of species? Where can we find a moredecided expression of opinion than the following?

"'The different species of animals are separated from one another by aspace which Nature cannot overstep. '"

On turning, however, to Buffon himself, I find the passage to stand asfollows:--

"_Although_ the different species of animals are separated from oneanother by a space which Nature cannot overstep--_yet some of themapproach so nearly to one another in so many respects that there is onlyroom enough left for the getting in of a line of separation betweenthem_, "[57] and on the following page he distinctly encourages the ideaof the mutability of species in the following passage:--

"In place of regarding the ass as a degenerate horse, there would bemore reason in calling the horse a more perfect kind of ass (un âneperfectionné), and the sheep a more delicate kind of goat, that we havetended, perfected, and propagated for our use, and that the more perfectanimals in general--especially the domestic animals--_draw their originfrom some less perfect species of that kind of wild animal which theymost resemble. Nature alone not being able to do as much as Nature andman can do in concert with one another_. "[58]

But Buffon had long ago declared that if the horse and the ass could beconsidered as being blood relations there was no stopping short of theadmission that all animals might also be blood relations--that is tosay, descended from common ancestors--and now he tells us that the assand horse _are_ in all probability descended from common ancestors. Willa reader of any literary experience hold that so laborious, and yet sowitty a writer, and one so studious of artistic effect, could ignore thebroad lines he had laid down for himself, or forget how what he had saidwould bear on subsequent passages, and subsequent passages on it? A lesspainstaking author than Buffon may yet be trusted to remember his ownwork well enough to avoid such literary bad workmanship as this. IfBuffon had seen reason to change his mind he would have said so, andwould have contradicted the inference he had originally pronounced to bededucible from an admission of kinship between the ass and the horse. This, it is hardly necessary to say, he never does, though he frequentlythinks it well to remind his reader of the fact that the ass and thehorse are in all probability closely related. This is bringing two andtwo together with sufficient closeness for all practical purposes. 

Should not M. Geoffroy's question, then, have rather been "Who has everpronounced more grudgingly, even in an early volume, &c. , &c. , and whohas more completely neutralized whatever concession he might appear tohave been making?"

Nor does the only other passage which M. Geoffroy brings forward toprove that Buffon was originally a believer in the fixity of speciesbear him out much better. It is to be found on the opening page of abrief introduction to the wild animals. M. Geoffroy quotes it thus: "Weshall see Nature dictating her laws, so simple yet so unchangeable, andimprinting her own immutable characters upon every species. " But M. Geoffroy does not give the passage which, on the same page, admitsmutability among domesticated animals, in the case of which he declareswe find Nature "rarement perfectionnée, souvent alterée, défigurée;" noryet does he deem it necessary to show that the context proves that thisunchangeableness of wild animals is only relative; and this he shouldcertainly have done, for two pages later on Buffon speaks of theAmerican tigers, lions, and panthers as being "degenerated, if theiroriginal nature was cruel and ferocious; or, rather, they haveexperienced the effect of climate, and under a milder sky have assumed amilder nature, their excesses have become moderated, and by the changeswhich they have undergone they have become more in conformity with thecountry they inhabit. "[59]

And again:--

"If we consider each species in the different climates which itinhabits, we shall find perceptible varieties as regards size and form:they all derive an impress to a greater or less extent from the climatein which they live. _These changes are only made slowly andimperceptibly. _ Nature's great workman is Time. He marches ever with aneven pace, and does nothing by leaps and bounds, but by degrees, gradations, and succession he does all things; and the changes which heworks--at first imperceptible--become little by little perceptible, andshow themselves eventually in results about which there can be nomistake. 

"Nevertheless animals in a free, wild state are perhaps less subjectthan any other living beings, man not excepted, to alterations, changes, and variations of all kinds. Being free to choose their own food andclimate, they vary less than domestic animals vary. "[60] The conditionsof their existence, in fact, remaining practically constant, the animalsare no less constant themselves. 

The writer of the above could hardly be claimed as a very thick and thinpartisan of immutability, even though he had not shown from the firsthow clearly he saw that there was no middle position between the denialof all mutability, and the admission that in the course of sufficienttime any conceivable amount of mutability is possible. I will give aconsiderable part of what I have found in the first six volumes ofBuffon to bear one way or the other on his views concerning themutability of species; and I think the reader, so far from agreeing withM. Isidore Geoffroy that Buffon began his work with a belief in thefixity of species, will find, that from the very first chapter onward, he leant strongly to mutability, even if he did not openly avow hisbelief in it. 

In support of this assertion, one quotation must suffice:--

"Nature advances by gradations which pass unnoticed. She passes from onespecies, and often from one genus to another by imperceptible degrees, so that we meet with a great number of mean species and objects of suchdoubtful characters that we know not where to place them. "[61]

The reader who turns to Buffon himself will find the idea that Buffontook a less advanced position in his old age than he had taken in middlelife is also without foundation. 

Mr. Darwin has said that Buffon "does not enter into the causes or meansof the transformation of species. " It is not easy to admit the justiceof this. Independently of his frequently insisting on the effect of allkinds of changed surroundings, he has devoted a long chapter of oversixty quarto pages to this very subject; it is to be found in hisfourteenth volume, and is headed "De la Dégénération des Animaux, " ofwhich words "On descent with modification" will be hardly more than aliteral translation. I shall give a fuller but still too brief outlineof the chapter later on, and will confine myself here to saying that thethree principal causes of modification which Buffon brings forward arechanges of climate, of food, and the effects of domestication. He maybe said to have attributed variation to the direct and specific actionof changed conditions of life, and to have had but little conception ofthe view which he was himself to suggest to Dr. Erasmus Darwin, andthrough him to Lamarck. 

Isidore Geoffroy, writing of Lamarck, and comparing his position withthat taken by Buffon, says, on the whole truly, that "what Buffonascribes to the general effects of climate, Lamarck maintains to becaused, especially in the case of animals, by the force of habits; _sothat, according to him, they are not, properly speaking, modified by theconditions of their existence, but are only induced by these conditionsto set about modifying themselves_. "[62] But it is very hard to say howmuch Buffon saw and how much he did not see. He may be trusted to haveseen that if he once allowed the thin end of this wedge into his system, he could no more assign limits to the effect which living forms mightproduce upon their own organisms by effort and ingenuity in the courseof long time, than he could set limits to what he had called the powerof Nature if he was once to admit that an ass and a horse might, throughthat power, have been descended from a common ancestor. Nevertheless, heshows no unwillingness or recalcitrancy about letting the wedge enter, for he speaks of domestication as inducing modifications "sufficientlyprofound to become constant and hereditary in successive generations . . . _by its action on bodily habits it influences also their natures, instincts, and most inward qualities_. "[63]

This is a very thick thin end to have been allowed to slip in unawares;but it is astonishing how little Buffon can see when he likes. I hardlydoubt but he would have been well enough pleased to have let the wedgeenter still farther, but this fluctuating writer had assigned himselfhis limits some years before, and meant adhering to them. Again, in thisvery chapter on Degeneration, to which M. Geoffroy has referred, thereare passages on the callosities on a camel's knees, on the llama, and onthe haunches of pouched monkeys which might have been written by Dr. Darwin himself. [64] They will appear more fully presently. Buffon nowprobably felt that he had said enough, and that others might be trustedto carry the principle farther when the time was riper for itsenforcement. 

FOOTNOTES:

[51] 'Origin of Species, ' p. Xiii. Ed. 1876. 

[52] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 405, 1859. 

[53] 'Origin of Species, ' p. Xiv. 1876. 

[54] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 383. 

[55] Tom. Iv. 

[56] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 391, 1859. 

[57] Tom. V. P. 59, 1755. 

[58] Tom. V. P. 60. 

[59] Tom. Vi. P. 58, 1756. 

[60] Tom. Vi. Pp. 59-60, 1756. 

[61] Tom. I. P. 13, 1749. 

[62] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 411, 1859. 

[63] Tom. Xi. P. 290, 1764 (misprinted on title-page 1754). 

[64] See tom. Xiv. P. 326, 1766; and p. 162 of this volume. 

CHAPTER XI. 

BUFFON--FULLER QUOTATIONS. 

Let us now proceed to those fuller quotations which may answer thedouble purpose of bearing me out in the view of Buffon's work which Ihave taken in the foregoing pages, and of inducing the reader to turn toBuffon himself. 

I have already said that from the very commencement of his work Buffonshowed a proclivity towards considerations which were certain to leadhim to a theory of evolution, even though he had not, as I believe hehad, already taken a more comprehensive view of the subject than hethought fit to proclaim unreservedly. 

In 1749, at the beginning of his first volume he writes:--

"The first truth that makes itself apparent on serious study of Nature, is one that man may perhaps find humiliating; it is this--that he, too, must take his place in the ranks of animals, being, as he is, an animalin every material point. It is possible also that the instinct of thelower animals will strike him as more unerring, and their industry moremarvellous than his own. Then, running his eye over the differentobjects of which the universe is composed, he will observe withastonishment that we can descend by almost imperceptible degrees fromthe most perfect creature to the most formless matter--from the mosthighly organized animal to the most entirely inorganic substance. Hewill recognize this gradation as the great work of Nature; and he willobserve it not only as regards size and form, but also in respect ofmovements, and in the successive generations of every species. [65]

"Hence, " he continues, "arises the difficulty of arriving at any perfectsystem or method in dealing either with Nature as a whole or even withany single one of her subdivisions. The gradations are so subtle that weare often obliged to make arbitrary divisions. Nature knows nothingabout our classifications, and does not choose to lend herself to themwithout reserve. We therefore see a number of intermediate species andobjects which it is very hard to classify, and which of necessityderange our system whatever it may be. "[66]

"The attempt to form perfect systems has led to such disastrous resultsthat it is now more easy to learn botany than the terminology which hasbeen adopted as its language. "[67]

After saying that "_la marche de la Nature_" has been misunderstood, andthat her progress has ever been by a succession of slow steps, hemaintains that the only proper course is to class together whateverobjects resemble one another, and to separate those which are unlike. Ifindividual specimens are absolutely alike, or differ so little that thedifferences can hardly be perceived, they must be classed as of the samespecies; if the differences begin to be perceptible, but if at the sametime there is more resemblance than difference, the individualspresenting these features should be classed as of a different species, but as of the same genus; if the differences are still more marked, butnevertheless do not exceed the resemblances, then they must be taken asnot only specific but generic, though as not sufficient to warrantthe individuals in which they appear, being placed in differentclasses. If they are still greater, then the individuals are not evenof the same class; but it should be always understood that theresemblances and differences are to be considered in reference to theentirety of the plant or animal, and not in reference to any particularpart only. [68] The two rocks which are equally to be avoided are, onthe one hand, absence of method, and, on the other, a tendency toover-systematize. [69]

Like Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and more recently Mr. Francis Darwin, Buffon ismore struck with the resemblances than with the differences betweenanimals and plants, but he supposes the vegetable kingdom to be acontinuation of the animal, extending lower down the scale, instead ofholding as Dr. Darwin did, that animals and vegetables have beencontemporaneous in their degeneration from a common stock. 

"We see, " he writes, "that there is no absolute and essential differencebetween animals and vegetables, but that Nature descends by subtlegradations from what we deem the most perfect animal to one which isless so, and again from this to the vegetable. The fresh-water polypusmay perhaps be considered as the lowest animal, and as at the same timethe highest plant. "[70]

Looking to the resemblances between animals and plants, he declares thattheir modes of reproduction and growth involve such close analogy thatno difference of an essential nature can be admitted between them. [71]

On the other hand, Buffon appears, at first sight, to be more struckwith the points of difference between the mental powers of the loweranimals and man than with those which they present in common. It isimpossible, however, to accept this as Buffon's real opinion, on thestrength of isolated passages, and in face of a large number of otherswhich point stealthily but irresistibly to an exactly oppositeconclusion. We find passages which show a clear apprehension of factsthat the world is only now beginning to consider established, followedby others which no man who has kept a dog or cat will be inclined toagree with. I think I have already explained this sufficiently byreferring it to the impossibility of his taking any other course underthe circumstances of his own position and the times in which he lived. Buffon does not deal with such pregnant facts, as, for example, thegeometrical ratio of increase, in such manner as to suggest that he wasonly half aware of their importance and bearing. On the contrary, in thevery middle of those passages which, if taken literally, should mostshake confidence in his judgment, there comes a sustaining sentence, soquiet that it shall pass unnoticed by all who are not attentivelisteners, yet so encouraging to those who are taking pains tounderstand their author that their interest is revived at once. 

Thus, he has insisted, and means insisting much further, on the manypoints of resemblance between man and the lower animals, and it has nowbecome necessary to neutralize the effect of what he has written uponthe minds of those who are not yet fitted to see instinct and reason asdifferentiations of a single faculty. He accordingly does this, and, asis his wont, he does it handsomely; so handsomely that even his mostadmiring followers begin to be uncomfortable. Whereon he begins his nextparagraph with "Animals have excellent senses, but not _generally, allof them_, as good as man's. "[72] We have heard of damning with faintpraise. Is not this to praise with faint damnation? Yet we can lay holdof nothing. It was not Buffon's intention that we should. An ironicalwriter, concerning whom we cannot at once say whether he is in earnestor not, is an actor who is continually interrupting his performance inorder to remind the spectator that he is acting. Complaint, then, against an ironical writer on the score that he puzzles us, is acomplaint against irony itself; for a writer is not ironical unless hepuzzles. He should not puzzle unless he believes that this is the bestmanner of making his reader understand him in the end, or without havinga _bonne bouche_ for those who will be at the pains to puzzle over him;and he should make it plain that for long parts of his work together heis to be taken according to the literal interpretation of his words;but if he has observed the above duly, he is a successful orunsuccessful writer according as he puzzles or fails to do so, andshould be praised or blamed accordingly. To condemn irony entirely, isto say that there should be no people allowed to go about the world butthose to whom irony would be an impertinence. 

Having already in some measure reassured us by the faintness with whichhe disparages the senses of the lower animals, Buffon continues, thatthese senses, whether in man or in animals, may be greatly developed byexercise: which we may suppose that a man of even less humour thanBuffon must know to be great nonsense, unless it be taken to involvethat animals as well as man can reflect and remember; it now, therefore, becomes necessary to reassure the other side, and to maintain thatanimals cannot reflect, and have no memory. "_Je crois_, " he writes, "_qu'on peut démontrer que les animaux n'ont aucune connaissance dupassé, aucune idée du temps, et que par conséquent ils n'ont pas lamémoire_. "[73]

I am ashamed of even arguing seriously against the supposition that thiswas Buffon's real opinion. The very sweepingness of the assertion, thebaldness, and I might say brutality with which it is made, areconvincing in their suggestiveness of one who is laughing very quietlyin his sleeve. 

"Society, " he continues, later on, "considered even in the case of asingle human family, involves the power of reason; it involves feelingin such of the lower animals as form themselves into societies freelyand of their own accord, but it involves nothing whatever in the case ofbees, who have found themselves thrown together through no effort oftheir own. Such societies can only be, and it is plain have only been, the results--neither foreseen, nor ordained, nor conceived by those whoachieve them--of the universal mechanism and of the laws of movementestablished by the Creator. "[74] A hive of bees, in fact, is to beconsidered as composed of "ten thousand animated automata. "[75] Yearslater he repeats these views with little if any modification. [76] Astill more remarkable passage is to be found a little farther on. "If, "he asks, "animals have neither understanding, mind, nor memory, if theyare wholly without intelligence, and if they are limited to the exerciseand experience of feeling only, " and it must be remembered that Buffonhas denied all these powers to the inferior animals, "whence comes thatremarkable prescient instinct which so many of them exhibit? Is the merepower of feeling sensations sufficient to make them garner up foodduring the summer, on which food they may subsist in winter? Does notthis involve the power of comparing dates, and the idea of a comingfuture, an '_inquiétude raisonnée_'? Why do we find in the hole of thefield-mouse enough acorns to keep him until the following summer? Why dowe find such an abundant store of honey and wax within the bee-hive? Whydo ants store food? Why should birds make nests if they do not know thatthey will have need of them? Whence arise the stories that we hear ofthe wisdom of foxes, which hide their prey in different spots, that theymay find it at their need and live upon it for days together? Or of thesubtilty of owls, which husband their store of mice by biting off theirfeet, so that they cannot run away? Or of the marvellous penetration ofbees, which know beforehand that their queen should lay so many eggs insuch and such a time, and that so many of these eggs should be of a kindwhich will develop into drones, and so many more of such another kind asshould become neuters; and who in consequence of this theirforeknowledge build so many larger cells for the first, and so manysmaller for the second?"[77]

Buffon answers these questions thus:--

"Before replying to them, " he says, "we should make sure of the factsthemselves;--are they to be depended upon? Have they been narrated bymen of intelligence and philosophers, or are they popular fables only?"(How many delightful stories of the same character does he not soonproceed to tell us himself). "I am persuaded that all these pretendedwonders will disappear, and the cause of each one of them be found upondue examination. But admitting their truth for a moment, and granting tothe narrators of them that animals have a presentiment, a forethought, and even a certainty concerning coming events, does it therefore followthat this should spring from intelligence? If so, theirs is assuredlymuch greater than our own. For our foreknowledge amounts to conjectureonly; the vaunted light of our reason doth but suffice to show us alittle probability; whereas the forethought of animals is unerring, andmust spring from some principle far higher than any we know of throughour own experience. Does not such a consequence, I ask, _prove repugnantalike to religion and common sense_?"[78]

This is Buffon's way. Whenever he has shown us clearly what we ought tothink, he stops short suddenly on religious grounds. It is incrediblethat the writer who at the very commencement of his work makes man takehis place among the animals, and who sees a subtle gradation extendingover all living beings "from the most perfect creature"--who must beman--"to the most entirely inorganic substance"--I say it is incrediblethat such a writer should not see that he had made out a stronger casein favour of the reason of animals than against it. 

According to him, the test whether a thing is to have such and such aname is whether it looks fairly like other things to which the same nameis given; if it does, it is to have the name; if it does not, it is not. No one accepted this lesson more heartily than Dr. Darwin, whose shrewdand homely mind, if not so great as Buffon's, was still one of no commonorder. Let us see the view he took of this matter. He writes:--

"If we were better acquainted with the histories of those insects whichare formed into societies, as the bees, wasps, and ants, I make no doubtbut we should find that their arts and improvements are not so similarand uniform as they now appear to us, but that they arose in the samemanner from experience and tradition, as the arts of our own species;though their reasoning is from fewer ideas, is busied about fewerobjects, and is executed with less energy. "[79]

And again, a little later:--

"According to the late observations of Mr. Hunter, it appears thatbeeswax is not made from the dust of the anthers of flowers, which theybring home on their thighs, but that this makes what is termedbee-bread, and is used for the purpose of feeding the bee-maggots; inthe same way butterflies live on honey, but the previous caterpillarlives on vegetable leaves, while the maggots of large flies requireflesh for their food. What induces the bee, who lives on honey, to layup vegetable powder for its young? What induces the butterfly to lay itseggs on leaves when itself feeds on honey?. . . If these are notdeductions from their own previous experience or observation, all theactions of mankind must be resolved into instincts. "[80]

Or again:--

"Common worms stop up their holes with leaves or straws to prevent thefrost from injuring them, or the centipes from devouring them. Thehabits of peace or the stratagems of war of these subterranean nationsare covered from our view; but a friend of mine prevailed on adistressed worm to enter the hole of another worm on a bowling green, and he presently returned much wounded about the head, . . . Whichevinces they have design in stopping the mouths of theirhabitations. "[81]

Does it not look as if Dr. Darwin had in his mind the very passage ofBuffon which I have been last quoting? and is it likely that the factswhich were accepted by Dr. Darwin without question, or the conclusionswhich were obvious to him, were any less accepted by or obvious toBuffon?

_The Goat--Hybridism. _

In his prefatory remarks upon the goat, Buffon complains of the want ofsystematic and certified experiment as to what breeds and species willbe fertile _inter se_, and with what results. The passage is too long toquote, but is exceedingly good, and throughout involves belief in a veryconsiderable amount of modification in the course of successivegenerations. I may give the following as an example:--

"We do not know whether or no the zebra would breed with the horse orass--whether the large-tailed Barbary sheep would be fertile if crossedwith our own--whether the chamois is not a wild goat; and whether itwould not form an intermediate breed if crossed with our domesticatedgoats; we do not know whether the differences between apes are reallyspecific, or whether apes are not like dogs, one single species, ofwhich there are many different breeds. . . . Our ignorance concerning allthese facts is almost inevitable, as the experiments which would decidethem require more time, pains, and money than can be spared from, thelife and fortune of an ordinary man. I have spent many years inexperiments of this kind, and will give my results when I come to mychapter on mules; but I may as well say at once that they have thrownbut little light upon the subject, and have been for the most partunsuccessful. "[82]

"But these, " he continues, "are the very points which must determine ourwhole knowledge concerning animals, their right division into species, and the true understanding of their history. " He proposes therefore, inthe present lack of knowledge, "to regard all animals as differentspecies which do not breed together under our eyes, " and to leave timeand experiment to correct mistakes. [83]

_The Pig--Doctrine of Final Causes. _

We have seen that the doctrine of the mutability of species has beenunfortunately entangled with that of final causes, or the belief thatevery organ and every part of each animal or plant has been designed toserve some purpose useful to the animal, and this not only useful atsome past time, but useful now, and for all time to come. He whobelieves species to be mutable will see in many organs signs of thehistory of the individual, but nothing more. Buffon, as I have said, isexplicit in his denial of final causes in the sense expressed above. After pointing out that the pig is an animal whose relation to otheranimals it is difficult to define, he says:--

"In a word, it is of a nature altogether equivocal and ambiguous, or, rather, it must appear so to those who believe the hypothetical order oftheir own ideas to be the real order of things, and who see nothing inthe infinite chain of existences but a few apparent points to which theywill refer everything. 

"But we cannot know Nature by inclosing her action within the narrowcircle of our own thoughts. . . . Instead of limiting her action, we shouldextend it through immensity itself; we should regard nothing asimpossible, but should expect to find all things--supposing that allthings are possible--nay, _are_. Doubtful species, then, irregularproductions, anomalous existences will henceforth no longer surprise us, and will find their place in the infinite order of things as duly as anyothers. They fill up the links of the chain; they form knots andintermediate points, and also they mark its extremities: they are ofespecial value to human intelligence, as providing it with cases inwhich Nature, being less in conformity with herself, is taken moreunawares, so that we can recognize singular characters and fleetingtraits which show us that her ends are much more general than are ourown views of those ends, and that, though she does nothing in vain, yetshe does but little with the designs which we ascribe to her. "[84]

"The pig, " he continues, "is not formed on an original, special, andperfect type; its type is compounded of that of many other animals. Ithas parts which are evidently useless, or which at any rate it cannotuse--such as toes, all the bones of which are perfectly formed butwhich are yet of no service to it. Nature then is far from subjectingherself to final causes in the composition of her creatures. Why shouldshe not sometimes add superabundant parts, seeing she so often omitsessential ones?" "How many animals are there not which lack sense andlimbs? Why is it considered so necessary that every part in anindividual should be useful to the other parts and to the whole animal?Should it not be enough that they do not injure each other nor stand inthe way of each other's fair development? All parts coexist which do notinjure each other enough to destroy each other, and perhaps in thegreater number of living beings the parts which must be considered asrelative, useful, or necessary, are fewer than those which areindifferent, useless, and superabundant. But we--ever on the look out torefer all parts to a certain end--when we can see no apparent use forthem suppose them to have hidden uses, and imagine connections which arewithout foundation, and serve only to obscure our perception of Natureas she really is: we fail to see that we thus rob philosophy of her truecharacter, which is to inquire into the 'how' of things--into the mannerin which Nature acts--and that we substitute for this true object a vainidea, seeking to divine the 'why'--the ends which she has proposed inacting. "[85]

_The Dog--Varieties in consequence of Man's Selection. _

"Of all animals the dog is most susceptible of impressions, and becomesmost easily modified by moral causes. He is also the one whose natureis most subject to the variations and alterations caused by physicalinfluences: he varies to a prodigious extent, in temperament, mentalpowers, and in habits: his very form is not constant;" . . . But presentsso many differences that "dogs have nothing in common but conformity ofinterior organization, and the power of interbreeding freely. ". . . 

. . . "How then can we detect the characters of the original race? Howrecognize the effects produced by climate, food, &c. ? How, again, distinguish these from those other effects which come from theintermixture of races, either when wild or in a state of domestication?All these causes, in the course of time, alter even the most constantforms, so that the imprint of Nature does not preserve its sharpness inraces which man has dealt with largely. Those animals which are free tochoose climate and food for themselves can best conserve their originalcharacter, . . . But those which man has subjected to his owninfluence--which he has taken with him from clime to clime, whose food, habits, and manner of life he has altered--must also have changed theirform far more than others; and as a matter of fact we find much greatervariety in the species of domesticated animals than in those of wildones. Of all these, however, the dog is the one most closely attached toman, living like man the least regular manner of life; he is also theone whose feelings so master him as to make him docile, obedient, susceptible of every kind of impression, and even of every kind ofconstraint; it is not surprising, then, that he should of all animalspresent us with the greatest variety in shape, stature, colour, and allphysical and mental qualities. "

Here again the direct cause of modification is given as being the innerfeelings of the animal modified, change of conditions being the indirectcause as with Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. 

"Other circumstances, however, concur to produce these results. The dogis short-lived: he breeds often and freely: he is perpetually under theeye of man; hence when--by some chance common enough with Nature--avariation or special feature has made its appearance, man has tried toperpetuate it by uniting together the individuals in which it hasappeared, as people do now who wish to form new breeds of dogs and otheranimals. Moreover, though species were all formed at the same time, yetthe number of generations since the creation has been much greater inthe short-lived than in the long-lived species: hence variations, alterations, and departure from the original type, may be expected tohave become more perceptible in the case of animals which are so muchfarther removed from their original stock. 

"Man is now eight times nearer Adam than the dog is to the firstdog--for man lives eighty years, while the dog lives but ten. If, then, these species have an equal tendency to depart from their original type, the departure should be eight times more apparent with the dog than withman. "[86]

Here follow remarks upon the great variability of ephemeral insects andof animal plants, on the impossibility of discovering the parent-stockof our wheat and of others of our domesticated plants, [87] and on thetendency of both plants and animals to resume feral characteristics onbecoming wild again after domestication. [88]

_The Hare--Geometrical Ratio of Increase. _

We have already seen that it was Buffon's pleasure to consider the harea rabbit for the time being, and to make it the text for a discourseupon fecundity. I have no doubt he enjoyed doing this, and would havefound comparatively little pleasure in preaching the same discourse uponthe rabbit. Speaking of the way in which even the races of mankind havestruggled and crowded each other out, Buffon says:--

"These great events--these well-marked epochs in the history of thehuman race--are yet but ripples, as it were, on the current of life;which, as a general rule, flows onward evenly and in equal volume. 

"It may be said that the movement of Nature turns upon two immovablepivots--one, the illimitable fecundity which she has given to allspecies; the other, the innumerable difficulties which reduce theresults of that fecundity, and leave throughout time nearly the samequantity of individuals in every species. [89]. . . Taking the earth as awhole, and the human race in its entirety, the numbers of mankind, likethose of animals, should remain nearly constant throughout time; forthey depend upon an equilibrium of physical causes which has long sincebeen reached, and which neither man's moral nor his physical efforts candisturb, inasmuch as these moral efforts do but spring from physicalcauses, of which they are the special effects. No matter what care manmay take of his own species, he can only make it more abundant in oneplace by destroying it or diminishing its numbers in another. When onepart of the globe is overpeopled, men emigrate, spread themselves overother countries, destroy one another, and establish laws and customswhich sometimes only too surely prevent excess of population. In thoseclimates where fecundity is greatest, as in China, Egypt, and Guinea, they banish, mutilate, sell, or drown infants. Here, we condemn them toa perpetual celibacy. Those who are in being find it easy to assertrights over the unborn. Regarding themselves as the necessary, theyannihilate the contingent, and suppress future generations for their ownpleasure and advantage. Man does for his own race, without perceivingit, what he does also for the inferior animals: that is to say, heprotects it and encourages it to increase, or neglects it according tohis sense of need--according as advantage or inconvenience is expectedas the consequence of either course. And since all these moral effectsthemselves depend upon physical causes, which have been in permanentequilibrium ever since the world was formed, it follows that the numbersof mankind, like those of animals, should remain constant. 

"Nevertheless, this fixed state, this constant number, is not absolute, all physical and moral causes, and all the results which spring fromthem, balance themselves, as though, upon a see-saw, which has a certainplay, but never so much as that equilibrium should be altogether lost. As everything in the universe is in movement, and as all the forceswhich are contained in matter act one against the other andcounterbalance one another, all is done by a kind of oscillation; ofwhich the mean points are those to which we refer as being the ordinarycourse of nature, while the extremes are the periods which deviate fromthat course most widely. And, as a matter of fact, with animals as muchas with plants, a time of unusual fecundity is commonly followed by oneof sterility; abundance and dearth come alternately, and often at suchshort intervals that we may foretell the production of a coming year byour knowledge of the past one. Our apples, pears, oaks, beeches, and thegreater number of our fruit and forest trees, bear freely but about oneyear in two. Caterpillars, cockchafers, woodlice, which in one year maymultiply with great abundance, will appear but sparsely in the next. What indeed would become of all the good things of the earth, what wouldbecome of the useful animals, and indeed of man himself, if eachindividual in these years of excess was to leave its quotum ofoffspring? This, however, does not happen, for destruction and sterilityfollow closely upon excessive fecundity, and, independently of thecontagion which follows inevitably upon overcrowding, each species hasits own special sources of death and destruction, which are ofthemselves sufficient to compensate for excess in any past generation. 

"Nevertheless the foregoing should not be taken in an absolute sense, nor yet too strictly, --especially in the case of those races which arenot left entirely to the care of Nature. Those which man takes careof--commencing with his own--are more abundant than they would bewithout his care, yet, as his power of taking this care is limited, theincrease which has taken place is also fixed, and has long beenrestrained within impassable boundaries. Again, though in civilizedcountries man, and all the animals useful to him, are more numerous thanin other places, yet their numbers never become excessive, for the samepower which brings them into being destroys them as soon as they arefound inconvenient. "[90]

_The Carnivora--Sensation. _

Buffon begins his seventh volume with some remarks on the _carnivora_ ingeneral, which I would gladly quote at fuller length than my space willallow. He dwells on the fact that the number, as well as the fecundityof the insect races is greater than that of the mammalia, and even thanof plants; and he points out that "violent death is almost as necessaryan usage as is the law that we must all, in one way or another, die. "This leads him to the question whether animals can feel. "To speakseriously, " (au réel) he says (and why this, if he had always spokenseriously?[91]), "can we doubt that those animals whose organizationresembles our own, feel the same sensations as we do? They must feel, for they have senses, and they must feel more and more in proportion astheir senses are more active and more perfect. " Those whose organ of anysense is imperfect, have but imperfect perception in respect of thatsense; and those that are entirely without the organ want also allcorresponding sensation. "Movement is the necessary consequence of actsof perception. I have already shown that in whatever manner a livingbeing is organized, if it has perceptions at all, it cannot fail to showthat it has them by some kind of movement of its body. Hence plants, though highly organized, have no feeling, any more than have thoseanimals which, like plants, manifest no power of motion. Among animalsthere are those which, like the sensitive plant, have but a certainpower of movement about their own parts, and which have no power oflocomotion; such animals have as yet but little perception. Those, again, which have power of locomotion, but which, like automata, do buta small number of things, and always after the same fashion, can haveonly small powers of perception, and these limited to a small number ofobjects. But in the case of man, what automata, indeed, have we nothere! How much do not education and the intercommunication of ideasincrease our powers and vivacity of perception. What difference can wenot see in this respect between civilized and uncivilized races, betweenthe peasant girl, and the woman of the world? And in like manner amonganimals, those which live with us have their perceptions increased inrange, while those that are wild have but their natural instinct, whichis often more certain but always more limited in range than is theintelligence of domesticated animals. "[92]

 . . . . . . 

"For perception to exist in its fullest development in any animal body, that body must form a whole--an _ensemble_, which shall not only becapable of feeling in all its parts, but shall be so arranged that allthese feeling parts shall have a close correspondence with one another, and that no one of them can be disturbed without communicating a portionof that disturbance to every other part. There must also be a singlechief centre, with which all these different disturbances may beconnected, and from which, as from a common _point d'appui_, thereactions against them may take their rise. Hence man, and those animalswhose organization most resembles man's, will be the most capable ofperceptions, while those whose unity is less complete, whose parts havea less close correspondence with each other--which have several centresof sensation, and which seem, in consequence, less to envelope a singleexistence in a single body than to contain many centres of existenceseparated and different from one another--these will have fewer andduller perceptions. The polypus, which can be reproduced by fission; thewasp, whose head even after separation from the body still moves, lives, acts, and even eats as heretofore; the lizard which we deprive neitherof sensation nor movement by cutting off part of its body; the lobsterwhich can restore its amputated limbs; the turtle whose heart beats longafter it has been plucked out, in a word all the animals whoseorganization differs from our own, have but small powers of perception, and the smaller the more they differ from us. "[93]

This is Buffon's way of satirizing our inability to bear in mind that weare compelled to judge all things by our own standards. He also wishesto reassure those who might be alarmed at the tendency of some of hisforegoing remarks, and who he knew would find comfort in being told thata thing which does not express itself as they do does not feel at all. 

The diaphragm according to Buffon appears to be the centre of the powersof sensation; the slightest injury "even to the attachments of thediaphragm is followed by strong convulsions, and even by death. Thebrain which has been called the seat of 'sensations' is yet not thecentre of 'perception, ' since we can wound it, and even takeconsiderable parts of it away, without death's ensuing, and withoutpreventing an animal from living, moving and feeling in all its parts. "

Buffon thus distinguishes between "sensation" and "perception. ""Sensation, " he says, "is simply the activity of a sense, but perceptionis the pleasantness or unpleasantness of this sensation, " "perceived byits being propagated and becoming active throughout the entire system. "I have therefore several times, when translating from Buffon, renderedthe word "_sentiment_" by "perception, " and shall continue to do so. "Isay, " writes Buffon, "the pleasantness or unpleasantness, because thisis the very essence of perception; the one feature of perceptionconsists in perceiving either pain or pleasure; and though movementswhich do not affect us in either one or the other of these two ways mayindeed take place within us, yet we are indifferent to them, and do notperceive that we are affected by them. All external movement, and allexercise of the animal powers, spring from perception; its action isproportionate to the extent of its excitation, to the extent of thefeeling which is being felt. [94] And this same part, which we regard asthe centre of sensation, will also be that of all the animal powers; or, if it is preferred to call it so, it will be the common _point d'appui_from which they all take rise. The diaphragm is to the animal what the'stock' is to the plant; both divide an organism transversely, bothserve as the _point d'appui_ of opposing forces; for the forces whichpush upward those parts of a tree which should form its trunk andbranches, bear upon and are supported by the 'stock, ' as do thoseopposing forces, which drive the roots downwards. 

 . . . . . . 

"Even on a cursory examination we can see that all our innermostaffections, our most lively emotions, our most expansive moments ofdelight, and, on the other hand, our sudden starts, pains, sicknesses, and swoons--in fact, all our strong impressions concerning the pleasureor pain of any sensation--make themselves felt within the body, andabout the region of the diaphragm. The brain, on the contrary, shows nosign of being a seat of perception. In the head there are puresensations and nothing else, or rather, there are but therepresentations of sensations stripped of the character of perception;that is to say, we can remember and call to mind whether such and such asensation was pleasant to us or otherwise, and if this operation, whichgoes on in the head, is followed by a vivid perception, then theimpression made is perceived in the interior of the body, and always inthe region of the diaphragm. Hence, in the foetus where this membraneis without use, there is no perception, or so little that nothing comesof it, the movements of the foetus, such as they are, being rathermechanical than dependent on sensation and will. 

"Whatever the matter may be which serves as the vehicle of perception, and produces muscular movement, it is certain that it is propagatedthrough the nerves, and that it communicates itself instantaneously fromone extremity of the system to the other. In whatever manner thisoperation is conducted, whether by the vibrations, as it were, ofelastic cords or by a subtle fire, or by a matter resemblingelectricity, which not only resides in animal as in all other bodies, but is being continually renewed in them by the movements of the heartand lungs, by the friction of the blood within the arteries, and also bythe action of exterior causes upon our organs of sense--in whatevermanner, I say, the operation is conducted, it is nevertheless certainthat the nerves and membranes are the only parts in an animal body thatcan feel. The blood, lymphs, and all other fluids, the fats, bone, flesh, and all other solids, are of themselves void of sensation. Andso also is the brain; it is a soft and inelastic substance, incapabletherefore of producing or of propagating the movement, vibrations, orconcussions which, result in perception. The meninges, on the otherhand, are exceedingly sensitive, and are the envelopes of all thenerves; like the nerves, they take rise in the head; and, dividingthemselves like the branches of the nerves, they extend even to theirsmallest ramifications: they are, so to speak, flattened nerves; theyare of the same substance as the nerves, are nearly of the same degreeof elasticity, and form a necessary part of the system of sensation. If, then, the seat of the sensations must be placed in the head, let it beplaced in the meninges, and not in the medullary part of the brain, which is of an entirely different substance. "[95]

If this is so, it appears from what will follow as though the meningesmust be the "stock" rather than the diaphragm. 

"What perhaps has given rise to the opinion that the seat of allsensations and the centre of all sensibility is in the brain, is thefact that the nerves, which are the organs of perception, all attachthemselves to the brain, which has hence come to be regarded as the onecommon centre which can receive all their vibrations and impressions. This fact alone has sufficed to indicate the brain as the origin ofperceptions--as the essential organ of sensations; in a word, as thecommon sensorium. This supposition has appeared so simple and naturalthat its physical impossibility has been overlooked, an impossibility, however, which should be sufficiently apparent. For how can a partwhich cannot feel--a soft inactive substance like the brain--be the veryorgan of perception and movement? How can this soft and perceptionlesspart not only receive impressions, but preserve them for a length oftime, and transmit their undulatory movements (_en propage lesébranlements_) throughout all the solid and feeling parts of the body?It may perhaps be maintained with Descartes and M. De Peyronie that theprinciple of sensation does not reside in the brain, but in the pinealgland or in the _corpus callosum_; but a glance at the conformation ofthe brain itself will suffice to show that these parts do not join on tothe nerves, but that they are entirely surrounded by those parts of thebrain which do not feel, and are so separated from the nerves that theycannot receive any movement from them; whence it follows that thissecond supposition is as groundless as the first. "[96]

What, then, asks Buffon, _is_ the use of the brain? Man, the quadrupeds, and birds all have larger brains, and at the same time more extendedperceptions, than fishes, insects, and those other living beings whosebrains are smaller in proportion. "When the brain is compressed, thereis suspension of all power of movement. If this part is not the sourceof our powers of motion, why is it so necessary and so essential? Why, again, does it seem so proportionate in each animal to the amount ofperceiving power which that animal possesses?

"I think I can answer this question in a satisfactory manner, difficultthough it seems; but in order that I may do so, I would ask the readerto lend me his attention for a few moments while we regard the brainsimply _as brain_, and have no other idea concerning it than we canderive from inspection and reflection. The brain, as well as the_medulla oblongata_ and the spinal marrow, which are but prolongationsof the brain itself, is only a kind of hardly organized mucilage; wefind in it nothing but the extremities of small arteries, which run intoit in very great numbers, but which convey a white and nourishing lymphinstead of blood. When the parts of the brain are disunited bymaceration, these same small arteries, or lymphatic vessels, appear asvery delicate threads throughout their whole length. The nerves, on thecontrary, do not penetrate the substance of the brain; they abut uponits surface only; before reaching it they lose their elasticity andsolidity, and the extremities of the nerves which are nearest to thebrain are soft, and nearly mucilaginous. From this exposition, in whichthere is nothing hypothetical, it appears that the brain, which isnourished by the lymphatic arteries, does in its turn providenourishment for the nerves, and that we must regard these as a kind ofvegetation which rises as trunks and branches from the brain, and becomesubsequently subdivided into an infinite number, as it were, of twigs. The brain is to the nerves what the earth is to plants: the lastextremities of the nerves are the roots, which with every vegetable aremore soft and tender than the trunk or branches; they contain a ductilematter fit for the growth and nourishment of the nervous tree or fibre;they draw the ductile matter from the substance of the brain itself, towhich the arteries are continually bringing the lymph that is necessaryto supply it. The brain, then, instead of being the seat of thesensations, and the originator of perception, is an organ of secretionand nutrition only, though a very essential organ, without which thenerves could neither grow nor be maintained. 

"This organ is greater in man, in quadrupeds, and in birds, because thenumber or bulk of the nerves is greater in these animals than in fishesor insects, whose power of perception is more feeble, for this veryreason, that they have but a small brain; one, in fact, that isproportioned to the small quantity of nerves which that brain mustsupport. Nor can I omit to state here that man has not, as has beenpretended by some, a larger brain than has any other animal; for thereare apes and cetacea which have more brain than man in proportion to thevolume of their bodies--another fact which proves that the brain isneither the seat of sensations nor the originator of perception, sincein that case these animals would have more sensations and perceptionthan man. 

"If we consider the manner in which plants derive their nourishment, weshall find that they do not draw up the grosser parts either of earth orwater; these parts must be reduced by warmth into subtle vapours beforethe roots can suck them up into the plant. In like manner the nutritionof the nerves is only effected by means of the more subtle parts of thehumidity of the brain, which are sucked up by the roots or extremitiesof the nerves, and are carried thence through all the branches of thesensory system. This system forms, as we have said, a whole, all whoseparts are interconnected by so close a union that we cannot wound onewithout communicating a violent shock to all the others; the wounding orsimply pulling of the smallest nerve is sufficient to cause livelyirritation to all the others, and to put the body in convulsion; nor canwe ease this pain and convulsion except by cutting the nerve higher upthan the injured part; but on this all the parts abutting on this nervebecome thenceforward senseless and immovable for ever. The brain shouldnot be considered as of the same character, nor as an organic portion ofthe nervous system, for it has not the same properties nor the samesubstance, being neither solid nor elastic, nor yet capable of feeling. I admit that on its compression perception ceases, but this very factshows it to be a body foreign to the nervous system itself, which, acting by its weight, or pressure, against the extremities of thenerves, oppresses them and stupefies them in the same way as a weightplaced upon the arm, leg, or any other part of the body, stupefies thenerves and deadens the perceptions of that part. And it is evident thatthis cessation of sensation on compression is but a suspension andtemporary stupefaction, for the moment the compression of the brainceases, perception and the power of movement returns. Again, I admitthat on tearing the medullary substance, and on wounding the brain tillthe _corpus callosum_ is reached, convulsion, loss of sensation, anddeath ensue; but this is because the nerves are so entirely derangedthat they are, so to speak, torn up by the roots and wounded alltogether, and at their source. 

"In further proof that the brain is neither the centre of perception northe seat of the sensations, I may remind the reader that animals andeven children have been born without heads and brains, and have yet hadfeeling, movement, and life. There are also whole classes of animals, like insects and worms, with a brain that is by no means a distinct massnor of sensible volume, but with only something which corresponds withthe _medulla oblongata_ and the spinal marrow. There would be morereason, then, in placing the seat of the feelings and perceptions in thespinal marrow, which no animal is without, than in the brain which isnot an organ common to all creatures that can feel. "

If Buffon's ideas concerning the brain are as just as they appear to be, the resemblance between plants and animals is more close than isapparent, even to a superficial observer, on a first inspection of thephenomena. Such an observer, however, on looking but a little moreintently, will see the higher _vertebrata_ as perambulating vegetablesplanted upside down. So the man who had been born blind, on being madeto see, and on looking at the objects before him with unsophisticatedeyes, said without hesitation that he saw "men as trees walking, " thusseeing with more prophetic insight than either he or the bystanderscould interpret. For our skull is as a kind of flower-pot, and holds thesoil from which we spring, that is to say the brain; our mouth andstomach are roots, in two stories or stages; our bones are thetrellis-work to which we cling while going about in search ofsustenance for our roots; or they are as the woody trunk of a tree; _we_are the nerves which are rooted in the brain, and which draw thence thesustenance which is supplied it by the stomach; our lungs are leaveswhich are folded up within us, as the blossom of a fig is hidden withinthe fruit itself. 

This is what should follow if Buffon's theory of the brain is allowed tostand, which I hope will prove to be the case, for it is the onlycomfortable thought concerning the brain that I have met with in anywriter. I have given it here at some length on account of itsimportance, and for the illustration it affords of Buffon's hatred ofmystery, rather than for its bearing upon evolution. The fact that ourleading men of science have adopted other theories will weigh littlewith those who have watched scientific orthodoxy with any closeness. What Buffon thought of that orthodoxy may be gathered from thefollowing:--

"The greatest obstacles to the advancement of human knowledge lie lessin things themselves than in man's manner of considering them. Howevercomplicated a machine the human body may be, it is still lesscomplicated than are our own ideas concerning it. It is less difficultto see Nature as she is, than as she is presented to us. She carries aveil only, while we would put a mask over her face; we load her with ourown prejudices, and suppose her to act and to conduct her operationseven after the same fashion as ourselves. [97]

 . . . . . . 

"I am by no means speaking of those purely arbitrary systems which weare able at a glance to detect as chimeras that are being pretended tous as realities, but I refer to the methods whereby people have setthemselves seriously to study nature. Even the experimental methoditself has been more fertile of error than of truth, for though it isindeed the surest, yet is it no surer than the hand of him who uses it. No matter how little we incline out of the straight path, we soon findourselves wandering in a sterile wilderness, where we can see but a fewobscure objects scattered sparsely; nevertheless we do violence to thesefacts and to ourselves, and resemble them together on a conceit ofanalogies and common properties amongst them. Then, passing andrepassing complaisantly over the tortuous path which we have ourselvesbeaten, we deem the road a worn one, and though it leads no whither, theworld follows it, adopts it, and accepts its supposed consequences asfirst principles. I could show this by laying bare the origin of thatwhich goes by the name of 'principle' in all the sciences, whetherabstract or natural. In the case of the former, the basis of principleis abstraction--that is to say, one or more suppositions: in that of thesecond, principles are but the consequences, better or worse, of themethods which may have been followed. And to speak here of anatomy only, did not he who first surmounted his natural repugnance and set himselfto work to open a human body--did he not believe that through going allover it, dissecting it, dividing it into all its parts, he would soonlearn its structure, mechanism, and functions? But he found the taskgreater than he had expected, and renouncing such pretensions, was fainto content himself with a method--not for seeing and judging, but forseeing after an orderly fashion. This method . . . Is still the solebusiness of our ablest anatomists, but it is not science. It is the roadwhich should lead scienceward, and might perhaps have reached scienceitself, if instead of walking ever on a single narrow path men had setthe anatomy of man and that of animals face to face with one another. For, what real knowledge can be drawn from an isolated pursuit? Is notthe foundation of all science seen to consist in the comparison whichthe human mind can draw between different objects in the matter of theirresemblances and differences--of their analogous or conflictingproperties, and of all the relations in which they stand to one another?The absolute, if it exist at all, is but of the concurrence of man's ownknowledge; we judge and can judge of things only by their bearings oneupon another; hence whenever a method limits us to only a singlesubject, whenever we consider it in its solitude and without regard toits resemblances or to its differences from other objects, we can attainto no real knowledge, nor yet, much less, reach any general principle. We do but give names, and make descriptions of a thing, and of all itsparts. Hence comes it that, after three thousand years of dissection, anatomy is still but a nomenclature, and has hardly advanced a steptowards its true object, which is the science of animal economy. Furthermore, what defects are there not in the method itself, whichshould above all things else be simple and easy to be understood, depending as it does upon inspection and having denominations only forits end! For seeing that nomenclature has been mistaken for knowledge, men have made it their chief business to multiply names, instead oflimiting things; they have crushed themselves under the burden ofdetails, and been on the look out for differences where there was nodistinction. When they had given a new name they conceived of it as anew thing, and described the smallest parts with the most minutiousexactness, while the description of some still smaller part, forgottenor neglected by previous anatomists, has been straightway hailed as adiscovery. The denominations themselves being often taken from thingswhich had no relation to the object that it was desired to denominate, have served but to confound confusion. The part of the brain, forexample, which is called testes and nates, wherein does it so differfrom the rest of the brain that it should deserve a name? These names, taken at haphazard or springing from some preconceived opinion, havethemselves become the parents of new prejudices and speculations; othernames given to parts which have been ill observed, or which are evennon-existent, have been sources of new errors. What functions and useshas it not been attempted to foist upon the pineal gland, and on thealleged empty space in the brain which is called the arch, the first ofwhich is but a gland, while the very existence of the other isdoubtful, --the empty space being perhaps produced by the hand of theanatomist and the method of dissection. "[98]

_The Genus felis. _

In his preliminary remarks upon the lion, Buffon while still professingto believe in some considerable mutability of species, seems very farfrom admitting that all living forms are capable of modification. But hehas shown us long since how clearly he saw the impossibility of limitingmutability, if he once admitted so much of the thin end of the wedge asthat a horse and an ass might be related. It is plain, therefore, thathe is not speaking "_au réel_" here, and we accordingly find him talkingclap-trap about the nobleness of the lion in having no speciesimmediately allied to it. A few lines lower on he reminds us in a casualway that the ass and horse are related. 

He writes:--

"Added to all these noble individual features the lion has also what maybe called a _specific_ nobility. For I call those species noble whichare constant, invariable, and which are above suspicion of havingdegenerated. These species are commonly isolated, and the only ones oftheir genus. They are distinguished by such well-marked features thatthey cannot be mistaken, nor confounded with any other species. To beginfor example with man, the noblest of created beings; he is but of asingle species, inasmuch as men and women will breed freely _inter se_in spite of all existing differences of race, climate and colour; andalso inasmuch as there is no other animal which can claim either adistant or near relationship with him. The horse, on the other hand, ismore noble as an individual than as a species, for he has the ass ashis near neighbour, _and seems himself to be nearly enough related toit_; . . . The dog is perhaps of even less noble species, approaching ashe does to the wolf, fox, and jackal, _which we can only consider to bethe degenerated species of a single family_"[99]--all which may seemvery natural opinions for a French aristocrat in the days before theRevolution, but which cannot for a moment be believed to have beenBuffon's own. I have not ascertained the date of Buffon's little quarrelwith the Sorbonne, but I cannot doubt that if we knew the inner historyof the work we are considering, we should find this passage and otherslike it explained by the necessity of quieting orthodox adversaries. Heconcludes the paragraph from which I have just been quoting by saying, "To class man and the ape together, or the lion with the cat, and to saythat the lion is a _cat with a mane and a long tail_--this were todegrade and disfigure nature instead of describing her and denominatingher species. " Buffon very rarely uses italics, but those last given arehis, not mine; could words be better chosen to make us see the lion andthe cat as members of the same genus? No wonder the Sorbonne consideredhim an infelicitous writer; why could he not have said "cat, " and havedone with it, instead of giving a couple of sly but telling touches, which make the cat as like a lion as possible, and then telling us thatwe must not call her one? Sorbonnes never do like people who write inthis way. 

"The lion, then, belongs to a most noble species, standing as he doesalone, and incapable of being confounded with the tiger, leopard, ounce, &c. , while, on the contrary, those species, which appear to beleast distant from the lion, are very sufficiently indistinguishable, sothat travellers and nomenclators are continually confounding them. "[100]

If this is not pure malice, never was a writer more persistentlyunfortunate in little ways. Why remind us here that the species whichcome nearest to the lion are so hard to distinguish? Why not have saidnothing about it? As it is, the case stands thus: we are required toadmit close resemblance between the leopard and the tiger, while we areto deny it between the tiger and the lion, in spite of there being nogreater outward difference between the first than between the secondpair, and in spite of the hurried whisper "_cat with a mane and a longtail_" still haunting our ears. Isidore Geoffroy and his followers mayconsent to this arrangement, but I hope the majority of my readers willnot do so. 

I went on to the account of the tiger with some interest to see the linewhich Buffon would take concerning it. I anticipated that we should findcats, pumas, lynxes, &c. , to be really very like tigers, and wassurprised to learn that the "true" tiger, though certainly not unlikethese animals, was still to be distinguished from "many others which hadsince been called tigers. " He is on no account to be confounded withthese, in spite of the obvious temptation to confound him. He is "a rareanimal, little known to the ancients, and badly described by themoderns. " He is a beast "of great ferocity, of terrible swiftness, andsurpassing even the proportions of the lion. " The effect of thedescription is that we no longer find the lion standing alone, but withthe tiger on a par with him if not above him; but at the same time wefall easy victims to the temptation to confound the tiger with "the manyother animals which are also called tigers. " A surface stream has sweptthe members of the cat family in different directions, but a stealthyundercurrent has seized them from beneath, and they are now happilyreunited. 

_Animals of the Old and New World--Changed Geographical Distribution. _

Writing upon the animals of the old world, [101] and referring to thehumps of the camel and the bison, Buffon shows that very considerablemodification may be effected in some animals within even a fewgenerations, but he attributes the effect produced to the directinfluence of climate. Buffon concludes his sketch of the animals of thenew world by pointing out that the larger animals of the African torridzone have been hindered by sea and desert from finding their way toAmerica, and by claiming to be the first "even to have suspected" thatthere was not a single denizen of the torrid zone of one continent whichwas common also to the other. [102]

The animals common to both continents are those which can stand the coldand which are generally suited for a temperate climate. These, Buffonbelieves, to have travelled either over some land still unknown, or"more probably, " over territory which has long since been submerged. Thespecies of the old and new world are never without some well-markeddifference, which however should not be held sufficient for us to refuseto admit their practical identity. But he maintains, I imagine wilfully, that there is a tendency in all the mammalia to become smaller on beingtransported to the new world, and refers the fact to the quality of theearth, the condition of the climate, the degrees of heat and humidity, to the height of mountains, amounts of running or stagnant waters, extent of forest, and above all to the brutal condition of nature in anew country, which he evidently regards with true aristocraticabhorrence. [103]

Then follows a passage which I had better perhaps give in full:--

The mammoth "was certainly the greatest and strongest of all quadrupeds;but it has disappeared; and if so, how many smaller, feebler, and lessremarkable species must have also perished without leaving us any tracesor even hints of their having existed? How many other species havechanged their nature, that is to say, become perfected or degraded, through great changes in the distribution of land and ocean, through thecultivation or neglect of the country which they inhabit, through thelong-continued effects of climatic changes, so that they are no longerthe same animals that they once were? Yet of all living beings afterman, the quadrupeds are the ones whose nature is most fixed and formmost constant: birds and fishes vary much more easily; insects stillmore again than these, and if we descend to plants, which certainlycannot be excluded from animated nature, we shall be surprised at thereadiness with which species are seen to vary, and at the ease withwhich they change their forms and adopt new natures. 

"It is probable then that all the animals of the new world are derivedfrom congeners in the old, without any deviation from the ordinarycourse of nature. We may believe that having become separated in thelapse of ages, by vast oceans and countries which they could nottraverse, they have gradually been affected by, and derived impressionsfrom, a climate which has itself been modified so as to become a new onethrough the operation of those same causes which dissociated theindividuals of the old and new world from one another; thus in thecourse of time they have grown smaller and changed their characters. This, however, should not prevent our classifying them as differentspecies now, for the difference is no less real whether it is caused bytime, climate and soil, or whether it dates from the creation. _Nature Imaintain is in a state of continual flux and movement. It is enough forman if he can grasp her as she is in his own time, and throw but aglance or two upon the past and future, so as to try and perceive whatshe may have been in former times and what one day she may attainto. _"[104]

_The Buffalo--Animals under Domestication. _

"The bison and the aurochs, " says Buffon, "differ only in unessentialcharacteristics, and are, by consequence, of the same species as ourdomestic cattle, so that I believe all the pretended species of the ox, whether ancient or modern, may be reduced to three--the bull, thebuffalo, and the bubalus. 

"The case of animals under domestication is in many respects differentfrom that of wild ones; they vary much more in disposition, size andshape, especially as regards the exterior parts of their bodies: theeffects of climate, so powerful throughout nature, act with far greatereffect upon captive animals than upon wild ones. Food prepared by man, and often ill chosen, combined with the inclemency of an uncongenialclimate--these eventuate in modifications sufficiently profound tobecome constant and hereditary in successive generations. I do notpretend to say that this general cause of modification is so powerful asto change radically the nature of beings which have had their impressstamped upon them in that surest of moulds--heredity; but itnevertheless changes them in not a few respects; it masks and transformstheir outward appearance; it suppresses some of their parts, and givesthem new ones; it paints them with various colours, and _by its actionon bodily habits influences also their natures, instincts, and mostinward qualities_" (and what is this but "radically changing theirnature"?). "The modification of but a single part, moreover, in a wholeas perfect as an animal body, will necessitate a correlativemodification in every other part, and it is from this cause that ourdomestic animals differ almost as much in nature and instinct, as inform, from those from which they originally sprung. "[105]

Buffon confirms this last assertion by quoting the sheep as anexample--an animal which can now no longer exist in a wild state. Thenreturning to cattle, he repeats that many varieties have been formed bythe effects--"diverse in themselves, and diverse in theircombinations--of climate, food, and treatment, whether underdomestication or in their wild state. " These are the main causes ofvariation ("causes générales de variété"), [106] among our domesticatedanimals, but by far the greatest is changed climate in consequence oftheir accompanying man in his migrations. The effects of the foregoingcauses of modification, especially the last of them, are repeatedlyinsisted on in the course of the forty pages which complete thepreliminary account of the buffalo. 

What holds good for the buffalo does so also for the mouflon or wildsheep. This, Buffon declares to be the source of all our domesticatedbreeds: of these there are in all some four or five, "all of them beingbut degenerations from a single stock, produced by man's agency, andpropagated for his convenience. "[107] At the same time that man hasprotected them he has hunted out the original race which was "lessuseful to him, "[108] so that it is now to be found only in a fewsecluded spots, such as the mountains of Greece, Cyprus, and Sardinia. Buffon does not consider even the differences between sheep and goats tobe sufficiently characteristic to warrant their being classed asdifferent species. 

"I shall never tire, " he continues, "of repeating--seeing how importantthe matter is--that we must not form our opinions concerning nature, nordifferentiate (différencier) her species, by a reference to minorspecial characteristics. And, again, that systems, far from havingillustrated the history of animals, have, on the contrary, served ratherto obscure it . . . Leading, as they do, to the creation of arbitraryspecies which nature knows nothing about; perpetually confounding realand hypothetical existences; giving us false ideas as to the veryessence of species; uniting them and separating them without foundationor knowledge, and often without our having seen the animal with which weare dealing. "[109]

_First and Second Views of Nature. _

The twelfth volume begins with a preface, entitled "A First View ofNature, " from which I take the following:--

"What cannot Nature effect with such means at her disposal? She can doall except either create matter or destroy it. These two extremes ofpower the deity has reserved for himself only; creation and destructionare the attributes of his omnipotence. To alter and undo, to develop andto renew--these are powers which he has handed over to the charge ofNature. "[110]

The thirteenth volume opens with a second view of nature. Afterdescribing what a man would have observed if he could have lived duringmany continuous ages, Buffon goes on to say:--

"And as the number, sustenance, and balance of power among species isconstant, Nature would present ever the same appearance, and would be inall times and under all climates absolutely and relatively the same, ifit were not her fashion to vary her individual forms as much aspossible. The type of each species is founded in a mould of which theprincipal features have been cut in characters that are ineffaceable andeternally permanent, but all the accessory touches vary; no oneindividual is the exact facsimile of any other, and no species existswithout a large number of varieties. In the human race on which thedivine seal has been set most firmly, there are yet varieties of blackand white, large and small races, the Patagonian, Hottentot, European, American, Negro, which, though all descended from a common father, nevertheless exhibit no very brotherly resemblance to one another. "[111]

On an earlier page there is a passage which I may quote as showingBuffon to have not been without some--though very imperfect--perceptionof the fact which evidently made so deep an impression upon hissuccessor, Dr. Erasmus Darwin. I refer to that continuity of life insuccessive generations, and that oneness of personality between parentsand offspring, which is the only key that will make the phenomena ofheredity intelligible. 

"Man, " he says, "and especially educated man, is no longer a singleindividual, but represents no small part of the human race in itsentirety. He was the first to receive from his fathers the knowledgewhich their own ancestors had handed down to them. These, havingdiscovered the divine art of fixing their thoughts so that they cantransmit them to their posterity, become, as it were, one and the samepeople with their descendants (_se sont, pour ainsi dire, identifiésavec leur neveux_); while our descendants will in their turn be one andthe same people with ourselves (_s'identifieront avec nous_). Thisreunion in a single person of the experience of many ages, throws backthe boundaries of man's existence to the utmost limits of the past; heis no longer a single individual, limited as other beings are to thesensations and experiences of to-day. In place of the individual we haveto deal, as it were, with the whole species. "[112]

"Differences in exterior are nothing in comparison with those ininterior parts. These last must be regarded as the causes, while theothers are but the effects. The interior parts of living beings are thefoundation of the plan of their design; this is their essential form, their real shape, their exterior is only the surface, or rather thedrapery in which their true figure is enveloped. How often does not thestudy of comparative anatomy show us that two exteriors which differwidely conceal interiors absolutely like each other, and, on thecontrary, that the smallest internal difference is accompanied by themost marked differences of outward appearance, changing as it does eventhe natural habits, faculties and attributes of the animal?"[113]

_Apes and Monkeys. _

The fourteenth volume is devoted to apes and monkeys, and to the chapterwith which the volumes on quadrupeds are brought to a conclusion--achapter for which perhaps the most important position in the whole workis thus assigned. It is very long, and is headed "On Descent withModification" ("De la Dégénération des Animaux"). This is the chapter inwhich Buffon enters more fully into the "causes or means" of thetransformation of species. 

At the opening of the chapter on the nomenclature of monkeys, the theoryis broached that there is a certain fixed amount of life-substance as ofmatter in nature; and that neither can be either augmented ordiminished. Buffon maintains this organic and living substance to be asreal and durable as inanimate matter; as permanent in its state of lifeas the other in that of death; it is spread over the whole of nature, and passes from vegetables to animals by way of nutrition, and fromanimals back to vegetables through putrefaction, thus circulatingincessantly to the animation of all that lives. 

As might be expected, Buffon is loud in his protest against any realsimilarity between man and the apes--man has had the spirit of the Deitybreathed into his nostrils, and the lowest creature with this is higherthan the highest without it. Having settled this point, he makes it hisbusiness to show how little difference in other respects there isbetween the apes and man. 

"One who could view, " he writes, "Nature in her entirety, from first tolast, and then reflect upon the manner in which these twosubstances--the living and the inanimate--act and react upon oneanother, would see that every living being is a mould which casts intoits own shape those substances upon which it feeds; that it is thisassimilation which constitutes the growth of the body, whose developmentis not simply an augmentation of volume, but an extension in all itsdimensions, a penetration of new matter into all parts of its mass: hewould see that these parts augment proportionately with the whole, andthe whole proportionately with these parts, while general configurationremains the same until the full development is accomplished. . . . He wouldsee that man, the quadruped, the cetacean, the bird, reptile, insect, tree, plant, herb, all are nourished, grow, and reproduce themselves onthis same system, and that though their manner of feeding and ofreproducing themselves may appear so different, this is only because thegeneral and common cause upon which these operations depend can onlyoperate in the individual agreeably with the form of each species. Travelling onward (for it has taken the human mind ages to arrive atthese great truths, from which all others are derived), he would compareliving forms, give them names to distinguish them, and other names toconnect them with each other. Taking his own body as the model withwhich all living forms should be compared, and having measured them, explained them thoroughly, and compared them in all their parts, hewould see that there is but small difference between the forms of livingbeings; that by dissecting the ape he could arrive at the anatomy ofman, and that taking some other animal we find always the same ultimateplan of organization, the same senses, the same viscera, the same bones, the same flesh, the same movements of the fluids, the same play andaction of the solids; he would find all of them with a heart, veins, arteries, in all the same organs of circulation, respiration, digestion, nutrition, secretion; in all of them a solid frame, composed of piecesput together in nearly the same manner; and he would find this systemalways the same, from man to the ape, from the ape to the quadrupeds, from the quadrupeds to the cetacea, birds, fishes, reptiles; this systemor plan then, I say, if firmly laid hold of and comprehended by thehuman mind, is a true copy of nature; it is the simplest and mostgeneral point of view from which we can consider her, and if we extendour view, and go on from what lives to what vegetates, we may see thisplan--which originally did but vary almost imperceptibly--change itsscope and descend gradually from reptiles to insects, from insects toworms, from worms to zoophytes, from zoophytes to plants, and yetkeeping ever the same fundamental unity in spite of differences ofdetail, insomuch that nutrition, development, and reproduction remainthe common traits of all organic bodies; traits eternally essential anddivinely implanted; which time, far from effacing or destroying, doesbut make plainer and plainer continually. "

This is the writer who can see nothing in common between the horse andthe zebra except that each has a solid hoof. [114] He continues:--

"If from this grand tableau of resemblances, in which the livinguniverse presents itself to our eyes as though it were a single family, we pass to a tableau rather of the differences between living forms, weshall see that, with the exception of some of the greater species, suchas the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, tiger, lion, which must eachhave their separate place, the other races seem all to blend withneighbouring forms, and to fall into groups of likenesses, greater orlesser, and of genera which our nomenclators represent to us by anetwork of shapes, of which some are held together by the feet, othersby the teeth, horns, and skin, and others by points of still minorimportance. And even those whose form strikes us as most perfect, asapproaching most nearly to our own--even the apes--require someattention before they can be distinguished from one another, for theprivilege of being an isolated species has been assigned less to formthan to size; and man himself, though of a separate species anddiffering infinitely from all or any others, has but a medium size, andis less isolated and has nearer neighbours than have the greateranimals. If we study the Orang-outang with regard only to hisconfiguration, we might regard him, with equal justice, as either thehighest of the apes or as the lowest of mankind, because, with theexception of the soul, he wants nothing of what we have ourselves, andbecause, as regards his body, he differs less from man than he does fromother animals which are still called apes. "[115]

The want of a soul Buffon maintains to be the only essential differencebetween the Orang-outang and man--"his body, limbs, senses, brain andtongue are the same as ours. He can execute whatever movements man canexecute; yet he can neither think nor speak, nor do any action of adistinctly human character. Is this merely through want of training? ormay it not be through wrong comparison on our own parts? We compare thewild ape in the woods to the civilized citizen of our great towns. Nowonder the ape shows to disadvantage. He should be compared with thehideous Hottentot rather, who is himself almost as much above the lowestman, as the lowest man is above the Orang-outang. "[116]

The passage is a much stronger one than I have thought it fit to quote. The reader can refer to it for himself. After reading it I entertain nofurther doubt that Buffon intended to convey the impression that men andapes are descended from common ancestors. He was not, however, going toavow this conclusion openly. 

"I admit, " he continues, "that if we go by mere structure the ape mightbe taken for a variety of the human race; the Creator did not choose tomodel mankind upon an entirely distinct system from the other animals:He comprised their form and man's under a plan which is in the mainuniform. "[117] Buffon then dwells upon the possession of a soul by man;"even the lowest creature, " he avers, "which had this, would have becomeman's rival. "

"The ape then is purely an animal, far from being a variety of our ownspecies, he does not even come first in the order of animals, since heis not the most intelligent: the high opinion which men have of theintelligence of apes is a prejudice based only upon the resemblancebetween their outward appearance and our own. "[118] But the undiscerningwere not only to be kept quiet, they were to be made happy. With thisend, if I am not much mistaken, Buffon brings his chapter on thenomenclature of apes to the following conclusion:--

"The ape, which the philosopher and the uneducated have alike regardedas difficult to define, and as being at best equivocal, and midwaybetween man and the lower animals, proves in fact to be an animal andnothing more; he is masked externally in the shape of man, butinternally he is found incapable of thought, and of all that constitutesman; apes are below several of the other animals in respect of qualitiescorresponding to their own, and differ essentially from man, in nature, temperament, the time which must be spent upon their gestation andeducation, in their period of growth, duration of life, and in fact inall those profounder habits which constitute what is called the 'nature'of any individual existence. "[119] This is handsome, and leaves the moretimorous reader in full possession of the field. 

Buffon is accordingly at liberty in the following chapter to bringtogether every fact he can lay his hands on which may point theresemblance between man and the Orang-outang most strongly; but he iscareful to use inverted commas here much more freely than is his wont. Having thus made out a strong case for the near affinity between man andthe Orang-outang, and having thrown the responsibility on the originalauthors of the passages he quotes, he excuses himself for having quotedthem on the ground that "everything may seem important in the history ofa brute which resembles man so nearly, " and then insists upon the pointsof difference between the Orang-outang and ourselves. They do not, however, in Buffon's hands come to much, until the end of the chapter, when, after a _résumé_ dwelling on the points of resemblance, thedifferences are again emphatically declared to have the best of it. 

I need not follow Buffon through his description of the remainingmonkeys. It comprises 250 pp. , and is confined to details with which wehave no concern; but the last chapter--"De la Dégénération desAnimaux"--deserves much fuller quotation than my space will allow me tomake from it. The chapter is very long, comprising, as I have said, oversixty quarto pages. It is impossible, therefore, for me to give morethan an outline of its contents. 

_Causes or Means of the Transformation of Species. _

The human race is declared to be the one most capable of modification, all its different varieties being descended from a common stock, andowing their more superficial differences to changes of climate, whiletheir profounder ones, such as woolly hair, flat noses, and thick lips, are due to differences of diet, which again will vary with the nature ofthe country inhabited by any race. Changes will be exceedingly gradual;it will take centuries of unbroken habit to bring about modificationswhich can be transmitted with certainty so as to eventuate in nationalcharacteristics. [120] It is a pleasure to find that here, too, habit isassigned as the main cause which underlies heredity. 

Modification will be much prompter with animals. When compelled toabandon their native land, they undergo such rapid and profoundmodification, that at first sight they can hardly be recognized as thesame race, and cannot be detected in their disguise till after the mostcareful inspection, and on grounds of analogy only. Domestication willproduce still more surprising results; the stigmata of their captivity, the marks of their chains, can be seen upon all those animals which manhas enslaved; the older and more confirmed the servitude, the deeperwill be its scars, until at length it will be found impossible torehabilitate the creature and restore to it its lost attributes. 

"Temperature of climate, quality of food, and the ills of slavery--hereare the three main causes of the alteration and degeneration of animals. The consequences of each of these should be particularly considered, sothat by examining Nature as she is to-day we may thus perceive what shewas in her original condition. "[121]

I have more than once admitted that there is a wide difference betweenthis opinion, which assigns modification to the direct influence ofclimate, food, and other changed conditions of life, and that of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, which assigns only an indirect effect to these, whilethe direct effect is given to changed actions in consequence of changeddesires; but it is surprising how nearly Buffon has approached the laterand truer theory, which may perhaps have been suggested to Dr. Darwin bythe following pregnant passage--as pregnant, probably, to Buffon himselfas to another:--

"The camel is the animal which seems to me to have felt the weight ofslavery most profoundly. He is born with wens upon his back andcallosities upon his knees and chest; these callosities are theunmistakable results of rubbing, for they are full of pus and ofcorrupted blood. The camel never walks without carrying a heavy burden, and the pressure of this has hindered, for generations, the freeextension and uniform growth of the muscular parts of the back; wheneverhe reposes or sleeps his driver compels him to do so upon his foldedlegs, so that little by little this position becomes habitual with him. All the weight of his body bears, during several hours of the daycontinuously, upon his chest and knees, so that the skin of these parts, pressed and rubbed against the earth, loses its hair, becomes bruised, hardened, and disorganized. 

"The llama, which like the camel passes its life beneath burdens, andalso reposes only by resting its weight upon its chest, has similarcallosities, which again are perpetuated in successive generations. Baboons, and pouched monkeys, whose ordinary position is a sitting one, whether waking or sleeping, have callosities under the region of thehaunches, and this hard skin has even become inseparable from the boneagainst which it is being continually pressed by the weight of the body;in the case, however, of these animals the callosities are dry andhealthy, for they do not come from the constraint of trammels, nor fromthe burden of a foreign weight, but are the effects only of the naturalhabits of the animal, which cause it to continue longer seated than inany other position. There are callosities of these pouched monkeys whichresemble the double sole of skin which we have ourselves under our feet;this sole is a natural hardness which our continued habit of walking orstanding upright will make thicker or thinner according to the greateror less degree of friction to which we subject our feet. "[122]

This involves the whole theory of Dr. Darwin. 

Wild animals would not change either their food or climate if left tothemselves, and in this case they would not vary, but either man or someother enemies have harassed most of them into migrations; "those whosenature was sufficiently flexible to lend itself to the new situationspread far and wide, while others have had no resource but the desertsin the neighbourhood of their own countries. "[123]

Since food and climate, and still less man's empire over them, can havebut little effect upon wild animals, Buffon refers their principalvarieties in great measure to their sexual habits, variations being muchless frequent among animals that pair and breed slowly, than among thosewhich do not mate and breed more freely. After running rapidly overseveral animals, and discussing the flexibility or inflexibility oftheir organizations, he declares the elephant to be the only one onwhich a state of domestication has produced no effect, inasmuch as "itrefuses to breed under confinement, and cannot therefore transmit thebadges of its servitude to its descendants. "[124]

Here is an example of Buffon's covert manner, in the way he maintainsthat descent with modification may account not only for specific but forgeneric differences. 

"But after having taken a rapid survey of the varieties which indicateto us the alterations that each species has undergone, there arises abroader and more important question, how far, namely, species themselvescan change--how far there has been an older degeneration, immemorialfrom all antiquity, which has taken place in every family, or, if theterm is preferred, _in all the genera_ under which those species arecomprehended which neighbour one another without presenting points ofany very profound dissimilarity? We have only a few isolated species, such as man, which form at once the species and the whole genus; theelephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the giraffe form genera, or simple species, which go down in a single line, with no collateralbranches. All other races appear to form families, in which we mayperceive a common source or stock from which the different branches seemto have sprung in greater or less numbers according as the individualsof each species are smaller and more fecund. "[125]

I can see no explanation of the introduction of this passage unless thatit is intended to raise the question whether modification may be notonly specific but generic, the point of the paragraph lying in thewords "dans chaque famille, _ou si l'on veut, dans chacun des genres_. "We are told in the next paragraph, that if we choose to look at thematter in this light, well--in that case--we ought to see not only theass and the horse, but _the zebra too_, as members of the same family;"the number of their points of resemblance being infinitely greater thanthose in respect of which they differ. "[126] Thus, at the close of hiswork on the quadrupeds, he thinks it well, as at the commencementseventeen years earlier, to emphasize--in his own quiet way--hisperception that the principles on which he has been insisting should becarried much farther than he has chosen to carry them. 

His conclusion is, that "after comparing all the animals and bringingthem each under their proper genus, we shall find the two hundredspecies we have already described to be reducible into a sufficientlysmall number of families or main stocks from which it is not impossiblethat all the others may be derived. "[127]

The chapter closes thus:--

"To account for the origin of these animals" (certain of those peculiarto America), "we must go back to the time when the two continents werenot yet separated, and call to mind the earliest geological changes. Atthe same time, we must consider the two hundred existing species ofquadrupeds as reduced to thirty-eight families. And though this is notat all the state of Nature as she is in our time, and as she has beenrepresented in this volume, and though, in fact, it is a condition whichwe can only arrive at by induction, and by analogies almost asdifficult to lay hold of as is the time which has effaced the greaternumber of their traces, I shall, nevertheless, endeavour to ascend tothese first ages of Nature by the aid of facts and monuments which yetremain to us, and to represent the epochs which these facts seem toindicate. "[128]

The fifteenth volume contains a description of a few more monkeys, asalso of some animals which Buffon had never actually seen, a great partbeing devoted to indices. 

_Supplement. _

The first four volumes of the Supplement to Buffon's 'Natural History, '1774-1789, contain little which throws additional light upon hisopinions concerning the mutability of species. At the beginning, however, of the fifth volume I find the following:--

"On comparing these ancient records of the first ages of life [fossils]with the productions of to-day, we see with sufficient clearness thatthe essential form has been preserved without alteration in itsprincipal parts: there has been no change whatever in the general typeof each species; the plan of the inner parts has been preserved withoutvariation. However long a time we may imagine for the succession ofages, whatever number of generations we may suppose, the individuals ofto-day present to us in each genus the same forms as they did in theearliest ages; and this is more especially true of the greater species, whose characters are more invariable and nature more fixed; for theinferior species have, as we have said, experienced in a perceptiblemanner all the effects of different causes of degeneration. Only itshould be remarked in regard to these greater species, such as theelephant and hippopotamus, that in comparing their fossil remains withthe existing forms we find the earlier ones to have been larger. Naturewas then in the full vigour of her youth, and the interior heat of theearth gave to her productions all the force and all the extent of whichthey were capable . . . If there have been lost species, that is to sayanimals which existed once, but no longer do so, these can only havebeen animals which required a heat greater than that of our presenttorrid zone. "[129]

The context proves Buffon to have been thinking of such huge creaturesas the megatherium and mastodon, but his words seem to limit theextinction of species to the denizens of a hot climate which had turnedcolder. It is not at all likely that Buffon meant this, as the passagequoted at p. 146 of this work will suffice to show. The whole paragraphis ironical. 

I can see nothing to justify the conclusion drawn from this passage byIsidore Geoffroy, that Buffon had modified his opinions, and wasinclined to believe in a more limited mutability than he had done a fewyears earlier. His exoteric position is still identical with what it wasin the outset, and his esoteric may be seen from the spirit which ishardly concealed under the following:--

"I shall be told that analogy points towards the belief that our ownrace has followed the same path, and dates from the same period asother species; that it has spread itself even more widely than they; andthat if man's creation has a later date than that of the other animals, nothing shows that he has not been subjected to the same laws of nature, the same alterations, and the same changes as they. We will grant thatthe human species does not differ essentially from others in the matterof bodily organs, and that, in respect of these, our lot has been muchthe same as that of other animals. "[130]

_Plants under Domestication. _

"If more modern and even recent examples are required in order to proveman's power over the vegetable kingdom, it is only necessary to compareour vegetables, flowers, and fruits with the same species such as theywere a hundred and fifty years ago; this can be done with much ease andcertainty by running the eye over the great collection of coloureddrawings begun in the time of Gaston of Orleans, and continued to thepresent day at the Jardin du Roi. We find with surprise that the finestflowers of that date, as the ranunculuses, pinks, tulips, bear's ears, &c. , would be rejected now, I do not say by our florists, but by ourvillage gardeners. These flowers, though then already cultivated, werestill not far above their wild condition. They had a single row ofpetals only, long pistils, colours hard and false; they had littlevelvety texture, variety, or gradation of tints, and, in fact, presentedall the characteristics of untamed nature. Of herbs there was a singlekind of endive, and two of lettuce--both bad--while we can now reckonmore than fifty lettuces and endives, all excellent. We can even namethe very recent dates of our best pippins and kernel fruits--all of themdiffering from those of our forefathers, which they resemble in nameonly. In most cases things remain while names change; here, on thecontrary, it is the names that have been constant while the things havevaried. [131]

 . . . . . . 

"It is not that every one of these good varieties did not arise from thesame wild stock; but how many attempts has not man made on Nature beforehe succeeded in getting them. How many millions of germs has he notcommitted to the earth, before she has rewarded him by producing them?It was only by sowing, tending, and bringing to maturity an almostinfinite number of plants of the same kind that he was able to recognizesome individuals with fruits sweeter and better than others; and thisfirst discovery, which itself involves so much care, would have remainedfor ever fruitless if he had not made a second, which required as muchgenius as the first required patience--I mean the art of grafting thoseprecious individuals, which, unfortunately, cannot continue a line asnoble as their own, nor themselves propagate their rare and admirablequalities? And this alone proves that these qualities are purelyindividual, and not specific, for the pips or stones of these excellentfruits bring forth the original wild stock, so that they do not formspecies essentially different from this. Man, however, by means ofgrafting, produces what may be called secondary species, which he canpropagate at will; for the bud or small branch which he engrafts uponthe stock contains within itself the individual quality which cannot betransmitted by seed, but which needs only to be developed in order tobring forth the same fruits as the individual from which it was taken inorder to be grafted on to the wild stock. The wild stock imparts none ofits bad qualities to the bud, for it did not contribute to the formingthereof, being, as it were, a wet nurse, and no true mother. 

"In the case of animals, the greater number of those features whichappear individual, do not fail to be transmitted to offspring, in thesame way as specific characters. It was easier then for man to producean effect upon the natures of animals than of plants. The differentbreeds in each animal species are variations that have become constantand hereditary, while vegetable species on the other hand present novariations that can be depended on to be transmitted with certainty. 

"In the species of the fowl and the pigeon alone, a large number ofbreeds have been formed quite recently, which are all constant, and inother species we daily improve breeds by crossing them. From time totime we acclimatize and domesticate some foreign and wild species. Allthese examples of modern times prove that man has but tardily discoveredthe extent of his own power, and that he is not even yet sufficientlyaware of it. It depends entirely upon the exercise of his intelligence;the more, therefore, he observes and cultivates nature the more means hewill find of making her subservient to him, and of drawing new richesfrom her bosom without diminishing the treasures of her inexhaustiblefecundity. "[132]

_Birds. _

In the preface to his volumes upon birds, Buffon says that these are notonly much more numerous than quadrupeds, but that they also exhibit afar larger number of varieties, and individual variations. 

"The diversities, " he declares, "which arise from the effects of climateand food, of domestication, captivity, transportation, voluntary andcompulsory migration--all the causes in fact of alteration anddegeneration--unite to throw difficulties in the way of theornithologist. "[133]

He points out the infinitely keener vision of birds than that of man andquadrupeds, and connects it with their habits and requirements. [134] Hedoes not appear to consider it as caused by those requirements, thoughit is quite conceivable that he saw this, but thought he had alreadysaid enough. He repeatedly refers to the effects of changed climate andof domestication, but I find nothing in the first volume which modifiesthe position already taken by him in regard to descent withmodification: it is needless, therefore, to repeat the few passageswhich are to be found bearing at all upon the subject. The chapter onthe birds that cannot fly, contains a sentence which seems to be thegerm that has been developed, in the hands of Lamarck, into thecomparison between nature and a tree. Buffon says that the chain ofnature is not a single long chain, but is comparable rather to somethingwoven, "which at certain intervals throws out a branch sideways thatunites it with the strands of some other weft. "[135] On the followingpage there is a passage which has been quoted as an example of Buffon'scontempt for the men of science of his time. The writer maintains thatthe most lucid arrangement of birds, would have been to begin with thosewhich most resembled quadrupeds. "The ostrich, which approaches thecamel in the shape of its legs, and the porcupine in the quills withwhich its wings are armed, should have immediately followed thequadrupeds, but philosophy is often obliged to make a show of yieldingto popular opinions, and _the tribe of naturalists_ is both numerous andimpatient of any disturbance of its methods. It would only, then, haveregarded this arrangement as an unreasonable innovation caused by adesire to contradict and to be singular. "[136]

It is, I believe, held not only by "_le peuple des naturalistes_, " butby most sensible persons, that the proposed arrangement would not havebeen an improvement. I find, however, in the preface to the third volumeon birds that M. Gueneau de Montbeillard described all the birds fromthe ostrich to the quail, so the foregoing passage is perhaps his andnot Buffon's. If so, the imitation is fair, but when we reflect upon itwe feel uncertain whether it is or is not beneath Buffon's dignity. 

Here, as often with pictures and music, we cannot criticise justlywithout taking more into consideration than is actually before us. Wefeel almost inclined to say that if the passage is by Buffon it isprobably right, and if by M. Gueneau de Montbeillard, probably wrong. Itmust also be remembered that, as we learn from the preface alreadyreferred to, Buffon was seized at this point in his work with a long andpainful illness, which continued for two years; a single hasty passagein so great a writer may well be pardoned under such circumstances. 

Looking through the third and remaining volumes on birds, the greaterpart of which was by Gueneau de Montbeillard, and bearing in mind thatin point of date they are synchronous with some of those upon quadrupedsfrom which I have already extracted as much as my space will allow, andnot seeing anything on a rapid survey which promises to throw new lightupon the author's opinions, I forbear to quote further. I thereforeleave Buffon with the hope that I have seen him more justly than someothers have done, but with the certainty that the points I have caughtand understood are few in comparison with those that I have missed. 

FOOTNOTES:

[65] 'Hist. Nat. , ' tom. I. P. 13, 1749. 

[66] Ibid. 

[67] Ibid. P. 16. 

[68] Tom. I. P. 21. 

[69] Ibid. P. 23. 

[70] Tom. Ii. P. 9, 1749. 

[71] Ibid. P. 10. 

[72] Tom. Iv. P. 31, 1753. 

[73] Tom. Iv. P. 55. 

[74] Tom. Iv. P. 98, 1753. 

[75] Ibid. 

[76] Tom. Viii. P. 283, &c. , 1760. 

[77] Tom. Iv. P. 102, 1760. 

[78] Tom. Iv. P. 103, 1753. 

[79] Dr. Darwin, 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 183, 1796. 

[80] Ibid. P. 184. 

[81] Dr. Darwin, 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 186. 

[82] Tom. V. P. 63, 1755. 

[83] Ibid. P. 64. 

[84] Tom. V. P. 103, 1755. 

[85] Tom. V. P. 104, 1755. 

[86] Tom. V. Pp. 192-195, 1755. 

[87] Tom. V. P. 195. 

[88] Tom. V. Pp. 196, 197. 

[89] This passage would seem to be the one which has suggested thefollowing to the author of 'The Vestiges of Creation':--

"He [the Deity] has endowed the families which enjoy His bounty with analmost infinite fecundity, . . . But the limitation of the results of thisfecundity . . . Is accomplished in a befitting manner by His ordainingthat certain other animals shall have endowments sure so to act as tobring the rest of animated beings to a proper balance" (p. 317, ed. 1853). 

[90] Tom. Vi. P. 252, 1756. 

[91] 'Discours sur la Nature des Animaux, ' vol. Iv. And p. 113 ofthis vol. 

[92] Tom. Vii. P. 9, 1758. 

[93] Tom. Vii. P. 10, 1758. 

[94] Tom. Vii. P. 12, 1758. 

[95] Tom. Vii. P. 14, 1758

[96] Tom. Vii. P. 15, 1758. 

[97] Tom. Vii. P. 19, 1758. 

[98] Tom. Vii. P. 23, 1758. See Sténon's Discourse upon this subject. 

[99] Tom. Ix. P. 10, 1761. 

[100] Tom. Ix. P. 11, 1761. 

[101] Tom. Ix. P. 68, 1761. 

[102] Ibid. P. 96, 1761. 

[103] Tom. Ix. P. 107 and following pages (during which he rails at thenew world generally), 1761. 

[104] Tom. Ix. P. 127, 1761. 

[105] Tom. Xi. P. 290, 1764 (misprinted on title-page 1754). 

[106] Ibid. P. 296. 

[107] Ibid. P. 363. 

[108] Ibid. P. 363. 

[109] Tom. Xi. P. 370, 1764. 

[110] Ibid. Xii. , preface, iv. 1764. 

[111] Tom. Xiii. , preface, x. 1765. 

[112] Tom. Xiii. , preface, iv. 1765. 

[113] Ibid. Xiii. P. 37. 

[114] See p. 80 of this volume. 

[115] Tom. Xiv. P. 30, 1766. 

[116] Tom. Xiv. P. 31, 1766. 

[117] Ibid. P. 32, 1766. 

[118] Tom. Xiv. P. 38, 1766. 

[119] Ibid. P. 42, 1766. 

[120] Tom. Xiv. P. 316, 1766. 

[121] Ibid. P. 317. 

[122] Tom. Xiv. P. 326, 1766. 

[123] Ibid. P. 327. 

[124] Tom. Xiv. P. 333. 

[125] Ibid. P. 335, 1766. 

[126] See p. 80 of this volume. 

[127] Tom. Xiv. P. 358, 1766. 

[128] Tom. Xiv. P. 374, 1766. 

[129] 'Hist. Nat. , ' Sup. Tom. V. P. 27, 1778. 

[130] Sup. Tom. V. P. 187, 1778. 

[131] Sup. Tom. V. P. 250, 1778. 

[132] Sup. Tom. V. P. 253, 1778. 

[133] 'Oiseaux, ' tom. I. , preface, v. 1770. 

[134] Ibid. Pp. 9-11. 

[135] 'Oiseaux, ' tom. I. Pp. 394, 395. 

[136] Ibid. P. 396, 1771. 

CHAPTER XII. 

SKETCH OF DR. ERASMUS DARWIN'S LIFE. 

Proceeding now to the second of the three founders of the theory ofevolution, I find, from a memoir by Dr. Dowson, that Dr. Erasmus Darwinwas born at Elston, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, on the 12th ofDecember, 1731, being the seventh child and fourth son of Robert Darwin, "a private gentleman, who had a taste for literature and science, whichhe endeavoured to impart to his sons. Erasmus received his earlyeducation at Chesterfield School, and later on was entered at St. John'sCollege, Cambridge, where he obtained a scholarship of about 16_l. _ ayear, and distinguished himself by his poetical exercises, which hecomposed with uncommon facility. He took the degree of M. B. There in1755, and afterwards prepared himself for the practice of medicine byattendance on the lectures of Dr. Hunter in London, and a course ofstudies in Edinburgh. 

"He first settled as a physician at Nottingham; but meeting with nosuccess there, he removed in the autumn of 1756, his twenty-fifth year, to Lichfield, where he was more fortunate; for a few weeks after hisarrival, to use the words of Miss Seward, 'he brilliantly opened hiscareer of fame. ' A young gentleman of family and fortune lay sick of adangerous fever. A physician who had for many years possessed theconfidence of Lichfield and the neighbourhood attended, but at lengthpronounced the case hopeless, and took his leave. Dr. Darwin was thencalled in, and by 'a reverse and entirely novel kind of treatment' thepatient recovered. "[137]

Of Dr. Darwin's personal appearance Miss Seward says:--

"He was somewhat above the middle size; his form athletic, and inclinedto corpulence; his limbs were too heavy for exact proportion; the tracesof a severe smallpox disfigured features and a countenance which, whenthey were not animated by social pleasure, were rather saturnine thansprightly; a stoop in the shoulders, and the then professionalappendage--a large full-bottomed wig--gave at that early period of lifean appearance of nearly twice the years he bore. Florid health and theearnest of good humour, a funny smile on entering a room and on firstaccosting his friends, rendered in his youth that exterior agreeable, towhich beauty and symmetry had not been propitious. 

"He stammered extremely, but whatever he said, whether gravely or injest, was always well worth waiting for, though the inevitableimpression it made might not be always pleasant to individual self-love. Conscious of great native elevation above the general standard ofintellect, he became early in life sore upon opposition, whether inargument or conduct, and always resented it by sarcasm of very keenedge. Nor was he less impatient of the sallies of egotism and vanity, even when they were in so slight a degree that strict politeness wouldrather tolerate than ridicule them. Dr. Darwin seldom failed to presenttheir caricature in jocose but wounding irony. If these ingredients ofcolloquial despotism were discernible in _unworn_ existence, theyincreased as it advanced, fed by an ever growing reputation within andwithout the pale of medicine. "[138]

I imagine that this portrait is somewhat too harshly drawn. Dr. Darwin'staste for English wines is the worst trait which I have been able todiscover in his character. On this head Miss Seward tells us that "hedespised the prejudice which deems foreign wines more wholesome than thewines of the country. 'If you must drink wine, ' said he, 'let it behome-made. '" "It is well known, " she continues, "that Dr. Darwin'sinfluence and example have sobered the county of Derby; thatintemperance in fermented fluid of every species is almost unknown amongits gentlemen, "[139] which, if he limited them to cowslip wine, ishardly to be wondered at. 

Dr. Dowson, quoting Miss Edgeworth, says that Dr. Darwin attributedalmost all the diseases of the upper classes to the too great use offermented liquors. "This opinion he supported in his writings with theforce of his eloquence and reason; and still more in conversation by allthose powers of wit, satire, and peculiar humour, which never appearedfully to the public in his works, but which gained him strongascendancy in private society. . . . When he heard that my father wasbilious, he suspected that this must be the consequence of his having, since his residence in Ireland, and in compliance with the fashion ofthe country, indulged too freely in drinking. His letter, I remember, concluded with, 'Farewell, my dear friend; God keep you from whisky--ifHe can. '"[140]

On the other hand, Dr. Darwin seems to have been a very large eater. "Acid fruits with sugar, and all sorts of creams and butter were hisluxuries; but he always ate plentifully of animal food. This liberalalimentary regimen he prescribed to people of every age where unvitiatedappetite rendered them capable of following it; even to infants. "

Dr. Dowson writes:--

"I have mentioned already that he had in his carriage a receptacle forpaper and pencils, with which he wrote as he travelled, and in onecorner a pile of books; but he had also a receptacle for a knife, fork, and spoon, and in the other corner a hamper, containing fruit andsweetmeats, cream and sugar. He provided also for his horses by having alarge pail lashed to his carriage for watering them, as well as hay andoats to be eaten on the road. Mrs. Schimmelpenninck says that when hecame on a professional visit to her father's house they had, as was thecustom whenever he came, 'a luncheon-table set out with hothouse fruitsand West India sweetmeats, clotted cream, stilton cheese, &c. While theconversation went on, the dishes in his vicinity were rapidly emptied, and what, ' she adds, 'was my astonishment when, at the end of the threehours during which the meal had lasted, he expressed his joy at hearingthe dressing bell, and hoped dinner would soon be announced. ' This wasnot mere gluttony; he thought an abundance, or what most people wouldconsider a superabundance of food, conducive to health. '_Eat or beeaten_' is said to have been often his medical advice. He had especiallya very high opinion of the nutritive value of sugar, and said 'that ifever our improved chemistry should discover the art of making sugar fromfossil or aerial matter without the assistance of vegetation, food foranimals would then become as plentiful as water, and mankind might liveupon the earth as thick as blades of grass, with no restraint to theirnumbers but want of room. '--Botanic Garden, vol. I. P. 470. "[141]

"Professional generosity, " says Miss Seward, "distinguished Dr. Darwin'spractice. Whilst resident in Lichfield he always cheerfully gave to thepriest and lay vicars of its cathedral and their families _his advice_, but never took fees from any of them. Diligently also did he attend thehealth of the poor in that city, and afterwards at Derby, and suppliedtheir necessities by food, and all sort of charitable assistance. Ineach of those towns _his_ was the cheerful board of almost open-housedhospitality, without extravagance or parade; generosity, wit, andscience were his household gods. "[142]

Of his first marriage the following account is given:--

"In 1757 he married Miss Howard, of the Close of Lichfield, a bloomingand lovely young lady of eighteen. . . . Mrs. Darwin's own mind, by natureso well endowed, strengthened and expanded in the friendship, conversation, and confidence of so beloved a preceptor. But alas! uponher too early youth, and too delicate constitution, the frequency of hermaternal situation, during the first five years of her marriage, hadprobably a baneful effect. The potent skill and assiduous cares of _him_before whom disease daily vanished from the frame of _others_, could notexpel it radically from that of her he loved. It was, however, kept atbay during thirteen years. 

"Upon the distinguished happiness of those years she spoke with fervourto two intimate female friends in the last week of her existence, whichclosed at the latter end of the summer 1770. 'Do not weep for myimpending fate, ' said the dying angel with a smile of unaffectedcheerfulness. 'In the short term of my life a great deal of happinesshas been comprised. The maladies of my frame were peculiar; those of myhead and stomach which no medicine could eradicate, were spasmodic andviolent; and required stronger measures to render them supportable whilethey lasted than my constitution could sustain without injury. Theperiods of exemption from those pains were frequently of several days'duration, and in my intermissions I felt no indications of malady. Paintaught me the value of ease, and I enjoyed it with a glow of spirit, seldom, perhaps, felt by the habitually healthy. While Dr. Darwincombated and assuaged my disease from time to time, his indulgence toall my wishes, his active desire to see me amused and happy, provedincessant. His house, as you know, has ever been the resort of people ofscience and merit. If, from my husband's great and extensive practice, Ihad much less of his society than I wished, yet the conversation of hisfriends, and of my own, was ever ready to enliven the hours of hisabsence. As occasional malady made me doubly enjoy health, so did thosefrequent absences give a zest even to delight, when I could be indulgedwith his company. My three boys have ever been docile and affectionate. Children as they are, I could trust them with important secrets, sosacred do they hold every promise they make. They scorn deceit andfalsehood of every kind, and have less selfishness than generallybelongs to childhood. Married to any other man, I do not suppose I couldhave lived a third part of the years which I have passed with Dr. Darwin; he has prolonged my days, and he has blessed them. '

"Thus died this superior woman, in the bloom of life, sincerelyregretted by all who knew how to value her excellence, and_passionately_ regretted by the selected few whom she honoured with herpersonal and confidential friendship. "[143]

I find Miss Seward's pages so fascinating, that I am in danger offollowing her even in those parts of her work which have no bearing onDr. Darwin. I must, however, pass over her account of Mr. Edgeworth andof his friend Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford and Merton, ' "which, bywise parents, is put into every youthful hand, " but the description ofMr. Day's portrait cannot be omitted. 

"In the course of the year 1770, Mr. Day stood for a full-length pictureto Mr. Wright, of Derby. A strong likeness and a dignified portrait werethe result. Drawn in the open air, the surrounding sky is tempestuous, lurid, dark. He stands leaning his left arm against a column inscribedto Hambden (_sic_). Mr. Day looks upwards, as enthusiasticallymeditating on the contents of a book held in his dropped right hand. Theopen leaf is the oration of that virtuous patriot in the senate, againstthe grant of ship money, demanded by King Charles I. A flash oflightning plays in Mr. Day's hair, and illuminates the contents of thevolume. The poetic fancy and what were _then_ the politics of theoriginal, appear in the choice of subject and attitude. Dr. Darwin satto Mr. Wright about the same period. _That_ was a simply contemplativeportrait, of the most perfect resemblance. "[144]

 . . . . . . 

"In the year 1768, Dr. Darwin met with an accident of irretrievableinjury to the human frame. His propensity to mechanics had unfortunatelyled him to construct a very singular carriage. It was a platform with aseat fixed upon a very high pair of wheels, and supported in the frontupon the back of the horse, by means of a kind of proboscis which, forming an arch, reached over the hind-quarters of the horse, and passedthrough a ring, placed on an upright piece of iron, which worked in asocket fixed in the saddle. The horse could thus move from one side ofthe road to the other, quartering, as it is called, at the will of thedriver, whose constant attention was necessarily employed to regulate apiece of machinery contrived, but _not well_ contrived, for thatpurpose. "

I cannot help the reader to understand the foregoing description. "Fromthis whimsical carriage, however, the doctor was several times thrown, and the last time he used it had the misfortune, from a similaraccident, to break the patella of his right knee, which caused, as itmust always cause, an incurable weakness in the fractured part, and alameness not very discernible, indeed, when walking on evenground. "[145]

Miss Seward presently tells a story which reads as though it might havebeen told by Plutarch of some Greek or Roman sage. Much as we mustapprove of Dr. Darwin's habitual sobriety, we shall most of us be agreedthat a few more such stories would have been cheaply purchased by acorresponding number of lapses on the doctor's part. 

Miss Seward writes:--

"Since these memoirs commenced, an odd anecdote of Dr. Darwin's earlyresidence at Lichfield, was narrated to a friend of the author by agentleman, who was of the party in which it happened. Mr. Sneyd, then ofBishton, and a few more gentlemen of Staffordshire, prevailed upon thedoctor to join them in an expedition by water from Burton to Nottingham, and on to Newark. They had cold provisions on board, and plenty of wine. It was midsummer; the day ardent and sultry. The noon-tide meal hadbeen made, and the glass had gone gaily round. It was one of those _few_instances in which the medical votary of the Naiads transgressed hisgeneral and strict sobriety, " in which, in fact, he may be said tohave--remembered himself. 

"If not absolutely intoxicated, his spirits were in a high state ofvinous exhilaration. On the boat approaching Nottingham, within thedistance of a few fields, he surprised his companions by stepping, without any previous notice, from the boat into the middle of the river, and swimming to shore. They saw him get upon the bank, and walk coollyover the meadows towards the town: they called to him in vain, but hedid not once turn his head. 

"Anxious lest he should take a dangerous cold by remaining in his wetclothes, and uncertain whether or not he intended to desert the party, they rowed instantly to the town at which they had not designed to havetouched, and went in search of their river-god. 

"In passing through the market-place they saw him standing upon a tub, encircled by a crowd of people, and resisting the entreaties of anapothecary of the place, one of his old acquaintances, who wasimportuning him to his house, and to accept other raiments till his owncould be dried. 

"The party on pressing through the crowd were surprised to hear himspeaking without any degree of his usual stammer:--'Have I not told you, my friend, that I had drank a considerable quantity of wine before Icommitted myself to the river. You know my general sobriety, and as aprofessional man you _ought_ to know that the _unusual_ existence ofinternal stimulus would, in its effects upon the system, counteract the_external_ cold and moisture. '"

"Then perceiving his companions near him, he nodded, smiled, and waivedhis hand, as enjoining them silence, thus, without hesitation, addressing the populace:--

"'Ye men of Nottingham, listen to me. You are ingenious and industriousmechanics. By your industry life's comforts are procured for yourselvesand families. If you lose your health the power of being industriouswill forsake you. _That_ you know, but you may _not_ know that tobreathe fresh and changed air constantly, is not less necessary topreserve health than sobriety itself. Air becomes unwholesome in a fewhours if the windows are shut. Open those of your sleeping roomswhenever you quit them to go to your workshops. Keep the windows of yourworkshops open whenever the weather is not insupportably cold. I have no_interest_ in giving you this advice; remember what I, your countrymanand a physician, tell you. If you would not bring infection and diseaseupon yourselves, and to your wives and little ones, change the air youbreathe, change it many times a day, by opening your windows. '

"So saying, he stepped down from the tub, and, returning with his partyto their boat, they pursued their voyage. "[146]

Could any missionary be more perfectly sober and sensible, or more aliveto the immorality of trying to effect too sudden a modification in theorganisms he was endeavouring to influence? If the men of Nottinghamwant a statue in their market-place, I would respectfully suggest that asubject is here afforded them. 

 * * * * *

"Dr. Johnson was several times at Lichfield on visits to Mrs. LucyPorter, his daughter-in-law, while Dr. Darwin was one of theinhabitants. They had one or two interviews, but never afterwards soughteach other. Mutual and strong dislike subsisted between them. It iscurious that in Johnson's various letters to Mrs. Thrale, now Mrs. Piozzi, published by that lady after his death, many of them dated fromLichfield, the name of Darwin cannot be found, nor, indeed, that of anyof the ingenious and lettered people who lived there; while of its merecommon-life characters there is frequent mention, with many hints ofLichfield's intellectual barrenness, while it could boast a Darwin andother men of classical learning, poetic talents, and liberalinformation. "[147]

Here there follows a pleasant sketch of the principal Lichfieldnotabilities, which I am compelled to omit. 

"_These_ were the men, " exclaims Miss Seward, "whose intellectualexistence passed unnoticed by Dr. Johnson in his depreciating estimateof Lichfield talents. But Johnson liked only _worshippers_. ArchdeaconVyse, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Robinson paid all the respect and attention toDr. Johnson, on these his visits to their town, due to his greatabilities, his high reputation, and to whatever was estimable in his_mixed_ character; but they were not in the herd that 'paged his heels, 'and sunk in servile silence under the force of his dogmas, when theirhearts and their judgments bore _contrary_ testimony. 

"Certainly, however, it was an arduous hazard to the feelings of thecompany to oppose in the slightest degree Dr. Johnson's opinions. Hisstentor lungs; that combination of wit, humour, and eloquence, which'could make the _worse_ appear the _better_ reason, ' that sarcasticcontempt of his antagonist, never suppressed or even softened by the duerestraints of good breeding, were sufficient to close the lips in hispresence, of men who could have met him in fair argument, on _any_ground, literary or political, moral or characteristic. 

"Where Dr. Johnson was, Dr. Darwin had no chance of being heard, thoughat least his equal in genius, his superior in science; nor, indeed, fromhis impeded utterance, in the company of any overbearing declaimer; andhe was too intellectually great to be an humble listener to Johnson. Therefore he shunned him on having experienced what manner of man hewas. The surly dictator felt the mortification, and revenged it by_affecting_ to avow his disdain of powers too distinguished to beobjects of _genuine_ scorn. 

"Dr. Darwin, in his turn, was not much more just to Dr. Johnson'sgenius. He uniformly spoke of him in terms which, had they beendeserved, would have justified Churchill's 'immane Pomposo' as anappellation of _scorn_; since if his person was huge, and his mannerspompous and violent, so were his talents vast and powerful, in a degreefrom which only prejudice and resentment could withhold respect. 

"Though Dr. Darwin's hesitation in speaking precluded his flow ofcolloquial eloquence, it did not impede, or at all lessen, the force ofthat conciser quality, _wit_. Of satiric wit he possessed a verypeculiar species. It was neither the dead-doing broadside of Dr. Johnson's satire, nor the aurora borealis of Gray . . . Whose arch yet coyand quiet fastidiousness of taste and feeling, as recorded by Mason, glanced bright and cold through his conversation, while it seemeddifficult to define its nature; and while its effects were rather_perceived_ than _felt_, exciting surprise more than mirth, and neverawakening the pained sense of being the object of its ridicule. Thatunique in humorous verse, the Long Story, is a complete and beautifulspecimen of Gray's singular vein. 

"Darwinian wit is not more easy to be defined; instances will bestconvey an idea of its character to those who never conversed with itspossessor. 

"Dr. Darwin was conversing with a brother botanist concerning the plantkalmia, then a just imported stranger in our greenhouses and gardens. Alady who was present, concluding he had seen it, which in fact he hadnot, asked the doctor what were the colours of the plant. He replied, 'Madam, the kalmia has precisely the colours of a seraph's wing. ' Sofancifully did he express his want of consciousness concerning theappearance of a flower, whose name and rareness were all he knew of thematter. 

"Dr. Darwin had a large company at tea. His servant announced astranger, lady and gentleman. The female was a conspicuous figure, ruddy, corpulent, and tall. She held by the arm a little, meek-looking, pale, effeminate man, who, from his close adherence to the side of thelady, seemed to consider himself as under her protection. 

"'Dr. Darwin, I seek you not as a physician, but as a _Belle Esprit_. Imake this husband of mine, ' and she looked down with a side glance uponthe animal, 'treat me every summer with a tour through one of theBritish counties, to explore whatever it contains worth the attention ofingenious people. On arriving at the several inns in our route I alwayssearch out the man of the vicinity most distinguished for his genius andtaste, and introduce myself, that he may direct as the objects of ourexamination, whatever is curious in nature, art, or science. Lichfieldwill be our headquarters during several days. Come, doctor, whither mustwe go; what must we investigate to-morrow, and the next day, and thenext? Here are my tablets and pencil. '

"'You arrive, madam, at a fortunate juncture. To-morrow you will have anopportunity of surveying an annual exhibition perfectly worthy yourattention. To-morrow, madam, you will go to Tutbury bull-running. '

"The satiric laugh with which he stammered out the last word more keenlypointed this sly, yet broad rebuke to the vanity and arrogance of herspeech. She had been up amongst the boughs, and little expected theywould break under her so suddenly, and with so little mercy. Her largefeatures swelled, and her eyes flashed with anger--'I was recommended toa man of genius, and I find him insolent and ill-bred. ' Then, gatheringup her meek and alarmed husband, whom she had loosed when she firstspoke, under the shadow of her broad arm and shoulder, she strutted outof the room. 

"After the departure of this curious couple, his guests told their hosthe had been very unmerciful. 'I chose, ' replied he, 'to avenge the causeof the little man, whose nothingness was so ostentatiously displayed byhis lady-wife. Her vanity has had a smart emetic. If it abates thesymptoms, she will have reason to thank her physician who administeredwithout hope of a fee. '"[148]

"In the spring of 1778 the children of Colonel and Mrs. Pole of Radburn, in Derbyshire, had been injured by a dangerous quantity of the cicuta, injudiciously administered to them in the hooping-cough by a physicianof the neighbourhood. Mrs. Pole brought them to the house of Dr. Darwinin Lichfield, remaining with them there a few weeks, till by his art thepoison was expelled from their constitutions and their health restored. 

"Mrs. Pole was then in the full bloom of her youth and beauty. Agreeablefeatures; the glow of health; a fine form, tall and graceful; playfulsprightliness of manner; a benevolent heart, and maternal affection, inall its unwearied cares and touching tenderness, contributed to inspireDr. Darwin's admiration, and to secure his esteem. "[149]

"In the autumn of this year" (1778) "Mrs. Pole of Radburn was taken ill;her disorder a violent fever. Dr. Darwin was called in, and neverperhaps since the death of Mrs. Darwin, prescribed with such deepanxiety. Not being requested to continue in the house during the ensuingnight, which he apprehended might prove critical, he passed theremaining hours till day-dawn beneath a tree opposite her apartment, watching the passing and repassing lights in the chamber. During theperiod in which a life so passionately valued was in danger, heparaphrased Petrarch's celebrated sonnet, narrating a dream whoseprophecy was accomplished by the death of Laura. It took place the nighton which the vision arose amid his slumber. Dr. Darwin extended thethought of that sonnet into the following elegy:--

 "Dread dream, that, hovering in the midnight air, Clasp'd with thy dusky wing my aching head, While to imagination's startled ear Toll'd the slow bell, for bright Eliza dead. 

 "Stretched on her sable bier, the grave beside, A snow-white shroud her breathless bosom bound, O'er her wan brow the mimic lace was tied, And loves and virtues hung their garlands round. 

 "From those cold lips did softest accents flow? Round that pale mouth did sweetest dimples play? On this dull cheek the rose of beauty blow, And those dim eyes diffuse celestial day?

 "Did this cold hand, unasking Want relieve, Or wake the lyre to every rapturous sound? How sad for other's woe this breast would heave! How light this heart for other's transport bound!

 "Beats not the bell again?--Heavens, do I wake? Why heave my sighs, why gush my tears anew? Unreal forms my trembling doubts mistake, And frantic sorrow fears the vision true. 

 "Dreams to Eliza bend thy airy flight, Go, tell my charmer all my tender fears, How love's fond woes alarm the silent night, And steep my pillow in unpitied tears. "

Unwilling as I am to extend this memoir, I must give Miss Seward'scriticism on the foregoing. 

"The second verse of this charming elegy affords an instance of Dr. Darwin's too exclusive devotion to distinct picture in poetry; that itsometimes betrayed him into bringing objects so precisely to the eye asto lose in such precision their power of striking forcibly on the heart. The pathos in the second verse is much injured by the words 'mimiclace, ' which allude to the perforated borders on the shroud. Theexpression is too minute for the solemnity of the subject. Certainly itcannot be natural for a shocked and agitated mind to observe, or todescribe with such petty accuracy. Besides, the allusion is notsufficiently obvious. The reader pauses to consider what the poet meansby 'mimic lace. ' Such pauses deaden sensation and break the course ofattention. A friend of the doctor's pleaded greatly that the line mightrun thus:--

 "On her wan brow the _shadowy crape_ was tied;"

but the alteration was rejected. Inattention to the rules of grammar inthe first verse was also pointed out to him at the same time. The dreamis addressed:

 "Dread dream, that clasped my aching head, "

but nothing is said to it, and therefore the sense is left unfinished, while the elegy proceeds to give a picture of the lifeless beauty. Thesame friend suggested a change which would have remedied the defect. Thus:--

 "Dread _was the dream_ that in the midnight air Clasped with its dusky wing my aching head, While to" &c. , &c. 

"Hence not only the grammatic error would have been done away, but thegrating sound produced by the near alliteration of the harsh _dr_ in'_dr_ead _dr_eam' removed, by placing those words at a greater distancefrom each other. 

"This alteration was, for the same reason, rejected. The doctor wouldnot spare the word _hovering_, which he said strengthened the picture;but surely the image ought not to be elaborately precise, by which adream is transformed into an animal with black wings. "[150]

Then Mrs. Pole got well, and the doctor wrote more verses and MissSeward more criticism. It was not for nothing that Dr. Johnson came downto Lichfield. 

 * * * * *

In 1780 Colonel Pole died, and his widow, still young, handsome, witty, and--for those days--rich, was in no want of suitors. 

"Colonel Pole, " says Miss Seward, "had numbered twice the years of hisfair wife. His temper was said to have been peevish and suspicious; yetnot beneath those circumstances had her kind and cheerful attentions tohim grown cold or remiss. He left her a jointure of 600_l. _ per annum, ason to inherit his estate, and two female children amply portioned. 

"Mrs. Pole, it has already been remarked, had much vivacity and sportivehumour, with very engaging frankness of temper and manners. Early in herwidowhood she was rallied in a large company upon Dr. Darwin's passionfor her, and was asked what she would do with her captive philosopher. 'He is not very fond of churches, I believe, ' said she, 'and even if hewould go there for my sake, I shall scarcely follow him. He is too oldfor me. ' 'Nay, Madam, ' was the answer, 'what are fifteen years on theright side?' She replied, with an arch smile, 'I have had so _much_ ofthat right side. '

"This confession was thought inauspicious for the doctor's hopes, but itdid not prove so. The triumph of intellect was complete. "[151]

Mrs. Pole had taken a strong dislike to Lichfield, and had made it acondition of her marriage that Dr. Darwin should not reside there afterhe had married her. In 1781, therefore, immediately after his marriage, he removed to Derby, and continued to live there till a fortnight beforehis death. 

Here he wrote 'The Botanic Garden' and a great part of the 'Zoonomia. 'Those who wish for a detailed analysis of 'The Botanic Garden' canhardly do better than turn to Miss Seward's pages. Opening them atrandom, I find the following:--

"The mention of Brindley, the father of commercial canals, has proprietyas well as happiness. Similitude for their course to the sinuous trackof a serpent, produces a fine picture of a gliding animal of thatspecies, and it is succeeded by these supremely happy lines:--

 "'So with strong arms immortal Brindley leads His long canals, and parts the velvet meads; Winding in lucid lines, the watery mass Mines the firm rock, or loads the deep morass;'[152] &c. &c. &c. 

 . . . . . . 

"The mechanism of the pump is next described with curious ingenuity. Common as is the machine, it is not unworthy a place in this splendidcomposition, as being, after the sinking of wells, the earliest of thoseinventions, which in situations of exterior aridness gave readyaccession to water. This familiar object is illustrated by a picture ofMaternal Beauty administering sustenance to her infant. "[153]

Here we will leave the poetical part of the 'Botanic Garden. ' The notes, however, to which are "still, " as Dr. Dowson says, "instructive andamusing, " and contain matter which, at the time they were written, wasfor the most part new. 

Of the 'Zoonomia' there is no occasion to speak here, as a sufficientnumber of extracts from those parts that concern us as bearing uponevolution will be given presently. 

On the 18th of April, 1802, Dr. Darwin had written "one page of a verysprightly letter to Mr. Edgeworth, describing the Priory and hispurposed alterations there, when the fatal signal was given. He rang thebell and ordered the servant to send Mrs. Darwin to him. She cameimmediately, with his daughter, Miss Emma Darwin. They saw him shiveringand pale. He desired them to send to Derby for his surgeon, Mr. Hadley. They did so, but all was over before he could arrive. 

"It was reported at Lichfield that, perceiving himself growing rapidlyworse, he said to Mrs. Darwin, 'My dear, you must bleed me instantly. ''Alas! I dare not, lest--' 'Emma, will you? There is no time to belost. ' 'Yes, my dear father, if you will direct me. ' At that moment hesank into his chair and expired. "[154]

Dr. Dowson gives the letter to Mr. Edgeworth, which is as follows:--

 "Dear Edgeworth, "I am glad to find that you still amuse yourself with mechanism, in spite of the troubles of Ireland. 

 "The _use_ of turning aside or downwards the claw of a table, I don't see; as it must then be reared against a wall, for it will not stand alone. If the use be for carriage, the feet may shut up, like the usual brass feet of a reflecting telescope. 

 "We have all been now removed from Derby about a fortnight, to the Priory, and all of us like our change of situation. We have a pleasant house, a good garden, ponds full of fish, and a pleasing valley, somewhat like Shenstone's--deep, umbrageous, and with a talkative stream running down it. Our house is near the top of the valley, well screened by hills from the east and north, and open to the south, where at four miles distance we see Derby tower. 

 "Four or more strong springs rise near the house, and have formed the valley which, like that of Petrarch, may be called Val Chiusa, as it begins, or is shut at the situation of the house. I hope you like the description, and hope farther that yourself and any part of your family will sometimes do us the pleasure of a visit. 

 "Pray tell the authoress" (Miss Maria Edgeworth) "that the water-nymphs of our valley will be happy to assist her next novel. 

 "My bookseller, Mr. Johnson, will not begin to print the 'Temple of Nature' till the price of paper is fixed by Parliament. I suppose the present duty is paid. . . . "

At these words Dr. Darwin's pen stopped. What followed was written onthe opposite side of the paper by another hand. 

FOOTNOTES:

[137] 'Sketch, &c. , of Erasmus Darwin, ' pp. 3, 4. 

[138] Miss Seward's 'Memoirs of Dr. Darwin, ' p. 3. 

[139] Ibid. 

[140] Dr. Dowson's 'Sketch of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, ' p. 50. 

[141] Dr. Dowson's 'Sketch of Dr. Darwin, ' p. 53. 

[142] Miss Seward's 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 6. 

[143] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 14. 

[144] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 21. 

[145] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 62. 

[146] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 68. 

[147] Miss Seward's 'Memoirs, ' p. 69. 

[148] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 84. 

[149] Ibid. , p. 105. 

[150] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 120. 

[151] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 149. 

[152] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 249. 

[153] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 250. 

[154] 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 426. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PHILOSOPHY OF DR. ERASMUS DARWIN. 

Considering the wide reputation enjoyed by Dr. Darwin at the beginningof this century, it is surprising how completely he has been lost sightof. The 'Botanic Garden' was translated into Portuguese in 1803; the'Loves of the Plants' into French and Italian in 1800 and 1805; while, as I have already said, the 'Zoonomia' had appeared some years earlierin Germany. Paley's 'Natural Theology' is written throughout at the'Zoonomia, ' though he is careful, _more suo_, never to mention this workby name. Paley's success was probably one of the chief causes of theneglect into which the Buffonian and Darwinian systems fell in thiscountry. Dr. Darwin is as reticent about teleology as Buffon, andpresumably for the same reason, but the evidence in favour of design wastoo obvious; Paley, therefore, with his usual keen-sightedness seizedupon this weak point, and had the battle all his own way, for Dr. Darwindied the same year as that in which the 'Natural Theology' appeared. Theunfortunate failure to see that evolution involves design and purpose asnecessarily and far more intelligibly than the theological view ofcreation, has retarded our perception of many important facts forthree-quarters of a century. 

However this may be, Dr. Darwin's name has been but little before thepublic during the controversies of the last thirty years. Mr. CharlesDarwin, indeed, in the "historical sketch" which he has prefixed to thelater editions of his 'Origin of Species, ' says, "It is curious howlargely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views anderroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. Pp. 500-510, published in 1794. "[155] And a few lines lower Mr. Darwin adds, "It is rather a singular instance of the manner in which similar viewsarise at about the same time, that Goethe in Germany, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire (as we shall immediately see) in France, came to the sameconclusion on the 'Origin of Species' in the years 1794-1796. "Acquaintance with Buffon's work will explain much of the singularity, while those who have any knowledge of the writings of Dr. Darwin andÉtienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire will be aware that neither would admit theother as "coming to the same conclusion, " or even nearly so, as himself. Dr. Darwin goes beyond his successor, Lamarck, while Étienne Geoffroydoes not even go so far as Dr. Darwin's predecessor, Buffon, had thoughtfit to let himself be known as going. I have found no other reference toDr. Darwin in the 'Origin of Species, ' except the two just given fromthe same note. In the first edition I find no mention of him. 

The chief fault to be found with Dr. Darwin's treatise on evolution isthat there is not enough of it; what there is, so far from being"erroneous, " is admirable. But so great a subject should have had a bookto itself, and not a mere fraction of a book. If his opponents, notventuring to dispute with him, passed over one book in silence, heshould have followed it up with another, and another, and another, yearby year, as Buffon and Lamarck did; it is only thus that men can expectto succeed against vested interests. Dr. Darwin could speak with afreedom that was denied to Buffon. He took Buffon at his word as well ashe could, and carried out his principles to what he conceived to betheir logical conclusion. This was doubtless what Buffon had desired andreckoned on, but, as I have said already, I question how far Dr. Darwinunderstood Buffon's humour; he does not present any of the phenomena ofhaving done so, and therefore I am afraid he must be said to have missedit. 

Like Buffon, Dr. Darwin had no wish to see far beyond the obvious; hemissed good things sometimes, but he gained more than he lost; he knewthat it is always on the margin, as it were, of the self-evident thatthe greatest purchase against the nearest difficulty is obtainable. Hislife was not one of Herculean effort, but, like the lives of all thoseorganisms that are most likely to develop and transmit a usefulmodification, it was one of well-sustained activity; it was along-continued keeping open of the windows of his own mind, much afterthe advice he gave to the Nottingham weavers. Dr. Darwin knew, and, Iimagine, quite instinctively, that nothing tends to oversight likeoverseeing. He does not trouble himself about the origin of life; asfor the perceptions and reasoning faculties of animals and plants, it isenough for him that animals and plants do things which we say involvesensation and consciousness when we do them ourselves or see others dothem. If, then, plants and animals appear as if they felt andunderstood, let the matter rest there, and let us say they feel andunderstand--being guided by the common use of language, rather than byany theories concerning brain and nervous system. If any young writerhappens to be in want of a subject, I beg to suggest that he may findhis opportunity in a 'Philosophy of the Superficial. '

Though Dr. Darwin was more deeply impressed than Buffon with the onenessof personality between parents and offspring, so that these latter arenot "new" creatures, but "elongations of the parents, " and hence "mayretain some of the habits of the parent system, " he did not go on toinfer definitely all that he might easily have inferred from such apregnant premiss. He did not refer the repetition by offspring, ofactions which their parents have done for many generations, but whichthey can never have seen those parents do, to the memory (in the strictsense of the word) of their having done those actions when they were inthe persons of their parents; which memory, though dormant untilawakened by the presence of associated ideas, becomes promptly kindledinto activity when a sufficient number of these ideas are reproduced. 

This, I gather, is the theory put forward by Professor Hering, of whosework, however, I know no more than is told us by Professor RayLankester in an article which, appeared in 'Nature, ' July 13th, 1876. This theory seems to be adopted by Professor Haeckel, and to receivesupport from Professor Ray Lankester himself. Knowing no German, I havebeen unable to make myself acquainted with Professor Hering's positionin detail, but its similarity to, if not identity with, that taken bymyself subsequently, but independently, in 'Life and Habit, ' seemssufficiently established by the following extracts; it is to be wished, however, that a full account of this lecture were accessible to Englishreaders. The extracts are as follows:--

"Professor Hering has the merit of introducing some striking phraseologyinto his treatment of the subject which serves to emphasize the leadingidea. He points out that since all transmission of 'qualities' from cellto cell in the growth and repair of one and the same organ, or fromparent to offspring, is a transmission of vibrations or affections ofmaterial particles, whether these qualities manifest themselves as form, or as a facility for entering on a given series of vibrations, we mayspeak of all such phenomena as 'memory, ' whether it be the consciousmemory exhibited by the nerve cells of the brain or the unconsciousmemory we call habit, or the inherited memory we call instinct; orwhether, again, it be the reproduction of parental form and minutestructure. All equally may be called the 'memory of living matter. ' Fromthe earliest existence of protoplasm to the present day the memory ofliving matter is continuous. Though individuals die, the universalmemory of living matter is carried on. 

"Professor Hering, in short, helps us to a comprehensive conception ofthe nature of heredity and adaptation, by giving us the term 'memory'conscious or unconscious, for the continuity of Mr. Herbert Spencer'spolar forces, or polarities of physiological units. 

 . . . . . . 

"The undulatory movement of the plastidules is the key to the mechanicalexplanation of all the essential phenomena of life. The plastidules areliable to have their undulations affected by every external force, and, once modified, the movement does not return to its pristine condition. By assimilation they continually increase to a certain point in size, and then divide, and thus perpetuate in the undulatory movement ofsuccessive generations, the impressions or resultants due to the actionof external agencies on individual plastidules. This is Memory. Allplastidules possess memory; and Memory which we see in its ultimateanalysis is identical with reproduction, is the distinguishing featureof the plastidule; is that which it alone of all molecules possesses, inaddition to the ordinary properties of the physicist's molecule; is, infact, that which distinguishes it as vital. To the sensitiveness of themovement of plastidules is due Variability--to their unconscious Memorythe power of Hereditary Transmission. As we know them to-day they may'have learnt little, and forgotten nothing' in one organism, and 'havelearnt much, and forgotten much' in another; but in all, their memory ifsometimes fragmentary, yet reaches back to the dawn of life upon theearth. --E. Ray Lankester. "

Nothing can well be plainer and more uncompromising than the above. Professor Hering would, I gather, no less than myself, refer thebuilding of its nest by a bird to the intense--but unconscious, owing toits very perfection and intensity--recollection by the bird of the nestsit built when it was in the persons of its ancestors; this memory wouldbegin to stimulate action when the surrounding associations, such astemperature, state of vegetation, &c. , reminded it of the time when ithad been in the habit of beginning to build in countless pastgenerations. Dr. Darwin does not go so far as this. He says that wildbirds choose spring as their building time "from their _acquired_knowledge that the mild temperature of the air is more convenient forhatching their eggs, " and a little lower down he speaks of the fact thatgraminivorous animals generally produce their young in spring, as "partof the traditional knowledge which they learn _from the example_ oftheir parents. "[156]

Again he says, that birds "seem to be instructed how to build theirnests _from their observation_ of that in which they were educated, andfrom their knowledge of those things that are most agreeable to theirtouch in respect to warmth, cleanliness, and stability. "

Had Dr. Darwin laid firmly hold of two superficial facts concerningmemory which we can all of us test for ourselves--I mean its dormancyuntil kindled by the return of a sufficient number of associated ideas, and its unselfconsciousness upon becoming intense and perfect--and hadhe connected these two facts with the unity of life through successivegenerations--an idea which plainly haunted him--he would have beensaved from having to refer instinct to imitation, in the face of thefact that in a thousand instances the creature imitating can never haveseen its model, save when it was a part of its parents, --seeing whatthey saw, doing what they did, feeling as they felt, and rememberingwhat they remembered. 

Miss Seward tells us that Dr. Darwin read his chapter on instinct "to alady who was in the habit of rearing canary birds. She observed that thepair which he then saw building their nest in her cage, were a male andfemale, who had been hatched and reared in that very _cage_, and werenot in existence when the mossy cradle was fabricated in which _they_first saw light. " She asked him, and quite reasonably, "how, upon hisprinciple of imitation, he could account for the nest he then sawbuilding, being constructed even to the precise disposal of every hairand shred of wool upon the model of _that_ in which the pair were born, and on which every other canary bird's nest is constructed, when theproper materials are furnished. That of the pyefinch, " she added, "is ofmuch compacter form, warmer, and more comfortable. Pull one of thesenests to pieces for its materials; and place another nest before thesecanary birds as a pattern, and see if they will make the slightestattempt to imitate their model! No, the result of their labour will, upon instinctive hereditary impulse, be exactly the slovenly littlemansion of their race, the same with that which their parents builtbefore themselves were hatched. The Doctor could not do away the forceof that single fact, with which his system was incompatible, yet hemaintained that system with philosophic sturdiness, though experiencebrought confutation from a thousand sources. "[157]

As commonly happens in such disputes, both were right and both werewrong. The lady was right in refusing to refer instinct to imitation, and the Doctor was right in maintaining reason and instinct to be butdifferent degrees of perfection of the same mental processes. Had hesubstituted "memory" for "imitation, " and asked the lady to define"sameness" or "personal identity, " he would have soon secured hisvictory. 

The main fact, compared with which all else is a matter of detail, isthe admission that instinct is only reason become habitual. Thisadmission involves, consciously or unconsciously, the admission of allthe principles contended for in 'Life and Habit'; principles which, ifadmitted, make the facts of heredity intelligible by showing that theyare of the same character as other facts which we call intelligible, butdenial of which makes nonsense of half the terms in common useconcerning it. For the view that instinct is habitual reason involvessameness of personality and memory as common to parents and offspring;it involves also the latency of that memory till rekindled by the returnof a sufficient number of its associated ideas, and points theunconsciousness with which habitual actions are performed. Theseprinciples being grasped, the infertility _inter se_ of widely distantspecies, the commonly observed sterility of hybrids, the sterility ofcertain animals and plants under confinement, the phenomena of old ageas well as those of growth, and the principle which underlies longevityand alternate generations, follow logically and coherently, as I showedin 'Life and Habit. ' Moreover, we find that the terms in common use showan unconscious sense that some such view as I have insisted on waswanted and would come, for we find them made and to hand already; few ifany will require altering; all that is necessary is to take common wordsaccording to their common meanings. 

Dr. Darwin is very good on this head. Here, as everywhere throughout hiswork, if things or qualities appear to resemble one another sufficientlyand without such traits of unlikeness, on closer inspection, as shalldestroy the likeness which was apparent at first, he connects them, alltheories notwithstanding. I have given two instances of his manner oflooking at instinct and reason. [158] "If these are not, " he concludes, "deductions _from their own previous experience, or observation_, allthe actions of mankind must be resolved into instincts. "[159]

If by "previous experience" we could be sure that Dr. Darwinpersistently meant "previous experience in the persons of theirancestors, " he would be in an impregnable position. As it is, we feelthat though he had caught sight of the truth, and had even held it inhis hands, yet somehow or other it just managed to slip through hisfingers. 

Again he writes:--

"So flies burn themselves in candles, deceived like mankind by themisapplication of their knowledge. "

Again:--

"An ingenious philosopher has lately denied that animals can enter intocontracts, and thinks this an essential difference between them and thehuman creature: but does not daily observation convince us that theyform contracts of friendship with each other and with mankind? Whenpuppies and kittens play together is there not a tacit contract thatthey will not hurt each other? And does not your favourite dog expectyou should give him his daily food for his services and attention toyou? And thus barters his love for your protection? In the same mannerthat all contracts are made among men that do not understand eachother's arbitrary language. "[160]

One more extract from a chapter full of excellent passages must suffice. 

"One circumstance I shall relate which fell under my own eye, and showedthe power of reason in a wasp, as it is exercised among men. A wasp on agravel walk had caught a fly nearly as large as himself; kneeling on theground, I observed him separate the tail and the head from the bodypart, to which the wings were attached. He then took the body part inhis paws, and rose about two feet from the ground with it; but a gentlebreeze wafting the wings of the fly turned him round in the air, and hesettled again with his prey upon the gravel. I then distinctly observedhim cut off with his mouth first one of the wings and then the other, after which he flew away with it, unmolested by the wind. 

"Go, proud reasoner, and call the worm thy sister!"[161]

Dr. Darwin's views on the essential unity of animal and vegetable lifeare put forward in the following admirable chapter on "VegetableAnimation, " which I will give in full, and which is confirmed in allimportant respects by the latest conclusions of our best modernscientists, so, at least, I gather from Mr. Francis Darwin's interestinglecture. [162]

"I. 1. The fibres of the vegetable world, as well as those of theanimal, are excitable into a variety of motion by irritations ofexternal objects. This appears particularly in the mimosa or sensitiveplant, whose leaves contract on the slightest injury: the _Dionæamuscipula_, which was lately brought over from the marshes of America, presents us with another curious instance of vegetable irritability; itsleaves are armed with spines on their upper edge, and are spread on theground around the stem; when an insect creeps on any of them in itspassage to the flower or seed, the leaf shuts up like a steel rat-trap, and destroys its enemy. [163]

"The various secretions of vegetables as of odour, fruit, gum, resin, wax, honey, seem brought about in the same manner as in the glands ofanimals; the tasteless moisture of the earth is converted by the hopplant into a bitter juice; as by the caterpillar in the nutshell, thesweet powder is converted into a bitter powder. While the power ofabsorption in the roots and barks of vegetables is excited into actionby the fluids applied to their mouths like the lacteals and lymphaticsof animals. 

"2. The individuals of the vegetable world may be considered as inferioror less perfect animals; a tree is a congeries of many living buds, andin this respect resembles the branches of the coralline, which are acongeries of a multitude of animals. Each of these buds of a tree hasits proper leaves or petals for lungs, produces its viviparous or itsoviparous offspring in buds or seeds; has its own roots, which, extending down the stem of the tree, are interwoven with the roots ofthe other buds, and form the bark, which is the only living part of thestem, is annually renewed and is superinduced upon the former bark, which then dies, and, with its stagnated juices gradually hardening intowood, forms the concentric circles which we see in blocks of timber. 

"The following circumstances evince the individuality of the buds oftrees. First, there are many trees whose whole internal wood isperished, and yet the branches are vegete and healthy. Secondly, thefibres of the bark of trees are chiefly longitudinal, resembling roots, as is beautifully seen in those prepared barks that were lately broughtfrom Otaheita. Thirdly, in horizontal wounds of the bark of trees, thefibres of the upper lip are always elongated downwards like roots, butthose of the lower lip do not approach to meet them. Fourthly, if youwrap wet moss round any joint of a vine, or cover it with moist earth, roots will shoot out from it. Fifthly, by the inoculation or engraftingof trees many fruits are produced from one stem. Sixthly, a new tree isproduced from a branch plucked from an old one and set in the ground. Whence it appears that the buds of deciduous trees are so many annualplants, that the bark is a contexture of the roots of each individualbud, and that the internal wood is of no other use but to support themin the air, and that thus they resemble the animal world in theirindividuality. 

"The irritability of plants, like that of animals, appears liable to beincreased or decreased by habit; for those trees or shrubs which arebrought from a colder climate to a warmer, put out their leaves andblossoms a fortnight sooner than the indigenous ones. 

"Professor Kalm, in his travels in New York, observes that the appletrees brought from England blossom a fortnight sooner than the nativeones. In our country, the shrubs that are brought a degree or two fromthe north are observed to flourish better than those which come from thesouth. The Siberian barley and cabbage are said to grow larger in thisclimate than the similar more southern vegetables; and our hoards ofroots, as of potatoes and onions, germinate with less heat in spring, after they have been accustomed to the winter's cold, than in autumn, after the summer's heat. 

"II. The stamens and pistils of flowers show evident marks ofsensibility, not only from many of the stamens and some pistilsapproaching towards each other at the season of impregnation, but frommany of them closing their petals and calyxes during the cold part ofthe day. For this cannot be ascribed to irritation, because cold meansa defect of the stimulus of heat; but as the want of accustomed stimuliproduces pain, as in coldness, hunger, and thirst of animals, thesemotions of vegetables in closing up their flowers must be ascribed tothe disagreeable sensation, and not to the irritation of cold. Othersclose up their leaves during darkness, which, like the former, cannot beowing to irritation, as the irritating material is withdrawn. 

"The approach of the anthers in many flowers to the stigmas, and of thepistils of some flowers to the anthers, must be ascribed to the passionof love, and hence belongs to sensation, not to irritation. 

"III. That the vegetable world possesses some degree of voluntary powersappears from their necessity to sleep, which we have shown in SectionXVIII. To consist in the temporary abolition of voluntary power. Thisvoluntary power seems to be exerted in the circular movement of thetendrils of the vines, and other climbing vegetables; or in the effortsto turn the upper surfaces of their leaves, or their flowers, to thelight. 

"IV. The associations of fibrous motions are observable in the vegetableworld as well as in the animal. The divisions of the leaves of thesensitive plant have been accustomed to contract at the same time fromthe absence of light; hence, if by any other circumstance, as a slightstroke or injury, one division is irritated into contraction, theneighbouring ones contract also from their motions being associated withthose of the irritated part. So the various stamina of the class ofsyngenesia have been accustomed to contract together in the evening, andthence if you stimulate any one of them with a pin, according to theexperiment of M. Colvolo, they all contract from their acquiredassociations. 

"To evince that the collapsing of the sensitive plant is not owing toany mechanical vibrations propagated along the whole branch when asingle leaf is struck with the finger, a leaf of it was slit with sharpscissors, with as little disturbance as possible, and some seconds oftime passed before the plant seemed sensible of the injury, and then thewhole branch collapsed as far as the principal stem. This experiment wasrepeated several times with the least possible impulse to the plant. 

"V. 1. For the numerous circumstances in which vegetable buds areanalogous to animals, the reader is referred to the additional notes atthe end of 'Botanic Garden, ' Part I. It is there shown that the roots ofvegetables resemble the lacteal system of animals; the sap vessels inthe early spring, before their leaves expand, are analogous to theplacental vessels of the foetus; that the leaves of land plantsresemble lungs, and those of aquatic plants the gills of fish; thatthere are other systems of vessels resembling the vena portarum ofquadrupeds, or the aorta of fish; that the digestive power of vegetablesis similar to that of animals converting the fluids which they absorbinto sugar;[164] that their seeds resemble the eggs of animals, andtheir buds and bulbs their viviparous offspring; and lastly, that theanthers and stigmas are real animals attached to their parent tree likepolypi or coral insects, but capable of spontaneous motion; that theyare affected with the passion of love, and furnished with powers ofreproducing their species, and are fed with honey like the moths andbutterflies which plunder their nectaries. [165]

"The male flowers of Vallisneria approach still nearer to apparentanimality, as they detach themselves from the parent plant, and float onthe surface of the water to the female ones. [166] Other flowers of theclasses of monoecia and dioecia, and polygamia discharge thefecundating farina, which, floating in the air, is carried to the stigmaof the female flowers, and that at considerable distances. Can this beeffected by any specific attraction? Or, like the diffusion of theodorous particles of flowers, is it left to the currents of the winds, and the accidental miscarriages of it counteracted by the quantity ofits production?

"2. This leads us to a curious inquiry, whether vegetables have ideas ofexternal things? As all our ideas are originally received by our senses, the question may be changed to whether vegetables possess any organs ofsense? Certain it is that they possess a sense of heat and cold, anotherof moisture and dryness, and another of light and darkness, for theyclose their petals occasionally from the presence of cold, moisture, ordarkness. And it has been already shown that these actions cannot beperformed simply from irritation, because cold and darkness are negativequantities, and on that account sensation, or volition are implied, andin consequence a sensorium or union of their nerves. So when we go intothe light we contract the iris; not from any stimulus of the light onthe fine muscles of the iris, but from its motions being associated withthe sensation of too much light upon the retina, which could not takeplace without a sensorium or centre of union of the nerves of the iris, with those of vision. [167]

"Besides these organs of sense, which distinguish cold, moisture, anddarkness, the leaves of mimosa, and of dionæa, and of drosera, and thestamens of many flowers, as of the berbery, and the numerous class ofsyngenesia, are sensible to mechanic impact, that is, they possess asense of touch, as well as a common sensorium, by the medium of whichtheir muscles are excited into action. Lastly, in many flowers theanthers, when mature, approach the stigma, in others the female organapproaches to the male. In a plant of collinsonia, a branch of which isnow before me, the two yellow stamens are about three-eighths of an inchhigh, and diverge from each other at an angle of about fifteen degrees, the purple style is half an inch high, and in some flowers is nowapplied to the stamen on the right hand, and in others to that of theleft; and will, I suppose, change place to-morrow in those, where theanthers have not yet effused their powder. 

"I ask by what means are the anthers in many flowers and stigmas inother flowers directed to find their paramours? How do either of themknow that the other exists in their vicinity? Is this curious kind ofstorge produced by mechanic attraction, or by the sensation of love? Thelatter opinion is supported by the strongest analogy, because areproduction of the species is the consequence; and then another organof sense must be wanted to direct these vegetable amourettes to findeach other, one probably analogous to our sense of smell, which in theanimal world directs the new-born infant to its source of nourishment, and they may thus possess a faculty of perceiving as well as ofproducing odours. 

"Thus, besides a kind of taste at the extremity of their roots, similarto that of the extremities of our lacteal vessels, for the purpose ofselecting their proper food, and besides different kinds of irritabilityresiding in the various glands, which separate honey, wax, resin, andother juices from their blood; vegetable life seems to possess an organof sense to distinguish the variations of heat, another to distinguishthe varying degrees of moisture, another of light, another of touch, andprobably another analogous to our sense of smell. To these must be addedthe indubitable evidence of their passion of love, and I think we maytruly conclude that they are furnished with a common sensorium for eachbud, and that they must occasionally repeat those perceptions, either intheir dreams or waking hours, and consequently possess ideas of so manyof the properties of the external world, and of their ownexistence. "[168]

FOOTNOTES:

[155] 'Origin of Species, ' note on p. Xiv. 

[156] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 170. 

[157] Miss Seward's 'Memoirs, ' &c. , p. 491. 

[158] See p. 116 of this volume. 

[159] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 184. 

[160] 'Zoonomia, ' p. 171. 

[161] 'Zoonomia, ' p. 187. 

[162] 'Nature, ' March 14 and 21, 1878. 

[163] See 'Botanic Garden, ' part ii. , note on Silene. 

[164] 'On the Digestive Powers of Plants. ' See Mr. Francis Darwin'slecture, already referred to. 

[165] See 'Botanic Garden, part i. , add. Note, p. Xxxix. 

[166] Ibid. , part ii. , art. "Vallisneria. "

[167] See 'Botanic Garden, ' part i. Cant 3, l. 440. 

[168] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 107. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

FULLER QUOTATIONS FROM THE 'ZOONOMIA. '

The following are the passages in the 'Zoonomia' which have the mostimportant bearing on evolution:--

"The ingenious Dr. Hartley, in his work on man, and some otherphilosophers have been of opinion, that our immortal part acquiresduring this life certain habits of action or of sentiment which becomefor ever indissoluble, continuing after death in a future state ofexistence; and add that if these habits are of the malevolent kind, theymust render their possessor miserable even in Heaven. I would apply thisingenious idea to the generation or production of the embryon or newanimal, which partakes so much of the form and propensities of itsparent. 

"_Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a newanimal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent, since apart of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent, andtherefore in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at thetime of its production; and, therefore, it may retain some of the habitsof the parent system. _

"At the earliest period of its existence the embryon would seem toconsist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation, sensation, volition, and association, and also with some acquiredhabits or propensities peculiar to the parents; the former of these arein common with other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or producethe kind of animal, whether man or quadruped, with the similarity offeature or form to the parent. "[169]

 * * * * *

Going on to describe the gradual development of the embryo, Dr. Darwincontinues:--

"As the want of this oxygenation of the blood is perpetual (as appearsfrom the incessant necessity of breathing by lungs or gills), thevessels become extended by the efforts of pain or desire to seek thisnecessary object of oxygenation, and to remove the disagreeablesensations which this want occasions. "[170]

 . . . . . . 

"The lateral production of plants by wires, while each new plant is thuschained to its parent, and continues to put forth another and another asthe wire creeps onward on the ground, is exactly resembled by thetape-worm or tænia, so often found in the bowels, stretching itself in achain quite from the stomach to the rectum. Linnæus asserts 'that itgrows old at one extremity, while it continues to generate younger onesat the other, proceeding _ad infinitum_ like a sort of grass; theseparate joints are called gourd worms, and propagate new joints likethe parent without end, each joint being furnished with its proper mouthand organs of digestion. '"[171]

 . . . . . . 

"Many ingenious philosophers have found so great difficulty inconceiving the manner of the reproduction of animals, that they havesupposed all the numerous progeny to have existed in miniature in theanimal originally created; and that these infinitely minute forms areonly evolved or distended, as the embryon increases in the womb. Thisidea, besides its being unsupported by any analogy we are acquaintedwith, ascribes a greater tenuity to organized matter than we can readilyadmit; as these included embryons are supposed each of them to consistof the various and complicate parts of animal bodies, they must possessa much greater degree of minuteness than that which was ascribed to thedevils which tempted St. Anthony, of whom 20, 000 were said to have beenable to dance a saraband on the point of the finest needle withoutincommoding one another. "[172]

 . . . . . . 

"I conceive the primordium or rudiment of the embryon as secreted fromthe blood of the parent to consist of a simple living filament as amuscular fibre; which I suppose to be an extremity of a nerve oflocomotion, as a fibre of the retina is an extremity of a nerve ofsensation; as, for instance, one of the fibrils which compose the mouthof an absorbent vessel. I suppose this living filament of whatever formit may be, whether sphere, cube, or cylinder, to be endued with thecapability of being excited into action by certain kinds of stimulus. Bythe stimulus of the surrounding fluid in which it is received from themale it may bend into a ring, and thus form the beginning of a tube. Such moving filaments and such rings are described by those who haveattended to microscopic animalculæ. This living ring may now embrace orabsorb a nutritive particle of the fluid in which it swims; and bydrawing it into its pores, or joining it by compression to itsextremities, may increase its own length or crassitude, and by degreesthe living ring may become a living tube. 

"With this new organization, or accretion of parts, new kinds ofirritability may commence; for so long as there was but one living organit could only be supposed to possess irritability; since sensibility maybe conceived to be an extension of the effect of irritability over therest of the system. These new kinds of irritability and of sensibilityin consequence of new organization appear from variety of facts in themore mature animals; thus . . . The lungs must be previously formed beforetheir exertions to obtain fresh air can exist; the throat, oroesophagus, must be formed previous to the sensation or appetites ofhunger and thirst, one of which seems to reside at the upper end and theother at the lower end of that canal. "[173]

It seems to me Dr. Darwin is wrong in supposing that the organ must havepreceded the power to use it. The organ and its use--the desire to doand the power to do--have always gone hand in hand, the organism findingitself able to do more according as it advanced its desires, anddesiring to do more simultaneously with any increase in power, so thatneither appetency nor organism can claim precedence, but power anddesire must be considered as Siamese twins begotten together, conceivedtogether, born together, and inseparable always from each other. At thesame time they are torn by mutual jealousy; each claims, with some vainshow of reason, to have been the elder brother; each intriguesincessantly from the beginning to the end of time to prevent the otherfrom outstripping him; each is in turn successful, but each is doomed todeath with the extinction of the other. 

"So inflamed tendons and membranes, and even bones, acquire newsensations; and the parts of mutilated animals, as of wounded snails andpolypi and crabs, are reproduced; and at the same time acquiresensations adapted to their situation. Thus when the head of a snail isreproduced after decollation with a sharp razor, those curioustelescopic eyes are also reproduced, and acquire their sensibility tolight, as well as their adapted muscles for retraction on the approachof injury. 

"With every change, therefore, of organic form or addition of organicparts, I suppose a new kind of irritability or of sensibility to beproduced; such varieties of irritability or of sensibility exist in ouradult state in the glands; every one of which is furnished with anirritability or a taste or appetency, and a consequent mode of actionpeculiar to itself. 

"In this manner I conceive the vessels of the jaws to produce those ofthe teeth; those of the fingers to produce the nails; those of the skinto produce the hair; in the same manner as afterwards, about the age ofpuberty, the beard and other great changes in the form of the body anddisposition of the mind are produced in consequence of new developments;for, if the animal is deprived of these developments, those changes donot take place. These changes I believe to be formed not by elongationor distension of primeval stamina, but by apposition of parts; as themature crab fish when deprived of a limb, in a certain space of time, has power to regenerate it; and the tadpole puts forth its feet afterits long exclusion from the spawn, and the caterpillar in changing intoa butterfly acquires a new form with new powers, new sensations, and newdesires. "[174]

 . . . . . . 

"From hence I conclude that with the acquisition of new parts, newsensations and new desires, as well as new powers are produced; and thisby accretion to the old ones and not by distension of them. And finally, that the most essential parts of the system, as the brain for thepurpose of distributing the powers of life, and the placenta for thepurpose of oxygenating the blood, and the additional absorbent vessels, for the purpose of acquiring aliment, are first formed by theirritations above mentioned, and by the pleasurable sensations attendingthose irritations, and by the exertions in consequence of painfulsensations similar to those of hunger and suffocation. After these anapparatus of limbs for future uses, or for the purpose of moving thebody in its present natant state, and of lungs for future respiration, and of _testes_ for future reproduction, are formed by the irritationsand sensations and consequent exertions of the parts previouslyexisting, and to which the new parts are to be attached. [175]

 . . . . . . 

"The embryon" must "be supposed to be a living filament, which acquiresor makes new parts, with new irritabilities as it advances in itsgrowth. "[176]

 . . . . . . 

"From this account of reproduction it appears that all animals have asimilar origin, viz. A single living filament; and that the differenceof their forms and qualities has arisen only from the differentirritabilities and sensibilities, or voluntarities, or associabilities, of this original living filament, and perhaps in some degree from thedifferent forms of the particles of the fluids by which it has at firstbeen stimulated into activity. "[177]

 . . . . . . 

"All animals, therefore, I contend, have a similar cause of theirorganization, originating from a single living filament, endued withdifferent kinds of irritabilities and sensibilities, or of animalappetencies, which exist in every gland, and in every moving organ ofthe body, and are as essential to living organism as chemical affinitiesare to certain combinations of inanimate matter. 

"If I might be indulged to make a simile in a philosophical work, Ishould say that the animal appetencies are not only perhaps lessnumerous originally than the chemical affinities, but that, like theselatter, they change with every fresh combination; thus vital air andazote, when combined, produce nitrous acid, which now acquires theproperty of dissolving silver; so that with every new additional part tothe embryon, as of the throat or lungs, I suppose a new animal appetencyto be produced. "[178]

 * * * * *

Here, again, it should be insisted on that neither can the "additionalpart" precede "the appetency, " nor the appetency precede the additionalpart for long together--the two advance nearly _pari passu_; sometimesthe power a little ahead of the desire, stimulates the desire to anactivity it would not otherwise have known; as those who have more moneythan they once had, feel new wants which they would not have known ifthey had not obtained the power to gratify them; sometimes, on the otherhand, the desire is a little more active than the power, and pulls thepower up to itself by means of the effort made to gratify the desire--asthose who want a little more of this or that than they have money to payfor, will try all manner of shifts to earn the additional money theywant, unless it is so much in excess of their present means that theygive up the endeavour as hopeless; but whichever gets ahead, immediatelysets to work to pull the other level with it, the getting ahead eitherof power or desire being exclusively the work of external agencies, while the coming up level of the other is due to agencies that areincorporate with the organism itself. Thus an unusually abundant supplyof food, due to causes entirely beyond the control of the individual, isan external agency; it will immediately set power a little ahead ofdesire. On this the individual will eat as much as it can--thus learning_pro tanto_ to be able to eat more, and to want more under ordinarycircumstances--and will also breed rapidly up to the balance of theabundance. This is the work of the agencies incorporate in the organism, and will bring desire level with power again. Famine, on the other hand, puts desire ahead of power, and the incorporate agencies must eitherbring power up by resource and invention, or must pull desire back byeating less, both as individuals, and as the race, that is to say, bybreeding less freely; for breeding is an assimilation of outside matterso closely akin to feeding, that it is only the feeding of the race, asagainst that of the individual. 

I do not think the reader will find any clearer manner of picturing tohimself the development of organism than by keeping the normal growth ofwealth continually in his mind. He will find few of the phenomena oforganic development which have not their counterpart in the acquisitionof wealth. Thus a too sudden acquisition, owing to accidental andexternal circumstances and due to no internal source of energy, will becommonly lost in the next few generations. So a sudden sport due to alucky accident of soil will not generally be perpetuated if theoffspring plant be restored to its normal soil. Again, if the advance inpower carry power suddenly far beyond any past desire, or be far greaterthan any past-remembered advance of power beyond desire--then desirewill not come up level easily, but only with difficulty and all mannerof extravagance, such as is likely to destroy the power itself. Demandand Supply are also good illustrations. 

But to return to Dr. Darwin. 

"When we revolve in our minds, " he writes, "first the great changeswhich we see naturally produced in animals after their nativity, as inthe production of the butterfly with painted wings from the crawlingcaterpillar; or of the respiring frog from the subnatant tadpole; fromthe boy to the bearded man, from the infant girl to the woman, --in bothwhich cases mutilation will prevent due development. 

"Secondly, when we think over the great changes introduced into variousanimals by artificial or accidental cultivation, as in horses, which wehave exercised for the different purposes of strength or swiftness, incarrying burthens or in running races, or in dogs which have beencultivated for strength and courage, as the bull-dog; or for acutenessof his sense of smell, as the hound or spaniel; or for the swiftness ofhis foot, as the greyhound; or for his swimming in the water or fordrawing snow sledges, as the rough-haired dogs of the north; or, lastly, as a play dog for children, as the lapdog; with the changes of the formsof the cattle which have been domesticated from the greatest antiquity, as camels and sheep, which have undergone so total a transformation thatwe are now ignorant from what species of wild animal they had theirorigin. Add to these the great changes of shape and colour which wedaily see produced in smaller animals from our domestication of them, asrabbits or pigeons, or from the difference of climates and even ofseasons; thus the sheep of warm climates are covered with hair insteadof wool; and the hares and partridges of the latitudes which are longburied in snow become white during the winter months; add to these thevarious changes produced in the forms of mankind by their early modes ofexertion, or by the diseases occasioned by their habits of life, both ofwhich become hereditary, and that through many generations. Those wholabour at the anvil, the oar, or the loom, as well as those who carrysedan chairs or who have been educated to dance upon the rope, aredistinguishable by the shape of their limbs; and the diseases occasionedby intoxication deform the countenance with leprous eruptions, or thebody with tumid viscera, or the joints with knots and distortions. 

"Thirdly, when we enumerate the great changes produced in the species ofanimals before their nativity, as, for example, when the offspringreproduces the effects produced upon the parent by accident orcultivation; or the changes produced by the mixture of species, as inmules; or the changes produced probably by the exuberance of nourishmentsupplied to the fetus, as in monstrous births with additional limbs;many of these enormities of shape are propagated and continued as avariety at least, if not as a new species of animal. I have seen a breedof cats with an additional claw on every foot; of poultry also with anadditional claw, and with wings to their feet; and of others withoutrumps. Mr. Buffon mentions a breed of dogs without tails which arecommon at Rome and Naples--which he supposes to have been produced by acustom long established of cutting their tails close off. There are manykinds of pigeons admired for their peculiarities which are more or lessthus produced and propagated. [179]

 . . . . . . 

"When we consider all these changes of animal form and innumerableothers which may be collected from the books of natural history, wecannot but be convinced that the fetus or embryon is formed byapposition of new parts, and not by the distention of a primordial nestof germs included one within another like the cups of a conjurer. 

"Fourthly, when we revolve in our minds the great similarity ofstructure which obtains in all the warm-blooded animals, as wellquadrupeds, birds, and amphibious animals, as in mankind; from the mouseand bat to the elephant and whale; one is led to conclude that they havealike been produced from a similar living filament. In some thisfilament in its advance to maturity has acquired hands and fingers witha fine sense of touch, as in mankind. In others it has acquired claws ortalons, as in tigers and eagles. In others, toes with an intervening webor membrane, as in seals and geese. In others it has acquired clovenhoofs, as in cows and swine; and whole hoofs in others, as in the horse:while in the bird kind this original living filament has put forth wingsinstead of arms or legs, and feathers instead of hair. In some it hasprotruded horns on the forehead instead of teeth in the fore part of theupper jaw; in others, tusks instead of horns; and in the others, beaksinstead of either. And all this exactly as is seen daily in thetransmutation of the tadpole, which acquires legs and lungs when hewants them, and loses his tail when it is no longer of service to him. 

"Fifthly, from their first rudiment or primordium to the termination oftheir lives, all animals undergo perpetual transformations; _which arein part produced by their own exertions in consequence of their desiresand aversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of irritations orof associations; and many of these acquired forms or propensities aretransmitted to their posterity_. 

"As air and water are supplied to animals in sufficient profusion, thethree great objects of desire which have changed the forms of manyanimals by their desires to gratify them are those of lust, hunger, andsecurity. A great want of one part of the animal world has consisted inthe desire of the exclusive possession of the females; and these haveacquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose, as the verythick, shield-like, horny skin on the shoulder of the boar is a defenceonly against animals of his own species who strike obliquely upwards, nor are his tusks for other purposes except to defend himself, as he isnot naturally a carnivorous animal. So the horns of the stag are sharpto offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying orreceiving the thrust of horns similar to his own, and have thereforebeen formed for the purpose of combating other stags, for the exclusivepossession of the females; who are observed like the ladies in the timesof chivalry to attend the car of the victor. 

"The birds which do not carry food to their young, and do not thereforemarry, are armed with spurs for the purpose of fighting for theexclusive possession of the females, as cocks and quails. It is certainthat these weapons are not provided for their defence against otheradversaries, because the females of these species are without thisarmour. The final cause of this contest among the males seems to be_that the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved_. "[180]

Dr. Darwin would have been on stronger ground if he had said that the_effect_ of the contest among the males was that the fittest shouldsurvive, and hence transmit any fit modifications which had occurred tothem as vitally true, rather than that the desire to attain this end hadcaused the contest; but either way the sentence just given is sufficientto show that he was not blind to the fact that the fittest commonlysurvive, and to the consequences of this fact. The use, however, of theword "thence, " as well as of the expression "final cause, " is loose, asDr. Darwin would no doubt readily have admitted. Improvement in thespecies is due quite as much, by Dr. Darwin's own showing, to the causeswhich have led to such and such an animal's making itself the fittest, as to the fact that if fittest it will be more likely to survive andtransmit its improvement. There have been two factors in modification;the one provides variations, the other accumulates them; neither canclaim exclusive right to the word "thence, " as though the modificationwas due to it and to it only. Dr. Darwin's use of the word "thence"here is clearly a slip, and nothing else; but it is one which brings himfor the moment into the very error into which his grandson has fallenmore disastrously. 

"Another great want, " he continues, "consists in the means of procuringfood, which has diversified the forms of all species of animals. Thusthe nose of the swine has become hard for the purpose of turning up thesoil in search of insects and of roots. The trunk of the elephant is anelongation of the nose for the purpose of pulling down the branches oftrees for his food, and for taking up water without bending his knees. Beasts of prey have acquired strong jaws or talons. Cattle have acquireda rough tongue and a rough palate to pull off the blades of grass, ascows and sheep. Some birds have acquired harder beaks to crack nuts, asthe parrot. Others have acquired beaks to break the harder seeds, assparrows. Others for the softer kinds of flowers, or the buds of trees, as the finches. Other birds have acquired long beaks to penetrate themoister soils in search of insects or roots, as woodcocks, and othersbroad ones to filtrate the water of lakes and to retain aquatic insects. All which seem to have been gradually produced during many generations_by the perpetual endeavour of the creature to supply the want of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity with constant improvementof them for the purposes required_. 

"The third great want among animals is that of security, which seems tohave diversified the forms of their bodies and the colour of them; theseconsist in the means of escaping other animals more powerful thanthemselves. Hence some animals have acquired wings instead of legs, asthe smaller birds, for purposes of escape. Others, great length of finor of membrane, as the flying fish and the bat. Others have acquiredhard or armed shells, as the tortoise and the _Echinus marinus_. 

"Mr. Osbeck, a pupil of Linnæus, mentions the American frog-fish, _Lophius Histrio_, which inhabits the large floating islands of sea-weedabout the Cape of Good Hope, and has fulcra resembling leaves, that thefishes of prey may mistake it for the sea-weed, which it inhabits. [181]

"The contrivances for the purposes of security extend even tovegetables, as is seen in the wonderful and various means of theirconcealing or defending their honey from insects and their seeds frombirds. On the other hand, swiftness of wing has been acquired by hawksand swallows to pursue their prey; and a proboscis of admirablestructure has been acquired by the bee, the moth, and the humming birdfor the purpose of plundering the nectaries of flowers. _All which seemto have been formed by the original living filament, excited into actionby the necessities of the creatures which possess them_, and on whichtheir existence depends. 

"From thus meditating on the great similarity of the structure of thewarm-blooded animals, and at the same time of the great changes theyundergo both before and after their nativity; and by considering in howminute a portion of time many of the changes of animals above describedhave been produced; would it be too bold to imagine that in the greatlength of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of agesbefore the commencement of the history of mankind--would it be too boldto imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one livingfilament, which the Great First Cause endued with animality, with thepower of attaining new parts, attended with new propensities, directedby irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thuspossessing the faculty of continuing to improve, by its own inherentactivity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to itsposterity world without end!

"Sixthly, the cold-blooded animals, as the fish tribes, which arefurnished with but one ventricle of the heart, and with gills instead oflungs, and with fins instead of feet or wings, bear a great similarityto each other; but they differ nevertheless so much in their generalstructure from the warm-blooded animals, that it may not seem probableat first view that the same living filament could have given origin tothis kingdom of animals, as to the former. Yet are there some creatureswhich unite or partake of both these orders of animation, as the whalesand seals; and more particularly the frog, who changes from an aquaticanimal furnished with gills to an aerial one furnished with lungs. 

"The numerous tribes of insects without wings, from the spider to thescorpion, from the flea to the lobster; or with wings, from the gnat orthe ant to the wasp and the dragon-fly, differ so totally from eachother, and from the red-blooded classes above described, both in theforms of their bodies and in their modes of life; besides the organ ofsense, which they seem to possess in their antennæ or horns, to whichit has been thought by some naturalists that other creatures havenothing similar; that it can scarcely be supposed that this nature ofanimals could have been produced by the same kind of living filament asthe red-blooded classes above mentioned. And yet the changes which manyof them undergo in their early state to that of their maturity, are asdifferent as one animal can be from another. As those of the gnat, whichpasses his early state in water, and then stretching out his new wingsand expanding his new lungs, rises in the air; as of the caterpillar andbee-nymph, which feed on vegetable leaves or farina, and at lengthbursting from their self-formed graves, become beautiful wingedinhabitants of the skies, journeying from flower to flower, andnourished by the ambrosial food of honey. 

"There is still another class of animals which are termed vermes byLinnæus, which are without feet or brain, and are hermaphrodites, asworms, leeches, snails, shell-fish, coralline insects, and sponges, which possess the simplest structure of all animals, and appear totallydifferent from those already described. The simplicity of theirstructure, however, can afford no argument against their having beenproduced from a single living filament, as above contended. 

"Last of all, the various tribes of vegetables are to be enumeratedamongst the inferior orders of animals. Of these the anthers and stigmashave already been shown to possess some organs of sense, to be nourishedby honey, and to have the power of generation like insects, and havethence been announced amongst the animal kingdom in Section XIII. ; andto these must be added the buds and bulbs, which constitute theviviparous offspring of vegetation. The former I suppose to be beholdento a single living filament for their seminal or amatorial procreation;and the latter to the same cause for their lateral or branchinggeneration, which they possess in common with the polypus, tænia, andvolvox, and the simplicity of which is an argument in favour of thesimilarity of its cause. 

"Linnæus supposes, in the introduction to his natural orders, that veryfew vegetables were at first created, and that their numbers wereincreased by their intermarriages, and adds, 'Suaderet hæc Creatorisleges a simplicibus ad composita. ' Many other changes appear to havearisen in them by their perpetual contest for light and air aboveground, and for food or moisture beneath the soil. As noted in the'Botanic Garden, ' Part II. , note on Cuscuta. Other changes of vegetablesfrom climate or other causes are remarked in the note on Curcuma in thesame work. From these one might be led to imagine that each plant atfirst consisted of a single bulb or flower to each root, as thegentianella and daisy, and that in the contest for air and light, newbuds grew on the old decaying flower-stem, shooting down their elongatedroots to the ground, and that in process of ages tall trees were thusformed, and an individual bulb became a swarm of vegetables. Otherplants which in this contest for light and air were too slender to riseby their own strength, learned by degrees to adhere to their neighbours, either by putting forth roots like the ivy, or by tendrils like thevine, or by spiral contortions like the honeysuckle, or by growing uponthem like the mistleto, and taking nourishment from their barks, or byonly lodging or adhering on them and deriving nourishment from the airas tillandsia. 

"Shall we then say that the vegetable living filament was originallydifferent from that of each tribe of animals above described? And thatthe productive living filament of each of those tribes was differentfrom the other? Or as the earth and ocean were probably peopled withvegetable productions long before the existence of animals; and manyfamilies of these animals, long before other families of them, shall weconjecture _that one and the same kind of living filament is and hasbeen the cause of all organic life_?[182]

 . . . . . . 

"The late Mr. David Hume in his posthumous works places the powers ofgeneration much above those of our boasted reason, and adds, that reasoncan only make a machine, as a clock or a ship, but the power ofgeneration makes the maker of the machine; and probably from havingobserved that the greatest part of the earth has been formed out oforganic recrements, as the immense beds of limestone, chalk, marble, from the shells of fish; and the extensive provinces of clay, sandstone, ironstone, coals, from decomposed vegetables; all of which have beenfirst produced by generation, or by the secretion of organic life; heconcludes that the world itself might have been generated rather thancreated; that it might have been gradually produced from very smallbeginnings, increasing by the activity of its inherent principles, rather than by a sudden evolution of the whole by the Almighty fire. What a magnificent idea of the infinite power of the great Architect!The Cause of causes! Parent of parents! Ens entium!"[183]

FOOTNOTES:

[169] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 484. 

[170] Ibid. P. 485. 

[171] Ibid. P. 493. 

[172] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 494. 

[173] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 497. 

[174] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 498. 

[175] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 500. 

[176] Ibid. P. 501. 

[177] Ibid. P. 502. 

[178] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 503. 

[179] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 505. 

[180] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 507. 

[181] 'Voyage to China, ' p. 113. 

[182] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 511. 

[183] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 513. 

CHAPTER XV. 

MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 

I take the following memoir of Lamarck entirely from the biographicalsketch prefixed by M. Martins to his excellent edition of the'Philosophie Zoologique. '[184] From this sketch I find that "Lamarck wasborn August 1, 1744, at Barenton, in Picardy, being the eleventh childof Pierre de Monet, squire of the place, a man of old family, but poor. His father intended him for the Church, the ordinary resource of youngersons at that time, and accordingly placed him under the care of theJesuits at Amiens. But this was not his vocation: the annals of hisfamily spoke all to him of military glory; his eldest brother had diedin the breaches at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom; two others were stillserving in the army, and France was exhausting her energies in anunequal struggle. His father would not yield to his wishes, but on hisdeath, in 1760, Lamarck was left free to take his own line, and made hisway at once--upon a very bad horse--to the army of Germany, thenencamped at Lippstadt in Westphalia. 

"He was the bearer of a letter written by Madame de Lameth, one of hisneighbours in the country, and recommending him to M. De Lastic, colonelof the regiment of Beaujolais. This gentleman, on seeing before him alad of seventeen, whose somewhat stunted growth made him look stillyounger than he really was, sent the youth immediately to his ownquarters. The next day a battle was immediately impending, and M. DeLastic, on passing his regiment in review, saw his protégé in the firstrank of a company of grenadiers. The French army was under the orders ofthe Marshal de Broglie and of the Prince de Soubise; the allied troopswere commanded by Ferdinand of Brunswick. The two French generals werebeaten owing to their divided counsels, and Lamarck's company, almostannihilated by the enemy's fire, was forgotten in the confusion of theretreat. All the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, werekilled, and only fourteen men out of the whole company remained alive:the eldest proposed to retreat, but Lamarck, improvising himself ascommander, declared that they ought not to retire without orders. Presently the colonel seeing that this company did not rally sent anorderly officer who made his way up to it by protected paths. Next dayLamarck was made an officer, and shortly afterwards lieutenant. 

"Fortunately for science, " continues M. Martins, "this brilliant _début_was not to decide his career. After peace had been signed he was sentinto garrison at Toulon and Monaco, where an inflammation of thelymphatic ganglions of the neck necessitated an operation which left himdeeply scarred for life. 

"The vegetation in the neighbourhood of Toulon and Monaco now arrestedthe young officer's attention. He had already derived some littleknowledge of botany from the '_Traité des Plantes usuelles_' of Chomel. Having retired from the service, and having nothing beyond his modestpension of four hundred francs a year, he took a situation at Paris witha banker; but drawn irresistibly to the study of nature, he used tostudy from his attic window the forms and movements of clouds, and madehimself familiar with the plants in the Jardin du Roi or in the publicgardens. He began to feel that he was on his right path, and understood, as Voltaire said of Condorcet, that discoveries of permanent value couldmake him no less illustrious than military glory. 

"Dissatisfied with the botanical systems of his time, in six months hewrote his '_Flore française_, ' preceded by the '_Clé dichotomique_, 'with the help of which it is easy even for a beginner to arrive withcertainty at the name of the plant before him. " Of this work, M. Martinstells us in a note, that the second edition, published by Candolle in1815, is still the standard work on French plants. 

"In 1778 Rousseau had brought botany into vogue. Women and men offashion took to it. Buffon had the three volumes of '_Flore française_'printed at the royal press, and in the following year Lamarck enteredthe Academy of Sciences. Buffon being anxious that his son shouldtravel, gave him Lamarck for his companion and tutor. He thus made atrip through Holland, Germany, and Hungary, and became acquainted withGleditsch at Berlin, with Jacquin at Vienna, and with Murray atGottingen. 

"The '_Encyclopédie méthodique_, ' begun by Diderot and D'Alembert, wasnot yet completed. For this work Lamarck wrote four volumes, describingall the then known plants whose names began with the letters from A toP. This great work was completed by Poiret, and comprises twelvevolumes, which appeared between the years 1783 and 1817. A still moreimportant work, also part of the Encyclopedia, and continually quoted bybotanists, is the '_Illustration des Genres_. ' In this work Lamarckdescribes two thousand _genera_, and illustrates them, according to thetitle-page, with nine hundred engravings. Only a botanist can form anyidea of the research in collections, gardens, and books, which such awork must have involved. But Lamarck's activity was inexhaustible. Sonnerat returned from India in 1781 with a very large number of driedplants; no one except Lamarck thought it worth while to inspect them, and Sonnerat, charmed with his enthusiasm, gave him the wholemagnificent collection. 

"In spite, however, of his incessant toil, Lamarck's position continuedto be most precarious. He lived by his pen, as a publisher's hack, andit was with difficulty that he obtained even the poorly paid post ofkeeper of the king's cabinet of dried plants. Like most othernaturalists he had thus to contend with incessant difficulties during aperiod of fifteen years. 

"At length fortune bettered his condition while changing the directionof his labours. France was now under the Convention; what Carnot haddone for the army Lakanal undertook to do for the natural sciences. Athis suggestion a museum of natural history was established. Professorshad been found for all the chairs save that of Zoology; but in that timeof enthusiasm, so different from the present, France could find men ofwar and men of science wherever and whenever she had need of them. Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire was twenty-one years old, and was engagedin the study of mineralogy under Haüy. Daubenton said to him, 'I willundertake the responsibility for your inexperience. I have a father'sauthority over you. Take this professorship, and let us one day say thatyou have made zoology a French science. ' Geoffroy accepted, andundertook the higher animals. Lakanal knew that a single professor couldnot suffice for the task of arranging the collections of the entireanimal kingdom, and as Geoffroy was to class the vertebrate animalsonly, there remained the invertebrata--that is to say, insects, molluscs, worms, zoophytes--in a word, what was then the chaos of theunknown. 'Lamarck, ' says M. Michelet, 'accepted the unknown. ' He haddevoted some attention to the study of shells with Bruguières, but hehad still everything to learn, or I should perhaps say rather, everything to create in that unexplored territory into which Linnæus haddeclined to enter, and into which he had thus introduced none of theorder he had so well known how to establish among the higher animals. 

"Lamarck began his course of lectures at the museum in 1794, after ayear's preparation, and at once established that great division ofanimals into vertebrate and invertebrate, which science has ever sincerecognized. 

"Dividing the vertebrate animals--as Linnæus had already dividedthem--into mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, he divided theinvertebrates into molluscs, insects, worms, echinoderms, and polyps. In1799 he separated the crustacea from the insects, with which they hadbeen classed hitherto; in 1800 he established the arachnids as a classdistinct from the insects; in 1802 that of the annelids, a subdivisionof the worms, and that of the radiata as distinct from the polyps. Timehas approved the wisdom of these divisions, founded all of them upon theorganic type of the creatures themselves--that is to say, upon therational method introduced into zoology by Cuvier, Lamarck, and GeoffroySt. Hilaire. 

"This introduction being devoted only to Lamarck's labours as anaturalist, we will pass over certain works in which he treats ofphysics and chemistry. These attempts--errors of a powerful mind whichthought itself able by the help of pure reason to establish truths whichrest only upon experience--attempts, moreover, which were some of thembut resuscitations of exploded theories, such as that of'phlogistic'--had not even the honour of being refuted: they did notdeserve to be so, and should be a warning to all those who would writeupon a subject without the necessary practical knowledge. 

 . . . . . . 

"At the beginning of this century there was not yet any such science asgeology. People observed but little, and in lieu of observation madetheories to embrace the entire globe. Lamarck made his in 1802, andtwenty-three years later the judicious Cuvier still yielded to theprevailing custom in publishing his 'Discoveries on the Earth'sRevolutions. '

"Lamarck's merit was to have discovered that there had been nocatastrophes, but that the gradual action of forces during thousands ofages accounted for the changes observable upon the face of the earth, better than any sudden and violent perturbations. 'Nature, ' he writes, 'has no difficulty on the score of time; she has it always at command;it is with her a boundless space in which she has room for the greatestas for the smallest operations. '"

Here we must not forget Buffon's fine passage, "Nature's great workmanis Time, " &c. See page 103. 

"Lamarck, " continues M. Martins, "was the first to distinguish littoralfrom ocean fossils, but no one accepts his theory that oceans make theirbeds deeper owing to the action of the tides, and distribute themselvesdifferently over the earth's surface without any change of level of thedifferent parts of that surface. 

 . . . . . . 

"Settling down to a single branch of science, in consequence of hisprofessorship, Lamarck now devoted himself to the twofold labour oflecturing and classifying the collections at the museum. In 1802 hepublished his 'Considerations on the Organization of Living Bodies'; in1809 his '_Philosophie Zoologique_, ' a development of the'Considerations'; and from 1816 to 1822 his Natural History of theinvertebrate animals, in seven volumes. This is his great work, and, being entirely a work of description and classification, was receivedwith the unanimous approbation of the scientific world. His 'FossilShells of the Neighbourhood of Paris'--a work in which his profoundknowledge of existing shells enabled him to class with certainty theremains of forms that had disappeared thousands of ages ago--met alsowith a favourable reception. 

"Lamarck was fifty years old before he began to study zoology; andprolonged microscopic examinations first fatigued and at lengthenfeebled his eyesight. The clouds which obscured it graduallythickened, and he became quite blind. Married four times, the father ofseven children, he saw his small patrimony and even his earlier savingsswallowed up by one of those hazardous investments with which promotersimpose on the credulity of the public. His small endowment as professoralone protected him from destitution. Men of science whom his reputationas a botanist and zoologist had attracted near him, wondered at themanner in which he was neglected. 

 . . . . . . 

"He passed the last ten years of his laborious life in darkness, tendedonly by the affectionate care of his two daughters. The eldest wrotefrom his dictation part of the sixth and seventh volumes of his work onthe invertebrate animals. From the time her father became confined tohis room his daughter never left the house; and when first she did soafter his death, she was distressed by the fresh air to which she hadbeen so long a stranger. 

"Lamarck died December 18, 1829, at the age of eighty-five. Latreilleand Blainville were his successors at the museum. The incredibleactivity of the first professor had so greatly increased the number ofthe known invertebrata that it was found necessary to endow twoprofessors, where one had originally been sufficient. 

"His two daughters were left penniless. In the year 1832 I myself sawMlle. Cornélie de Lamarck earning a scanty pittance by fastening driedplants on to paper, in the museum of which her father had been aprofessor. Many a species named and described by him must have passedunder her eyes and increased the bitterness of her regret. "[185]

FOOTNOTES:

[184] Paris, 1873. 

[185] Introduction Biographique to M. Martins' edition of the 'Phil. Zool. , ' pp. Ix-xx. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

GENERAL MISCONCEPTION CONCERNING LAMARCK--HIS PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION. 

"If Cuvier, " says M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, [186] "is the modernsuccessor of Linnæus, so is Lamarck of Buffon. But Cuvier does not go sofar as Linnæus, and Lamarck goes much farther than Buffon. Lamarck, moreover, took his own line, and his conjectures are not only muchbolder, or rather more hazardous, but they are profoundly different fromBuffon's. 

"It is well known that the vast labours of Lamarck were divided betweenbotany and physical science in the eighteenth century, and betweenzoology and natural philosophy in the nineteenth; it is, however, lessgenerally known that Lamarck was long a partisan of the immutability ofspecies. It was not till 1801, when he was already old, that he freedhimself from the ideas then generally prevailing. But Lamarck, havingonce made up his mind, never changed it; in his ripe age he exhibits allthe ardour of youth in propagating and defending his new convictions. 

"In the three years, 1801, 1802, 1803, he enounced them twice in hislectures, and three times in his writings. [187] He returns to thesubject and states his views precisely in 1806, [188] and in 1809 hedevotes a great part of his principal work, the 'PhilosophieZoologique, ' to their demonstration. [189] Here he might have rested andhave quietly awaited the judgment of his peers; but he is too muchconvinced; he believes the future of science to depend so much upon hisdoctrine that to his dying day he feels compelled to explain it furtherand insist upon it. When already over seventy years of age he enouncesit again, and maintains it as firmly as ever in 1815, in his 'Histoiredes Animaux sans Vertèbres, ' and in 1820 in his 'Système desConnaissances Positives. '[190]

"This doctrine, so dearly cherished by its author, and the conception, exposition, and defence of which so laboriously occupied the second halfof his scientific career, has been assuredly too much admired by some, who have forgotten that Lamarck had a precursor, and that that precursorwas Buffon. It has, on the other hand, been too severely condemned byothers who have involved it in its entirety in broad and sweepingcondemnation. As if it were possible that so great labour on the part ofso great a naturalist should have led him to 'a fantastic conclusion'only--to a 'flighty error, ' and, as has been often said, though notwritten, to 'one absurdity the more. ' Such was the language whichLamarck heard during his protracted old age, saddened alike by theweight of years and blindness; this was what people did not hesitate toutter over his grave yet barely closed, and what, indeed, they are stillsaying--commonly, too, without any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at second hand bad caricatures of his teaching. 

"When will the time come when we may see Lamarck's theorydiscussed--and, I may as well at once say, refuted in some importantpoints--with at any rate the respect due to one of the most illustriousmasters of our science? And when will this theory, the hardihood ofwhich has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from theinterpretations and commentaries by the false light of which so manynaturalists have formed their opinion concerning it? If its author is tobe condemned, let it be, at any rate, not before he has beenheard. "[191]

It is not necessary for me to give the extracts from Lamarck which M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire quotes in order to show what he reallymaintained, inasmuch as they will be given at greater length in thefollowing chapter; but I may perhaps say that I have not found M. Geoffroy refuting Lamarck in any essential point. 

Professor Haeckel says that to Lamarck "will always belong the immortalglory of having for the first time worked out the theory of descent asan independent scientific theory of the first order, and as thephilosophical foundation of the whole science of Biology. "

 . . . . . . 

"The 'Philosophie Zoologique, '" continues Professor Haeckel, "is thefirst connected exposition of the theory of descent carried out strictlyinto all its consequences; . . . And with the exception of Darwin's work, which appeared exactly half a century later, we know of none which wecould in this respect place by the side of the 'Philosophie Zoologique. 'How far it was in advance of its time is perhaps best seen from thecircumstance that it was not understood by most men, and for fifty yearswas not spoken of at all. "[192]

This is an exaggeration, both as regards the originality of Lamarck'swork and the reception it has met with. It is probably more accurate tosay with M. Martins that Lamarck's theory has "never yet had the honourof being discussed seriously, "[193] not, at least, in connection withthe name of its originators. 

So completely has this been so that the author of the 'Vestiges ofCreation, ' even in the edition of 1860, in which he unreservedlyacknowledges the adoption of Lamarck's views, not unfrequently speaksdisparagingly of Lamarck himself, and never gives him his due meed ofrecognition. I am not, therefore, wholly displeased to find this authorconceiving himself to have been treated by Mr. Charles Darwin with someof the injustice which he has himself inflicted on Lamarck. 

In the 1859 edition of the 'Origin of Species, ' and in a very prominentplace, Mr. Darwin says:--"The author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' wouldI presume say, that after a certain number of unknown generations, somebird had given birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to a misseltoe, andthat these had been produced perfect as we now see them. "[194] This isthe only allusion to the 'Vestiges' which I have found in the firstedition of the 'Origin of Species. '

Those who have read the 1853 edition of the 'Vestiges' will not besurprised to find the author rejoining, in his edition of 1860, that itwas to be regretted Mr. Darwin should have read the 'Vestiges' "nearlyas much amiss as though, like its declared opponents, he had an interestin misunderstanding it. " And a little lower he adds that Mr. Darwin'sbook in no essential respect contradicts the 'Vestiges'; "on thecontrary, while adding to its explanations of nature, it expressessubstantially the same general ideas. "[195] It is right to say that thepassage thus objected to is not to be found in later editions of the'Origin of Species, ' while in the historical sketch we now read asfollows:--"In my opinion it (the 'Vestiges of Creation') has doneexcellent service in this country by calling attention to the subject, removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the receptionof analogous views. "

Mr. Darwin, the main part of whose work on the 'Origin of Species' istaken up with supporting the theory of descent with modification (whichfrequently in the recapitulation chapter of the 'Origin of Species' heseems to treat as synonymous with natural selection), has fallen intothe common error of thinking that Lamarck can be ignored or passed overin a couple of sentences. I only find Lamarck's name twice in the 1859edition of the 'Origin, ' once on p. 242, where Mr. Darwin writes: "I amsurprised that no one has advanced this demonstrative case of neuterinsects, against the well-known doctrine of Lamarck;" and again, p. 427, where Lamarck is stated to have been the first to call attention to the"very important distinction between real affinities and analogical oradaptive resemblances. " How far from demonstrative is the particularcase which in 1859 Mr. Darwin considered so fatal to "the well-knowndoctrine of Lamarck"--which should surely, one would have thought, include the doctrine of descent with modification, which Mr. Darwin ishimself supporting--I have attempted to show in 'Life and Habit, ' buthad perhaps better recapitulate briefly here. 

Mr. Darwin writes: "In the simpler case of neuter insects all of onecaste, _which, as I believe, have been rendered different from thefertile males and females through natural selection_. . . . "[196] He thusattributes the sterility and peculiar characteristics, we will say, ofthe common hive working bees--"neuter insects all of one caste"--tonatural selection. Now, nothing is more certain than that thesecharacteristics--sterility, a cavity in the thigh for collecting wax, aproboscis for gathering honey, &c. --are due to the treatment which theeggs laid by the queen bee receive after they have left her body. Takean egg and treat it in a certain way, and it becomes a working bee;treat the same egg in a certain other way, and it becomes a queen. Ifthe bees are in danger of becoming queenless they take eggs which werein the way of being developed into working bees, and change their foodand cells, whereon they develop into queens instead. How Mr. Darwincould attribute the neutralization of the working bees--an act which isobviously one of abortion committed by the body politic of the hive on abalance of considerations--to the action of what he calls "naturalselection, " and how, again, he could suppose that what he was advancinghad any but a confirmatory bearing upon Lamarck's position, isincomprehensible, unless the passage in question be taken as a mereslip. That attention has been called to it is plain, for the words "thewell-known doctrine of Lamarck" have been changed in later editions into"the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced byLamarck, "[197] but this correction, though some apparent improvement onthe original text, does little indeed in comparison with what is wanted. 

Mr. Darwin has since introduced a paragraph concerning Lamarck into the"historical sketch, " already more than once referred to in these pages. In this he summarises the theory which I am about to lay before thereader, by saying that Lamarck "upheld the doctrine that all species, including man, are descended from other species. " If Lamarck had beenalive he would probably have preferred to see Mr. Darwin write that heupheld "the doctrine of descent with modification as the explanation ofall differentiations of structure and instinct. " Mr. Darwin continues, that Lamarck "seems" to have been chiefly led to his conclusion on thegradual change of species, "by the difficulty of distinguishing speciesand varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of forms in certaingroups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. "

Lamarck would probably have said that though he did indeed turn--as Mr. Darwin has done, and as Buffon and Dr. Darwin had done before him--toanimals and plants under domestication, in illustration and support ofthe theory of descent with modification; and that though he did alsoinsist, as so many other writers have done, on the arbitrary andartificial nature of the distinction between species and varieties, hewas mainly led to agree with Buffon and Dr. Darwin by a broad survey ofthe animal kingdom, with the details also of which few naturalists haveever been better acquainted. 

"Great, " says Mr. Darwin, "is the power of steadymisrepresentation, "--and greatly indeed has the just fame of Lamarckbeen eclipsed in consequence; "but, " as Mr. Darwin finely continues, "the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not longendure. "[198]

That Lamarck anticipated it, was prepared to face it, and even felt thatthings were thus, after all, as they should be, will appear from theshrewd and pleasant passage which is to be found near the close of hispreface:--

"So great is the power of preconceived opinion, especially when anypersonal interest is enlisted on the same side as itself, that thoughit is hard to deduce new truths from the study of nature, it is stillharder to get them recognized by other people. 

"These difficulties, however, are on the whole more beneficial thanhurtful to the cause of science; for it is through them that a number ofeccentric, though perhaps plausible speculations, perish in theirinfancy, and are never again heard of. Sometimes, indeed, valuable ideasare thus lost; but it is better that a truth, when once caught sight of, should have to struggle for a long time without meeting the attention itdeserves, than that every outcome of a heated imagination should bereadily received. 

"The more I reflect upon the numerous causes which affect our judgments, the more convinced I am that, with the exception of such physical andmoral facts as no one can now throw doubt upon, all else is matter ofopinion and argument; and we know well that there is hardly an argumentto be found anywhere, against which another argument cannot plausibly beadduced. Hence, though it is plain that the various opinions of mendiffer greatly in probability and in the weight which should be attachedto them, it seems to me that we are wrong when we blame those who differfrom us. 

"Are we then to recognize no opinions as well founded but those whichare generally received? Nay--experience teaches us plainly that thehighest and most cultivated minds must be at all times in an exceedinglysmall minority. No one can dispute this. Authority should be told byweight and not by number--but in good truth authority is a hard thingto weigh. 

"Nor again--in spite of the many and severe conditions which a judgmentmust fulfil before it can be declared good--is it quite certain thatthose whom public opinion has declared to be authorities, are alwaysright in the conclusions they arrive at. 

"Positive facts are the only solid ground for man; the deductions hedraws from them are a very different matter. Outside the facts of natureall is a question of probabilities, and the most that can be said isthat some conclusions are more probable than others. "

Lamarck's poverty was perhaps one main reason of the ease with which itwas found possible to neglect his philosophical opinions. Science is nota kingdom into which a poor man can enter easily, if he happens todiffer from a philosopher who gives good dinners, and has "his sistersand his cousins and his aunts" to play the part of chorus to him. Lamarck's two daughters do not appear to have been the kind of personswho could make effective sisters or cousins or aunts. Men of science areof like passions even with the other holy ones who have set themselvesup in all ages as the pastors and prophets of mankind. The saint hascommonly deemed it to be for the interests of saintliness that he shouldstrain a point or two in his own favour--and the more so according ashis reputation for an appearance of candour has been the better earned. If, then, Lamarck's opponents could keep choruses, while Lamarck hadnothing to fall back upon but the merits of his case only, it is notsurprising that he should have found himself neglected by thescientists of his own time. Moreover he was too old to have undertakensuch an unequal contest. If he had been twenty years younger when hebegan it, he would probably have enjoyed his full measure of successbefore he died. 

Not that Lamarck can claim, as a thinker, to stand on the same levelwith Dr. Darwin, and still less so with Buffon. He attempted to go toofast and too far. Seeing that if we accept descent with modification, the question arises whether what we call life and consciousness may notthemselves be evolved from some thing or things which looked at one timeso little living and conscious that we call them inanimate--and beinganxious to see his theory reach, and to follow it, as far back aspossible, he speculates about the origin of life; having formed a theorythereon, he is more inclined to interpret the phenomena of lower animallife so as to make them fit in with his theory, than as he would haveinterpreted them if there had been no theory at stake. 

Thus his denial that sensation, and much more, intelligence anddeliberate action, can exist without a brain and a nervous system, hasled him to deny sensation, consciousness, and intelligence to manyanimals which act in such manner as would certainly have made him saythat they feel and know what they are about, if he had formed no theoryabout brains and nervous systems. 

Nothing can be more different than the manners in which Lamarck and Dr. Darwin wrote on this head. Lamarck over and over again maintains thatwhere there is no nervous system there can be no sensation. Combating, for example, the assertion of Cabanis, that to live is to feel, he saysthat "the greater number of the polypi and all the infusoria, having nonervous system, it must be said of them as also of worms, that to liveis still not to feel; and so again of plants. "[199]

How different from this is the un-theory-ridden language of Dr. Darwin, quoted on p. 116 of this work. 

Lamarck again writes:--

"The very imperfect animals of the lowest classes, having no nervoussystem, are simply irritable, have nothing but certain habits, experience no sensations, and never conceive ideas. "

This, in the face of the performances of the amoeba--a minute jellyspeck, without any special organ whatever--in making its tests, cannotbe admitted. Is it possible that Lamarck was in some measure misled bybelieving Buffon to be in earnest when he advanced propositions littleless monstrous?

"But, " continues Lamarck, "the less imperfect animals which have anervous system, though they have not the organ of intelligence, haveinstinct, habits, and proclivities; they feel sensations, and yet formno ideas whatever. I venture to say that where there is no organ for afaculty that faculty cannot exist. "[200]

Who can tell what ideas a worm does or does not form? We can watch itsactions, and see that they are such as involve what we call design and aperception of its own interest. Under these circumstances it seemsbetter to call the worm a reasonable creature with Dr. Darwin than tosay with Lamarck that because worms do not appear to have that organwhich he assumes to be the sole means of causing sensation and ideas, therefore they can neither feel nor think. Doubtless they cannot feeland think as many sensations and thoughts as we can, but our ideas ofwhat they can and cannot feel must be formed through consideration ofwhat we see them do, and must be biassed by no theories of what theyought to be able to feel or not feel. 

Again Lamarck, shortly after an excellent passage in which he points outthat the lower animals gain by experience just as man does (and hereprobably he had in his mind the passage of Buffon referred to at p. 112of this work), nevertheless writes:--

"If the facts and considerations put forward in this volume be heldworthy of attention, it will follow necessarily that there are someanimals which have neither reason nor instinct" (I should be glad to seeone of these animals and to watch its movements), "such as those whichhave no power of feeling; that there are others which have instinct butno degree whatever of reason" (whereas from Dr. Darwin's premises itshould follow, and would doubtless be readily admitted by him, thatinstinct is reason, but reason many times repeated made perfect, andfinally repeated by rote; so that far from being prior to reason, asLamarck here implies, it can only come long afterwards), "such as thosewhich have a system enabling them to feel, but which still lack theorgan of intelligence; and finally, that there are those which have notonly instinct, but over and above this a certain degree of reasoningpower, such as those creatures which have one system for sensations andanother for acts involving intelligence. Instinct is with these lastanimals the motive power of almost all their actions, and they rarelyuse what little reason they have. Man, who comes next above them, isalso possessed of instincts which inspire some of his actions, but hecan acquire much reason, and can use it so as to direct the greater partof his actions. "[201]

All this will be felt to be less satisfactory than the simple directnessof Dr. Darwin. It comes in great measure from following Buffon withoutbeing _en rapport_ with him. On the other hand, Lamarck must be admittedto have elaborated the theory of "descent with modification" with noless clearness than Dr. Darwin, and with much greater fulness of detail. There is no substantial difference between the points they wish toestablish; Dr. Darwin has the advantage in that not content withmaintaining that there will be a power of adaptation to the conditionsof an animal's existence which will determine its organism, he goes onto say what the principal conditions are, and shows more lucidly thanLamarck has done (though Lamarck adopts the same three causes in apassage which will follow), that struggle, and consequentlymodification, will be chiefly conversant about the means of subsistence, of reproduction, and of self-protection. Nevertheless, though Dr. Darwinhas said enough to show that he had the whole thing clearly before him, and could have elaborated it as finely as or better than Lamarckhimself has done, if he had been so minded, yet the palm must be givento Lamarck on the score of what he actually did, and this I observe tobe the verdict of history, for whereas Lamarck's name is still dailyquoted, Dr. Darwin's is seldom mentioned, and never with the applausewhich it deserves. 

The resemblance between the two writers--that is to say, the completecoincidence of their views--is so remarkable that the question is forcedupon us how far Lamarck knew the substance of Dr. Darwin's theory. Lamarck knew Buffon personally; he had been tutor to Buffon's son, andBuffon had three of Lamarck's volumes on the French Flora printed at theroyal printing press;--how can we account for Lamarck's having hadBuffon's theory of descent with modification before him for so manyyears, and yet remaining a partisan of immutability till 1801? Beforethis year we find no trace of his having accepted evolution;thenceforward he is one of the most ardent and constant exponents whichthis doctrine has ever had. What was it that repelled him in Buffon'ssystem? How is it that in the 'Philosophie Zoologique' there is not, sofar as I can remember, a single reference to Buffon, from whom, however, as we shall see, many paragraphs are taken with but very littlealteration?

I am inclined to think that the secret of this sudden conversion must befound in a French translation by M. Deleuze of Dr. Darwin's poem, 'TheLoves of the Plants' which appeared in 1800. Lamarck--the most eminentbotanist of his time--was sure to have heard of and seen this, and wouldprobably know the translator, who would be able to give him a fair ideaof the 'Zoonomia. '

I will give a few of the passages which Lamarck would find in thistranslation. Speaking of Dr. Darwin, M. Deleuze says:--"Il falloitencore qu'un nouvel observateur, entrant dans la route qui venoit des'ouvrir, s'y frayât des sentiers ignorés; que liant la physiquevégétale à la botanique il nous montrât dans les plantes, non seulementdes corps organisés soumis à des lois constantes, mais des êtres douéssinon de sensibilité, au moins d'une irritabilité particulière, d'unprincipe de vie _qui leur fait exécuter des mouvements analogues à leursbesoins_. . . . [202]

"Il est des animaux et des plantes qui par le laps du tems paroissentavoir éprouvé des changemens dans leur organisation, _pour s'accommoderà de nouveaux genres de nourriture et aux moyens de se la procurer_. Peut-être les productions de la nature font elles des progrès vers laperfection. Cette idée appuyée par les observations modernes surl'accroissement progressif des parties solides du globe, s'accorde avecla dignité et la providence du créateur de l'univers. "[203]

"La nature semble s'être fait un jeu d'établir entre tous les êtresorganisés une sorte de guerre qui entretient leur activité: si elle adonné aux uns des moyens de défense, elle a donné aux autres des moyensd'attaque. "[204]

Turning to the 'Botanic Garden' itself, I find that this admirablesentence belongs to M. Deleuze, and not to Dr. Darwin, who, however, hassaid what comes to much the same thing, [205] as may be seen p. 227 ofthis volume. But the authorship is immaterial; whether the passage wasby Dr. Darwin or M. Deleuze, it was, in all probability, known toLamarck before his change of front. 

 * * * * *

The note on Trapa Natans again[206] suggests itself as the source fromwhich the passage in the 'Philosophie Zoologique' about the Ranunculusaquatilis is taken, [207] while one of the most important passages in thework, a summary, in fact, of the principal means of modification, seemsto be taken, the first half of it from Buffon, and the second from Dr. Darwin. I have called attention to it on pp. 300, 301. 

We may then suppose that Lamarck failed to understand Buffon, andconceived that he ought either to have gone much farther, or not so far;not being yet prepared to go the whole length himself, he opposedmutability till Dr. Darwin's additions to Buffon's ostensible theoryreached him, whereon he at once adopted them, and having receivednothing but a few notes and hints, felt himself at liberty to work thetheory out independently and claim it. In so original a work as the'_Philosophie Zoologique_' must always be considered, this may belegitimate, but I find in it, as Isidore Geoffroy seems also to havefound, a little more claim to complete independence than is acceptableto one who is fresh from Buffon and Dr. Darwin. 

FOOTNOTES:

[186] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 404, 1859. 

[187] 'Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres, ' Paris, in-8, an. Ix. (1801);'Discours d'Ouverture, ' p. 12, &c. ; 'Recherches sur l'Organisation desCorps Vivants, ' Paris, in-8, 1802, p. 50, &c. ; 'Discours d'Ouvertured'un Cours de Zoologie pour l'an ix. , ' Paris, in-8, 1803. This discourseis entirely devoted to the consideration of the question, "What isSpecies?"

[188] 'Discours d'Ouverture d'un Cours de Zoologie, ' 1806, Paris, in-8, p. 8, &c. 

[189] See following chapter. 

[190] 'Hist, des Anim. Sans Vertèb. , ' tom, i. , Introduction, 1^re ed. , 1815; 'Syst. Des Conn. Positives, ' Paris, in-8, 1820, 1^re part, 2^me sect. Ch. Ii. P. 114, &c. 

[191] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 407. 

[192] 'History of Creation, ' English translation, vol. I. Pp. 111, 112. 

[193] M. Martins' edition of the 'Philosophie Zoologique, ' Paris, 1873. Introd. , p. Vi. 

[194] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 3, 1859. 

[195] 'Vestiges of Creation, ' ed. 1860, Proofs, Illustrations, &c. , p. Lxiv. 

[196] 'Origin of Species, ' ed. 1, p. 239; ed. 6, p. 231. 

[197] 'Origin of Species, ' ed. 1, p. 242; ed. 6, 1876, p. 233. 

[198] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 421, ed. 1876. 

[199] 'Phil. Zool. , ' vol. I. P. 404. 

[200] Ibid. Vol. Ii. P. 324. 

[201] 'Phil. Zool. , ' vol. Ii. P. 410. 

[202] 'Les Amours des Plantes, ' Discours Prélim. , p. 7. Paris, 1800. 

[203] Ibid. , Notes du chant i. , p. 202. 

[204] Ibid. P. 238. 

[205] 'Zoonomia, ' vol. I. P. 507. 

[206] 'Les Amours des Plantes, ' p. 360. 

[207] Vol. I. P. 231, ed. M. Martins, 1873. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

SUMMARY OF THE 'PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE. '

The first part of the '_Philosophie Zoologique_' is the one which dealswith the doctrine of evolution or descent with modification. It is tothis, therefore, that our attention will be confined. Yet only acomparatively small part of the three hundred and fifty pages whichconstitute Lamarck's first part are devoted to setting forth the reasonswhich led him to arrive at his conclusions--the greater part of thevolume being occupied with the classification of animals, which we mayagain omit, as foreign to our purpose. 

I shall condense whenever I can, but I do not think the reader will findthat I have left out much that bears upon the argument. I shall also useinverted commas while translating with such freedom as to omit severallines together, where I can do so without suppressing anything essentialto the elucidation of Lamarck's meaning. I shall, however, throughoutrefer the reader to the page of the original work from which I amtranslating. 

"The common origin of bodily and mental phenomena, " says Lamarck in hispreliminary chapter, "has been obscured, because we have studied themchiefly in man, who, as the most highly developed of living beings, presents the problem in its most difficult and complicated aspect. If wehad begun our study with that of the lowest organisms, and had proceededfrom these to the more complex ones, we should have seen the progressionwhich is observable in organization, and the successive acquisition ofvarious special organs, with new faculties for every additional organ. We should thus have seen that sense of needs--originally hardlyperceptible, but gradually increasing in intensity and variety--has ledto the attempt to gratify them; that the actions thus induced, havingbecome habitual and energetic, have occasioned the development of organsadapted for their performance; that the force which excites organicmovements can in the case of the lowest animals exist outside them andyet animate them; that this force was subsequently introduced into theanimals themselves, and fixed within them; and, lastly, that it gaverise to sensibility and, in the end, to intelligence. "[208] The readerhad better be on his guard here, and whenever Lamarck is speculatingabout the lowest forms of action and sensation. I have thought it well, however, to give enough of these speculations, as occasion arises, toshow their tendency. 

"Sensation is not the proximate cause of organic movements. It may be sowith the higher animals, but it cannot be shown to be so with plants, nor even with all known animals. At the outset of life there was none ofthat sensation which could only arise where organic beings had alreadyattained a considerable development. Nature has done all by slowgradations, both organs and faculties being the outcome of a progressivedevelopment. [209]

"The mere composition of an animal is but a small part of what deservesstudy in connection with the animal itself. The effects of itssurroundings in causing new wants, the effects of its wants in givingrise to actions, those of its actions in developing habits andtendencies, the effects of use and disuse as affecting any organ, themeans which nature takes to preserve and make perfect what has beenalready acquired--these are all matters of the highest importance. [210]

"In their bearing upon these questions the invertebrate animals are moreimportant and interesting than the vertebrate, for they are more innumber, and being more in number are more varied; their variations aremore marked, and the steps by which they have advanced in complexity aremore easily observed. [211]

"I propose, therefore, to divide this work into three parts, of whichthe first shall deal with the conventions necessary for the treatment ofthe subject, the importance of analogical structures, and the meaningwhich should be attached to the word species. I will point out on theone hand the evidence of a graduated descending scale, as existingbetween the highest and the lowest organisms; and, on the other, theeffect of surroundings and habits on the organs of living beings, as thecause of their development or arrest of development. Lastly, I willtreat of the natural order of animals, and show what should be theirfittest classification and arrangement. "[212]

It seems unnecessary to give Lamarck's intentions with regard to hissecond and third parts, as they do not here concern us; they deal withthe origin of life and mind. 

The first chapter of the work opens with the importance of bearing inmind the difference between the conventional and the natural, that is tosay, between words and things. Here, as indeed largely throughout thispart of his work, he follows Buffon, by whom he is evidently influenced. 

"The conventional deals with systems of arrangement, classification, orders, families, genera, and the nomenclature, whether of differentsections or of individual objects. 

"An arrangement should be called systematic, or arbitrary, when it doesnot conform to the genealogical order taken by nature in the developmentof the things arranged, and when, by consequence it is not founded uponwell-considered analogies. There is such a thing as a natural order inevery department of nature; it is the order in which its severalcomponent items have been successively developed. [213]

"Some lines certainly seem to have been drawn by Nature herself. It washard to believe that mammals, for example, and birds, were notwell-defined classes. Nevertheless the sharpness of definition was anillusion, and due only to our limited knowledge. The ornithorhynchus andthe echidna bridge the gulf. [214]

"Simplicity is the main end of any classification. If all the races, oras they are called, species, of any kingdom were perfectly known, and ifthe true analogies between each species, and between the groups whichspecies form, were also known, so that their approximations to eachother and the position of the several groups were in conformity with thenatural analogies between them--then classes, orders, sections, andgenera would be families, larger or smaller; for each division would bea greater or smaller section of a natural order or sequence. [215] But inthis case it would be very difficult to assign the limits of eachdivision; they would be continually subjected to arbitrary alteration, and agreement would only exist where plain and palpable gaps weremanifest in our series. Happily, however, for classifiers there are, andwill always probably remain, a number of unknown forms. "[216]

That the foregoing is still felt to be true by those who acceptevolution, may be seen from the following passage, taken from Mr. Darwin's 'Origin of Species':--

"As all the organic beings which have ever lived can be arranged withina few great classes; and as all within each class have, according to ourtheory, been connected together by fine gradations, the best, and if ourcollections were nearly perfect, the only possible arrangement would begenealogical: descent being the hidden bond of connection whichnaturalists have been seeking under the term of the Natural System. Onthis view, we can understand how it is that in the eyes of mostnaturalists, the structure of the embryo is even more important forclassifications than that of the adult. "[217]

In his second chapter Lamarck deals with the importance of comparativeanatomy, and the study of homologous structures. These indicate a sortof blood relationship between the individuals in which they are found, and are our safest guide to any natural system of classification. Theirimportance is not confined to the study of classes, families, or evenspecies; they must be studied also in the individuals of each species, as it is thus only, that we can recognize either identity or differenceof species. The results arrived at, however, are only trustworthy over alimited period, for though the individuals of any species commonly soresemble one another at any given time, as to enable us to generalizefrom them, at the date of our observing them, yet species are not fixedand immutable through all time: they change, though with such extremeslowness that we do not observe their doing so, and when we come upon aspecies that _has_ changed, we consider it as a new one, and as havingalways been such as we now see it. [218]

"It is none the less true that when we compare the same kind of organsin different individuals, we can quickly and easily tell whether theyare very like each other or not, and hence, whether the animals orplants in which they are found, should be set down as members of thesame or of a different species. It is only therefore the generalinference drawn from the apparent immutability of species, that hasbeen too inconsiderately drawn. [219]

"The analogies and points of agreement between living organisms, arealways incomplete when based upon the consideration of any single organonly. But though still incomplete, they will be much more importantaccording as the organ on which they are founded is an essential one orotherwise. 

"With animals, those analogies are most important which exist betweenorgans most necessary for the conservation of their life. With plants, between their organs of generation. Hence, with animals, it will be theinterior structure which will determine the most important analogies:with plants it will be the manner in which they fructify. [220]

"With animals we should look to nerves, organs of respiration, and thoseof the circulation; with plants, to the embryo and its accessories, thesexual organs of their flowers, &c. [221] To do this, will set us on tothe Natural Method, which is as it were a sketch traced by man of theorder taken by Nature in her productions. [222] Nevertheless thedivisions which we shall be obliged to establish, will still bearbitrary and artificial, though presenting to our view sectionsarranged in the order which Nature has pursued. [223]

"What, then, " he asks, [224] "_is_ species--and can we show that specieshas changed--however slowly?" He now covers some of the ground sinceenlarged upon in Mr. Darwin's second chapter, in which the arbitrarynature of the distinction between species and varieties is so wellexposed. "I shall show, " says Lamarck (in substance, but I am compelledto condense much), "that the habits by which we now recognize anyspecies, are due to the conditions of life [_circonstances_] under whichit has for a long time existed, and that these habits have had such aninfluence upon the structure of each individual of the species, as tohave at length modified this structure, and adapted it to the habitswhich have been contracted. [225]

"The individuals of any species, " he continues, "certainly resembletheir parents; it is a universal law of nature that all offspring shoulddiffer but little from its immediate progenitors, but this does notjustify the ordinary belief that species never vary. Indeed, naturaliststhemselves are in continual difficulty as regards distinguishing speciesfrom varieties; they do not recognize the fact that species are onlyconstant as long as the conditions in which they are placed areconstant. Individuals vary and form breeds which blend so insensiblyinto the neighbouring species, that the distinctions made by naturalistsbetween species and varieties, are for the most part arbitrary, and theconfusion upon this head is becoming day by day more serious. [226]

"Not perceiving that species will not vary as long as the conditions inwhich they are placed remain essentially unchanged, naturalists havesupposed that each species was due to a special act of creation on thepart of the Supreme Author of all things. Assuredly, nothing can existbut by the will of this Supreme Author, but can we venture to assignrules to him in the execution of his will? May not his infinite powerhave chosen to create an order of things which should evolve insuccession all that we know as well as all that we do not know? Whetherwe regard species as created or evolved, the boundlessness of his powerremains unchanged, and incapable of any diminution whatsoever. Let usthen confine ourselves simply to observing the facts around us, and ifwe find any clue to the path taken by Nature, let us say fearlessly thatit has pleased her Almighty Author that she should take this path. [227]

"What applies to species applies also to genera; the further ourknowledge extends, the more difficult do we find it to assign its exactlimits to any genus. Gaps in our collections are being continuallyfilled up, to the effacement of our dividing lines of demarcation. Weare thus compelled to settle the limits of species and varietyarbitrarily, and in a manner about which there will be constantdisagreement. Naturalists are daily classifying new species which blendinto one another so insensibly that there can hardly be found words toexpress the minute differences between them. The gaps that exist aresimply due to our not having yet found the connecting species. 

"I do not, however, mean to say that animal life forms a simple andcontinuously blended series. Life is rather comparable to aramification. In life we should see, as it were, a ramified continuity, if certain species had not been lost. The species which, according tothis illustration, stands at the extremity of each bough, should bear aresemblance, at least upon one side, to the other neighbouring species;and this certainly is what we observe in nature. 

"Having arranged living forms in such an order as this, let us take one, and then, passing over several boughs, let us take another at somedistance from it; a wide difference will now be seen between the specieswhich the forms selected represent. Our earliest collections supplied uswith such distantly allied forms only; now, however, that we have suchan infinitely greater number of specimens, we can see that many of themblend one into the other without presenting noteworthy differences atany step. "[228]

This has been well extended by Mr. Darwin in a passage whichbegins:--"The affinities of all beings of the same class have sometimesbeen represented by a great tree. I believe that this simile largelyspeaks the truth. "[229]

"What, then, " continues Lamarck, "can be the cause of all this? Surelythe following: namely, that when individuals of any species change theirsituation, climate, mode of existence, or habits [conditions of life], their structure, form, organization, and in fact their whole beingbecomes little by little modified, till in the course of time itresponds to the changes experienced by the creature. "[230]

In his preface Lamarck had already declared that "the thread which givesus a clue to the causes of the various phenomena of animalorganization, in the manifold diversity of its developments, is to befound in the fact that Nature conserves in offspring all that their lifeand environments has developed in parents. " Heredity--"the hidden bondof common descent"--tempered with the modifications induced by changedhabits--which changed habits are due to new conditions andsurroundings--this with Lamarck, as with Buffon and Dr. Darwin, is theexplanation of the diversity of forms which we observe in nature. He nowgoes on to support this--briefly, in accordance with his design--butwith sufficient detail to prevent all possibility of mistake about hismeaning. 

"In the same climate differences in situation, and a greater or lessdegree of exposure, affect simply, in the first instance, theindividuals exposed to them; but in the course of time, these repeateddifferences of surroundings in individuals which reproduce themselvescontinually under similar circumstances, induce differences which becomepart of their very nature; so that after many successive generations, these individuals, which were originally, we will say, of any givenspecies, become transformed into a different one. "[231]

"Let us suppose that a grass growing in a low-lying meadow gets carriedby some accident to the brow of a neighbouring hill, where the soil isstill damp enough for the plant to be able to exist. Let it live herefor many generations, till it has become thoroughly accustomed to itsposition, and let it then gradually find its way to the dry and almostarid soil of a mountain side; if the plant is able to stand the changeand to perpetuate itself for many generations, it will have become sochanged that botanists will class it as a new species. "[232]

"The same sort of process goes on in the animal kingdom, but animals aremodified more slowly than plants. "[233]

The sterility of hybrids, to which Mr. Darwin devotes a great part ofthe ninth chapter of his 'Origin of Species, '[234] is then touchedon--briefly, but sufficiently--as follows:--

"The idea that species were fixed and immutable involved the belief thatdistinct species could not be fertile _inter se_. But unfortunatelyobservation has proved, and daily proves, that this supposition isunfounded. Hybrids are very common among plants, and quite sufficientlyso among animals to show that the boundaries of these so-calledimmutable species are not so well defined as has been supposed. Often, indeed, there is no offspring between the individuals of what are calleddistinct species, especially when they are widely different, and again, the offspring when produced is generally sterile; but when there is lessdifference between the parents, both the difficulty of breeding thehybrid, and its sterility when produced, are found to disappear. In thisvery power of crossing we see a source from which breeds, and ultimatelyspecies, may arise. "[235]

Mr. Darwin arrives at the same conclusion. He writes:--

"We must, therefore, either give up the belief of the universalsterility of species when crossed, or we must look at this sterility inanimals, not as an indelible characteristic, but as one capable of beingremoved by domestication. 

"Finally, on considering all the ascertained facts on the intercrossingof plants and animals, it may be concluded that some degree ofsterility, both in first crosses and in hybrids, is an exceedinglygeneral result, but that it cannot, under our present state ofknowledge, be considered as absolutely universal. "[236]

Returning to Lamarck, we find him saying:--

"The limits, therefore, of so-called species are not so constant andunvarying as is commonly supposed. Consider also the following. Allliving forms upon the face of the globe have been brought forth in thecourse of infinite time by the process of generation only. Nature hasdirectly created none but the lowest organisms; these she is stillproducing every day, they being, as it were, the first sketches of life, and produced by what is called spontaneous generation. Organs have beengradually developed in these low forms, and these organs have in thecourse of time increased in diversity and complexity. The power ofgrowth in each living body has given rise to various modes ofreproduction, and thus progress, already acquired, has been preservedand handed down to offspring. [237] With sufficient time, favourableconditions of life [_circonstances_], successive changes in the surfaceof the globe, and the power of new surroundings and habits to modify theorgans of living bodies, all animal and vegetable forms have beenimperceptibly rendered such as we now see them. It follows that specieswill be constant only in relation to their environments, and cannot beas old as Nature herself. 

"But what are we to say of instinct? Can we suppose that all the tricks, cunning, artifices, precautions, patience, and skill of animals are dueto evolution only? Must we not see here the design of an all-powerfulCreator? No one certainly will assign limits to the Creator's power, butit is a bold thing to say that he did not choose to work in this way orthat way, when his own handiwork declares to us that this is the way hechose. I find proof in Nature--meaning by nature the _ensemble_ of allthat is, [238] but regarding her as herself the effect of an unknownfirst cause[239]--that she is the author of organization, life, and evensensation; that she has multiplied and diversified the organs and mentalpowers of the creatures which she sustains and reproduces; that she hasdeveloped in animals, through the sole instrumentality of sense of needas establishing and directing their habits, all actions and all habits, from the simplest up to those which constitute instinct, industry, andfinally reason. [240]

"Against this it is alleged that we have no reason to believe species tohave changed within any known era. The skeletons of some Egyptian birds, preserved two or three thousand years ago, differ in no particular fromthe same kind of creatures at the present day. But this is what weshould expect, inasmuch as the position and climate of Egypt itself donot appear to have changed. If the conditions of life have not varied, why should the species subjected to those conditions have done so?Moreover, birds can move about freely, and if one place does not suitthem they can find another that does. All that these Egyptian mummiesreally prove is, that there were animals in Egypt two or three thousandyears ago which are like the animals of to-day; but how short a space istwo or three thousand years, as compared with the time which Nature hashad at her disposal! A time infinitely great _quâ_ man, is stillinfinitely short _quâ_ Nature. [241]

"If, however, we turn to animals under confinement, we find immediateproof that the most startling changes are capable of being producedafter some generations of changed habits. In the sixth chapter we shallhave occasion to observe the power of changed conditions[_circonstances_] to develop new desires in animals, and to induce newcourses of action; we shall see the power which these new actions willhave, after a certain amount of repetition, to engender new habits andtendencies; and we shall also note the effects of use and disuse ineither fortifying and developing an organ, or in diminishing it andcausing it to disappear. With plants under domestication, we shall findcorresponding phenomena. Species will thus appear to be unchangeable forcomparatively short periods only. "[242]

It is interesting to see that Mr. Darwin lays no less stress on thestudy of animals and plants under domestication than Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck. Indeed, all four writers appear to have been in greatmeasure led to their conclusions by this very study. "At thecommencement of my investigations, " writes Mr. Darwin, "it seemed to meprobable that a careful study of domesticated animals and of cultivatedplants would offer the best chance of making out this obscure problem. Nor have I been disappointed; in this and in all other perplexing cases, I have invariably found that our knowledge, imperfect though it be, ofvariation under domestication, afforded the best and safest clue. I mayventure to express my conviction of the high value of such studies, though they have been very commonly neglected by naturalists. "[243]

In justice to the three writers whom I have named, it should be borne inmind that they also ventured to express their conviction of the highvalue of these studies. Buffon, indeed, as we have seen, gives animalsunder domestication the foremost place in his work. He does not treat ofwild animals till he has said all he has to say upon our most importantdomesticated breeds, --on whose descent from one or two wild stocks he isnever weary of insisting. It was doubtless because of the opportunitiesthey afforded him for demonstrating the plasticity of living organismthat the most important position in his work was assigned to them. 

Lamarck professes himself unable to make up his mind about extinctspecies; how far, that is to say, whole breeds must be considered ashaving died out, or how far the difference between so many now livingand fossil forms is due to the fact that our living species aremodified descendants of the fossil ones. Such large parts of the globewere still practically unknown in Lamarck's time, and the recentdiscovery of the ornithorhynchus has raised such hopes as to what mightyet be found in Australia, that he was inclined to think that only suchcreatures as man found hurtful to him, as, for example, the megatheriumand the mastodon, had become truly extinct, nor was he, it would seem, without a hope that these would yet one day be discovered. The climaticand geological changes that have occurred in past ages, would, hebelieved, account for all the difference which we observe between livingand fossil forms, inasmuch as they would have changed the conditionsunder which animals lived, and therefore their habits and organs wouldhave become correspondingly modified. He therefore rather wondered tofind so much, than so little, resemblance between existing and fossilforms. 

Buffon took a juster view of this matter; it will be remembered that heconcluded his remarks upon the mammoth by saying that many species haddoubtless disappeared without leaving any living descendants, whileothers had left descendants which had become modified. 

Lamarck anticipated Lyell in supposing geological changes to have beendue almost entirely to the continued operation of the causes which weobserve daily at work in nature: thus he writes:--

"Every observer knows that the surface of the earth has changed; everyvalley has been exalted, the crooked has been made straight, and therough places plain; not even is climate itself stable. Hence changedconditions; and these involve changed needs and habits of life; if suchchanges can give rise to modifications or developments, it is clear thatevery living body must vary, especially in its outward character, thoughthe variation can only be perceptible after several generations. 

"It is not surprising then that so few living species should berepresented in the geologic record. It is surprising rather that weshould find any living species represented at all. [244]

"Catastrophes have indeed been supposed, and they are an easy way ofgetting out of the difficulty; but unfortunately, they are not supportedby evidence. Local catastrophes have undoubtedly occurred, asearthquakes and volcanic eruptions, of which the effects can besufficiently seen; but why suppose any universal catastrophe, when theordinary progress of nature suffices to account for the phenomena?Nature is never _brusque_. She proceeds slowly step by step, and this with occasional local catastrophes will remove all ourdifficulties. "[245]

In his fourth chapter Lamarck points out that animals move themselves, or parts of themselves, not through impulsion or movement communicatedto them as from one billiard ball to another, but by reason of a causewhich excites their irritability, which cause is within some animals andforms part of them, while it is wholly outside of others. [246]

I should again warn the reader to be on his guard against the opinionthat any animals can be said to live if they have no "inward motion" oftheir own which prompts them to act. We cannot call anything alive whichmoves only as wind and water may make it move, but without any impulsefrom within to execute the smallest action and without any capacity offeeling. Such a creature does not look sufficiently like the otherthings which we call alive; it should be first shown to us, so that wemay make up our minds whether the facts concerning it have been trulystated, and if so, what it most resembles; we may then classify itaccordingly. 

"Some animals change their place by creeping, some by walking, some byrunning or leaping; others again fly, while others live in the water andswim. 

"The origin of these different kinds of locomotion is to be found in thetwo great wants of animal life: 1, the means of procuring food; 2, thesearch after mates with a view to reproduction. 

"Since then the power of locomotion was a matter affecting theirindividual self-preservation, as well as that of their race, theexistence of the want led to the means of its being gratified. "[247]

Lamarck is practically at one with Dr. Erasmus Darwin, that modificationwill commonly travel along three main lines which spring from the needof reproduction, of procuring food, and (Dr. Darwin has added) the powerof self-protection; but Dr. Darwin's treatment of this part of hissubject is more lucid and satisfactory than Lamarck's, inasmuch as heimmediately brings forward instances of various modifications which havein each case been due to one of the three main desires above specified, namely, reproduction, subsistence, and self-defence. 

Lamarck concludes the chapter with some passages which show that he wasalive--as what Frenchman could fail to be after Buffon had written?--tothe consequences which must follow from the geometrical ratio ofincrease, and to the struggle for existence, with consequent survival ofthe fittest, which must always be one of the conditions of any wildanimal's existence. The paragraphs, indeed, on this subject are takenwith very little alteration from Buffon's work. As Lamarck's theory isbased upon the fact that it is on the nature of these conditions thatthe habits and consequently the structure of any animal will depend, hemust have seen that the shape of many of its organs must vary greatly incorrelation to the conditions to which it was subjected in the matter ofself-protection. I do not see, then, that there is any substantialdifference between the positions taken by Dr. Erasmus Darwin and byLamarck in this respect. 

"Let us conclude, " he writes, "by showing the means employed by natureto prevent the number of her creatures from injuring the conservation ofwhat has been produced already, and of the general order which shouldsubsist. [248]

 . . . . . . 

"In consequence of the extremely rapid rate of increase of the smaller, and especially of the most imperfect, animals, their numbers wouldbecome so great as to prove injurious to the conservation of breeds, andto the progress already made towards more perfect organization, unlessnature had taken precautions to keep them down within certain fixedlimits which she cannot exceed. "[249]

This seems to contain, and in a nutshell, as much of the essence of whatMr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Charles Darwin have termed the survival ofthe fittest in the struggle for existence, as was necessary forLamarck's purpose. 

To Lamarck, as to Dr. Darwin and Buffon, it was perfectly clear that thefacts, that animals have to find their food under varying circumstances, and that they must defend themselves in all manner of varying waysagainst other creatures which would eat them if they could, were simplysome of the conditions of their existence. In saying that thesurrounding circumstances--which amount to the conditions ofexistence--determined the direction in which any plant or animal shouldbe slowly modified, Lamarck includes as a matter of course the fact thatthe "stronger and better armed should eat the weaker, " and thus surviveand bear offspring which would inherit the strength and better armour ofits parents. Nothing therefore can be more at variance with the truththan to represent Lamarck and the other early evolutionists as ignoringthe struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest; these areinevitably implied whenever they use the word "_circonstances_" orenvironment, as I will more fully show later on, and are also expresslycalled attention to by the greater number of them. [250]

"Animals, except those which are herbivorous, prey upon one another; andthe herbivorous are exposed to the attacks of the flesh-eating races. 

"_The strongest and best armed for attack eat the weaker_, and thegreater kinds eat the smaller. Individuals of the same race rarely eatone another; they war only with other races than their own. "[251]

Dr. Darwin here again has the advantage over Lamarck; for he has pointedout how the males contend with one another for the possession of thefemales, which I do not find Lamarck to have done, though he would atonce have admitted the fact. Lamarck continues:--

"The smaller kinds of animals breed so numerously and so rapidly thatthey would people the globe to the exclusion of other forms of life, ifnature had not limited their inconceivable multitude. As, however, theyare the prey of a number of other creatures, live but a short time, andperish easily with cold, they are kept always within the proportionsnecessary for the maintenance both of their own and of other races. [252]

"As regards the larger and stronger animals, they would become dominant, and be injurious to the conservation of many other races, if they couldmultiply in too great numbers. But as it is, they devour one another, and breed but slowly, and few at a birth, so that equilibrium is dulypreserved among them. Man alone is the unquestionably dominant animal, but men war among themselves, so that it may be safely said the worldwill never be peopled to its utmost capacity. "[253]

In his fifth chapter Lamarck returns to the then existing arrangementand classification of animals. 

"Naturalists having remarked that many species, and some genera and evenfamilies present characters which as it were isolate them, it has beenimagined that these approached or drew further from each other accordingas their points of agreement or difference seemed greater or less whenset down as it were on a chart or map. They regard the small well-markedseries which have been styled natural families, as groups which shouldbe placed between the isolated species and their nearest neighbours soas to form a kind of reticulation. This idea, which some of our modernnaturalists have held to be admirable, is evidently mistaken, and willbe discarded on a profounder and more extended knowledge oforganization, and more especially when the distinction has been dulydrawn between what is due to the action of special conditions and togeneral advance of organization. "[254]

I take it that Lamarck is here attempting to express what Mr. CharlesDarwin has rendered much more clearly in the following excellentpassage:--

"It should always be borne in mind what sort of intermediate forms must, on the theory [what theory?], have formerly existed. I have found itdifficult when looking at any two species to avoid picturing to myselfforms _directly_ intermediate between them. But this is a wholly falseview; we should always look for forms intermediate between each speciesand a common but unknown progenitor; and the progenitor will generallyhave differed in some respects from all its modified descendants. Togive a simple illustration: the fantail and pouter pigeons are bothdescended from the rock pigeon. If we possessed all the intermediatevarieties which have ever existed, we should have an extremely closeseries, between both and the rock pigeon; but we should have novarieties directly intermediate between the fantail and the pouter;none, for instance, combining a tail somewhat expanded with a cropsomewhat enlarged, the characteristic features of these two breeds. These two breeds, moreover, have become so much modified that, if we hadno historical or indirect evidence regarding their origin, it would nothave been possible to have determined, from a mere comparison of theirstructure with that of the rock pigeon C. Livia, whether they haddescended from this species, or from some other allied form, as C. Oenas. 

"So with natural species, if we look to forms very distinct--forinstance, to the horse and the tapir--we have no reason to suppose thatlinks directly intermediate between them ever existed, but between eachand an unknown common parent. The common parent will have had in itswhole organization much general resemblance to the tapir and the horse;but in some points of structure it may have differed considerably fromboth, even perhaps more than they differ from each other. Hence in allsuch cases we should be unable to recognize the parent form of any twoor more species, even if we closely compared the structure of the parentwith that of its modified descendants, unless at the same time we had anearly perfect chain of the intermediate links. 

 . . . . . . 

"By the theory of natural selection [surely this is a slip for "by thetheory of descent with modification"] all living species have beenconnected with the parent species of each genus, by differences notgreater than we see between the natural and domestic varieties of thesame species at the present day; and their parent species, now generallyextinct, have in their turn been similarly connected with more ancientforms, and so on backwards, always converging to the common ancestor ofeach great class; so that the number of intermediate and transitionallinks between all living and extinct species must have beeninconceivably great. But assuredly if this theory [the theory of descentwith modification or that of "natural selection"?] be true, such havelived upon the earth. "[255]

To return, however, to Lamarck. 

"Though Nature, " he continues, "in the course of long time has evolvedall animals and plants in a true scale of progression, the steps of thisscale can be perceived only in the principal groups of living forms; itcannot be perceived in species nor even in genera. The reason of thislies in the extreme diversity of the surroundings in which eachdifferent race of animals and plants has existed. These surroundingshave often been out of harmony with the growing organization of theplants and animals themselves; this has led to anomalies, and, as itwere, digressions, which the mere development of organization by itselfcould not have occasioned. "[256] Or, in other words, to that divergencyof type which is so well insisted on by Mr. Charles Darwin. 

"It is only therefore the principal groups of animal and vegetable lifewhich can be arranged in a vertical line of descent; species and evengenera cannot always be so--for these contain beings whose organizationhas been dependent on the possession of such and such a special systemof essential organs. 

"Each great and separate group has its own system of essential organs, and it is these systems which can be seen to descend, within the limitsof the group, from their most complex to their simplest form. But eachorgan, considered individually, does not descend by equally regulargradation; the gradations are less and less regular according as theorgan is of less importance, and is more susceptible of modification bythe conditions which surround it. Organs of small importance, and notessential to existence, are not always either perfected or degraded atan equal rate, so that in observing all the species of any class we findan organ in one species in the highest degree of perfection, whileanother organ, which in this same species is impoverished or veryimperfect, is highly developed in another species of the samegroup. "[257]

The facts maintained in the preceding paragraph are in great measuresupported by Mr. Charles Darwin, who, however, assigns their cause tonatural selection. 

Mr. Darwin writes, "Ordinary specific characters are more variable thangeneric;" and again, a little lower down, "The points in which all thespecies of a genus resemble each other, and in which they differ fromallied genera, are called generic characters; and these characters maybe attributed to inheritance from a common progenitor, for it can rarelyhappen that natural selection will have modified several distinctspecies fitted to more or less widely different habits, in exactly thesame manner; and as these so called generic characters have beeninherited from before the period when the several species first branchedoff from their common progenitor, and subsequently have not varied orcome to differ in any degree, or only in a slight degree, it is notprobable that they should vary at the present day. On the other hand, the points in which species differ from other species of the same genusare called specific characters; and as these specific characters havevaried and come to differ since the period when the species branched offfrom a common progenitor, it is probable that they should still often bein some degree variable, or at least more variable than those parts ofthe organization which have for a very long time remainedconstant. "[258]

The fact, then, that it is specific characters which vary most is agreedupon by both Lamarck and Mr. Darwin. Lamarck, however, maintains that itis these specific characters which are most capable of being affected bythe habits of the creature, and that it is for this reason they will bemost variable, while Mr. Darwin simply says they _are_ most variable, and that, this being so, the favourable variations will be preserved andaccumulated--an assertion which Lamarck would certainly not demur to. 

"Irregular degrees of perfection, " says Lamarck, "and degradation in theless essential organs, are due to the fact that these are more liablethan the more essential ones to the influence of external circumstances:these induce corresponding differences in the more outward parts of theanimal, and give rise to such considerable and singular difference inspecies, that instead of being able to arrange them in a direct line ofdescent, as we can arrange the main groups, these species often formlateral ramifications round about the main groups to which they belong, and in their extreme development are truly isolated. "[259]

In his summary of the second chapter of his 'Origin of Species, ' Mr. Darwin well confirms this when he says, "In large genera the species areapt to be closely, but unequally, allied together, forming littleclusters round other species. "

"A longer time, " says Lamarck, "and a greater influence of surroundingconditions, is necessary in order to modify interior organs. Nevertheless we see that Nature does pass from one system to anotherwithout any sudden leap, when circumstances require it, provided thesystems are not too far apart. Her method is to proceed from the moresimple to the more complex. [260]

"She does this not only in the race, but in the individual. " HereLamarck, like Dr. Erasmus Darwin, shows his perception of the importanceof embryology in throwing light on the affinities of animals--as sincemore fully insisted on by the author of the 'Vestiges of Creation, ' andby Mr. Darwin, [261] as well as by other writers. "Breathing throughgills is nearer to breathing through lungs than breathing throughtrachea is. Not only do we see Nature pass from gills to lungs infamilies which are not too far apart, as may be seen by considering thecase of fishes and reptiles; but she does so during the existence of asingle individual, which may successively make use both of the one andof the other system. The frog while yet a tadpole breathes throughgills; on becoming a frog it breathes through lungs; but we cannot findthat Nature in any case passes from trachea to lungs. "[262]

Lamarck now rapidly reviews previous classifications, and propounds hisown, which stands thus:--I. Vertebrata, consisting of Mammals, Birds, Fishes, and Reptiles. II. Invertebrata, consisting of Molluscs, Centipedes, Annelids, Crustacea, Arachnids, Insects, Worms, Radiata, Polyps, Infusoria. 

"The degradation of organism, " he concludes, "in this descending scaleis not perfectly even, and cannot be made so by any classification, nevertheless there is such evidence of sustained degradation in theprincipal groups as must point in the direction of some underlyinggeneral principle. "[263]

Lamarck's sixth chapter is headed "Degradation and Simplification of theAnimal Chain as we proceed downwards from the most complex to the mostsimple Organisms. "

"This is a positive fact, and results from the operation of a constantlaw of nature; but a disturbing cause, which can be easily recognized, varies the regular operation of the law from one end to the other of thechain of life. [264]

"We can see, nevertheless, that special organs become more and moresimple the lower we descend; that they become changed, impoverished, andattenuated little by little; that they lose their local centres, andfinally become definitely annihilated before we reach the lowestextremity of the chain. [265]

"As has been said already, the degradation of organism is not alwaysregular; such and such an organ often fails or changes suddenly, andsometimes in its changes assumes forms which are not allied with anyothers by steps that we can recognize. An organ may disappear andreappear several times before being entirely lost: but this is what wemight expect, for the cause which has led to the evolution of livingorganisms has evolved many varieties, due to external influences. Nevertheless, looking at organization broadly, we observe a descendingscale. "[266]

"If the tendency to progressive development was the only cause which hadinfluenced the forms and organs of animals, development would have beenregular throughout the animal chain; but it has not been so: Nature iscompelled to submit her productions to an environment which acts uponthem, and variation in environment will induce variation in organism:this is the true cause of the sometimes strange deviations from thedirect line of progression which we shall have to observe. [267]

"If Nature had only called aquatic beings into existence, and if thesebeings had lived always in the same climate, in the same kind of water, and at the same depth, the organization of these animals would doubtlesshave presented an even and regular scale of development. But there hasbeen fresh water, salt water, running and stagnant water, warm and coldclimates, an infinite variety of depth: animals exposed to these andother differences in their surroundings have varied in accordance withthem. [268] In like manner those animals which have been gradually fittedfor living in air instead of water have been subjected to an endlessdiversity in their surroundings. The following law, then, may be nowpropounded, namely:--

"_That anomalies in the development of organism are due to theinfluences of the environment and to the habits of the creature. _[269]

"Some have said that the anomalies above mentioned are so greatas to disprove the existence of any scale which should indicatedescent; but the nearer we approach species, the smaller we seedifferences become, till with species itself we find them at timesalmost imperceptible. "[270]

Lamarck here devotes about seventy pages to a survey of the animalkingdom in its entirety, beginning with the mammals and ending with theinfusoria. He points out the manner in which organ after organdisappears as we descend the scale, till we are left with a form which, though presenting all the characteristics of life, has yet no specialorgan whatever. I am obliged to pass this classification over, but do sovery unwillingly, for it is illustrative of Lamarck, both at his bestand at his worst. 

The seventh chapter is headed--

"On the influence of their surroundings on the actions and habits ofanimals, and on the effect of these habits and actions in modifyingtheir organization. "

"The effect of different conditions of our organization upon ourcharacter, tendencies, actions, and even our ideas, has been oftenremarked, but no attention has yet been paid to that of our actions andhabits upon our organization itself. These actions and habits dependentirely upon our relations to the surroundings in which we habituallyexist; we shall have occasion, therefore, to see how great is the effectof environment upon organization. 

"But for our having domesticated plants and animals we should never havearrived at the perception of this truth; for though the influence of theenvironment is at all times and everywhere active upon all livingbodies, its effects are so gradual that they can only be perceived overlong periods of time. [271]

"Taking the chain of life in the inverse order of nature--that is tosay, from man downwards--we certainly perceive a sustained but irregulardegradation of organism, with an increasing simplicity both in organismand faculties. 

"This fact should throw light upon the order taken by nature, but itdoes not show us why the gradation is so irregular, nor why throughoutits extent we find so many anomalies or digressions which haveapparently no order at all in their manifold varieties. [272] Theexplanation of this must be sought for in the infinite diversity ofcircumstances under which organisms have been developed. On the onehand, there is a tendency to a regular progressive development; on theother, there is a host of widely different surroundings which tendcontinually to destroy the regularity of development. 

"It is necessary to explain what is meant by such expressions as 'theeffect of its environment upon the form and organization of an animal. 'It must not be supposed that its surroundings directly effect anymodification whatever in the form and organization of an animal. [273]Great changes in surroundings involve great changes in the wants ofanimals, and these changes in their wants involve corresponding changesin their actions. If these new wants become permanent, or of very longduration, the animals contract new habits, which last as long as thewants which gave rise to them. [274] A great change in surroundings, ifit persist for a long time, must plainly, therefore, involve thecontraction of new habits. These new habits in their turn involve apreference for the employment of such and such an organ over such andsuch another organ, and in certain cases the total disuse of an organwhich is no longer wanted. This is perfectly self-evident. [275]

"On the one hand, new wants have rendered a part necessary, which parthas accordingly been created by a succession of efforts: use has kept itin existence, gradually strengthening and developing it till in the endit attains a considerable degree of perfection. On the other, newcircumstances having in some cases rendered such or such a part useless, disuse has led to its gradually ceasing to receive the development whichthe other parts attain to; on this it becomes reduced, and in timedisappears. [276]

"Plants have neither actions nor habits properly so called, neverthelessthey change in a changed environment as much as animals do. This is dueto changes in nutrition, absorption and transpiration, to degrees ofheat, light, and moisture, and to the preponderance over others whichcertain of the vital functions attain to. "

Lamarck is led into the statement that plants have neither actions norhabits, by his theories about the nervous system and the brain. Plainmatter-of-fact people will prefer the view taken by Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and, more recently, by Mr. Francis Darwin, that there is no radicaldifference between plants and animals. 

"The differences between well-nourished and ill-nourished plants becomelittle by little very noticeable. If individuals, whether animal orvegetable, are continually ill-fed and exposed to hardships for severalgenerations, their organization becomes eventually modified, and themodification is transmitted until a race is formed which is quitedistinct from those descendants of the common parent stock which havebeen placed in favourable circumstances. [277] In a dry spring the meagreand stunted herbage seeds early. When, on the other hand, the spring iswarm but with occasional days of rain, there is an excellent hay-crop. If, however, any cause perpetuates unfavourable circumstances, plantswill vary correspondingly, first in appearance and general conditions, and then in several particulars of their actual character, certainorgans having received more development than others, these differenceswill in the course of time become hereditary. [278]

"Nature changes a plant or animal's surroundings gradually--mansometimes does so suddenly. All botanists know that plants vary sogreatly under domestication that in time they become hardlyrecognizable. They undergo so much change that botanists do not at alllike describing domesticated varieties. Wheat itself is an example. Where can wheat be found as a wild plant, unless it have escaped fromsome neighbouring cultivation? Where are our cauliflowers, our lettuces, to be found wild, with the same characters as they possess in ourkitchen gardens?

"The same applies to our domesticated breeds of animals. What a varietyof breeds has not man produced among fowls and pigeons, of which we canfind no undomesticated examples!"[279]

The foregoing remarks on the effects of domestication seem to have beeninspired by those given p. 123 and pp. 168, 169 of this volume. [280]

"Some, doubtless, have changed less than others, owing to their havingundergone a less protracted domestication, and a less degree of changein climate; nevertheless, though our ducks and geese, for example, areof the same type as their wild progenitors, they have lost the power oflong and sustained flight, and have become in other respectsconsiderably modified. [281]

"A bird, after having been kept five or six years in a cage, cannot onbeing liberated fly like its brethren which have been always free. Sucha change in a single lifetime has not effected any transmissiblemodification of type; but captivity, continued during many successivegenerations, would undoubtedly do so. If to the effects of captivitythere be added also those of changed climate, changed food, and changedactions for the purpose of laying hold of food, these, united togetherand become constant, would in the course of time develop an entirely newbreed. "

This, again, is almost identical with the passage from Buffon, [282] p. 148 of this volume. See also pp. 169, 170. 

"Where can our many domestic breeds of dogs be found in a wild state?Where are our bulldogs, greyhounds, spaniels, and lapdogs, breedspresenting differences which, in wild animals, would be certainly calledspecific? These are all descended from an animal nearly allied to thewolf, if not from the wolf itself. Such an animal was domesticated byearly man, taken at successive intervals into widely different climates, trained to different habits, carried by man in his migrations as aprecious capital into the most distant countries, and crossed from timeto time with other breeds which had been developed in similar ways. Hence our present multiform breeds. "[283]

Here, also, it is impossible to forget Buffon's passages on the dog, given pp. 121, 122. See also p. 223. 

"Observe the gradations which are found between the _ranunculusaquatilis_ and the _ranunculus hederaceus_: the latter--a landplant--resembles those parts of the former which grow above the surfaceof the water, but not those that grow beneath it. [284]

"The modifications of animals arise more slowly than those of plants;they are therefore less easily watched, and less easily assignable totheir true causes, but they arise none the less surely. As regards thesecauses, the most potent is diversity of the surroundings in which theyexist, but there are also many others. [285]

"The climate of the same place changes, and the place itself changeswith changed climate and exposure, but so slowly that we imagine alllands to be stable in their conditions. This, however, is not true;climatic and other changes induce corresponding changes in environmentand habit, and these modify the structure of the living forms which aresubjected to them. Indeed, we see intermediate forms and speciescorresponding to intermediate conditions. 

"To the above causes must be ascribed the infinite variety of existingforms, independently of any tendency towards progressivedevelopment. "[286]

The reader has now before him a fair sample of "the well-known doctrineof inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck. "[287] In what way, let me askin passing, does "the case of neuter insects" prove "demonstrative"against it, unless it is held equally demonstrative against Mr. Darwin'sown position? Lamarck continues:--

"The character of any habitable quarter of the globe is _quâ_ manconstant: the constancy of type in species is therefore also _quâ_ manpersistent. But this is an illusion. We establish, therefore, the threefollowing propositions:--

"1. That every considerable and sustained change in the surroundings ofany animal involves a real change in its needs. 

"2. That such change of needs involves the necessity of changed actionin order to satisfy these needs, and, in consequence, of newhabits. [288]

"3. It follows that such and such parts, formerly less used, are nowmore frequently employed, and in consequence become more highlydeveloped; new parts also become insensibly evolved in the creature byits own efforts from within. 

"From the foregoing these two general laws may be deduced:--

"_Firstly. That in every animal which has not passed its limit ofdevelopment, the more frequent and sustained employment of any organdevelops and aggrandizes it, giving it a power proportionate to theduration of its employment, while the same organ in default of constantuse becomes insensibly weakened and deteriorated, decreasingimperceptibly in power until it finally disappears. _[289]

"_Secondly. That these gains or losses of organic development, due touse or disuse, are transmitted to offspring, provided they have beencommon to both sexes, or to the animals from which the offspring havedescended. _"[290]

Lamarck now sets himself to establish the fact that animals havedeveloped modifications which have been transmitted to their offspring. 

"Naturalists, " he says, "have believed that the possession of certainorgans has led to their employment. This is not so: it is need and usewhich have developed the organs, and even called them into existence. "[I have already sufficiently insisted that it is impossible to dispensewith either of these two views. Demand and Supply have gone hand inhand, each reacting upon the other. ] "Otherwise a special act ofcreation would be necessary for every different combination ofconditions; and it would be also necessary that the conditions shouldremain always constant. 

"If this were really so we should have no racehorses like those ofEngland, nor drayhorses so heavy in build and so unlike the racehorse;for there are no such breeds in a wild state. For the same reason, weshould have no turnspit dogs with crooked legs, no greyhounds norwater-spaniels; we should have no tailless breed of fowls nor fantailpigeons, &c. Nor should we be able to cultivate wild plants in ourgardens, for any length of time we please, without fear of theirchanging. 

"'Habit, ' says the proverb, 'is a second nature'; what possible meaningcan this proverb have, if descent with modification is unfounded?[291]

"As regards the circumstances which give rise to variation, theprincipal are climatic changes, different temperatures of any of acreature's environments, differences of abode, of habit, of the mostfrequent actions; and lastly, of the means of obtaining food, self-defence, reproduction, &c. , &c. "[292]

Here we have absolute agreement with Dr. Erasmus Darwin, [293] exceptthat there seems a tendency in this passage to assign more effect to thedirect action of conditions than is common with Lamarck. He seems to bemixing Buffon and Dr. Darwin. 

"In consequence of change in any of these respects, the faculties of ananimal become extended and enlarged by use: they become diversifiedthrough the long continuance of the new habits, until little by littletheir whole structure and nature, as well as the organs originallyaffected, participate in the effects of all these influences, and aremodified to an extent which is capable of transmission tooffspring. "[294]

This sentence alone would be sufficient to show that Lamarck was as muchalive as Buffon and Dr. Darwin were before him, to the fact that one ofthe most important conditions of an animal's life, is the relation inwhich it stands to the other inhabitants of the same neighbourhood--fromwhich the survival of the fittest follows as a self-evident proposition. Nothing, therefore, can be more unfounded than the attempt, sofrequently made by writers who have not read Lamarck, or who thinkothers may be trusted not to do so, to represent him as maintainingsomething perfectly different from what is maintained by modern writerson evolution. The difference, in so far as there is any difference, isone of detail only. Lamarck would not have hesitated to admit, that, ifanimals are modified in a direction which is favourable to them, theywill have a better chance of surviving and transmitting theirfavourable modifications. In like manner, our modern evolutionistsshould allow that animals are modified not because they subsequentlysurvive, but because they have done this or that which has led to theirmodification, and hence to their surviving. 

Having established that animals and plants are capable of beingmaterially changed in the course of a few generations, Lamarck proceedsto show that their modification is due to changed distribution of theuse and disuse of their organs at any given time. 

"_The disuse of an organ_, " he writes, "_if it becomes constant inconsequence of new habits, gradually reduces the organ, and leadsfinally to its disappearance_. "[295]

"Thus whales have lost their teeth, though teeth are still found in theembryo. So, again, M. Geoffroy has discovered in birds the groove whereteeth were formerly placed. The ant-eater, which belongs to a genus thathas long relinquished the habit of masticating its food, is as toothlessas the whale. "[296]

Then are adduced further examples of rudimentary organs, which will begiven in another place, and need not be repeated here. Speaking of thefact, however, that serpents have no legs, though they are higher in thescale of life than the batrachians, Lamarck attributes this "to thecontinued habit of trying to squeeze through very narrow places, wherefour feet would be in the way, and would be very little good to them, inasmuch as more than four would be wanted in order to turn bodies thatwere already so much elongated. "[297]

If it be asked why, on Lamarck's theory, if serpents wanted more legsthey could not have made them, the answer is that the attempt to do thiswould be to unsettle a question which had been already so long settled, that it would be impossible to reopen it. The animal must adapt itselfto four legs, or must get rid of all or some of them if it does not likethem; but it has stood so long committed to the theory that if there areto be legs at all, there are to be not more than four, that it isimpossible for it now to see this matter in any other light. 

The experiments of M. Brown Séquard on guinea pigs, quoted by Mr. Darwin, [298] suggest that the form of the serpent may be due to itshaving lost its legs by successive accidents in squeezing through narrowplaces, and that the wounds having been followed by disease, thecreature may have bitten the limbs off, in which case the loss mighthave been very readily transmitted to offspring; the animal wouldaccordingly take to a sinuous mode of progression that would doubtlessin time elongate the body still further. M. Brown Séquard "carefullyrecorded" thirteen cases, and saw even a greater number, in which theloss of toes by guinea pigs which had gnawed their own toes off, wasimmediately transmitted to offspring. Accidents followed by disease seemto have been somewhat overlooked as a possible means of modification. The missing forefinger to the hand of the potto[299] would appear atfirst sight to have been lost by some such mishap. Returning to Lamarck, we find him saying:--

"Even in the lifetime of a single individual we can see organic changesin consequence of changed habits. Thus M. Tenon has constantly found theintestinal canal of drunkards to be greatly shorter than that of peoplewho do not drink. This is due to the fact that habitual drunkards eatbut little solid food, so that the stomach and intestines are morerarely distended. The same applies to people who lead studious andsedentary lives. The stomachs of such persons and of drunkards havelittle power, and a small quantity will fill them, while those of menwho take plenty of exercise remain in full vigour and are evenincreased. "[300]

It becomes now necessary to establish the converse proposition, namelythat:--

"_The frequent use of an organ increases its power; it even develops theorgan itself, and makes it acquire dimensions and powers which it is notfound to have in animals which make no use of such an organ. _

"In support of this we see that the bird whose needs lead it to thewater, in which to find its prey, extends the toes of its feet when itwants to strike the water, and move itself upon the surface. The skin atthe base of the toes of such a bird contracts the habit of extendingitself from continual practice. To this cause, in the course of time, must be attributed the wide membrane which unites the toes of ducks, geese, &c. The same efforts to swim, that is to say, to push the waterfor the purpose of moving itself forward, has extended the membranebetween the toes of frogs, turtles, the otter, and the beaver. "[301]

[This is taken, I believe, from Dr. Darwin or Buffon, but I have lostthe passage, if, indeed, I ever found it. It had been met by Paley someyears earlier (1802) in the following:--

"There is nothing in the action of swimming as carried on by a bird uponthe surface of the water that should generate a membrane between thetoes. As to that membrane it is an action of constant resistance. . . . Theweb feet of amphibious quadrupeds, seals, otters, &c. , fall under thesame observation. "[302]]

"On the other hand those birds whose habits lead them to perch on trees, and which have sprung from parents that have long contracted this habit, have their toes shaped in a perfectly different manner. Their clawsbecome lengthened, sharpened, and curved, so as to enable the creatureto lay hold of the boughs on which it so often rests. The shore birdagain, which does not like to swim, is nevertheless continually obligedto enter the water when searching after its prey. Not liking to plungeits body in the water, it makes every endeavour to extend and lengthenits lower limbs. In the course of long time these birds have come to beelevated, as it were, on stilts, and have got long legs bare of feathersas far as their thighs, and often still higher. The same bird iscontinually trying to extend its neck in order to fish without wettingits body, and in the course of time its neck has become modifiedaccordingly. [303]

"Swans, indeed, and geese have short legs and very long necks, but thisis because they plunge their heads as low in the water as they can intheir search for aquatic larvæ and other animalcules, but make no effortto lengthen their legs. "[304]

This too is taken from some passage which I have either never seen orhave lost sight of. Paley never gives a reference to an opponent, thoughhe frequently does so when quoting an author on his own side, but I canhardly doubt that he had in his mind the passage from which Lamarck in1809 derived the foregoing, when in 1802 he wrote § 5 of chapter xv. Andthe latter half of chapter xxiii. Of his 'Natural Theology. '

"The tongues of the ant-eater and the woodpecker, " continues Lamarck, "have become elongated from similar causes. Humming birds catch hold ofthings with their tongues; serpents and lizards use their tongues totouch and reconnoitre objects in front of them, hence their tongues havecome to be forked. 

"Need--always occasioned by the circumstances in which an animal isplaced, and followed by sustained efforts at gratification--can not onlymodify an organ, that is to say, augment or reduce it, but can changeits position when the case requires its removal. [305]

"Ocean fishes have occasion to see what is on either side of them, andhave their eyes accordingly placed on either side their head. Somefishes, however, have their abode near coasts on submarine banks andinclinations, and are thus forced to flatten themselves as much aspossible in order to get as near as they can to the shore. In thissituation they receive more light from above than from below, and findit necessary to pay attention to whatever happens to be above them; thisneed has involved the displacement of their eyes, which now take theremarkable position which we observe in the case of soles, turbots, plaice, &c. The transfer of position is not even yet complete in thecase of these fishes, and the eyes are not, therefore, symmetricallyplaced; but they are so with the skate, whose head and whole body areequally disposed on either side a longitudinal section. Hence the eyesof this fish are placed symmetrically upon the uppermost side. [306]

"The eyes of serpents are placed on the sides and upper portions of thehead, so that they can easily see what is on one side of them or abovethem; but they can only see very little in front of them, and supplementthis deficiency of power with their tongue, which is very long andsupple, and is in many kinds so divided that it can touch more than oneobject at a time; the habit of reconnoitring objects in front of themwith their tongues has even led to their being able to pass it throughthe end of their nostrils without being obliged to open their jaws. [307]

"Herbivorous mammals, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, buffalo, horse, &c. , owe their great size to their habit of daily distendingthemselves with food and taking comparatively little exercise. Theyemploy their feet for standing, walking, or running, but not forclimbing trees. Hence the thick horn which covers their toes. These toeshave become useless to them, and are now in many cases rudimentary only. Some pachyderms have five toes covered with horn; some four, somethree. The ruminants, which appear to be the earliest mammals thatconfined themselves to a life upon the ground, have but two hooves, while the horse has only one. [308]

"Some herbivorous animals, especially among the ruminants, have beenincessantly preyed upon by carnivorous animals, against which their onlyrefuge is in flight. Necessity has therefore developed the light andactive limbs of antelopes, gazelles, &c. Ruminants, only using theirjaws to graze with, have but little power in them, and thereforegenerally fight with their heads. The males fight frequently with oneanother, and their desires prompt an access of fluids to the parts oftheir heads with which they fight; thus the horns and bosses have arisenwith which the heads of most of these animals are armed. [309] Thegiraffe owes its long neck to its continued habit of browsing upontrees, whence also the great length of its fore legs as compared withits hinder ones. Carnivorous animals, in like manner, have had theirorgans modified in correlation with their desires and habits. Someclimb, some scratch in order to burrow in the earth, some tear theirprey; they therefore have need of toes, and we find their toes separatedand armed with claws. Some of them are great hunters, and also plungetheir claws deeply into the bodies of their victims, trying to tear outthe part on which they have seized; this habit has developed a size andcurvature of claw which would impede them greatly in travelling overstony ground; they have therefore been obliged to make efforts to drawback their too projecting claws, and so, little by little, has arisenthe peculiar sheath into which cats, tigers, lions, &c. , withdraw theirclaws when they no longer wish to use them. [310]

"We see then that the long-sustained and habitual exercise of any partof a living organism, in consequence of the necessities engendered byits environment, develops such part, and gives it a form which it wouldnever have attained if the exercise had not become an habitual action. All known animals furnish us with examples of this. [311] If anyonemaintains that the especially powerful development of any organ has hadnothing to do with its habitual use--that use has added nothing, anddisuse detracted nothing from its efficiency, but that the organ hasalways been as we now see it from the creation of the particular speciesonwards--I would ask why cannot our domesticated ducks fly like wildducks? I would also quote a multitude of examples of the effects of useand disuse upon our own organs, effects which, if the use and disusewere constant for many generations, would become much more marked. 

"A great number of facts show, as will be more fully insisted on, thatwhen its will prompts an animal to this or that action, the organs whichare to execute it receive an excess of nervous fluid, and this is thedeterminant cause of the movements necessary for the required action. Modifications acquired in this way eventually become permanent in thebreed that has acquired them, and are transmitted to offspring, withoutthe offspring's having itself gone through the processes of acquisitionwhich were necessary in the case of the ancestor. [312] Frequent crosses, however, with unmodified individuals, destroy the effect produced. It isonly owing to the isolation of the races of man through geographical andother causes, that man himself presents so many varieties, each with adistinctive character. 

"A review of all existing classes, orders, genera, and species wouldshow that their structure, organs, and faculties, are in all casessolely attributable to the surroundings to which each creature has beensubjected by nature, and to the habits which individuals have beencompelled to contract; and that they are not at all the result of a formoriginally bestowed, which has imposed certain habits upon thecreature. [313]

"It is unnecessary to multiply instances; the fact is simply this, thatall animals have certain habits, and that their organization is alwaysin perfect harmony with these habits. [314] The conclusion hithertoaccepted is that the Author of Nature, when he created animals, foresawall the possible circumstances in which they would be placed, and gavean unchanging organism to each creature, in accordance with its futuredestiny. The conclusion, on the other hand, here maintained is thatnature has evolved all existing forms of life successively, beginningwith the simplest organisms and gradually proceeding to those which aremore complete. Forms of life have spread themselves throughout all thehabitable parts of the earth, and each species has received its habitsand corresponding modification of organs, from the influence of thesurroundings in which it found itself placed. [315]

"The first conclusion supposes an unvarying organism and unvaryingconditions. The second, which is my theory (_la mienne propre_), supposes that each animal is capable of modifications which in thecourse of generations amount to a wide divergence of type. 

"If a single animal can be shown to have varied considerably underdomestication, the first conclusion is proved to be inadmissible, andthe second to be in conformity with the laws of nature. "

This is a milder version of Buffon's conclusion (see _ante_, pp. 90, 91). It is a little grating to read the words "la mienne propre, "and to recall no mention of Buffon in the 'Philosophie Zoologique. '

"Animal forms then are the result of conditions of life and of thehabits engendered thereby. With new forms new faculties are developed, and thus nature has little by little evolved the existingdifferentiations of animal and vegetable life. "[316]

Lamarck makes no exception in man's favour to the rule of descent withmodification. He supposes that a race of quadrumanous apes graduallyacquired the upright position in walking, with a correspondingmodification of the feet and facial angle. Such a race having becomemaster of all the other animals, spread itself over all parts of theworld that suited it. It hunted out the other higher races which were ina condition to dispute with it for enjoyment of the world'sproductions, and drove them to take refuge in such places as it did notdesire to occupy. It checked the increase of the races nearest itself, and kept them exiled in woods and desert places, so that their furtherdevelopment was arrested, while itself, able to spread in alldirections, to multiply without opposition, and to lead a social life, it developed new requirements one after another, which urged it toindustrial pursuits, and gradually perfected its capabilities. Eventually this pre-eminent race, having acquired absolute supremacy, came to be widely different from even the most perfect of the loweranimals. 

"Certain apes approach man more nearly than any other animal approacheshim; nevertheless, they are far inferior to him, both in bodily andmental capacity. Some of them frequently stand upright, but as they donot habitually maintain this attitude, their organization has not beensufficiently modified to prevent it from being irksome to them to standfor long together. They fall on all fours immediately at the approach ofdanger. This reveals their true origin. [317]

"But is the upright position altogether natural, even to man? He uses itin moving from place to place, but still standing is a fatiguingposition, and one which can only be maintained for a limited time, andby the aid of muscular contraction. The vertebrate column does not passthrough the axis of the head so as to maintain it in like equilibriumwith other limbs. The head, chest, stomach, and intestines weigh almostentirely on the anterior part of the vertebrate column, and this columnitself is placed obliquely, so that, as M. Richerand has observed, continual watchfulness and muscular exertion are necessary to avoid thefalls towards which the weight and disposition of our parts arecontinually inclining us. 'Children, ' he remarks, 'have a constanttendency to assume the position of quadrupeds. '"[318]

"Surely these facts should reveal man's origin as analogous to that ofthe other mammals, if his organization only be looked to. But thefollowing consideration must be added. New wants, developed in societieswhich had become numerous, must have correspondingly multiplied theideas of this dominant race, whose individuals must have thereforegradually felt the need of fuller communication with each other. Hencethe necessity for increasing and varying the number of the signssuitable for mutual understanding. It is plain therefore that incessantefforts would be made in this direction. [319]

"The lower animals, though often social, have been kept in too greatsubjection for any such development of power. They continue, therefore, stationary as regards their wants and ideas, very few of which need becommunicated from one individual to another. A few movements of thebody, a few simple cries and whistles, or inflexions of voice, wouldsuffice for their purpose. With the dominant race, on the other hand, the continued multiplication of ideas which it was desirable tocommunicate rapidly, would exhaust the power of pantomimic gesture andof all possible inflexions of the voice--therefore by a succession ofefforts this race arrived at the utterance of articulate sounds. A fewonly would be at first made use of, and these would be supplemented byinflexions of the voice: presently they would increase in number, variety, and appropriateness, with the increase of needs and of theefforts made to speak. Habitual exercise would increase the power of thelips and tongue to articulate distinctly. 

"The diversity of language is due to geographical distribution, withconsequent greater or less isolation of certain races, and corruption ofthe signs originally agreed upon for each idea. Man's own wants, therefore, will have achieved the whole result. They will have givenrise to endeavour, and habitual use will have developed the organs ofarticulation. "[320]

How, let me ask again, is "the case of neuter insects" "demonstrative"against the "well-known" theory put forward in the foregoing chapter?

FOOTNOTES:

[208] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. , edited by M. Martins, 1873, pp. 25, 26. 

[209] 'Phil. Zool. ' tom. I. Pp. 26, 27. 

[210] Page 28. 

[211] Pages 28-31. 

[212] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. Pp. 34, 35. 

[213] Page 42. 

[214] Page 46. 

[215] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 50. 

[216] Pages 50, 51. 

[217] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 395, ed. 1876. 

[218] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 61. 

[219] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 62. 

[220] Page 63. 

[221] Page 64. 

[222] Page 65. 

[223] Page 67. 

[224] Chap. Iii. 

[225] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 72. 

[226] Pages 71-73. 

[227] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 74, 75. 

[228] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. Pp. 75-77. 

[229] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 104, ed. 1876. 

[230] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 79. 

[231] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. Pp. 79, 80. 

[232] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 80. 

[233] Page 80. 

[234] Ed. 1876. 

[235] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 81. 

[236] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 241. 

[237] 'Phil. Zool. , ' p. 82. 

[238] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 83. 

[239] Pages 349-351. 

[240] Page 84. 

[241] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 88. 

[242] Page 90. 

[243] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 3. 

[244] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 94. 

[245] Pages 95-96. 

[246] Page 97. 

[247] Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 98. 

[248] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 111. 

[249] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 112. 

[250] See pp. 227 and 259 of this book. 

[251] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 113. 

[252] Page 113. 

[253] 'Phil Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 113. 

[254] This passage is rather obscure. I give it therefore in theoriginal:--

"Ainsi les naturalistes ayant remarqué que beaucoup d'espèces, certainsgenres, et même quelques familles paraissent dans une sorte d'isolement, quant à leurs caractères, plusieurs se sont imaginés que les êtresvivants, dans l'un ou l'autre règne, s'avoisinaient, ou s'éloignaiententre eux, relativement à leurs _rapports naturels_, dans unedisposition semblable aux differents points d'une carte de géographie oud'une mappemonde. Ils regardent les petites séries bien prononcées qu'ona nommées familles naturelles, comme devant être disposées entre ellesde manière à former une réticulation. Cette idée qui a paru sublime àquelques modernes, est évidemment une erreur, et, sans doute, elle sedissipera dès qu'on aura des connaissances plus profondes et plusgénérales de l'organisation, et surtout lorsqu'on distinguera ce quiappartient à l'influence des lieux d'habitation et des habitudescontractées, de ce qui résulte des progrès plus ou moins avancés dans lacomposition ou le perfectionnement de l'organisation. "--(p. 120). 

[255] 'Origin of Species, ' pp. 265, 266. 

[256] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 121. 

[257] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 122. 

[258] 'Origin of Species, ' pp. 122, 123. 

[259] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 123. 

[260] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 123. 

[261] 'Origin of Species, ' chap. Xiv. 

[262] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 123. 

[263] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 140. 

[264] Page 142. 

[265] Page 143. 

[266] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 143. 

[267] Page 144. 

[268] Ibid. 

[269] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 145. 

[270] Page 146. 

[271] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 221. 

[272] Page 222. 

[273] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 223. 

[274] Page 224. 

[275] Page 223. 

[276] Page 225. 

[277] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 225. 

[278] Page 226. 

[279] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 228. 

[280] See Buffon, 'Hist. Nat. , ' tom. V. Pp. 196, 197, and Supp. Tom. V. Pp. 250-253. 

[281] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 229. 

[282] 'Hist. Nat. , ' tom. Xi. P. 290. 

[283] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 231. 

[284] Page 231. See Dr. Darwin's note on _Trapa natans_, 'BotanicGarden, ' part ii. Canto 4, l. 204. 

[285] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 232. 

[286] Page 233. See Buffon on Climate, tom. Ix. , 'The Animals of the Oldand New Worlds. '

[287] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 233, ed. 1876. 

[288] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P 234. 

[289] Page 235. 

[290] Page 236. 

[291] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 237. 

[292] Page 238. 

[293] See _ante_, pp. 220-228. 

[294] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 239. 

[295] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P 240. 

[296] Page 241. 

[297] Page 245. 

[298] 'Animals and Plants under Domestication, ' vol. I. P. 467, &c. 

[299] See frontispiece to Professor Mivart's 'Genesis of Species. '

[300] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 247. 

[301] Page 248. 

[302] 'Nat. Theol. , ' vol. Xii. , end of § viii. 

[303] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 249. 

[304] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 250. 

[305] Page 250. 

[306] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 251. 

[307] Page 252. 

[308] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 253. 

[309] Page 254. 

[310] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 256. 

[311] Page 257. 

[312] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 259. 

[313] Page 260. 

[314] Page 263. 

[315] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 263. 

[316] Page 265. 

[317] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 343. 

[318] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 343. 

[319] Page 346. 

[320] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 347. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

MR. PATRICK MATTHEW, MM. ÉTIENNE AND ISIDORE GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE, ANDMR. HERBERT SPENCER. 

The same complaint must be made against Mr. Matthew's excellent surveyof the theory of evolution, as against Dr. Erasmus Darwin's originalexposition of the same theory, namely, that it is too short. It may bevery true that brevity is the soul of wit, but the leaders of sciencewill generally succeed in burking new-born wit, unless the brevity ofits soul is found compatible with a body of some bulk. 

Mr. Darwin writes thus concerning Mr. Matthew in the historical sketchto which I have already more than once referred. 

"In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on 'Naval Timber andArboriculture, ' in which he gives precisely the same view on the originof species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself in the 'Linnean Journal, ' and as that enlarged in thepresent volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew verybriefly, in scattered passages in an appendix to a work on a differentsubject, so that it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drewattention to it in the 'Gardener's Chronicle' for April 7, 1860. Thedifferences of Mr. Matthew's view from mine are not of much importance;he seems to consider that the world was nearly depopulated at successiveperiods, and then re-stocked, and he gives as an alternative, that newforms may be generated 'without the presence of any mould or germ offormer aggregates. ' I am not sure that I understand some passages; butit seems that he attributes much influence to the direct action of theconditions of life. He clearly saw, however, the full force of theprinciple of natural selection. "[321]

Nothing could well be more misleading. If Mr. Matthew's view of theorigin of species is "precisely the same as that" propounded by Mr. Darwin, it is hard to see how Mr. Darwin can call those of Lamarck andDr. Erasmus Darwin "erroneous"; for Mr. Matthew's is nothing but anexcellent and well-digested summary of the conclusions arrived at bythese two writers and by Buffon. If, again, Mr. Darwin is correct insaying that Mr. Matthew "clearly saw the full force of the principle ofnatural selection, " he condemns the view he has himself taken of it inhis 'Origin of Species, ' for Mr. Darwin has assigned a far moreimportant and very different effect to the fact that the fittestcommonly survive in the struggle for existence, than Mr. Matthew hasdone. Mr. Matthew sees a cause underlying all variations; he takes themost teleological or purposive view of organism that has been taken byany writer (not a theologian) except myself, while Mr. Darwin's view, ifnot the least teleological, is certainly nearly so, and his confessionof inability to detect any general cause underlying variations, leaves, as will appear presently, less than common room for ambiguity. Here areMr. Matthew's own words:--

"There is a law universal in nature, tending to render everyreproductive being the best possibly suited to the condition that itskind, or that organized matter is susceptible of, and which appearsintended to model the physical and mental or instinctive, powers totheir highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains thelion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in hiswiles. As nature in all her modifications of life has a power ofincrease far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls byTime's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely withoutreproducing--either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking underdisease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place beingoccupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on themeans of existence. 

"Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable inconvenience fromthe adopted dogmatical classification of plants, and have all along beenfloundering between species and variety, which certainly under culturesoften into each other. A particular conformity, each after its ownkind, when in a state of nature, termed species, no doubt exists to aconsiderable degree. This conformity has existed during the last fortycenturies; geologists discover a like particular conformity--fossilspecies--through the deep deposition of each great epoch; but they alsodiscover an almost complete difference to exist between the species orstamp of life of one epoch from that of every other. We are thereforeled to admit either a repeated miraculous conception, or _a power ofchange under change of circumstances_ to belong to living organizedmatter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life which appears toform superior. " (By this I suppose Mr. Matthew to imply his assent tothe theory, that our personality or individuality is but as it were "theconsensus, or full flowing river of a vast number of subordinateindividualities or personalities, each one of which is a living beingwith thoughts and wishes of its own. ") "The derangements and changes inorganized existence, induced by a change of circumstances from theinterference of man, afford us proof of the plastic quality of superiorlife; and the likelihood that circumstances have been very different inthe different epochs, though steady in each, tend strongly to heightenthe probability of the latter theory. 

"When we view the immense calcareous and bituminous formations, principally from the waters and atmosphere, and consider the oxidationsand depositions which have taken place, either gradually or during someof the great convulsions, it appears at least probable that the liquidelements containing life have varied considerably at different times incomposition and weight; that our atmosphere has contained a much greaterproportion of carbonic acid or oxygen; and our waters, aided by excessof carbonic acid, and greater heat resulting from greater density ofatmosphere, have contained a greater quantity of lime, and other mineralsolutions. Is the inference, then, unphilosophic that living thingswhich are proved to have _a circumstance-suiting power_ (a very slightchange of circumstance by culture inducing a corresponding change ofcharacter), may have gradually accommodated themselves to the variationsof the elements containing them, and without new creation, havepresented the diverging changeable phenomena of past and presentorganized existence?

"The destructive liquid currents before which the hardest mountains havebeen swept and comminuted into gravel, sand, and mud, which intervenedbetween and divided these epochs, probably extending over the wholesurface of the globe and destroying nearly all living things, must havereduced existence so much that an unoccupied field would be formed fornew diverging ramifications of life, which from the connected sexualsystem of vegetables, and the natural instinct of animals to herd andcombine with their own kind, would fall into specific groups--theseremnants in the course of time moulding and accommodating their beinganew to the change of circumstances, and to every possible means ofsubsistence--and the millions of ages of regularity which appear to havefollowed between the epochs, probably after this accommodation wascompleted, affording fossil deposit of regular specific character. 

 . . . . . . 

"In endeavouring to trace . . . The principle of these changes of fashionwhich have taken place in the domiciles of life the following questionsoccur: Do they arise from admixture of species nearly allied producingintermediate species? Are they the diverging ramifications of theliving principle under modification of circumstance? or have theyresulted from the combined agency of both?

"_Is there only one living principle? Does organized existence, andperhaps all material existence, consist of one Proteus principle oflife_ capable of gradual circumstance-suited modifications andaggregations without bound, under the solvent or motion-giving principleof heat or light? There is more beauty and unity of design in thiscontinual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater conformity tothose dispositions of nature that are manifest to us, than in totaldestruction and new creation. It is improbable that much of thisdiversification is owing to commixture of species nearly allied; allchange by this appears very limited and confined within the bounds ofwhat is called species; the progeny of the same parents under greatdifference of circumstance, might in several generations even becomedistinct species, incapable of co-reproduction. 

"The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organized life may, inpart, be traced to the extreme fecundity of nature, who, as beforestated, has in all the varieties of her offspring a prolific power muchbeyond (in many cases a thousand fold) what is necessary to fill up thevacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is limitedand preoccupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited tocircumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they have _superioradaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other kind; theweaker and less circumstance-suited being prematurely destroyed_. Thisprinciple is in constant action; it regulates the colour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts; those individuals in each species whosecolour and covering are best suited to concealment or protection fromenemies, or defence from inclemencies and vicissitudes of climate, whosefigure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, and support;whose capacities and instincts can best regulate the physical energiesto self-advantage according to circumstances--in such immense waste ofprimary and youthful life those only come forward to maturity from thestrict ordeal by which nature tests their adaptation to her standard ofperfection and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction. 

"From the unremitting operation of this law acting in concert with thetendency which the progeny have to take the more particular qualities ofthe parents, together with the connected sexual system in vegetables andinstinctive limitation to its own kind in animals, a considerableuniformity of figure, colour, and character is induced constitutingspecies; the breed gradually acquiring the very best possible adaptationof these to its condition which it is susceptible of, and whenalteration of circumstance occurs, thus changing in character to suitthese, as far as its nature is susceptible of change. 

"This circumstance-adaptive law operating upon the slight but continuednatural disposition to sport in the progeny (seedling variety) _does notpreclude the supposed influence which volition or sensation may have hadover the configuration of the body_. To examine into the disposition tosport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent as in manyvegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by themind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itselfduring its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon externalcircumstance, and how far on the will, irritability, and muscularexertion, is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, weought to examine its dependency upon the preceding links of theparticular chain of life, variety being often merely types orapproximations of former parentage; thence the variation of the familyas well as of the individual must be embraced by our experiments. 

"This continuation of family type, not broken by casual particularaberration, is mental as well as corporeal, and is exemplified in manyof the dispositions or instincts of particular races of men. _Theseinnate or continuous ideas or habits seem proportionally greater in theinsect tribes, and in those especially of shorter revolution; andforming an abiding memory, may resolve much of the enigma of instinct, and the foreknowledge which these tribes have of what is necessary tocompleting their round of life, reducing this to knowledge orimpressions and habits acquired by a long experience. _

"This greater continuity of existence, or rather continuity ofperceptions and impressions in insects, is highly probable; _it is evendifficult in some to ascertain the particular steps when each individualcommences_, under the different phases of egg, larva, pupa, or if muchconsciousness of individuality exists. The continuation of reproductionfor several generations by the females alone in some of these tribes, _tends to the probability of the greater continuity of existence; andthe subdivisions of life by cuttings (even in animal life), at any rate, must stagger the advocate of individuality_. 

"Among the millions of specific varieties of living things which occupythe humid portions of the surface of our planet, as far back as can betraced, there does not appear, with the exception of man, to have beenany particular engrossing race, but a pretty fair balance of power ofoccupancy--or rather most wonderful variation of circumstance parallelto the nature of every species, _as if circumstance and species hadgrown up together_. There are, indeed, several races which havethreatened ascendancy in some particular regions; but it is man alonefrom whom any general imminent danger to the existence of his brethrenis to be dreaded. 

"As far back as history reaches, man had already had considerableinfluence, and had made encroachments upon his fellow denizens, probablyoccasioning the destruction of many species, and the production andcontinuation of a number of varieties, and even species, which he foundmore suited to supply his wants, but which from the infirmity of theircondition--_not having undergone selection by the law of nature_, ofwhich we have spoken--cannot maintain their ground without culture andprotection. 

"It is only however in the present age that man has begun to reap thefruits of his tedious education, and has proven how much 'knowledge ispower. ' He has now acquired a dominion over the material world, and aconsequent power of increase, so as to render it probable that the wholesurface of the earth may soon be overrun by this engrossing anomaly, tothe annihilation of every wonderful and beautiful variety of animalexistence which does not administer to his wants, principally aslaboratories of preparation to befit cruder elemental matter forassimilation by his organs. 

 . . . . . . 

"The consequences are being now developed of our deplorable ignoranceof, or inattention to, one of the most evident traits of naturalhistory--that vegetables, as well as animals, are generally liable to analmost unlimited diversification, regulated by climate, soil, nourishment, and new commixture of already-formed varieties. In thosewith which man is most intimate, and where his agency in throwing themfrom their natural locality and disposition has brought out this powerof diversification in stronger shades, it has been forced upon hisnotice, as in man himself, in the dog, horse, cow, sheep, poultry, --inthe apple, pear, plum, gooseberry, potato, pea, which sport in infinitevarieties, differing considerably in size, colour, taste, firmness oftexture, period of growth, almost in every recognizable quality. In allthese kinds man is influential in preventing deterioration, by carefulselection of the largest or most valuable as breeders. "[322]

_Étienne and Isidore Geoffroy. _

"Both Cuvier and Étienne Geoffroy, " says Isidore Geoffroy, "had earlyperceived the philosophical importance of a question (evolution) whichmust be admitted as--with that of unity of composition--the greatest innatural history. We find them laying it down in the year 1795 in one oftheir joint 'Memoirs' (on the Orangs), in the very plainest terms, inthe following question, 'Must we see, ' they inquire, 'what we commonlycall species, as the modified descendants of the same original form?'

"Both were at that time doubtful. Some years afterwards Cuvier not onlyanswered this question in the negative, but declared, and pretended toprove, that the same forms have been perpetuated from the beginning ofthings. Lamarck, his antagonist _par excellence_ on this point, maintained the contrary position with no less distinctness, showing thatliving beings are unceasingly variable with change of theirsurroundings, and giving with some boldness a zoological genesis inconformity with this doctrine. 

"Geoffroy St. Hilaire had long pondered over this difficult subject. Thedoctrine which in his old age he so firmly defended, does not seem tohave been conceived by him till after he had completed his 'PhilosophieAnatomique, ' and except through lectures delivered orally to the museumand the faculty, it was not published till 1828; nor again in the workthen published do we find his theory in its neatest expression andfullest development. "

Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire tells us in a note that the work referredto as first putting his father's views before the public in a printedform, was a report to the Academy of Sciences on a memoir by M. Roulin;but that before this report some indications of them are to be found ina paper on the Gavials, published in 1825. Their best rendering, however, and fullest development is in several memoirs, published insuccession, between the years 1828 and 1837. 

"This doctrine, " he continues, "is diametrically opposed to that ofCuvier, and is not entirely the same as Lamarck's. Geoffroy St. Hilairerefutes the one, he restrains and corrects the other. Cuvier, accordingto him, sums up against the facts, while Lamarck goes further than theywill bear him out. Essentially however on questions of this nature he isa follower of Lamarck, and took pleasure on several occasions indescribing himself as the disciple of his illustrious _confrère_. "[323]

I have been unable to detect any substantial difference of opinionbetween Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Lamarck, except that the firstmaintained that a line must be drawn somewhere--and did not drawit--while the latter said that no line could be drawn, and thereforedrew none. Mr. Darwin is quite correct in saying that Geoffroy St. Hilaire "relied chiefly on the conditions of life, or the 'mondeambiant, ' as the cause of change. " But this is only Lamarck over again, for though Lamarck attributes variation directly to change of habits inthe creature, he is almost wearisome in his insistence on the fact thatthe habit will not change, unless the conditions of life also do so. With both writers then it is change in the relative positions of theexterior circumstances, and of the organism, which results in variation, and finally in specific modification. 

Here is another sketch of Étienne Geoffroy, also by his son Isidore. 

In 1795, while Lamarck was still a believer in immutability, ÉtienneGeoffroy St. Hilaire "had ventured to say that species might well be'degenerations from a single type, '" but, though he never lost sight ofthe question, he waited more than a quarter of a century before passingfrom meditation to action. "He at length put forward his opinion in1825, he returned to it, but still briefly, in 1828 and 1829, and didnot set himself to develop and establish it till the year 1831--the yearfollowing the memorable discussion in the Academy, on the unity oforganic composition. "[324]

"If, " says his son, "he began by paying homage to his illustriousprecursor, and by laying it down as a general axiom, that there is nosuch thing as fixity in nature, and especially in animated nature, hefollows this adhesion to the general doctrine of variability by adissent which goes to the very heart of the matter. And this dissentbecomes deeper and deeper in his later works. Not only is Geoffroy St. Hilaire at pains to deny the unlimited extension of variability whichis the foundation of the Lamarckian system, but he moreover andparticularly declines to explain those degenerations which he admits aspossible, by changes of action and habit on the part of the creaturevarying--Lamarck's favourite hypothesis, which he laboured todemonstrate without even succeeding in making it appear probable. "[325]

Isidore Geoffroy then declares that his father, "though chronologicallya follower of Lamarck, should be ranked philosophically as havingcontinued the work of Buffon, to whom all his differences of opinionwith Lamarck serve to bring him nearer. "[326] If he had understoodBuffon he would not have said so. 

His conclusions are thus summed up:--"Geoffroy St. Hilaire maintainsthat species are variable if the environment varies in character;differences, then, more or less considerable according to the power ofthe modifying causes _may have_ been produced in the course of time, andthe living forms of to-day _may be_ the descendants of more ancientforms. "[327]

It is not easy to see that much weight should be attached to GeoffroySt. Hilaire's opinion. He seems to have been a person of hesitatingtemperament, under an impression that there was an opening just thenthrough which a judicious trimmer might pass himself in among men ofgreater power. If his son has described his teaching correctly, itamounts practically to a _bonâ fide_ endorsement of what Buffon can onlybe considered to have pretended to believe. The same objection that mustbe fatal to the view pretended by Buffon, is so in like manner to thoseput forward seriously of both the Geoffroys--for Isidore Geoffroyfollowed his father, but leant a little more openly towards Lamarck. Hewrites:--

"The characters of species are neither absolutely fixed, as has beenmaintained by some; nor yet, still more, indefinitely variable asaccording to others. They are fixed for each species as long as thatspecies continues to reproduce itself in an unchanged environment; butthey become modified if the environment changes. "[328]

This is all that Lamarck himself would expect, as no one could be morefully aware than M. Geoffroy, who, however, admits that degeneration mayextend to generic differences. [329]

I have been unable to find in M. Isidore Geoffroy's work anything like arefutation of Lamarck's contention that the modifications in animals andplants are due to the needs and wishes of the animals and plantsthemselves; on the contrary, to some extent he countenances this viewhimself, for he says, "hence arise notable differences of habitation andclimate, and these in their turn induce secondary differences in diet_and even in habits_. "[330] From which it must follow, though I cannotfind it said expressly, that the author attributes modification in somemeasure to changed habits, and therefore to the changed desires fromwhich the change of habits has arisen; but in the main he appears torefer modification to the direct action of a changed environment. 

_Mr. Herbert Spencer. _

"Those who cavalierly reject the theory of Lamarck and his followers asnot adequately supported by facts, " wrote Mr. Herbert Spencer, [331]"seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts atall"--inasmuch as no one pretends to have seen an act of directcreation. Mr. Spencer points out that, according to the bestauthorities, there are some 320, 000 species of plants now existing, andabout 2, 000, 000 species of animals, including insects, and that if theextinct forms which have successively appeared and disappeared be addedto these, there cannot have existed in all less than some ten millionspecies. "Which, " asks Mr. Spencer, "is the most rational theory aboutthese ten millions of species? Is it most likely that there have beenten millions of special creations? or, is it most likely that bycontinual modification _due to change of circumstances_, ten millions ofvarieties may have been produced as varieties are being produced still?"

 . . . . . . 

"Even could the supporters of the development hypothesis merely showthat the production of species by the process of modification isconceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents. But they can do much more than this; they can show that the process ofmodification has effected and is effecting great changes in allorganisms, subject to modifying influences . . . They can show that anyexisting species--animal or vegetable--when placed under conditionsdifferent from its previous ones, _immediately begins to undergo certainchanges of structure_ fitting it for the new conditions. They can showthat in successive generations these changes continue until ultimatelythe new conditions become the natural ones. They can show that incultivated plants and domesticated animals, and in the several races ofmen, these changes have uniformly taken place. They can show that thedegrees of difference, so produced, are often, as in dogs, greater thanthose on which distinctions of species are in other cases founded. Theycan show that it is a matter of dispute whether some of these modifiedforms _are_ varieties or modified species. They can show too that thechanges daily taking place in ourselves; the facility that attends longpractice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases; thestrengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the weakening ofthose habitually curbed; the development of every faculty, bodily, moralor intellectual, according to the use made of it, are all explicable onthis same principle. And thus they can show that throughout all organicnature there _is_ at work a modifying influence of the kind they assignas the cause of these specific differences, an influence which, thoughslow in its action, does in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes; an influence which, to all appearance, wouldproduce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties ofcondition which geological records imply, any amount of change. "

This leaves nothing to be desired. It is Buffon, Dr. Darwin, andLamarck, well expressed. Those were the days before "Natural Selection"had been discharged into the waters of the evolution controversy, likethe secretion of a cuttle fish. Changed circumstances immediately inducechanged habits, and hence a changed use of some organs, and disuse ofothers: as a consequence of this, organs and instincts become changed, "and these changes continue in successive generations, until ultimatelythe new conditions become the natural ones. " This is the whole theory of"development, " "evolution, " or "descent with modification. " Volumes maybe written to adduce the details which warrant us in accepting it, andto explain the causes which have brought it about, but I fail to see howanything essential can be added to the theory itself, which is here sowell supported by Mr. Spencer, and which is exactly as Lamarck left it. All that remains is to have a clear conception of the oneness ofpersonality between parents and offspring, of the eternity, and latency, of memory, and of the unconsciousness with which habitual actions arerepeated, which last point, indeed, Mr. Spencer has himself touchedupon. 

Mr. Spencer continues--"That by any series of changes a zoophyte shouldever become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar with zoology, and who have not seen how clear becomes the relationship between thesimplest and the most complex forms, when all intermediate forms areexamined, a very grotesque notion . . . They never realize the fact thatby small increments of modification, any amount of modification may intime be generated. That surprise which they feel on finding one whomthey last saw as a boy, grown into a man, becomes incredulity when thedegree of change is greater. Nevertheless, abundant instances are athand of the mode in which we may pass to the most diverse forms byinsensible gradations. "

Nothing can be more satisfactory and straightforward. I will make onemore quotation from this excellent article:--

"But the blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complexorganic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simpleones, becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic formsare daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurablyin every respect--in bulk, in structure, in colour, in form, in specificgravity, in chemical composition--differs so greatly that no visibleresemblance of any kind can be pointed out between them. Yet is the onechanged in the course of a few years into the other--changed sogradually that at no moment can it be said, 'Now the seed ceases to be, and the tree exists. ' What can be more widely contrasted than anewly-born child, and the small, semi-transparent gelatinous spheruleconstituting the human ovum? The infant is so complex in structure thata cyclopædia is needed to describe its constituent parts. The germinalvesicle is so simple, that a line will contain all that can be said ofit. Nevertheless, a few months suffices to develop the one out of theother, and that too by a series of modifications so small, that werethe embryo examined at successive minutes, not even a microscope woulddisclose any sensible changes. That the uneducated and ill-educatedshould think the hypothesis that all races of beings, man inclusive, mayin process of time have been evolved from the simplest monad a ludicrousone is not to be wondered at. But for the physiologist, who knows thatevery individual being _is_ so evolved--who knows further that in theirearliest condition the germs of all plants and animals whatsoever are sosimilar, 'that there is no appreciable distinction among them whichwould enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule is thegerm of a conferva or of an oak, of a zoophyte or of a man'[332]--forhim to make a difficulty of the matter is inexcusable. Surely, if asingle structureless cell may, when subjected to certain influences, become a man in the space of twenty years, there is nothing absurd inthe hypothesis that under certain other influences a cell may, in thecourse of millions of years, give origin to the human race. The twoprocesses are generically the same, and differ only in length andcomplexity. "

 * * * * *

The very important extract from Professor Hering's lecture shouldperhaps have been placed here. The reader will, however, find it on page199. 

FOOTNOTES:

[321] 'Origin of Species, ' Hist. Sketch, p. Xvi. 

[322] See 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture, ' by Patrick Matthew, published by Adam and C. Black, Edinburgh, and Longmans and Co. , London, 1831, pp. 364, 365, 381-388, and also 106-108, 'Gardeners' Chronicle, 'April 7, 1860. 

[323] 'Vie et Doctrine Scientifique de Geoffroy Étienne St. Hilaire, 'Paris, Strasbourg, 1847, pp. 344-346. 

[324] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. 413. 

[325] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' tom. Ii. P. 415. 

[326] Ibid. 

[327] Ibid. P. 421. 

[328] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' vol. Ii. P. 431, 1859. 

[329] 'Origin of Species, ' Hist. Sketch, p. Xix. 

[330] 'Hist. Nat. Gén. , ' vol. Ii. P. 432. 

[331] See 'The Leader, ' March 20, 1852, "The Haythorne Papers. "

[332] Carpenter's 'Principles of Physiology', 3rd ed. , p. 867. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

MAIN POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEWTHEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 

Having put before the reader with some fulness the theories of the threewriters to whom we owe the older or teleological view of evolution, Iwill now compare that view more closely with the theory of Mr. Darwinand Mr. Wallace, to whom, in spite of my profound difference of opinionwith them on the subject of natural selection, I admit with pleasurethat I am under deep obligation. For the sake of brevity, I shall takeLamarck as the exponent of the older view, and Mr. Darwin as that of theone now generally accepted. 

We have seen, that up to a certain point there is very little differencebetween Lamarck and Mr. Darwin. Lamarck maintains that animals andplants vary: so does Mr. Darwin. Lamarck maintains that variationshaving once arisen have a tendency to be transmitted to offspring andaccumulated: so does Mr. Darwin. Lamarck maintains that the accumulationof variations, so small, each one of them, that it cannot be, or is notnoticed, nevertheless will lead in the course of that almost infinitetime during which life has existed upon earth, to very wide differencesin form, structure, and instincts: so does Mr. Darwin. Finally, Lamarckdeclares that all, or nearly all, the differences which we observebetween various kinds of animals and plants are due to this exceedinglygradual and imperceptible accumulation, during many successivegenerations, of variations each one of which was in the outset small: sodoes Mr. Darwin. But in the above we have a complete statement of thefact of evolution, or descent with modification--wanting nothing, butentire, and incapable of being added to except in detail, and by way ofexplanation of the causes which have brought the fact about. As regardsthe general conclusion arrived at, therefore, I am unable to detect anydifference of opinion between Lamarck and Mr. Darwin. They are both benton establishing the theory of evolution in its widest extent. 

The late Sir Charles Lyell, in his 'Principles of Geology, ' bears me outhere. In a note to his _résumé_ of the part of the 'PhilosophieZoologique' which bears upon evolution, he writes:--

"I have reprinted in this chapter word for word my abstract of Lamarck'sdoctrine of transmutation, as drawn up by me in 1832 in the firstedition of the 'Principles of Geology. '[333] I have thought it right todo this in justice to Lamarck, in order to show how nearly the opinionstaught by him at the commencement of this century resembled those now invogue amongst a large body of naturalists respecting the infinitevariability of species, and the progressive development in past time ofthe organic world. The reader must bear in mind that when I made thisanalysis of the 'Philosophie Zoologique' in 1832, I was altogetheropposed to the doctrine that the animals and plants now living were thelineal descendants of distinct species, only known to us in a fossilstate, and . . . So far from exaggerating, I did not do justice to thearguments originally adduced by Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, especially those founded on the occurrence of rudimentary organs. Thereis therefore no room for suspicion that my account of the Lamarckianhypothesis, written by me thirty-five years ago, derived any colouringfrom my own views tending to bring it more into harmony with the theorysince propounded by Darwin. "[334] So little difference did Sir CharlesLyell discover between the views of Lamarck and those of his successors. 

With the identity, however, of the main proposition which, both Lamarckand Mr. Darwin alike endeavour to establish, the points of agreementbetween the two writers come to an end. Lamarck's great aim was todiscover the cause of those variations whose accumulation results inspecific, and finally in generic, differences. Not content withestablishing the fact of descent with modification, he, like hispredecessors, wishes to explain how it was that the fact came about. Hefinds its explanation in changed surroundings--that is to say, inchanged conditions of existence--as the indirect cause, and in thevarying needs arising from these changed conditions as the direct cause. 

According to Lamarck, there is a broad principle which underliesvariation generally, and this principle is the power which all livingbeings possess of slightly varying their actions in accordance withvarying needs, coupled with the fact observable throughout nature thatuse develops, and disuse enfeebles an organ, and that the effects, whether of use or disuse, become hereditary after many generations. 

This resolves itself into the effect of the mutual interaction of mindon body and of body on mind. Thus he writes:--

"The physical and the mental are to start with undoubtedly one and thesame thing; this fact is most easily made apparent through study of theorganization of the various orders of known animals. From the commonsource there proceeded certain effects, and these effects, in the outsethardly separated, have in the course of time become so perfectlydistinct, that when looked at in their extremest development they appearto have little or nothing in common. 

"The effect of the body upon the mind has been already sufficientlyrecognized; not so that of the mind upon the body itself. The two, onein the outset though they were, interact upon each other more and morethe more they present the appearance of having become widely sundered, and it can be shown that each is continually modifying the other andcausing it to vary. "[335]

And again, later:--

"I shall show that the habits by which we now recognize any creatureare due to the environment (_circonstances_) under which it has for along while existed, _and that these habits have had such an influenceupon the structure of each individual of the species as to have atlength_" (that is to say, through many successive slight variations, each due to habit engendered by the wishes of the animal itself), "modified this structure and adapted it to the habits contracted. "[336]

These quotations must suffice, for the reader has already had Lamarck'sargument sufficiently put before him. 

Variation, and consequently modification, are, according to Lamarck, theoutward and visible signs of the impressions made upon animals andplants in the course of their long and varied history, each organchronicling a time during which such and such thoughts and actionsdominated the creature, and specific changes being the effect of certainlong-continued wishes upon the body, and of certain changed surroundingsupon the wishes. Plants and animals are living forms of faith, or faithsof form, whichever the reader pleases. 

Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, repeatedly avows ignorance, and profoundignorance, concerning the causes of those variations which, or nothing, must be the fountain-heads of species. Thus he writes of "the complexand _little known_ laws of variation. "[337] "There is also _someprobability_ in the view propounded by Andrew Knight, that variability_may be partly_ connected with excess of food. "[338] "Many laws regulatevariation, _some few of which_ can be _dimly seen_. "[339] "The resultsof the _unknown_, or _but dimly understood_, laws of variation areinfinitely complex and diversified. "[340] "We are _profoundly ignorant_of the cause of each slight variation or individual difference. "[341]"We are _far too ignorant_ to speculate on the relative importance ofthe several known and unknown causes of variation. "[342] He admits, indeed, the effects of use and disuse to have been important, but howimportant we have no means of knowing; he also attributes considerableeffect to the action of changed conditions of life--but how considerableagain we know not; nevertheless, he sees no great principle underlyingthe variations generally, and tending to make them appear for a lengthof time together in any definite direction advantageous to the creatureitself, but either expressly, as at times, or by implication, asthroughout his works, ascribes them to accident or chance. 

In other words, he admits his ignorance concerning them, and dwells onlyon the accumulation of variations the appearance of which for any lengthof time in any given direction he leaves unaccounted for. 

Lamarck, again, having established his principle that sense of need isthe main direct cause of variation, and having also established that thevariations thus engendered are inherited, so that divergences accumulateand result in species and genera, is comparatively indifferent tofurther details. His work is avowedly an outline. Nevertheless, we haveseen that he was quite alive to the effects of the geometrical ratio ofincrease, and of the struggle for existence which thence inevitablyfollows. 

Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, comparatively indifferent to, or at anyrate silent concerning the causes of those variations which appeared soall-important to Lamarck, inasmuch as they are the raindrops which uniteto form the full stream of modification, goes into very full detail uponnatural selection, or the survival of the fittest, and maintains it tohave been "the most important but not the exclusive means ofmodification. "[343]

It will be readily seen that, according to Lamarck, the variations whichwhen accumulated amount to specific and generic differences, will havebeen due to causes which have been mainly of the same kind for longperiods together. Conditions of life change for the most part slowly, steadily, and in a set direction; as in the direction of steady, gradualincrease or decrease of cold or moisture; of the steady, gradualincrease of such and such an enemy, or decrease of such and such a kindof food; of the gradual upheaval or submergence of such and such acontinent, and consequent drying up or encroachment of such and such asea, and so forth. The thoughts of the creature varying will thus havebeen turned mainly in one direction for long together; and hence theconsequent modifications will also be mainly in fixed and definitedirections for many successive generations; as in the direction of awarmer or cooler covering; of a better means of defence or of attack inrelation to such and such another species; of a longer neck and longerlegs, or of whatever other modification the gradually changingcircumstances may be rendering expedient. It is easy to understand theaccumulation of slight successive modifications which thus make theirappearance in given organs and in a set direction. 

With Mr. Darwin, on the contrary, the variations being accidental, anddue to no special and uniform cause, will not appear for any length oftime in any given direction, nor in any given organ, but will be just asliable to appear in one organ as in another, and may be in onegeneration in one direction, and in another in another. 

In confirmation of the above, and in illustration of the importantconsequences that will follow according as we adopt the old or the morerecent theory, I would quote the following from Mr. Mivart's 'Genesis ofSpecies. '

Shortly before maintaining that two similar structures have often beendeveloped independently of one another, Mr. Mivart points out that if weare dependent upon indefinite variations only, as provided for us by Mr. Darwin, this would be "so improbable as to be practicallyimpossible. "[344] The number of possible variations being indefinitelygreat, "it is therefore an indefinitely great number to one against asimilar series of variations occurring and being similarly preserved inany two independent instances. " It will be felt (as Mr. Mivart presentlyinsists) that this objection does not apply to a system which maintainsthat in case an animal feels any given want it will gradually developthe structure which shall meet the want--that is to say, if the want benot so great and so sudden as to extinguish the creature to which it hasbecome a necessity. For if there be such a power of self-adaptation asthus supposed, two or more very widely different animals feeling thesame kind of want might easily adopt similar means to gratify it, andhence develop eventually a substantially similar structure; just as twomen, without any kind of concert, have often hit upon like means ofcompassing the same ends. Mr. Spencer's theory--so Mr. Mivart tellsus--and certainly that of Lamarck, whose disciple Mr. Spencer wouldappear to be, [345] admits "a certain peculiar, but limited power ofresponse and adaptation in each animal and plant"--to the conditions oftheir existence. "Such theories, " says Mr. Mivart, "have not to contendagainst the difficulty proposed, and it has been urged that even verycomplex extremely similar structures have again and again been developedquite independently one of the other, and this because the process hastaken place not by merely haphazard, indefinite variations in alldirections, but by the concurrence of some other internal natural law orlaws co-operating with external influences and with Natural Selection inthe evolution of organic forms. 

"_It must never be forgotten that to admit any such constant operationof any such unknown natural cause is to deny the purely Darwinian theorywhich relies upon the survival of the fittest by means of minutefortuitous indefinite variations. _

"Among many other obligations which the author has to acknowledge toProfessor Huxley, are the pointing out of this very difficulty, and thecalling his attention to the striking resemblance between certain teethof the dog, and of the thylacine, as one instance, and certain ornithicpeculiarities of pterodactyles as another. "[346]

In brief then, changed distribution of use and disuse in consequence ofchanged conditions of the environment is with Lamarck the main cause ofmodification. According to Mr. Darwin natural selection, or the survivalof favourable but accidental variations, is the most important means ofmodification. In a word, with Lamarck the variations are definite; withMr. Darwin indefinite. 

FOOTNOTES:

[333] Vol. Ii. Chap. I. 

[334] Vol. Ii. Chap, xxxiv. , ed. 1872. 

[335] 'Philosophie Zoologique, ' ed. M. Martins, Paris, Lyons, 1873, tom. I. P. 24. 

[336] 'Philosophie Zoologique, ' tom. I. P. 72. 

[337] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 3. 

[338] Ibid. P. 5. 

[339] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 8. 

[340] Ibid. P. 9. 

[341] Ibid. P. 158. 

[342] Ibid. P. 159. 

[343] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 4. 

[344] 'Genesis of Species, ' p. 74, 1871. 

[345] See _ante_, p. 330, line 1 after heading. 

[346] 'Genesis of Species, ' p. 76, ed. 1871. 

CHAPTER XX. 

NATURAL SELECTION CONSIDERED AS A MEANS OF MODIFICATION. THE CONFUSIONWHICH THIS EXPRESSION OCCASIONS. 

When Mr. Darwin says that natural selection is the most important"means" of modification, I am not sure that I understand what he wishesto imply by the word "means. " I do not see how the fact that thoseanimals which are best fitted for the conditions of their existencecommonly survive in the struggle for life, can be called in any specialsense a "means" of modification. 

"Means" is a dangerous word; it slips too easily into "cause. " We haveseen Mr. Darwin himself say that Buffon did not enter on "the _causes ormeans_"[347] of modification, as though these two words were synonymous, or nearly so. Nevertheless, the use of the word "means" here enables Mr. Darwin to speak of Natural Selection as if it were an active cause(which he constantly does), and yet to avoid expressly maintaining thatit is a cause of modification. This, indeed, he has not done in expressterms, but he does it by implication when he writes, "Natural Selection_might be most effective in giving_ the proper colour to each kind ofgrouse, and in _keeping_ that colour when once acquired. " Such language, says the late Mr. G. H. Lewes, "is misleading;" it makes "selection anagent. "[348]

It is plain that natural selection cannot be considered a cause ofvariation; and if not of variation, which is as the rain drop, then notof specific and generic modification, which are as the river; for thevariations must make their appearance before they can be selected. Suppose that it is an advantage to a horse to have an especially hardand broad hoof, then a horse born with such a hoof will indeed probablysurvive in the struggle for existence, but he was not born with thelarger and harder hoof _because of his subsequently surviving_. Hesurvived because he was born fit--not, he was born fit because hesurvived. The variation must arise first and be preserved afterwards. 

Mr. Darwin therefore is in the following dilemma. If he does not treatnatural selection as a cause of variation, the 'Origin of Species' willturn out to have no _raison d'être_. It will have professed to haveexplained to us the manner in which species has originated, but it willhave left us in the dark concerning the origin of those variationswhich, when added together, amount to specific and generic differences. Thus, as I said in 'Life and Habit, ' Mr. Darwin will have made us thinkwe know the whole road, in spite of his having almost ostentatiouslyblindfolded us at every step in the journey. The 'Origin of Species'would thus prove to be no less a piece of intellectual sleight-of-handthan Paley's 'Natural Theology. '

If, on the other hand, Mr. Darwin maintains natural selection to be acause of variation, this comes to saying that when an animal has variedin an advantageous direction, the fact of its subsequently surviving inthe struggle for existence is the cause of its having varied in theadvantageous direction--or more simply still--that the fact of itshaving varied is the cause of its having varied. 

And this is what we have already seen Mr. Darwin actually to say, in apassage quoted near the beginning of this present book. When writing ofthe eye he says, "Variation will cause the slight alterations;"[349] butthe "slight alterations" _are_ the variations; so that Mr. Darwin'swords come to this--that "variation will cause the variations. "

There does not seem any better way out of this dilemma than that whichMr. Darwin has adopted--namely, to hold out natural selection as "ameans" of modification, and thenceforward to treat it as an efficientcause; but at the same time to protest again and again that it isnot a cause. Accordingly he writes that "Natural Selection _actsonly by the preservation and accumulation_ of small inheritedmodifications, "[350]--that is to say, it has had no share in inducing orcausing these modifications. Again, "What applies to one animal willapply throughout all time to all animals--_that is, if they vary, forotherwise natural selection can effect nothing_"[351]; and again, "fornatural selection only _takes advantage of such variations asarise_"[352]--the variations themselves arising, as we have just seen, from variation. 

Nothing, then, can be clearer from these passages than that naturalselection is not a cause of modification; while, on the other hand, nothing can be clearer, from a large number of such passages, as, forinstance, "natural selection may be _effective_ in _giving_ and_keeping_ colour, "[353] than that natural selection is an efficientcause; and in spite of its being expressly declared to be only a "means"of modification, it will be accepted as cause by the great majority ofreaders. 

Mr. Darwin explains this apparent inconsistency thus:--He maintains thatthough the advantageous modification itself is fortuitous, or withoutknown cause or principle underlying it, yet its becoming the predominantform of the species in which it appears is due to the fact that thoseanimals which have been advantageously modified commonly survive intimes of difficulty, while the unmodified individuals perish: offspringtherefore is more frequently left by the favourably modified animal, andthus little by little the whole species will come to inherit themodification. Hence the survival of the fittest becomes a means ofmodification, though it is no cause of variation. 

It will appear more clearly later on how much this amounts to. I willfor the present content myself with the following quotation from thelate Mr. G. H. Lewes in reference to it. Mr. Lewes writes:--

"Mr. Darwin seems to imply that the external conditions which cause avariation are to be distinguished from the conditions which accumulateand perfect such variation, that is to say, he implies a radicaldifference between the process of variation and the process ofselection. This I have already said does not seem to me acceptable; theselection I conceive to be simply the variation which hassurvived. "[354]

Certainly those animals and plants which are best fitted for theirenvironment, or, as Lamarck calls it, "_circonstances_"--those animals, in fact, which are best fitted to comply with the conditions of theirexistence--are most likely to survive and transmit their especialfitness. No one would admit this more readily than Lamarck. This is notheory; it is a commonly observed fact in nature which no one willdispute, but it is not more "a means of modification" than many othercommonly observed facts concerning animals. 

Why is "the survival of the fittest" more a means of modification than, we will say, the fact that animals live at all, or that they live insuccessive generations, being born, continuing their species, and dying, instead of living on for ever as one single animal in the commonacceptation of the term; or than that they eat and drink?

The heat whereby the water is heated, the water which is turned intosteam, the piston on which the steam acts, the driving wheel, &c. , &c. , are all one as much as another a means whereby a train is made to gofrom one place to another; it is impossible to say that any one of themis the main means. So (_mutatis mutandis_) with modification. There isno reason therefore why "the survival of the fittest" should claim tobe an especial "means of modification" rather than any other necessaryadjunct of animal or vegetable life. 

I find that the late Mr. G. H. Lewes has insisted on this objection inhis 'Physical Basis of Mind. ' I observe, also, that in the very passagein which he does so, Mr. Lewes appears to have been misled by Mr. Darwin's use of that dangerous word "means, " and, at the same time, byhis frequent treatment of natural selection as though it were an activecause; so that Mr. Lewes supposes Mr. Darwin to have fallen into thevery error of which, as I have above shown, he is evidently strugglingto keep clear--namely, that of maintaining natural selection to be a"cause" of variation. Mr. Lewes then continues:--

"He [Mr. Darwin] separates Natural Selection from all the primary causesof variation either internal or external--either as results of the lawsof growth, of the correlations of variation, of use and disuse, &c. , andlimits it to the slow accumulation of such variations as are profitablein the struggle with competitors. And for his purpose this separation isnecessary. But biological philosophy must, I think, regard thedistinction as artificial, _referring only to one of the great factorsin the production of species_. "[355]

The fact that one in a brood or litter is born fitter for the conditionsof its existence than its brothers and sisters, and, again, the causesthat have led to this one's having been born fitter--which last is whatthe older evolutionists justly dwelt upon as the most interestingconsideration in connection with the whole subject--are more noteworthyfactors of modification than the factor that an animal, if born fitterfor its conditions, will commonly survive longer in the struggle forexistence. If the first of these can be explained in such a manner as tobe accepted as true, or highly probable, we have a substantial gain toour knowledge. The second is little--if at all--better than a truism. Granted, if it were not generally the case that those forms are mostlikely to survive which are best fitted for the conditions of theirexistence, no adaptation of form to conditions of existence could everhave come about. "The survival of the fittest" therefore, or, perhapsbetter, "the fertility of the fittest, " is thus a _sine quâ non_ formodification. But, as we have just insisted, this does not render "thefertility of the fittest" an especial "means of modification, " ratherthan any other _sine quâ non_ for modification. 

But, to look at the matter in another light. Mr. Darwin maintainsnatural selection to be "the most important but not the exclusive meansof modification. "

For "natural selection" substitute the words "survival of the fittest, "which we may do with Mr. Darwin's own consent abundantly given. 

To the words "survival of the fittest" add what is elided, but what is, nevertheless, unquestionably as much implied as though it were saidopenly whenever these words are used, and without which "fittest" has noforce--I mean, "for the conditions of their existence. "

We thus find that when Mr. Darwin says that natural selection is themost important, but not exclusive means of modification, he means thatthe survival in the struggle for existence of those creatures which arebest fitted to comply with the conditions of their existence is the mostimportant, but not exclusive means whereby the descendants of acreature, we will say, A, have become modified, so as to be nowrepresented by a creature, we will say, B. 

But the word "_circonstances_, " so frequently used by Lamarck for theconditions of an animal's existence, contains, by implication, the ideaof animals _which shall exist or not according as they fulfil thoseconditions or fail to fulfil them_. Conditions of existence areconditions which something capable of existing must fulfil if it wouldexist at all, and nothing is a condition of an animal's existence whichthat animal need not comply with and may yet continue to exist. Again, the words "animals" and "plants" comprehend the ideas of "fit, ""fitter, " and "fittest, " "unfit, " "unfitter, " and "unfittest" forcertain conditions, for we know of no animals or plants in which we donot observe degrees of fitness or unfitness for their "_circonstances_"or environment, or conditions of existence. 

The use, therefore, of the term "conditions of existence" is sufficientto show that the person using it intends to imply that those animals andplants will live longest (or survive) and thrive best which are bestable to fulfil those conditions. Hence it implies neither more nor lessthan what is implied by the words "struggle for existence, withconsequent survival of the fittest"--that is to say, if we hold thecomplying with any condition of life to which difficulty is attached tobe part of "the struggle" for life, and this we should certainly do. 

The words "conditions of existence" may, then, be used instead of the"struggle for existence with consequent survival of the fittest, " for asthey cannot imply any less than the "struggle, &c. , " when they are setout in full, and without suppression, so neither do they imply more; fornothing is a condition of existence, in so far as its power of effectingthe modification of any animal is concerned, which does not also involvemore or less difficulty or struggle; for if there is no difficulty orstruggle there will be nothing to bring about change of habit, and henceof structure. This identity of meaning may be also seen if we call tomind that the conditions of existence can be only a synonym for "theconditions of continuing to live, " and "the conditions of continuing tolive" a synonym for "the conditions of continuing to live a longertime, " and "the conditions of continuing to live a longer time, " for"the conditions of survival, " and "the conditions of survival, " for "thesurvival of the fittest, " inasmuch as the being fittest is the conditionof being the longest survivor. 

But we have already seen that "the survival of the fittest, " is, according to Mr. Darwin, a synonym for "natural selection"; hence itfollows that "the conditions of existence" imply neither more nor lessthan what is implied by "natural selection" when this expression isproperly explained, and may be used instead of it; so that when Mr. Darwin says that "natural selection" is the main but not exclusive meansof modification, he must mean, consciously or unconsciously, that "theconditions of existence" are the main but not exclusive means ofmodification. But this is only falling in with "the views and erroneousgrounds of opinion, " as Mr. Darwin briefly calls them, of Lamarckhimself; a fact which Mr. Darwin's readers would have seen more readilyif he had kept to the use of the words "survival of the fittest" insteadof "natural selection. " Of that expression Mr. Darwin says[356] that itis "more accurate" than natural selection, but naively adds, "andsometimes equally convenient. "

I have said that there is a practical identity of meaning between"natural selection" and "the conditions of existence, " when bothexpressions are fully extended. I say this, however, without prejudiceto my right of maintaining that, of the two expressions, the one isaccurate, lucid, and calculated to keep the thread of the argument wellin sight of the reader, while the other is inaccurate, and always, if Imay say so, less "convenient, " as being always liable to lead the readerastray. Nor should it be lost sight of that Lamarck and Dr. ErasmusDarwin maintain that species and genera have arisen _because animals canfashion themselves into accord with_ their conditions, so that, asLamarck is so continually insisting, the action of the conditions isindirect only--changed use and disuse being the direct causes; while, according to Mr. Darwin, it is natural selection itself (which, as wehave seen, is but another way of saying conditions of existence) that isthe most important means of modification. 

The identity of meaning above insisted on was, on the face of it, almostas obscure as that between "_evêque_ and bishop. " Yet we know that"_evêque_" is "episc" and "bishop" "piscop, " and that "episcopus" is theLatin for bishop; the words, therefore, are really one and the same, inspite of the difference in their appearance. I think I can show, moreover, that Mr. Darwin himself holds natural selection and theconditions of existence to be one and the same thing. For he writes, "inone sense, " and it is hard to see any sense but one in what follows, "the conditions of life may be said not only to cause variability" (sothat here Mr. Darwin appears to support Lamarck's main thesis) "eitherdirectly or indirectly, but likewise to include natural selection; forthe conditions determine whether this or that variety shallsurvive. "[357] But later on we find that "the expression of conditionsof existence, so often insisted upon by the illustrious Cuvier" (andsurely also by the illustrious Lamarck, though he calls them"_circonstances_") "is fully embraced by the principle of naturalselection. "[358] So we see that the conditions of life "_include_"natural selection, and yet the conditions of existence "_are fullyembraced by_" natural selection, which, I take it, is an enigmatic wayof saying that they are one and the same thing, for it is not until twobodies absolutely coincide and occupy the same space that the one can besaid both to include and to be embraced by the other. 

The difficulty, again, of understanding Mr. Darwin's meaning is enhancedby his repeatedly writing of "natural selection, " or the fact that thefittest survive in the struggle for existence, as though it were thesame thing as "evolution" or the descent, through the accumulation ofsmall modifications in many successive generations, of one species fromanother and different one. In the concluding and recapitulatory chapterof the 'Origin of Species, ' he writes:--

"Turning to geographical distribution, the difficulties encountered _onthe theory of descent with modification_ are serious enough;"[359] andin the next paragraph, "As, according to _the theory of naturalselection, &c. _, " the context showing that in each case descent withmodification is intended. 

Again:--

"On the theory of the _natural selection_ of successive, slight, butprofitable, modifications, "[360] that is to say, on the theory of thesurvival of the fittest; while on the next page we find "_the theory ofdescent with modification_, " and "_the principle of natural selection_, "used as though they were convertible terms. 

Again:--

"The existence of closely allied or representative species in any twoareas implies, _on the theory of descent with modification, &c. _;"[361]and, in the next paragraph, "_the theory of natural selection_, with itscontingencies of extinction and divergence of character, " is substitutedas though the two expressions were identical. 

This is calculated to mislead. Independently of the fact that "naturalselection, " or "the survival of the fittest, " is in no sense a theory, but simply an observed fact, yet even if the words are allowed to standfor "descent with modification by means of natural selection, " it isstill misleading to write as though this were synonymous with "thetheory of evolution, " or "the theory of descent with modification. " Todo this prevents the reader from bearing in mind that "evolution bymeans of the circumstance-suiting power of plants and animals" asadvanced by the earlier evolutionists; and "evolution by means of luckyaccidents" with comparatively little circumstance-suiting power, are twovery different things, of which the one may be true and the otheruntrue. It leads the reader to forget that evolution by no means standsor falls with evolution by means of natural selection, and makes himthink that if he accepts evolution at all, he is bound to Mr. Darwin'sview of it. Hence, when he falls in with such writers as ProfessorMivart and the Rev. J. J. Murphy, who show, and very plainly, that thesurvival of the fittest, unsupplemented by something which shall give adefinite aim to the variations which successively occur, fails toaccount for the coadaptations of need and structure, he imagines thatevolution has much less to say for itself than it really has. If Mr. Darwin, instead of taking the line which he has thought fit to adopttowards Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and the author of the'Vestiges, ' had shown us what these men taught, why they taught it, wherein they were wrong, and how he proposed to set them right, he wouldhave taken a course at once more agreeable with ordinary practice, andmore likely to clear misconception from his own mind and from those ofhis readers. 

Mr. Darwin says, [362] "it is easy to hide our ignorance under suchexpressions as 'the plan of creation' and 'unity of design. '" Surely, also, it is easy to hide want of precision of thought, and the absenceof any fundamental difference between his own main conclusion and thatof Dr. Darwin and Lamarck whom he condemns, under the term "naturalselection. "

I assure the reader that I find the task of forming a clear, well-defined conception of Mr. Darwin's meaning, as expressed in his'Origin of Species, ' comparable only to that of one who has to act onthe advice of a lawyer who has obscured the main issue as far as he can, and whose chief aim has been to make as many loopholes as possible forhimself to escape through in case of his being called to account. Or, again, to that of one who has to construe an Act of Parliament which wasoriginally framed so as to throw dust in the eyes of those who wouldoppose the measure, and which, having been since found unworkable, hashad clauses repealed and inserted up and down it, till it is in aninextricable tangle of confusion and contradiction. 

As an example of my meaning, I will quote a passage to which I calledattention in 'Life and Habit. ' It runs:--

"In the earlier editions of this work I underrated, as now seemsprobable, the frequency and importance of modifications due tospontaneous variability. But it is impossible to attribute to _thiscause_" (i. E. Spontaneous variability, which is itself only anexpression for unknown causes) "the innumerable structures which are sowell adapted to the habits of life of each species. I can no morebelieve in _this_" (i. E. That the innumerable structures, &c. , can bedue to unknown causes) "than that the well adapted form of a racehorseor greyhound, which, before the principle of selection by man was wellunderstood, excited so much surprise in the minds of the oldernaturalists, can _thus_" (i. E. By attributing them to unknown causes)"be explained. "[363]

This amounts to saying that unknown causes can do so much, but cannot doso much more. On this passage I wrote, in 'Life and Habit':--

"It is impossible to believe that, after years of reflection upon hissubject, Mr. Darwin should have written as above, especially in such aplace, if his mind was clear about his own position. Immediately afterthe admission of a certain amount of miscalculation there comes a moreor less exculpatory sentence, which sounds so right that ninety-ninepeople out of a hundred would walk through it, unless led by someexigency of their own position to examine it closely, but which yet, upon examination, proves to be as nearly meaningless as a sentence canbe. "[364]

No one, to my knowledge, has impugned the justice of this criticism, andI may say that further study of Mr. Darwin's works has only strengthenedmy conviction of the confusion and inaccuracy of thought, which detractsso greatly from their value. 

So little is it generally understood that "evolution" and what is called"Darwinism" convey indeed the same main conclusion, but that thisconclusion has been reached by two distinct roads, one of which isimpregnable, while the other has already fallen into the hands of theenemy, that in the last November number of the 'Nineteenth Century'Professor Tyndall, while referring to descent with modification orevolution, speaks of it as though it were one and inseparable from Mr. Darwin's theory that it has come about mainly by means of naturalselection. He writes:--

"_Darwin's theory_, as pointed out nine or ten years ago by Helmholtzand Hooker, was then exactly in this condition of growth; and had theyto speak of the subject to-day they would be able to announce anenormous strengthening of the theoretic fibre. Fissures in continuitywhich then existed, and which left little hope of being ever spanned, have been since bridged over, so that the further _the theory_ is testedthe more fully does it harmonize with progressive experience anddiscovery. We shall never probably fill all the gaps; but this will notprevent a profound belief in the truth of _the theory_ from taking rootin the general mind. Much less will it justify a total denial of _thetheory_. The man of science, who assumes in such a case the position ofa denier, is sure to be stranded and isolated. "

This is in the true vein of the professional and orthodox scientist; ofthat new orthodoxy which is clamouring for endowment, and which wouldstep into the Pope's shoes to-morrow, if we would only let it. IfProfessor Tyndall means that those who deny evolution will findthemselves presently in a very small minority, I agree with him; but ifhe means that evolution is Mr. Darwin's theory, and that he who rejectswhat Mr. Darwin calls "the theory of natural selection" will findhimself stranded, his assertion will pass muster with those only whoknow little of the history and literature of evolution. 

FOOTNOTES:

[347] 'Origin of Species, ' Hist. Sketch, p. Xiii. 

[348] 'Physical Basis of Mind, ' p. 108. 

[349] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 146. 

[350] Ibid. P. 75. 

[351] Ibid. P. 88. 

[352] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 98. 

[353] Ibid. P. 66. 

[354] 'Physical Basis of the Mind, ' p. 109, 1878. 

[355] 'Physical Basis of the Mind, ' p. 107, 1878. 

[356] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 49. 

[357] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 107. 

[358] Ibid. P. 166. 

[359] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 406. 

[360] Ibid, p. 416. 

[361] Ibid. P. 419. 

[362] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 422. 

[363] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 171, ed. 1876. 

[364] 'Life and Habit, ' p. 260. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

MR. DARWIN'S DEFENCE OF THE EXPRESSION, NATURAL SELECTION--PROFESSORMIVART AND NATURAL SELECTION. 

So important is it that we should come to a clear understanding upon thepositions taken by Mr. Darwin and Lamarck respectively, that at the riskof wearying the reader I will endeavour to exhaust this subject here. Inorder to do so, I will follow Mr. Darwin's answer to those who haveobjected to the expression, "natural selection. "

Mr. Darwin says:--

"Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term 'naturalselection. ' Some have even imagined that natural selection inducesvariability. "[365]

And small wonder if they have; but those who have fallen into this errorare hardly worth considering. The true complaint is that Mr. Darwin hastoo often written of "natural selection" as though it does inducevariability, and that his language concerning it is so confusing thatthe reader is not helped to see that it really comes to nothing but acloak of difference from his predecessors, under which there lurks aconcealed identity of opinion as to the main facts. The reader is thusled to look upon it as something positive and special, and, in spite ofMr. Darwin's disclaimer, to think of it as an actively efficient cause. 

Few will deny that this complaint is a just one, or that ninety-nine outof a hundred readers of average intelligence, if asked, after readingMr. Darwin's 'Origin of Species, ' what was the most important cause ofmodification, would answer "natural selection. " Let the same readershave read the 'Zoonomia' of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, or the 'PhilosophieZoologique' of Lamarck, and they would at once reply, "the wishes of ananimal or plant, as varying with its varying conditions, " or morebriefly, "sense of need. "

"Whereas, " continues Mr. Darwin, "it" (natural selection) "implies onlythe preservation of such variations as arise, and are beneficial to thebeing under its conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturistsspeaking of the potent effects of man's selection. "

Of course not; for there _is_ an actual creature man, who actually doesselect with a set purpose in order to produce such and such a result, which result he presently produces. 

"And in this case the individual differences given by nature, which manfor some object selects, must first occur. "

This shows that the complaint has already reached Mr. Darwin, that innot showing us how "the individual differences first occur, " he isreally leaving us absolutely in the dark as to the cause of allmodification--giving us an 'Origin of Species' with "the origin" cutout; but I do not think that any reader who has not been compelled to gosomewhat deeply into the question would find out that this is the realgist of the objection which Mr. Darwin is appearing to combat. A generalimpression is left upon the reader that some very foolish objectors arebeing put to silence, that Mr. Darwin is the most candid literaryopponent in the world, and as just as Aristides himself; but if theunassisted reader will cross-question himself what it is all about, Ishall be much surprised if he is ready with his answer. 

"Others"--to resume our criticism on Mr. Darwin's defence--"haveobjected that the term implies conscious choice in the animals whichbecome modified, and it has been even urged that as plants have novolition, natural selection is not applicable to them!"

This--unfortunately--must have been the objection of a slovenly, orwilfully misapprehending reader, and was unworthy of serious notice. Butits introduction here tends to draw the reader from the true ground ofcomplaint, which is that at the end of Mr. Darwin's book we stand muchin the same place as we did when we started, as regards any knowledge ofwhat is the "origin of species. "

"In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is afalse term. "

Then why use it when another, and, by Mr. Darwin's own admission, a"more accurate" one is to hand in "the survival of the fittest"?[366]This term is not appreciably longer than natural selection. Mr. Darwinmay say, indeed, that it is "sometimes" as convenient a term as naturalselection; but the kind of men who exercise permanent effect upon theopinions of other people will bid such a passage as this stand asidesomewhat sternly. If a term is not appreciably longer than another, andif at the same time it more accurately expresses the idea which isintended to be conveyed, it is not sometimes only, but always, moreconvenient, and should immediately be substituted for the less accurateone. 

No one complains of the use of what is, strictly speaking, an inaccurateexpression, when it is nevertheless the best that we can get. It may bedoubted whether there is any such thing possible as a perfectly accurateexpression. All words that are not simply names of things are apt toturn out little else than compendious false analogies; but we have aright to complain when a writer tells us that he is using a lessaccurate expression when a more accurate one is ready to his hand. Hence, when Mr. Darwin continues, "Who ever objected to chemistsspeaking of the elective affinities of the various elements? and yet anacid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it bypreference combines, " he is beside the mark. Chemists do not speak of"elective affinities" in spite of there being a more accurate and notappreciably longer expression at their disposal. 

"It has been said, " continues Mr. Darwin, "that I speak of naturalselection as an active power or deity. But who objects to an authorspeaking of the attraction of gravity? Everyone knows what is meant andimplied by such metaphorical expressions, and they are almost necessaryfor brevity. "

Mr. Darwin certainly does speak of natural selection "acting, ""accumulating, " "operating"; and if "every-one knew what was meant andimplied by this metaphorical expression, " as they now do, or think theydo, in the case of the attraction of gravity, there might be less groundof complaint; but the expression was known to very few at the time Mr. Darwin introduced it, and was used with so much ambiguity, and with solittle to protect the reader from falling into the error of supposingthat it was the cause of the modifications which we see around us, thatwe had a just right to complain, even in the first instance; much moreshould we do so on the score of the retention of the expression when amore accurate one had been found. 

If the "survival of the fittest" had been used, to the total excision of"natural selection" from every page in Mr. Darwin's book--it would havebeen easily seen that "the survival of the fittest" is no more a causeof modification, and hence can give no more explanation concerning theorigin of species, than the fact of a number of competitors in a racefailing to run the whole course, or to run it as quickly as the winner, can explain how the winner came to have good legs and lungs. Accordingto Lamarck, the winner will have got these by means of sense of need, and consequent practice and training, on his own part, and on that ofhis forefathers; according to Mr. Darwin, the "most important means" ofhis getting them is his "happening" to be born with them, coupled, withthe fact that his uncles and aunts for many generations could not runso well as his ancestors in the direct line. But can the fact of hisuncles and aunts running less well than his fathers and mothers be ameans of his fathers and mothers coming to run _better than they used torun_?

If the reader will bear in mind the idea of the runners in a race, itwill help him to see the point at issue between Mr. Darwin and Lamarck. Perhaps also the double meaning of the word race, as expressing equallya breed and a competition, may not be wholly without significance. Whatwe want to be told is, not that a runner will win the prize if he canrun "ever such a little" faster than his fellows--we know this--but bywhat process he comes to be able to run ever such a little faster. 

"So, again, " continues Mr. Darwin, "it is difficult to avoidpersonifying nature, but I mean by nature only the aggregate action andproduct of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events asascertained by us. "

This, again, is raising up a dead man in order to knock him down. Naturehas been personified for more than two thousand years, and every oneunderstands that nature is no more really a woman than hope or justice, or than God is like the pictures of the mediæval painters; no one whoseobjection was worth notice could have objected to the personification ofnature. 

Mr. Darwin concludes:--

"With a little familiarity, such superficial objections will beforgotten. "[367]

As a matter of fact, I do not see any greater tendency to acquiesce inMr. Darwin's claim on behalf of natural selection than there was a fewyears ago, but on the contrary, that discontent is daily growing. To saynothing of the Rev. J. J. Murphy and Professor Mivart, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes did not find the objection a superficial one, nor yet did hefind it disappear "with a little familiarity"; on the contrary, the morefamiliar he became with it the less he appeared to like it. I may evengo, without fear, so far as to say that any writer who now uses theexpression "natural selection, " writes himself down thereby as behindthe age. It is with great pleasure that I observe Mr. Francis Darwin inhis recent lecture[368] to have kept clear of it altogether, and to havemade use of no expression, and advocated no doctrine to which either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck would not have readily assented. I think I mayaffirm confidently that a few years ago any such lecture would havecontained repeated reference to Natural Selection. For my own part Iknow of few passages in any theological writer which please me less thanthe one which I have above followed sentence by sentence. I know of fewwhich should better serve to show us the sort of danger we should run ifwe were to let men of science get the upper hand of us. 

Natural Selection, then, is only another way of saying "Nature. " Mr. Darwin seems to be aware of this when he writes, "Nature, if I may beallowed to personify the natural preservation or survival of thefittest. " And again, at the bottom of the same page, "It maymetaphorically be said that _natural selection is daily and hourlyscrutinizing_ throughout the world the slightest variations. "[369] Itmay be metaphorically said that _Nature_ is daily and hourlyscrutinizing, but it cannot be said consistently with any right use ofwords, metaphorical or otherwise, that natural selection scrutinizes, unless natural selection is merely a somewhat cumbrous synonym forNature. When, therefore, Mr. Darwin says that natural selection is the"most important, but not the exclusive means" whereby any modificationhas been effected, he is really saying that Nature is the most importantmeans of modification--which is only another way of telling us thatvariation causes variations, and is all very true as far as it goes. 

I did not read Professor Mivart's 'Lessons from Nature, ' until I hadwritten all my own criticism on Mr. Darwin's position. From that work, however, I now quote the following:--

"It cannot then be contested that the far-famed 'Origin of Species, 'that, namely, by 'Natural Selection, ' has been repudiated in fact, though not expressly even by its own author. This circumstance, which issimply undeniable, might dispense us from any further consideration ofthe hypothesis itself. But the "conspiracy of silence, " which hasaccompanied the repudiation tends to lead the unthinking many to supposethat the same importance still attaches to it as at first. On thisaccount it may be well to ask the question, what, after all, _is_'Natural Selection'?

"The answer may seem surprising to some, but it is none the less true, that 'Natural Selection' is simply nothing. It is an apparently positivename for a really negative effect, and is therefore an eminentlymisleading term. By 'Natural Selection' is meant the result of all thedestructive agencies of Nature, destructive to individuals and to racesby destroying their lives or their powers of propagation. Evidently, _the cause of the distinction of species_ (supposing such distinction tobe brought about in natural generation) _must be that which causesvariation, and variation in one determinate direction in at leastseveral individuals simultaneously_. " I should like to have added herethe words "and during many successive generations, " but they will govery sufficiently without saying. 

"At the same time, " continues Professor Mivart, "it is freely concededthat the destructive agencies in nature do succeed in preventing theperpetuation of monstrous, abortive, and feeble attempts at theperformance of the evolutionary process, that they rapidly removeantecedent forms when new ones are evolved more in harmony withsurrounding conditions, and that their action results in the formationof new characters when these have once attained sufficient completenessto be of real utility to their possessor. 

"Continued reflection, and five years further pondering over theproblems of specific origin have more and more convinced me that theconception, that the origin of all species 'man included' is due simplyto conditions which are (to use Mr. Darwin's own words) 'strictlyaccidental, ' is a conception utterly irrational. "

 . . . . . . 

"With regard to the conception as now put forward by Mr. Darwin, Icannot truly characterize it but by an epithet which I employ only withmuch reluctance. I weigh my words and have present to my mind the manydistinguished naturalists who have accepted the notion, and yet I cannothesitate to call it a '_puerile hypothesis_. '"[370]

I am afraid I cannot go with Professor Mivart farther than this point, though I have a strong feeling as though his conclusion is true, that"the material universe is always and everywhere sustained and directedby an infinite cause, for which to us the word mind is the leastinadequate and misleading symbol. " But I feel that any attempt to dealwith such a question is going far beyond that sphere in which man'spowers may be at present employed with advantage: I trust, therefore, that I may never try to verify it, and am indifferent whether it iscorrect or not. 

Again, I should probably differ from Professor Mivart in finding thismind inseparable from the material universe in which we live and move. So that I could neither conceive of such a mind influencing anddirecting the universe from a point as it were outside the universeitself, nor yet of a universe as existing without there beingpresent--or having been present--in its every particle something forwhich mind should be the least inadequate and misleading symbol. But thesubject is far beyond me. 

As regards Professor Mivart's denunciations of natural selection, Ihave only one fault to find with them, namely, that they do not speakout with sufficient bluntness. The difficulty of showing the fallacy ofMr. Darwin's position, is the difficulty of grasping a will-o'-the-wisp. A concluding example will put this clearly before the reader, and at thesame time serve to illustrate the most tangible feature of differencebetween Mr. Darwin and Lamarck. 

FOOTNOTES:

[365] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 62. 

[366] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 49. 

[367] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 63. 

[368] 'Nature, ' March 14 and 21, 1878. 

[369] 'Origin of Species, ' p. 65. 

[370] 'Lessons from Nature, ' p. 300. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THE CASE OF THE MADEIRA BEETLES AS ILLUSTRATING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEENTHE EVOLUTION OF LAMARCK AND OF MR. CHARLES DARWIN--CONCLUSION. 

An island of no very great extent is surrounded by a sea which cuts itoff for many miles from the nearest land. It lies a good deal exposed towinds, so that the beetles which live upon it are in continual danger ofbeing blown out to sea if they fly during the hours and seasons when thewind is blowing. It is found that an unusually large proportion of thebeetles inhabiting this island are either without wings or have theirwings in a useless and merely rudimentary state; and that a large numberof kinds which are very common on the nearest mainland, but which arecompelled to use their wings in seeking their food, are here entirelywanting. It is also observed that the beetles on this island generallylie much concealed until the wind lulls and the sun shines. These arethe facts; let us now see how Lamarck would treat them. 

Lamarck would say that the beetles once being on this island it becameone of the conditions of their existence that they should not get blownout to sea. For once blown out to sea, they would be quite certain to bedrowned. Beetles, when they fly, generally fly for some purpose, and donot like having that purpose interfered with by something which cancarry them all-whithers, whether they like it or no. If they are flyingand find the wind taking them in a wrong direction, or seaward--whichthey know will be fatal to them--they stop flying as soon as may be, andalight on _terra firma_. But if the wind is very prevalent the beetlescan find but little opportunity for flying at all: they will thereforelie quiet all day and do as best they can to get their living on footinstead of on the wing. There will thus be a long-continued disuse ofwings, and this will gradually diminish the development of the wingsthemselves, till after a sufficient number of generations these willeither disappear altogether, or be seen in a rudimentary condition only. For each beetle which has made but little use of its wings will beliable to leave offspring with a slightly diminished wing, some otherorgan which has been used instead of the wing becoming proportionatelydeveloped. It is thus seen that the conditions of existence are theindirect cause of the wings becoming rudimentary, inasmuch as theypreclude the beetles from using them; the disuse however on the part ofthe beetles themselves is the direct cause. 

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

"In some cases we might easily set down to disuse, modifications ofstructure which are _wholly_ or _mainly_ due to natural selection. " Thenfollow the facts about the beetles of Madeira, as I have given themabove. While we are reading them we naturally make up our minds thatthe winglessness of the beetles will prove due either wholly, or at anyrate mainly, to natural selection, and that though it would be easy toset it down to disuse, yet we must on no account do so. The facts havingbeen stated, Mr. Darwin continues:--"These several considerations makeme believe that the wingless condition of so many Madeira beetles ismainly due to the action of natural selection, " and when we go on to thewords that immediately follow, "combined probably with disuse, " we arealmost surprised at finding that disuse has had anything to do with thematter. We feel a languid wish to know exactly how much and in what wayit has entered into the combination; but we find it difficult to thinkthe matter out, and are glad to take it for granted that the part playedby disuse must be so unimportant that we need not consider it. Mr. Darwin continues:--

"For during many successive generations each individual beetle whichflew least, either from its wings having been ever so little lessperfectly developed, or from indolent habit, will have had the bestchance of surviving from not having been blown out to sea; and on theother hand those beetles which most readily took to flight wouldoftenest be blown out to sea and perish. "[371]

So apt are we to believe what we are told, when it is told us gravelyand with authority, and when there is no statement at hand to contradictit, that we fail to see that Mr. Darwin is all the time reallyattributing the winglessness of the Madeira beetles either to the _quâ_him _unknown causes_ which have led to the "ever so little less perfectdevelopment of wing" on the part of the beetles that leaveoffspring--that is to say, is admitting that he can give no account ofthe matter--or else to the "indolent habit" of the parent beetles whichhas led them to disuse their wings, and hence gradually to losethem--which is neither more nor less than the "erroneous grounds ofopinion, " and "well-known doctrine" of Lamarck. 

For Mr. Darwin cannot mean that the fact of some beetles being blown outto sea is the most important means whereby certain other beetles come tohave smaller wings--that the Madeira beetles in fact come to havesmaller wings mainly because their large winged uncles and aunts--goaway. 

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

For in this case we are left exactly where Lamarck left us, and musthold that such beetles as have smaller wings have them because theconditions of life or "circumstances" in which their parents wereplaced, rendered it inconvenient to them to fly, and thus led them toleave off using their wings. 

Granted, that if there had been nothing to take unmodified beetles away, there would have been less room and scope for the modified beetles; alsothat unmodified beetles would have intermixed with the modified, andimpeded the prevalence of the modification. But anything else than suchremoval of unmodified individuals would be contrary to our hypothesis. The very essence of conditions of existence is that there _shall be_something to take away those which do not comply with the conditions;if there is nothing to render such and such a course a _sine quâ non_for life, there is no condition of existence in respect of this course, and no modification according to Lamarck could follow, as there would beno changed distribution of use. 

I think that if I were to leave this matter here I should have saidenough to make the reader feel that Lamarck's system is direct, intelligible and sufficient--while Mr. Darwin's is confused andconfusing. I may however quote Mr. Darwin himself as throwing his theoryabout the Madeira beetles on one side in a later passage, for hewrites:--

"It is probable that _disuse has been the main agent in rendering organsrudimentary_, " or in other words that Lamarck was quite right--nor doesone see why if disuse is after all the main agent in rendering an organrudimentary, use should not have been the main agent in developingit--but let that pass. "It (disuse) would at first lead, " continues Mr. Darwin, "by slow steps to the more and more complete reduction of apart, until at last it became rudimentary--as in the case of the eyes ofanimals inhabiting dark caverns, and of the wings of birds inhabitingoceanic islands, which have seldom been forced by beasts of prey to takeflight, and have ultimately lost the power of flying. Again, an organuseful under certain conditions, might become injurious under others, _as with the wings of beetles living on small and exposedislands_;"[372] so that the rudimentary condition of the Madeirabeetles' wings is here set down as mainly due to disuse--while above wefind it mainly due to natural selection--I should say that immediatelyafter the word "islands" just quoted, Mr. Darwin adds "and in this casenatural selection will have aided in reducing the organ, until it wasrendered harmless and rudimentary, " but this is Mr. Darwin's manner, andmust go for what it is worth. 

How refreshing to turn to the simple straightforward language ofLamarck. 

"Long continued disuse, " he writes, "in consequence of the habits whichan animal has contracted, gradually reduces an organ, and leads to itsfinal disappearance. . . . 

"Eyes placed in the head form an essential part of that plan on which weobserve all vertebrate organisms to be constructed. Nevertheless themole which uses its vision very little, has eyes which are only verysmall and hardly apparent. 

"The _aspalax_ of Olivier, which lives underground like the mole, andexposes itself even less than the mole to the light of day, has whollylost the use of its sight, nor does it retain more than mere traces ofvisual organs, these traces again being hidden under the skin and undercertain other parts which cover them up and leave not even the smallestaccess to the light. The Proteus, an aquatic reptile akin to theSalamander and living in deep and obscure cavities under water, has, like the aspalax, no longer anything but traces of eyesremaining--traces which are again entirely hidden and covered up. [373]

"The following consideration should be decisive. 

"Light cannot penetrate everywhere, and as a consequence, animals whichlive habitually in places which it cannot reach, do not have anopportunity of using eyes, even though they have got them; but animalswhich form part of a system of organization which comprises eyes as aninvariable rule among its organs, must have had eyes originally. Sincethen we find among these animals some which have lost their eyes, andwhich have only concealed traces of these organs, it is evident that theimpoverishment, and even disappearance of the organs in question, mustbe the effect of long-continued disuse. 

"A proof of this is to be found in the fact that the organ of hearing isnever in like case with that of sight; we always find it in animals ofwhose system of organization hearing is a component part; and for thefollowing reason, namely, that sound, which is the effect of vibrationupon the ear, can penetrate everywhere, and pass even through massiveintermediate bodies. Any animal, therefore, with an organic system ofwhich the ear is an essential part, can always find a use for its ears, no matter where it inhabits. We never, therefore, come upon rudimentaryears among the vertebrata, and when, going down the scale of life lowerthan the vertebrata, we come to a point at which the ear is no longer tobe found; we never come upon ears again in any lower class. 

"Not so with the organ of sight: we see this organ disappear, reappear, and disappear again with the possibility or impossibility of using eyeson the part of the creature itself. [374]

"The great development of mantle in the acephalous molluscs has renderedeyes, and even a head, entirely useless to them. These organs, thoughbelonging to the type of the organism, and by rights included in it, have had to disappear and become annihilated owing to continued defaultof use. 

 . . . . . . 

"Many insects which, by the analogy of their order and even genus, should have wings, have nevertheless lost them more or less completelythrough disuse. A number of coleoptera, orthoptera, hymenoptera, andhemiptera give us examples, the habits of these animals never leadingthem to use their wings. "[375]

 * * * * *

I will here bring this present volume to a conclusion, hoping, however, to return to the same subject shortly, but to that part of it whichbears upon longevity and the phenomena of old age. In 'Life and Habit' Ipointed out that if differentiations of structure and instinct areconsidered as due to the different desires under different circumstancesof an organism, which must be regarded as a single creature, though itsdevelopment has extended over millions of years, and which is guidedmainly by habit and memory until some disturbing cause compelsinvention--then the longevity of each generation or stage of thisorganism should depend upon the lateness of the average age ofreproduction in each generation; so that an organism (using the word inits usual signification) which did not upon the average begin toreproduce itself till it was twenty, should be longer lived than onethat on the average begins to reproduce itself at a year old. I alsomaintained that the phenomena of old age should be referred to failureof memory on the part of the organism, which in the embryonic stages, infancy, youth, and early manhood, leans upon the memory of what it didwhen it was in the persons of its ancestors; in middle life, carries itsaction onward by means of the impetus, already received, and by theforce of habit; and in old age becomes puzzled, having no experience ofany past existence at seventy-five, we will say, to guide it, andtherefore forgetting itself more and more completely till it dies. Ihope to extend this, and to bring forward arguments in support of it ina future work. 

Of the importance of the theory put forward in 'Life and Habit'--I amdaily more and more convinced. Unless we admit oneness of personalitybetween parents and offspring, memory of the often repeated facts ofpast existences, the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by thepresence of the associated ideas, or of a sufficient number of them, andthe far-reaching consequences of the unconsciousness which results fromhabitual action, evolution does not greatly add to our knowledge as tohow we shall live here to the best advantage. Add these considerations, and its value as a guide becomes immediately apparent; a new light ispoured upon a hundred problems of the greatest delicacy and difficulty. Not the least interesting of these is the gradual extension of humanlongevity--an extension, however, which cannot be effected till manymany generations as yet unborn have come and gone. There is nothing, however, to prevent man's becoming as long lived as the oak if he willpersevere for many generations in the steps which can alone lead to thisresult. Another interesting achievement which should be more quicklyattainable, though still not in our own time, is the earlier maturity ofthose animals whose rapid maturity is an advantage to us, but whoselongevity is not to our purpose. 

 * * * * *

The question--Evolution or Direct Creation of all species?--has beensettled in favour of Evolution. A hardly less interesting and importantbattle has now to be fought over the question whether we are to acceptthe evolution of the founders of the theory--with the adjuncts hinted atby Dr. Darwin and Mr. Matthew, and insisted on, so far as I can gather, by Professor Hering and myself--or the evolution of Mr. Darwin, whichdenies the purposiveness or teleology inherent in evolution as firstpropounded. I am assured that such of my readers as I can persuade toprefer the old evolution to the new will have but little reason toregret their preference. 

 * * * * *

P. S. --As these sheets leave my hands, my attention is called to a reviewof Professor Haeckel's 'Evolution of Man, ' by Mr. A. E. Wallace, in the'Academy' for April 12, 1879. "Professor Haeckel maintains, " says Mr. Wallace, "_that the struggle for existence in nature evolves new formswithout design, just as the will of man produces new varieties incultivation with design_. " I maintain in preference with the olderevolutionists, that in consequence of change in the conditions of theirexistence, _organisms design new forms for themselves, and carry thosedesigns out in additions to, and modifications of, their own bodies_. 

"The science of rudimentary organs, " continues Mr. Wallace, "whichHaeckel terms 'dysteleology, or the doctrine of purposelessness, ' ishere discussed, and a number of interesting examples are given, theconclusion being that they prove the mechanical or monistic conceptionof the origin of organisms to be correct, and the idea of any 'all-wisecreative plan an ancient fable. '" I see no reason to suppose, or againnot to suppose, an all-wise creative plan. I decline to go into thisquestion, believing it to be not yet ripe, nor nearly ripe, forconsideration. I see purpose, however, in rudimentary organs as much asin useful ones, but a spent or extinct purpose--a purpose which has beenfulfilled, and is now forgotten--the rudimentary organ being repeatedfrom force of habit, indolence, and dislike of change, so long as itdoes not, to use the words of Buffon, "stand in the way of the fairdevelopment" of other parts which are found useful and necessary. Idemur, therefore, to the inference of "purposelessness" which I gatherthat Professor Haeckel draws from these organs. 

In the 'Academy' for April 19, 1879, Mr. Wallace quotes ProfessorHaeckel as saying that our "highly purposive and admirably-constitutedsense-organs have developed without premeditated aim; that they haveoriginated by the same mechanical process of Natural Selection, by thesame constant interaction of Adaptation and Heredity [what _is_ Hereditybut another word for unknown causes, unless it is explained in some suchmanner as in 'Life and Habit'?] by which all the other purposivecontrivances of the animal organization have been slowly and graduallyevolved during the struggle for existence. "

I see no evidence for "premeditated aim" at any modification very far inadvance of an existing organ, any more than I do for "premeditated aim"on man's part at any as yet inconceivable mechanical invention; but asin the case of man's inventions, so also in that of the organs ofanimals and plants, modification is due to the accumulation of small, well-considered improvements, as found necessary in practice, and theconduct of their affairs. Each step having been purposive, the wholeroad has been travelled purposively; nor is the purposiveness of such anorgan, we will say, as the eye, barred by the fact that invention hasdoubtless been aided by some of those happy accidents which from time totime happen to all who keep their wits about them, and know how to turnthe gifts of Fortune to account. 

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

[373] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 242. 

[374] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 244. 

[375] 'Phil. Zool. , ' tom. I. P. 245. 

APPENDIX. 

CHAPTER I. 

REVIEWS OF 'EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. '

Those who have been at the pains to read the foregoing book will, perhaps, pardon me if I put before them a short account of the receptionit has met with: I will not waste time by arguing with my critics at anylength; it will be enough if I place some of their remarks upon my bookunder the same cover as the book itself, with here and there a word ortwo of comment. 

The only reviews which have come under my notice appeared in the'Academy' and the 'Examiner, ' both of May 17, 1879; the 'Edinburgh DailyReview, ' May 23, 1879; 'City Press, ' May 21, 1879; 'Field, ' May 26, 1879; 'Saturday Review, ' May 31, 1879; 'Daily Chronicle, ' May 31, 1879;'Graphic' and 'Nature, ' both June 12, 1879; 'Pall Mall Gazette, ' June18, 1879; 'Literary World, ' June 20, 1879; 'Scotsman, ' June 24, 1879;'British Journal of Homoeopathy' and 'Mind, ' both July 1, 1879;'Journal of Science, ' July 18, 1879; 'Westminster Review, ' July, 1879;'Athenæum, ' July 26, 1879; 'Daily News, ' July 29, 1879; 'ManchesterCity News, ' August 16, 1879; 'Nonconformist, ' November 26, 1879;'Popular Science Review, ' Jan. 1, 1880; 'Morning Post, ' Jan. 12, 1880. 

Some of the most hostile passages in the reviews above referred to areas follows:--

"From beginning to end, our eccentric author treats us to a dazzlingflood of epigram, invective, and what appears to be argument; andfinally leaves us without a single clear idea as to what he has beendriving at. "

 . . . . . . 

"Mr. Butler comes forward, as it were, to proclaim himself aprofessional satirist, and a mystifier who will do his best to leave youutterly in the dark with regard to his system of juggling. Is he ateleological theologian making fun of evolution? Is he an evolutionistmaking fun of teleology? Is he a man of letters making fun of science?Or is he a master of pure irony making fun of all three, and of hisaudience as well? For our part we decline to commit ourselves, andprefer to observe, as Mr. Butler observes of Von Hartmann, that if hismeaning is anything like what he says it is, we can only say that it hasnot been given us to form any definite conception whatever as to whatthat meaning may be. "--'Academy, ' May 17, 1879, Signed Grant Allen. 

 * * * * *

Here is another criticism of "Evolution, Old and New"--also, I believe Iam warranted in saying, by Mr. Grant Allen. These two criticismsappeared on the same day; how many more Mr. Allen may have written lateron I do not know. 

We find the writer who in the 'Academy' declares that he has been leftwithout "a single clear idea" as to what 'Evolution, Old and New, ' hasbeen driving at saying on the same day in the 'Examiner' that'Evolution, Old and New, ' "has a more evident purpose than any of itspredecessors. " If so, I am afraid the predecessors must have puzzled Mr. Allen very unpleasantly. What the purpose of 'Evolution, Old and New, 'is, he proceeds to explain:--

"As to his (Mr. Butler's) main argument, it comes briefly to this:natural selection does not originate favourable varieties, it onlypassively permits them to exist; therefore it is the unknown cause whichproduced the variations, not the natural selection which spared them, that ought to count as the mainspring of evolution. That unknown causeMr. Butler boldly declares to be the will of the organism itself. Anintelligent ascidian wanted a pair of eyes, [376] so set to work and madeitself a pair, exactly as a man makes a microscope; a talented fishconceived the idea of walking on dry land, so it developed legs, turnedits swim bladder into a pair of lungs, and became an amphibian; anæsthetic guinea-fowl admired bright colours, so it bought a paint-box, studied Mr. Whistler's ornamental designs, and, painting itself a gildedand ocellated tail, was thenceforth a peacock. But how about plants? Mr. Butler does not shirk even this difficulty. The theory must bemaintained at all hazards. . . . This is the sort of mystical nonsensefrom which we had hoped Mr. Darwin had for ever saved us. "--'Examiner, 'May 17, 1879. 

 * * * * *

In this last article, Mr. Allen has said that I am a man of genius, "with the unmistakable signet-mark upon my forehead. " I have beensubjected to a good deal of obloquy and misrepresentation at one time oranother, but this passage by Mr. Allen is the only one I have seen thathas made me seriously uneasy about the prospects of my literaryreputation. 

I see Mr. Allen has been lately writing an article in the 'FortnightlyReview' on the decay of criticism. Looking over it somewhat hurriedly, my eye was arrested by the following:--

"Nowadays any man can write, because there are papers enough to giveemployment to everybody. No reflection, no deliberation, no care; all ishaste, fatal facility, stock phrases, commonplace ideas, and a ready penthat can turn itself to any task with equal ease, because supremelyignorant of all alike. "

 . . . . . . 

"The writer takes to his craft nowadays, not because he has taste forliterature, but because he has an incurable faculty for scribbling. Hehas no culture, and he soon loses the power of taking pains, if he everpossessed it. But he can talk with glib superficiality and imposingconfidence about every conceivable subject, from a play or a picture toa sermon or a metaphysical essay. It is the utter indifference tosubject-matter, joined with the vulgar unscrupulousness of pretentiousignorance, that strikes the keynote of our existing criticism. Men writewithout taking the trouble to read or think. "[377]

 * * * * *

The 'Saturday Review' attacked 'Evolution, Old and New, ' I may almostsay savagely. It wrote: "When Mr. Butler's 'Life and Habit' came beforeus, we doubted whether his ambiguously expressed speculations belongedto the regions of playful but possibly scientific imagination, or ofunscientific fancies; and we gave him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, we strained a point or two to find a reasonable meaning for him. He hasnow settled the question against himself. Not professing to have anyparticular competence in biology, natural history, or the scientificstudy of evidence in any shape whatever, and, indeed, rather glorying inhis freedom from any such superfluities, he undertakes to assure theoverwhelming majority of men of science, and the educated public whohave followed their lead, that, while they have done well to beconverted to the doctrine of the evolution and transmutation of species, they have been converted on entirely wrong grounds. "

 . . . . . . 

"When a writer who has not given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years [as a matter of fact, it is now twenty yearssince I began to publish on the subject of Evolution] is not content toair his own crude, though clever, fallacies, but presumes to criticizeMr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young schoolmaster lookingover a boy's theme, it is difficult not to take him more seriously thanhe deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. Butler was thetravelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin the pertspeculator, who takes all his facts at secondhand. "

 . . . . . . 

"Let us once more consider how matters stood a year or two before the'Origin of Species' first appeared. The continuous evolution of animatedNature had in its favour the difficulty of drawing fixed lines betweenspecies and even larger divisions, all the indications of comparativeanatomy and embryology, and a good deal of general scientificpresumption. Several well-known writers, and some eminent enough tocommand respect, had expressed their belief in it. One or two far-seeingthinkers, among whom the place of honour must be assigned to Mr. HerbertSpencer, had done more. They had used their philosophic insight, which, to science, is the eye of faith, to descry the promised land almostwithin reach; they knew and announced how rich and spacious the heritagewould be, if once the entry could be made good. But on that 'if'everything hung. Nature was not bound to give up her secret, or wasbound only in a mocking covenant with an impossible condition: _Si cælumdigito tetigeris_; if only some fortunate hand could touch theinaccessible firmament, and bring down the golden chain to earth! Butfruition seemed out of sight. Even those who were most willing toadvance in this direction, could only regret that they saw no roadclear. There was a tempting vision, but nothing proven--many would havesaid nothing provable. A few years passed, and all this was changed. The doubtful speculation had become a firm and connected theory. In theroom of scattered foragers and scouts, there was an irresistiblyadvancing column. Nature had surrendered her stronghold, and wasdisarmed of her secret. And if we ask who were the men by whom this wasdone, the answer is notorious, and there is but one answer possible: thenames that are for ever associated with this great triumph are those ofCharles Darwin and Wallace. "[378]

I gave the lady or gentleman who wrote this an opportunity ofacknowledging the authorship; but she or he preferred, not I thinkunnaturally, to remain anonymous. 

The only other criticism of 'Evolution, Old and New, ' to which I wouldcall attention, appeared in 'Nature, ' in a review of 'UnconsciousMemory, ' by Mr. Romanes, and contained the following passages:--

"But to be serious, if in charity we could deem Mr. Butler a lunatic, weshould not be unprepared for any aberration of common sense that hemight display. . . . A certain nobody writes a book ['Evolution, Old andNew'] accusing the most illustrious man in his generation of burying theclaims of certain illustrious predecessors out of the sight of all men. In the hope of gaining some notoriety by deserving, and perhapsreceiving a contemptuous refutation from the eminent man in question, hepublishes this book which, if it deserved serious consideration, wouldbe not more of an insult to the particular man of science whom itaccuses of conscious and wholesale plagiarism [there is no suchaccusation in 'Evolution, Old and New'] than it would be to men ofscience in general for requiring such elementary instruction on some ofthe most famous literature in science from an upstart ignoramus, who, until two or three years ago, considered himself a painter byprofession. "--'Nature, ' Jan. 27, 1881. 

 * * * * *

In a subsequent letter to 'Nature, ' Mr. Romanes said he had been "actingthe part of policeman" by writing as he had done. Any unscrupulousreviewer may call himself a policeman if he likes, but he must notexpect those whom he assails to recognize his pretensions. 'Evolution, Old and New, ' was not written for the kind of people whom Mr. Romanescalls men of science; if "men of science" means men like Mr. Romanes, Itrust they say well who maintain that I am not a man of science; Ibelieve the men to whom Mr. Romanes refers to be men, not of that kindof science which desires to know, but of that kind whose aim is tothrust itself upon the public as actually knowing. 'Evolution, Old andNew, ' could be of no use to these; certainly, it was not intended as aninsult to them, but if they are insulted by it, I do not know that I amsorry, for I value their antipathy and opposition as much as I shoulddislike their approbation: of one thing, however, I am certain--namely, that before 'Evolution, Old and New, ' was written, Professors Huxley andTyndall, for example, knew very little of the earlier history ofEvolution. Professor Huxley, in his article on Evolution in the ninthedition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica, ' published in 1878, says of thetwo great pioneers of Evolution, that Buffon "contributed nothing tothe general doctrine of Evolution, "[379] and that Erasmus Darwin "canhardly be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors. "[380]

Professor Haeckel evidently knew little of Erasmus Darwin, and stillless, apparently, about Buffon. [381] Professor Tyndall, [382] in 1878, spoke of Evolution as "Darwin's theory"; and I have just read Mr. GrantAllen as saying that Evolutionism "is an almost exclusively Englishimpulse. "[383]

Since 'Evolution, Old and New, ' was published, I have observed severalof the so-called men of science--among them Professor Huxley and Mr. Romanes--airing Buffon; but I never observed any of them do this tillwithin the last three years. I maintain that "men of science" were, andstill are, very ignorant concerning the history of Evolution; but, whether they were or were not, I did not write 'Evolution, Old and New, 'for them; I wrote for the general public, who have been kind enough totestify their appreciation of it in a sufficiently practical manner. 

The way in which Mr. Charles Darwin met 'Evolution, Old and New, ' hasbeen so fully dealt with in my book, 'Unconscious Memory;' in the'Athenæum, ' Jan. 31, 1880; the 'St. James's Gazette, ' Dec. 8, 1880; and'Nature, ' Feb. 3, 1881, that I need not return to it here, moreespecially as Mr. Darwin has, by his silence, admitted that he has nodefence to make. 

I have quoted by no means the moat exceptionable parts of Mr. Romanes'article, and have given them a permanence they would not otherwiseattain, inasmuch as nothing can better show the temper of the kind ofmen who are now--as I said in the body of the foregoing work--clamouringfor endowment, and who would step into the Pope's shoes to-morrow if wewould only let them. 

FOOTNOTES:

[376] See p. 44, and the whole of chap. V. , where I say of thissupposition, that "nothing could be conceived more foreignto experience and common sense. "

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

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

[379] P. 748. 

[380] _Ibid. _

[381] See pp. 71-73. 

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

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

CHAPTER II. 

ROME AND PANTHEISM. 

Evolution would after all be a poor doctrine if it did not affect humanaffairs at every touch and turn. I propose to devote the second chapterof this Appendix to the consideration of an aspect of Evolution whichwill always interest a very large number of people--the development ofthe relation that may exist between religion and science. 

If the Church of Rome would only develop some doctrine or, I know nothow, provide some means by which men like myself, who cannot pretend tobelieve in the miraculous element of Christianity, could yet join her asa conservative stronghold, I, for one, should gladly do so. I believethe difference between her faith and that of all who can be calledgentlemen to be one of words rather than things. Our practical workingideal is much the same as hers; when we use the word "gentleman" we meanthe same thing that the Church of Rome does; so that, if we get downbelow the words that formulate her teaching, there are few points uponwhich we should not agree. But, alas! words are often so very important. 

How is it possible for myself, for example, to give people to understandthat I believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception or in theLourdes miracles? If the Pope could spare time to think about soinsignificant a person, would he wish me to pretend such beliefs orthink better of me if I did pretend them? I should be sorry to see himturn suddenly round and deny his own faith, and I am persuaded that, inlike manner, he would have me continue to hold my own in peace;nevertheless, the duty of subordinating private judgment to theavoidance of schism is so obvious that, if we could see a practicableway of bridging the gulf between ourselves and Rome, we should beheartily glad to bridge it. 

I speak as though the Church of Rome was the only one we can look to. Ido not see how it is easy to dispute this. Protestantism has been triedand failed; it has long ceased to grow, but it has by no means ceased todisintegrate. Note the manner in which it is torn asunder bydissensions, and the rancour which these dissensions engender--a rancourwhich finds its way into the political and social life of Europe, withincalculable damage to the health and well-being of the world. Who candoubt but that there will be a split even in the Church of England ereso many years are over? Protestantism is like one of those drops ofglass which tend to split up into minuter and minuter fragments themoment the bond that united them has been removed. It is as though theforce of gravity had lost its hold, and a universal power of repulsiontaken the place of attraction. This may, perhaps, come about some day inthe material as well as in the spiritual and political world, but thespirit of the age is as yet one of aggregation; the spirit ofProtestantism is one of disintegration. I maintain, therefore, that itis not likely to be permanent. 

All the great powers of Europe have from numberless distinct tribesbecome first a few kingdoms or dukedoms, then two or three nations, andnow homogeneous wholes, so that there is no chance of their furtherdismemberment through internal discontent; a process which has beengoing on for so many hundreds of years all over Europe is not likely tobe arrested without ample warning. True, during the Roman Empire theworld was practically bonded together, yet broke in pieces again; butthis, I imagine, was because the bonding was prophetic and superficialrather than genuine. Nature very commonly makes one or two false starts, and misses her aim a time or two before she hits it. She nearly hit itin the time of Alexander the Great, but this was a short-lived success;in the case of the Roman Empire she succeeded better and for longertogether. Where Nature has once or twice hit her mark as near as thisshe will commonly hit it outright eventually; the disruption of theRoman Empire, therefore, does not militate against the supposition thatthe normal condition of right-minded people is one which tends towardsaggregation, or, in other words, towards compromise and the merging ofmuch of one's own individuality for the sake of union and concertedaction. 

See, again, how Rome herself, within the limits of Italy, was anaggregation, an aggregation which has now within these last few yearscome together again after centuries of disruption; all middle-aged menhave seen many small countries come together in their own lifetime, while in America a gigantic attempt at disruption has completely failed. Success will, of course, sometimes attend disruption, but on the wholethe balance inclines strongly in favour of aggregation and homogeneity;analogy points in the direction of supposing that the great civilizednations of Europe, as they are the coalition of subordinate provinces, so must coalesce themselves also to form a larger, but single empire. Wars will then cease, and surely anything that seems likely to tendtowards so desirable an end deserves respectful consideration. 

The Church of Rome is essentially a unifier. It is a great thing thatnations should have so much in common as the acknowledgment of the sametribunal for the settlement of spiritual and religious questions, andthere is no head under which Christendom can unite with as littledisturbance as under Rome. Nothing more tends to keep men apart thanreligious differences; this certainly ought not to be the case, but itno less certainly is, and therefore we should strain many points andsubordinate our private judgment to a very considerable extent if calledupon to do so. A man, under these circumstances, is right in saying hebelieves in much that he does not believe in. Nevertheless there arelimits to this, and the Church of Rome requires more of us at presentthan we can by any means bring ourselves into assenting to. 

It may be asked, Why have a Church at all? Why not unite in community ofnegation rather than of assertion? When I wrote 'Evolution, Old andNew, ' three years ago, I thought, as now, that the only possible Churchmust be a development of the Church of Rome; and seeing no chance ofagreement between avowed free-thinkers, like myself, and Rome (for Ibelieved Rome immovable), I leaned towards absolute negation as the bestchance for unity among civilized nations; but even then, I expressedmyself as "having a strong feeling as though Professor Mivart'sconclusion is true, that 'the material universe is always and everywheresustained and directed by an infinite cause, for which to us the wordmind is the least inadequate and misleading symbol. '"[384]

I had hardly finished 'Evolution, Old and New, ' before I began to dealwith this question according to my lights, in a series of articles uponGod[385] which appeared in the 'Examiner' during the summer of 1879, andI returned to the same matter more than once in 'Unconscious Memory, ' mynext succeeding work. The articles I intend recasting and rewriting, asthey go upon a false assumption; but subsequent reflection has onlyconfirmed me in the general result I arrived at--namely, theomnipresence of mind in the universe. 

I have therefore come to see that we can go farther than negation, andin this case--a positive expression of faith as regards an invisibleuniverse of some sort being possible--a Church of some sort is alsopossible, which shall formulate and express the general convictions asregards man's position in respect of this faith. I think the instinctwhich has led so many countries towards a double legislative chamber, and ourselves, till at any rate quite recently, to a double system ofjurisprudence, law and equity, was not arrived at without having passedthrough the stages of reason and reflection. There are a variety ofdelicate, almost intangible, questions which belong rather to consciencethan to law, and for which a Church is a fitter tribunal--at any ratefor many ages hence--than a parliament or law court. There is room, therefore, for both a State and a Church, each of which should beinfluenced by the action of the other. 

I do not say that I personally should like to see the Church of Rome asat present constituted in the position which I should be glad to seeattained by an ideal Church. If it were in that position I would attackit to the utmost of my power; but I have little hesitation in thinkingthat the world with a very possible feasible Church, would be betterthan the world with no Church at all; and, if so, I have still lesshesitation in concluding, for the reasons already given, that it is toRome we must turn as the source from which the Church of the future isto be evolved, if it is to come at all. 

For the new, if it is to strike deep root and be permanent, must growout of the old, without too violent a transition. Some violence therewill always be, even in the kindliest birth; but the less the better, and a leap greater than the one from Judaism to Christianity is notdesirable, even if it were possible. As a free-thinker, therefore, butalso as one who wishes to take a practical view of the manner in whichthings will, and ought to go, I neither expect to see the religions ofthe world come once for all to an end with the belief inChristianity--which to me is tantamount to saying with Rome--nor am I atall sure that such a consummation is more desirable than likely to comeabout. The ultimate fight will, I believe, be between Rome andPantheism; and the sooner the two contending parties can be ranged intotheir opposite camps by the extinction of all intermediate creeds, thesooner will an issue of some sort be arrived at. This will not happen inour time, but we should work towards it. 

When it arrives, what is to happen? Is Pantheism to absorb Rome, and, ifso, what sort of a religious formula is to be the result? or is Rome soto modify her dogmas that the Pantheist can join her without doing toomuch violence to his convictions? We who are outside the Church's paleare in the habit of thinking that she will make little if any advancesin our direction. The dream of a Pantheistic Rome seems so wild ashardly to be entertained seriously; nevertheless I am much mistaken if Ido not detect at least one sign as though more were within the bounds ofpossibility than even the most sanguine of us could have hoped for a fewyears back. We do not expect the Church to go our whole length; it isthe business of some to act as pioneers, but this is the last function aChurch should assume. A Church should be as the fly-wheel of asteam-engine, which conserves, regulates and distributes energy, butdoes not originate it. In all cases it is more moral and safer to be alittle behind the age than a little in front of it; a Church, therefore, ought to cling to an old-established belief, even though her leadersknow it to be unfounded, so long as any considerable number of hermembers would be shocked at its abandonment. The question is whetherthere are any signs as though the Church of Rome thought the time hadcome when she might properly move a step forward, and I rejoice tothink, as I have said above, that at any rate one such sign--and a veryimportant one--has come under my notice. 

In his Encyclical of August 4, 1879, the Pope desires the Bishops andClergy to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas, and to spreadit far and wide. "Vos omnes, " he writes, "Venerabiles Fratres, quamenixe hortamur ut ad Catholicæ fidei tutelam et decus, ad societatisbonum, ad scientiarum omnium incrementum auream Sancti Thomæ sapientiamrestituatis, et quam latissime propagetis. " He proceeds then with thefollowing remarkable passage: "We say the wisdom of St. Thomas. Forwhatever has been worked out with too much subtleness by the doctors ofthe schools, or handed down inconsiderately, whatever is not consistentwith the teachings of a later age, or finally, is in any way NOTPROBABLE, We in no wise intend to propose for acceptance in thesedays. "[386]

It would be almost possible to suppose that these words had been writteninadvertently, so the Pope practically repeats them thus: "We willinglyand gratefully declare that whatsoever can be excepted with advantage, is to be excepted, no matter by whom it has been invented. "[387]

The passage just quoted is so pregnant that a few words of comment maybe very well excused. In the first place, I cannot but admire thelatitude which the Pope not only tolerates, but enjoins: he definesnothing, but declares point blank that if we find anything in St. ThomasAquinas "not consistent with the assured teachings of a later age, orfinally IN ANY WAY NOT PROBABLE"--(what is not involved here?)--we are"in no wise to suppose" that it is being proposed for our acceptance. But it is a small step from allowing latitude in accepting or rejectingthe parts of St. Thomas Aquinas which conflict with the assured resultof later discoveries to allowing a similar latitude in respect, we willsay, of St. Jude; and if of St. Jude, then of St. James the Less; and ifof St. James the Less, then surely ere very long of St. James theGreater and St. John and St. Paul; nor will the matter stop there. Howmarvellously closely are the two extremes of doctrine approaching to oneanother! We, on the one hand, who begin with _tabulæ rasæ_ having made aclean sweep of every shred of doctrine, lay hold of the first thing wecan grasp with any firmness, and work back from it. We grope our way toevolution; through this to purposive evolution; through this to theomnipresence of mind and design throughout the universe; what is thisbut God? So that we can say with absolute freedom from _équivoque_ thatwe are what we are through the will of God. The theologian, on the otherhand, starts with God, and finds himself driven through this toevolution, as surely as we found ourselves driven through evolution tothe omnipresence of God. 

Let us look a little more closely at the ground which the Church of Romeand the Evolutionist hold in common. St. Paul speaks of there being "onebody and one spirit, " and of one God as being "above all, and throughall, and in you all. "[388] Again, he tells us that we are members ofGod's body, "of his flesh and of his bones;"[389] in another place hewrites that God has reconciled us to himself, "in the body of hisflesh, "[390] and in yet another of the Spirit of God "dwelling inus. "[391] St. Paul indeed is continually using language which impliesthe closest physical as well as spiritual union between God and those atany rate of mankind who were Christians. Then he speaks of our "beingbuilded together for an habitation of God through the spirit, "[392] andof our being "filled with the fulness of God. "[393] He calls Christianmen's bodies "temples of the Holy Spirit, "[394] in fact it is not toomuch to say that he regarded Christian men's limbs as the actual livingorgans of God himself, for the expressions quoted above--and many otherscould be given--come to no less than this. It follows that since any mancould unite himself to "the flesh and bones" of God by becoming aChristian, Paul had a perception of the unity at any rate of human life;and what Paul admitted I am persuaded the Church of Rome will not deny. 

Granted that Paul's notion of the unity of all mankind in one spiritanimating, or potentially animating the whole was mystical, I submitthat the main difference between him and the Evolutionist is that thefirst uses certain expressions more or less prophetically, and withoutperhaps a full perception of their import; while the second uses thesame expressions literally, and with the ordinary signification attachedto the words that compose them. It is not so much that we do not holdwhat Paul held, but that we hold it with the greater definiteness andcomprehension which modern discovery has rendered possible. We not onlyaccept his words, but we extend them, and not only accept them asarticles of faith to be taken on the word of others, but as soprofoundly entering into our views of the world around us that thatworld loses the greater part of its significance if we may not take suchsayings as that "we are God's flesh and his bones" as meaning neithermore nor less than what appears upon the face of them. We believe thatwhat we call our life is part of the universal life of the Deity--whichis literally and truly made manifest to us in flesh that can be seen andhandled--ever changing, but the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 

So much for the closeness with which we have come together on matters offact, and now for the _rapprochement_ between us in respect of how muchconformity is required for the sake of avoiding schism. We findourselves driven through considerations of great obviousness andsimplicity to the conclusion that a man both may and should keep nosmall part of his opinions to himself, if they are too widely differentfrom those of other people for the sake of union and the strength gainedby concerted action; and we also find the Pope declaring of one of thebrightest saints and luminaries of the Church that we need not followhim when it is plainly impossible for us to do so. Is it so very much tohope that ere many years are over the approximation will become closerstill?

I have sometimes imagined that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility maybe the beginning of a way out of the difficulty, and that its promoterswere so eager for it, rather for the facilities it afforded for therepealing of old dogmas than for the imposition of new ones. The Popecannot, even now, under any circumstances, declare a dogma of the Churchto be obsolete or untrue, but I should imagine he can, in council, _excathedra_, modify the interpretation to be put upon any dogma, if heshould find the interpretation commonly received to be prejudicial tothe good of the Church: and if so, the manner in which Rome can putherself more in harmony with the spirit of recent discoveries, withoutputting herself in an illogical position, is not likely to escape eyesso keen as those of the Catholic hierarchy. No sensible man willhesitate to admit that many an interpretation which was natural to andsuitable for one age is unnatural to and unsuitable for another; ascircumstances are always changing, so men's moods and the meanings theyattach to words, and the state of their knowledge changes; and hence, also, the interpretation of the dogmas in which their conclusions aresummarized. There is nothing to be ashamed of or that needs explainingaway in this; nothing can remain changeless under changed conditions;and that institution is most likely to be permanent which containsprovision for such changes as time may prove to be expedient, with theleast disturbance. I can see nothing, therefore, illogical or that needsconcealment in the fact of an infallible Pope putting a widely differentinterpretation upon a dogma now, to what a no less infallible Pope putupon the same dogma fifteen hundred, or even fifteen years ago; it isonly right, reasonable, and natural that this should be so. The Churchof England may have made no provision for the virtual pruning off ofdogmas that have become rudimentary, but the Encyclical from which Ihave just quoted leads me to think that the Church of Rome has foundone, and, in her own cautious way, is proceeding to make use of it. Ifso, she may possibly in the end get rid of Protestantism by puttingherself more in harmony with the spirit of the age than Protestantismcan do. In this case, the spiritual reunion of Christendom under Romeceases to be impossible, or even, I should think improbable. I heartilywish that my conjecture concerning future possibilities is notunfounded. 

Scientists have been right in preaching evolution, but they havepreached it in such a way as to make it almost as much of astumbling-block as of an assistance. For though the fact that animalsand plants are descended from a common stock is accepted by the greaterand more reasonable part of mankind, these same people feel that theevidence in favour of design in the universe is no less strong than thatin favour of evolution, and our scientists, for the most part, uphold atheory of evolution of which the cardinal doctrine is that design andevolution have nothing to do with one another; the jar they raise, therefore, is as bad as the jar they have allayed. 

It has been the object of the foregoing work to show that those who takethis line are wrong, and that evolution not only tolerates design, butcannot get on without it. The unscrupulousness with which I have beenattacked, together with the support given me by the general public, aresufficient proofs that I have not written in vain. 

FOOTNOTES:

[384] P. 371. 

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

[386] "Sapientiam Sancti Thomæ dicimus: si quid enim est a doctoribusscholasticis vel nimia subtilitate quæsitum, vel parum consideratetraditum, si quid cum exploratis posterioris ævi doctrinis minuscohærens, vel denique quoque modo non probabile, id nullo pacto in animoest ætate nostra ad imitandum proponi. "

[387] "Edicimus libenti gratoque animo excipiendum esse quidquidutiliter fuerit a quopiam inventum atque excogitatum. "

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

[389] Eph. V. 30. 

[390] Col. I. 22. 

[391] Rom. Viii. 2. 

[392] Eph. Ii. 22. 

[393] Eph. Iii. 19. 

[394] 1 Cor. Vii. 19. 

INDEX

ABORTION, neutralization of working bees an act of, 250

Accessory touches, varying Buffon on, 92

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

---- profiting by, 51, 53

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

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

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

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

Accidental variations thrown for as with dice, 3

Accumulation of variations, C. Darwin deals with the, and not with the origin of, 340, 341

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

Accurate, survival of fittest more accurate than Nat. Sel. And _sometimes_ equally convenient, 9, 354, 365

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

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

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

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

Aldrovandus, Buffon on the learned, 93

Alive, when we must not say that an animal is alive (to be retracted), 279

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

---- on the decay of criticism, 388

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

Alternations of fat and lean years, Buffon on, 125

Amoeba, the, did not conceive the idea of an eye and work towards it, 43, 44, 384

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

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

Ape, the, and man, 90

Apes and monkeys, Buffon on, 153

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

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

Appearances, rather superficial, our only guide to classification, 34, 35, 36, 198, 204

Appetency, Paley's argument against the view that structures have been developed through, 22, 45

Aristides, C. Darwin as just as, 363

Aristotle denied teleology, 4

Artificial and real foot, differences between, 25

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

Ass, the, and horse, Buffon's pregnant passage on their relationship, 80, 90, 91, 100, 101, 142, 143, 155, 164, 311

Authority, a hard thing to weigh, 253

BACON, F. , on evolution, 69

Balzac, quotation from, on memory and instinct, 67

Bark, Erasmus Darwin's theory of, 208

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

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

Beetles, Madeira, Lamarck and C. Darwin's views of their winglessness compared, 373, 380

Begin, How could the eye _begin_? 46, 47

Beginnings, of complex structures, a difficulty in the way of natural selection, 21, 22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---- nests, Dr. Erasmus Darwin's failure to connect the power to make them with memory, 201, 203

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

Bishop, and Evêque, common derivation of, 355

Blindfolded, we are so far, that we can see a few steps in front, but no more, 44

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

Blindly, forces interacting blindly, 59

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

Brain, Lamarck had brain upon the brain, 36

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

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

Breeding, and feeding, 222

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

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

Buffalo, Buffon on the, 148, &c. 

Buffon, profoundly superficial, 34

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

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

---- ignorance concerning, 61

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

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

---- ironical character of his work and method (_see_ Irony), 78, &c. , 171

---- on the ass, horse, and zebra, 80, 90, 91, 100, 101, 142, 143, 155, 164, 311

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

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

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

---- if a single species has ever been found under domestication, &c. , 91

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

---- his compromise, 92

---- accessory touches, 92

---- "_especially_" the same, 96

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

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

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

---- chapter on the _dégénération des animaux_, equivalent to "on descent with modification, " 104, &c. 

---- difference of opinion between him and Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, 105

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---- on hybridism, 117, 118

---- rudimentary organs, 120

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

---- deals with these early, as giving him the best opportunities for illustrating the theory of evolution, 276

---- approaches natural selection in his "by _some chance_ common enough in Nature, " 122

---- preaching on the hare when he should have preached on the rabbit out of pure love of mischief, 123

---- resumption of feral characteristics, 123

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

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

---- equilibrium of Nature, 125

---- "au réel, " 126

---- on violent death, 126

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

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

---- the carnivora, 126

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

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

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

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

---- the diaphragm, 129

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

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

---- on the meninges, 132

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

---- on scientific orthodoxy and mystification, 138

---- on the relativity of science, 140

---- on nomenclature and knowledge, 141

---- on the genus _felis_, 143

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

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

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

---- on extinct species, 146

---- hates the new world, 146

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

---- approaches Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, _re_ the Buffalo, Camel, and Llama, 148, 160, 161

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

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

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

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

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

---- on plants under domestication, 167

---- on pigeons and fowls, 169

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

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

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

---- Colonel, 75

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

Bull running, Tutbury, and Erasmus Darwin, 187

CAMEL, Buffon on the hereditary ills of the, 161

Cant, and rudimentary organs, 38

Captandum, all good things are done ad, 85

Carnivora, Buffon on the, 126

Carriage, Dr. Erasmus Darwin's, 181

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

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

Cataclysms, the good cells that get exterminated during the cataclysms of our own development, 75

Catastrophes, Lamarck on, 277

Causes, or "means, " of modification, 301

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

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

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

Charity, the greatest of these is, 77

Church, a, like a second chamber, 400

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

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

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

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

Classification, rather superficial appearances our best guide to, 34, 35, 36, 198, 204

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

Clear, an ineradicable tendency to make things, 92

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

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

Coherency, the persistency of ideas the best argument in support of their legitimate connection, 23

Coleridge, on "Darwinising, " 21

Common terms, our, involve the connection between memory and heredity, 201, 205

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

Comparative anatomy, Lamarck on, 266, &c. 

Complex structures, the incipiency of, a difficulty in the way of the natural selection view of evolution, 21, 22

Compromise, Buffon's, 92

Conditions of existence, the very essence of condition involves that there shall be penalty in case of non-fulfilment, 352, 376, 377

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

---- according to C. Darwin, "include" and yet "are fully embraced by" natural selection, 355

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

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

---- Buffon on the, 103; difference between Buffon's and Lamarck's view of their action, 105

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

---- Lamarck on, 105, 268, 270, 271, 275, 277, 278, 281, 291, 292, 294, 295, 298, 299, 300, &c. 

Continuity in discontinuity, and _vice versâ_, 47

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

Contrivance, does organism show signs of this? 2

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

Corkscrew for corks, and lungs for respiration, Prof. Clifford on, 7. See also p. 58

---- we should have grown a, if drawing corks had been important to us, 7

Creator, a, who is not an organism, unintelligible, 6, 11, 24

Criticising, difficulty of, without knowing more than the mere facts which are to be criticised, 172

Criticism, Miss Seward's, on Dr. Darwin's "Elegy, " 189

---- Grant Allen on the decay of, 388

Crux, the, of the early evolutionist, 35

Cuttle-fish, natural selection like the secretion of a, 332

DAMNATION, praising with faint, 111

Darwin, Charles, on the eye, denies design, 8

---- declares variation to be the cause of variation, 8, 347, 369

---- and blind chance working on whither; the accumulation of innumerable lucky accidents, 41, 42

---- our indebtedness to, 62, 66, 335

---- has adopted one half of Isidore Geoffroy's conclusion without verifying either, 83

---- on Buffon's fluctuation of opinion, 97

---- on Isidore Geoffroy, 97

---- his assertion that Buffon has not entered on the "causes or means" of transformation, 104

---- his meagre notice of his grandfather, 196

---- his treatment of the author of the "Vestiges of Creation, " 65, 247, 248

---- attributes the characteristics of neuter insects to natural selection, 249

---- his treatment of Lamarck, 249, 250, 251, 298, 314, 376

---- "great is the power of steady misrepresentation, " 251

---- his "happy simplicity" about animals and plants under domestication, 276

---- his notice of Mr. Patrick Matthew in the imperfect historical sketch which he has prefaced to the "Origin of Species, " 315, 316

---- points of agreement between him and Lamarck, 335-337

---- sees no broad principle underlying variation, 339

---- dwells on the accumulation of variations, the origination of which he leaves unaccounted for, 340, 341

---- his variations being due to no general underlying principle, will not tend to appear in definite directions, nor to many individuals at a time, nor to be constant for long together, 342

---- speaks of natural selection as a cause of modification, while declaring it to be a means only, 345, &c. 

---- his explanation of this, 384, &c. 

---- his dilemma, as regards the "Origin of Species, " 346

---- declares the fact of variation to be the cause of variation, 8, 347, 369

---- if he had told us more of what Buffon, &c. , said, and where they were wrong, he would have taken a course, &c. , 357

---- on the ease with which we can hide our ignorance under a cloud of words, 358

---- apologizes for having underrated the frequency and importance of variation due to spontaneous variability, 358

---- his "Origin of Species" like the opinion of a lawyer who wanted to leave loopholes, or an Act of Parliament full of repealed and inserted clauses, 358

---- accused of confusion and inaccuracy of thought, 359

---- as just as Aristides himself, 364

---- most candid literary opponent in the world, 364

---- declares Nature to be the most important means of modification, and variation to be the cause of variations, 369

---- like a will-o'-the-wisp, 372

---- disuse, the main agent in reducing wings of Madeira beetles, 377

---- how he and Lamarck treat the winglessness of Madeira beetles respectively, 373-380

---- an example of his "manner, " 378

---- the way in which he met "Evolution, Old and New, " 393

Darwin, Erasmus, never quite recognized design, 39

---- ignorance concerning, 61

---- on reason and instinct, 115, &c. 

---- life of, 173, &c. 

---- in Nottingham market-place, 182, 184, 197

---- and Dr. Johnson, 184, 185

---- and Tutbury bull running, 187

---- his poetry about the pump, and illustration, 84, 193

---- should have given his evolution theory a book to itself, 197

---- had no wish to see far beyond the obvious, 197

---- must be admitted to have missed detecting Buffon's humour, 83, 84, 197

---- did not attribute instincts and structures to memory pure and simple, 198

---- on the reasoning powers of animals, and on instinct, 201, 205

---- his failure to connect memory and instinct, as with birds' nests, 201-203

---- failed to see the four main propositions which I contended for in "Life and Habit, " 37, 203, 204

---- on the analogies between animal and vegetable life, 206, &c. 

---- on sensitive plants, 206, 210

---- on the individuality of buds, and his theory of bark, 207, 208

---- on the movements of climbing plants, 209

---- on the oneness of personality between parents and offspring, 214; the embryo not a new animal, 215

---- on animals under domestication, 223

---- on the effects of accidents transmitted to offspring, 224

---- sees struggle, and hence modification, turn mainly round three great wants, 226, 229, 257, 279

---- on desire as a means of modification, 226, 228, 259

---- by a slip approaches the error of his grandson, 227, 228

---- on embryonic metamorphoses, 230, 231

---- believed animals and plants to be descended from a common stock, 233

---- and Lamarck compared, 257

---- on the struggle of existence, and the survival of the fittest, 227, 232, 259

Darwin, Mrs. Erasmus, death-bed of, 178

Darwin, Francis, mentioned, 109

---- his interesting lecture, 206

---- does not use the expression "natural selection, " 368

Darwinising, Coleridge on, 21

Darwinism, the old Darwinism involves desire, invention, and design, 58

---- modern, falling into disfavour, 60

---- and evolution not to be confounded, 360, 361

Day, the portrait of, by Wright of Derby, 180

Death, violent, Buffon on, 126

---- of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 193, 194

Death-bed of Mrs. Erasmus Darwin, 178

Deed, illustration drawn from a very intricate, 28

Definite, with Lamarck the variations are, 341, 344

_Dégénérations_, 87

Demand and supply, like power and desire, 222, 300

Demonstrative case, "this demonstrative case of neuter insects, &c. , " 249, 298, 314

Descent, with modification, spoken of as though synonymous with natural selection, 248, 356

Design, and organism, shall we or shall we not connect these ideas? 2

---- Aristotle denied, Plato upheld, Haeckel on, 4

---- Prof. Clifford's denial of, 6, 7

---- does certainly involve a designer who has an organism, who can think, and make mistakes, 6, 24

---- a belief in both design and evolution, commonly held to be incompatible, 9

---- Sir W. Thomson and Sir J. Herschel on, 11

---- Paley on, 12, &c. 

---- light thrown by embryology on the method of, 25

---- G. H. Lewes opposes, 26

---- the three positions in respect to, taken by Charles Darwin, Paley, and the earlier evolutionists, 31

---- the first evolutionists did not see that their view of evolution involved design, 34

---- from within as much design as from without, 36

---- was equivalent to theological design, with the early evolutionists, 36

---- if each step is taken designedly, the whole is done designedly, 52, 384

---- and accident, the line between them hard to draw; shaking the bag, &c. , 53, 384

---- instinct originated in, 54

---- as much lost sight of with old-established forms of the steam-engine as with birds' nests or the wheel, 55

---- Dr. E. Darwin's failure to see that evolution involves design, 195

---- we feel the want of, as much as we do of evolution, 407

---- evolution not only tolerates, but cannot get on without, 408

Designer, "I believe in an organic and tangible designer of every complex structure, " 6

---- "where is he? show him to us, " &c. , 29, 30

---- the, of any organism, the organism itself, 30, 31, 40

Desire and power, interaction of, 44, 45, 47, 127, 217, 221, 300, 322

---- and power, like wealth, 222

---- as a means of modification, Dr. Erasmus Darwin on, 226, 228, 259

Development, the history of organic, the history of a moral struggle, 45

---- always due to making the best of the present, 50

Devils, 20, 000, dancing a saraband on the point of a needle, 216

Dew drop, or lens, the, and Lord Rosse's telescope, 44, 47

Diaphragm, Buffon on the, 129

Dice, accidental variations thrown for as with, 3

Difference between animal and ordinary mechanism, 24

---- the main, between the manufacture of tools and that of organs, 39

Dilemma, C. Darwin's, 346

Direct action of changed conditions, Buffon on the, 105, 145, 147, 160

Discontinuity in continuity, 47

Disease, accidents followed by, 303

Disintegration, Protestantism tends towards, 397

Distribution, geographical, changed, Buffon on, 145, 164

Disuse, and the winglessness of Madeira beetles, we are almost surprised to find that they are connected at all, 375

---- the main agent in reducing the wings of Madeira beetles, 377

---- some examples of the effect of, adduced by Lamarck, 378

Dog, Buffon on the, 120

---- Lamarck on the various breeds of the, 297

Domestication, a single case of a species formed under domestication sufficient to remove the _à priori_ difficulty from a comprehensive theory of evolution, 90, 91, 311

---- plants under, Buffon on, 167, &c. 

---- Buffon on animals under, 103, 120, &c. , 148, &c. , 159, &c. , 276

---- animals under, Dr. Erasmus Darwin on, 223

---- animals under, Buffon on, 121, &c. , 148, 276

---- C. Darwin on, 276

---- animals and plants under, Lamarck on, 275, 293, 296, 297, 300

---- animals and plants under, Mr. Patrick Matthew on, 324

Door, the doing anything well will open the door for doing something else, 51

Ducks, our domesticated, why they cannot fly like wild ones, 296, 309

EARN, "you are but doing your best to earn an honest living, " 29

Ears are never found in a rudimentary condition, 379

Eat, or be eaten, 177

Effort, Paley's argument that structures have not been developed through, 22, 45

---- too much, as vicious as indolence, 35

---- "neither too much nor too little, " 50

---- Herculean, condemned, 197

Egyptian mummies, Lamarck on, 274, 275

Embryology, the light it throws upon the mode in which organisms have been designed, 25

Embryonic metamorphoses, Erasmus Darwin on, 230, 231

Embryonic development, Lamarck on, 289

Encyclical, the Pope's, on St. Thomas Aquinas, 402, &c. 

Endeavour, Paley's argument against the view that structures have been developed through, 22, 45

Endowment, the new orthodoxy, which is clamouring for, 360

English wines, Dr. Erasmus Darwin's preference for, 175

Environment. _See_ Conditions of Existence

Equilibrium, the, of Nature, Buffon on the, 125

Err, the power to, rated highly, 29

---- "it is on this margin that we may err or wander, " 50

---- virtue ever errs on the side of excess, 35

Error, importance of, dependent on the distance, rather than the direction, 50

"Especially" the same, 92, 96

Ethiopian, the, can change his skin, if it becomes worth his while to try long enough, 40

Evêque and bishop, common derivation of, 355

Everlasting, God, how far, 32

Evolution, commonly held incompatible with design, 9

---- Paley, its first serious opponent in England, 21

---- Sir Walter Raleigh on, 21, 70

---- must stand or fall according as it rests on a purposive foundation or no, 60

---- brief summary of its six principal stages, 62, &c. 

---- Bacon on, 69

---- the theory of, as apart from the evidence in support of it, 332

---- C. Darwin and Lamarck are equally intent upon establishing the same theory of evolution, 335-337

---- and Darwinism, not to be confounded, 360, 361

---- Rome and Pantheism meet in, 403

Evolutionists, the early, did not know that they accepted teleology, 34

---- the early, saw design, only as design by the God of theologians, 36

Experience and instinct, Mr. Patrick Matthew on, 322

Extinct species, Lamarck on, 277

---- Buffon on, 146, 277

Eye, no creature that had nothing like an eye ever set itself to conceive one and grow one, 44, 387

---- Paley asks "how will our philosopher get an eye?" 46

---- of flat fish, Lamarck on the, 307

---- Lamarck on the, of underground and cave-inhabiting animals, 378

---- disappear and reappear in the scale of organism according to the power of using them, 379

FAITH, forms of, or faiths of form, &c. , 339

Familiarity, with a little, such superficial objections will be forgotten, 367

Far ahead, no organism ever saw an improvement a long way off and made towards it, 43, 44, 48, 49, 54, 384

Father, the man who could be father of such a son and retain his affection, &c. , 76

Factors, there have been two, of modification, one producing and the other accumulating variations, 227

Fecundity, alternate years of, Buffon on, 125

Feeding and breeding, 222

Feel, if plants and animals look as if they feel, let us say they feel, 198

Feeling, there is more feeling than reason in animals, 51

Feral characteristics, resumption of, Buffon on, 123

Final causes, the doctrine of, as commonly held in the time of the early evolutionists, 34, 36

---- Buffon on, 118, &c. 

Fitness, the cause of, more important than the fact that fitness is commonly fit, and therefore successful, 351

Flat fish, Lamarck on the eyes of, 307

Fluctuation of opinion, C. Darwin on Buffon's, the charge refuted, 97, &c. , 164, 166

Fontenelle, on theories, 22

Foot, and model of foot, differences between, 24

Forms of faith, or faiths of form, &c. , 339

Four main points which the early evolutionists failed to see in their connection and bearing on each other, 37, 203

Four main principles, the, which I contended for in "Life and Habit, " 37, 203, 380, 381

Fowls and pigeons, Buffon on, 169

GARNETT, Mr. R. , and "Darwinising, " 21

Genius, Mr. Allen says I am a, 388

Gentleman, the Church of Rome means the same by the word as we do, 395

Geoffroy, Étienne, how small a way he goes, 196

---- and Isidore, trimmers, 328

---- on Buffon, 328

---- on conditions of existence, 326, 327

---- declares against Lamarck's hypothesis, 328

---- his position, 325-328

Geoffroy, Isidore, on evolution and final causes, 9

---- on Buffon's fluctuation of opinion, 98, &c. , 164, 166

---- points out the difference between the views of Buffon and Lamarck, 105

---- statement that Buffon's opinions fluctuated again refuted, 166

---- and Lamarck's hypothesis, 244-246, 329

---- on Buffon, 328

---- his position, 329

Genealogical order, Lamarck on, 264

---- C. Darwin on, 265

Generation more remarkable than reason, Hume on, 233

Generic differences (as well as specific), Buffon on, 164

Genius, a supreme capacity for taking pains, 76

Geographical distribution, changed, Buffon on, 145, &c. , 164

Geometrical ratio of increase, Buffon on, 123

---- Lamarck, on, 280

---- Patrick Matthew on, 320, 321

Germ of oak indistinguishable from that of a man, 334

Germans, Buffon on the, 93

Glory "comes after labour if she can, " &c. , 76

Go away, because their uncles, aunts, 376

God, embodied in living forms, and dwelling in them, 31

---- how far everlasting, invisible, imperishable, omnipotent, &c. , 32

---- the unseen parts of, are as a deep-buried history, 33

Goethe, as an evolutionist, 71

Gradations infinitely subtle, 87

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

---- on the decay of criticism, 388

---- says that "Evolutionism is an almost exclusively English impulse, " 393

Greyhound or racehorse, the well-adapted form of the, 359

Growth attended at each step by a felicitous tempering of two antagonistic principles, 35

Gueneau de Montbeillard, 172, 173

HABIT, " "Life and. _See_ "Life and Habit. "

---- rudimentary organs repeated through mere force of, 38, 39

---- Buffon on, 148, 159, 160, 161, 162

---- a second Nature, Lamarck on, 300

Habits, or use, and organ, Lamarck on the interaction of, 292, 311

Haeckel, on design, 4, 5

---- on Goethe as an evolutionist, 71

---- does not appear to know of Buffon as an evolutionist, 71, 393

---- his surprising statement concerning Lamarck, 73

---- his ignorance concerning Erasmus Darwin, 73, 393

---- on Lamarck, 246, 247

---- A. R. Wallace's review of his "Evolution of Man, " 382, 384

Hamlet, the "Origin of Species" like "Hamlet" without Hamlet, 363

Handiest, a man should do whatever comes handiest, 51, 52

Hare, Buffon on the, 123, &c. 

Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, and "Life and Habit, " 56, 57

Hearing, when we once reach animals so low as to have no organ of, we lose this organ for good and all, 379

Heredity and habit, Buffon on, 148, 159, 160, 161, 162

---- only another term for unknown causes, unless the "Life and Habit" theory be adopted, 384

Hering, Professor, referred to, 66, 67

---- his theory as given in "Nature" by Ray Lankester, 198-200

Herschel, Sir John, compares natural selection to the Laputan method of making books, 10

Higgling and haggling of the market, 50

History of the universe, each organism is a, from its own point of view, 31

Horse and ass, Buffon's most pregnant passage on the, 80, 90, 91, 100, 101, 142, 143, 155, 164, 311

---- and man, skeleton of the, 88, 89

---- and zebra, Buffon on the, example of irony, 80, 155, 164

Hume, his saying that generation is more remarkable than reason, 233

Huxley, Professor, referred to, 93

---- pointed out to Professor Mivart the difficulty in the way of natural selection, 344

---- his ignorance concerning the earlier history of evolution, 392, 393

Hybridism, Buffon on, 117, 118

Hybrids, sterility of, Lamarck on, and C. Darwin on, 272, 273

IDEAS, the bond or nexus of our, 23, 29, 30

Ignorance, the prevailing, concerning the earlier evolutionists, 61

---- it is easy to hide our, under such expressions as "plan of creation, " or natural selection, 358

Imitation, instinct not referable to, as maintained by Erasmus Darwin, 202

Immutability of species and design commonly accepted together, 9, 10

Improvements, small successive, in man's inventions, 44, 46, 47, 54, 55, 384

Inaccuracy of thought, C. Darwin accused of, 359

Incipiency, of complex structures, a difficulty in the way of the Natural selection view of evolution, 21, 22

Incorporate, the designer is, with the organism, 30

Increase, geometrical ratio of Buffon on the, 123

---- Lamarck on, 280

---- Patrick Matthew on, 320, 321

Indefinite, with C. Darwin the variations are, 342, 344

Indifference, I say I am more indifferent than I think I am, whether mind is or is not the least misleading symbol for the cause that sustains the universe, 371

Indirect action of conditions of existence according to Lamarck, 294, 299, 306. (_See_ "Conditions of Existence")

Individuality, Buffon on, 128

---- of buds, Erasmus Darwin on the, 207, 208

---- our, a _consensus_, or full-flowing river, 318

Infallibility, possible results of the doctrine of Papal, 406

Insectivorous plants, Erasmus Darwin on, 206

Instep, ligament that binds the tendons of the, Paley on the, 22

Instinct, present, does not bar its having arisen in reason and reflection, 53, 54

---- returns to its earlier phase, _i. E. _ to reason on the presence of the unfamiliar, 54, 55, 56

---- and reason, Buffon on, 110-116

---- Darwin, Erasmus, on, 115, 116, 204

---- not referable to imitation, as maintained by Erasmus Darwin, 202

---- is reason become habitual, 203

---- reason perfected and got by rote, 256

---- and reason, Lamarck on, 256, 257, 274

---- referred to experience and memory, by Patrick Matthew, 322

Insult, "Evolution, Old and New, " not intended as an insult to men of science, 392

Interaction of want and power, 44, 45, 47, 217, 218, 221, 300, 323

---- of body and mind, Lamarck on the, 338, 339, 341

Interesting, the more interesting the animal the more evolution Buffon puts into his account of it, 84

Intermediate forms, Lamarck on, 283, 286

---- C. Darwin, 284, 285

Inventions, small successive improvements in man's, and development of, analogous to that of organism, 44, 46, 47, 54, 55, 384

Irony, good-natured and the reverse, 91

---- an apology for, and explanation how far it is legitimate, 111, 112

---- Buffon's, 78, &c. , 91, 92, 93, 155, 157, 163, 164

JARDINE, Sir W. , on Buffon's character, 82

Johnson, Dr. , and Erasmus Darwin, 184, 185

Joints, Paley on the human, 19, 20

Juggle, Paley's argument a juggle, unless man has had a _bonâ fide_ personal, and therefore organic designer, 14, 16

KNEE-PAN, Paley on the human, 18

Knowledge, nomenclature mistaken for, 141

LABOUR, glory comes after, if she can, 76

Lamarck, had brain upon the brain, 36

---- never quite recognized design, 39

---- Haeckel's surprising statement concerning, 73

---- wherein he mainly differs from Buffon, 105

---- memoir of, 235

---- his connection with Buffon, as tutor to his son, &c. , 237, 258

---- his daughters, 242, 253

---- his poverty and blindness, 242, 253

---- Isidore Geoffroy on, bad caricature of his teaching, 244-246

---- Haeckel on, 246, 247

---- never seriously discussed, 247

---- "the well-known doctrine of, " C. Darwin's reference to, 249, 250, 251, 298, 314, 376

---- on the opposition his theory met with, 252

---- too old to have begun his unequal contest, 253

---- on the feeling of animals, 254, 255

---- too theory-ridden, 254

---- misled by Buffon (query), 255

---- took from Buffon without sufficient acknowledgment, 255, 258, 260, 311

---- as compared with Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 257

---- like Dr. E. Darwin, sees struggle and modification turn mainly round three great wants, 257, 279, 300, 309

---- when and how he came over to the side of mutability, 258

---- and the French translation of the "Loves of the Plant, " 259

---- on comparative anatomy, 266

---- on species, 267, &c. 

---- on conditions of existence (_circonstances_), 105, 268, 270, 271, 275, 277, 278, 281, 291, 292, 294, 295, 298, 299, 300, &c. 

---- on instinct, 274

---- on animals and plants under domestication, 275, 293, 296, 297, 300

---- on extinct species, 277

---- anticipated Lyell in rejecting catastrophes, 277

---- on the geometrical ratio of increase and struggle for existence, 280-282

---- on embryonic development, 289

---- the main principles which he supposes to underlie variations, 292, 299, 338, 339

---- his contention that plants have neither actions nor habits, 295

---- on use and disuse, 294, 296, 299, 301, 302, 304, 305, 307-309

---- on the various breeds of the dog, 297

---- habit a second nature, 300

---- like Erasmus Darwin and Buffon, understood the survival of the fittest, 301

---- on the way in which serpents have lost their legs, 303

---- on wading and aquatic birds, 305

---- on the eyes of flat fish, 307

---- on man, 311, &c. 

---- on a single instance of considerable variation under domestication, 311

---- on speech, 313, 314

---- on the upright position of man and certain apes, 313

---- his, and Étienne Geoffroy's views on conditions of existence, 326, 327, 328

---- his hypothesis, and Isidore Geoffroy, 329

---- Herbert Spencer on, 330, 331

---- desired to discover the law underlying variations, 337

---- the extent to which he and C. Darwin take common ground, 335-337

---- on body and mind, 338, 339, 341

---- on his theory variations will be definite, will appear in large numbers of individuals at the same time, for long periods together, 341

---- how he and C. Darwin treat the winglessness of Madeira beetles respectively, 373-380

---- on the eyes and ears of cave-inhabiting animals, 378, 379

Laputan method of making books, the, and natural selection, 11

Lawyer's deed, if we come across a very intricate, &c. , 27

Leopard, the, can change his spots if it becomes worth his while to try long enough, 40

Lewes, G. H. , on embryology, 25

---- his objection to the tentativeness with which the same errors are repeated generation after generation, 26

---- his objection to C. Darwin's language concerning natural selection, 346

Lewes, G. H. , on natural selection, 348, 349, 359

Life, some remarks about the criterion of, that I must retract, 279

---- one Proteus principal of, 320

"Life and Habit, " what I believe to have been its most important features, 67, 203, 204

---- recapitulation of the main principle insisted on, 37, 56, 203, 380, 381, 384

---- and Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, German review, 56, 57

Lifetime, considerable modifications effected during a single, 304

---- the changes undergone by organisms during a single, Herbert Spencer, on, 332-334

Ligament, the, which binds down the tendons of the instep, 21

Living, Paley is but doing his best to earn an honest, 29

---- forms of faith, or faiths of form, 339

Lines, no sharp can be drawn, 47

Lion and tiger, Buffon on the, 143, 145

Llama, Buffon on the hereditary ills of the, 161

Longevity, the principle underlying, 67, 380, 381

Loopholes for escape, the "Origin of Species" full of, 358

"Loves of the Plants, " French translation of the, 63, 259

Lungs for respiration, and corkscrew for corks, Professor Clifford on, 7. (_See_ also p. 58)

Lyell, Sir C. , and Lamarck, 277

---- on the similarity between Lamarck's theory and Mr. Darwin's, 336, 337

MACHINE, Paley declares animals to be neither wholly machines nor wholly not machines, 14

Madeira beetles, the ways in which Lamarck and C. Darwin would treat their winglessness, 373-380

Maillet, de, referred to, 70

Mainspring, the true, of our existence lies not in these muscles, &c. , 32

Man, the designer of man, 30

---- and horse, skeleton of the, 88, 89

---- and the ape, 90

---- and the lower animals, Buffon on, 107, 108

---- Lamarck on, 311, &c. 

Manner, the, is the man himself, 77

---- "but this is Mr. Darwin's", 378

Manufacture, the, of tools and of organs, two species of the same genus, 39

Margin, there is a margin in every organic structure, &c. , 49, 50

---- on the margin of the self-evident the greatest purchase is obtainable, 197

Market, the higgling and haggling of the, 50

Martins, M. , his life of Lamarck, 235, &c. 

Matter less important than the manner, 77

---- and mind, inseparable, 371

Matthew, Mr. Patrick, his work on naval timber and arboriculture, 64, 65

---- extracts from, 315, &c. 

---- Mr. C. Darwin on, 315

---- on animals and plants under domestication, 324

---- on will as influencing organism, 320, 321, 322

---- on the struggle for existence with survival of the fittest, 320, 322

---- and natural selection, 323

---- on instinct and memory, and on the continued personality of parents in offspring, 321, 322, 323

Means, C. Darwin's dangerous use of this word, 345

---- one _sine quâ non_ for a thing is as much a means of that thing's coming about as anything else is, 349

Mechanism of animals, Paley on the, 14

Mechanism of animals, evidence of design in any ordinary, 15

Memory, and life and heredity, 37, 38, 39, 56, 67, 198-203, 332, 380, 381

---- Professor Hering on, 198-200

---- Patrick Matthew on, 322

Meteoric, both want and power are, 44, 45

Meninges, Buffon on the, 132

Microcosm, each organism a history of the universe from its own point of view, 31

Microscope, illustration from successive improvements in the, 46, 47

Mind, "the least inadequate and misleading symbol, " for the power that has designed organism, 3, 371

---- and body, Lamarck on, 338, 339, 341

---- and matter inseparable, 371

Misfortune, take advantage of, 51

Misrepresentation, "great is the power of steady, " 251

Missionaries should avoid trying to effect sudden modifications, 183

Mistake, the power to make, rated highly, 29

---- importance of, depends on magnitude rather than on the direction, 50

Mivart, Professor, says that, "Mind is the least adequate and misleading symbol, " &c. , 3, 371

---- referred to, 22, 66, 67

---- admits that his objection does not tell against the Lamarckian theory of evolution, 343

---- points out that the admission of a principle underlying variations is fatal to C. Darwin's theory concerning natural selection, 343

---- on C. Darwin's "haphazard, indefinite variations, " 343

---- how Professor Huxley pointed out to him the objection to C. Darwin's theory concerning natural selection, 344

---- asks what is natural selection? and declares it to be repudiated by its propounder, 369

---- declares it to be "nothing, " and a puerile hypothesis, 370, 371

---- declares the causes of variation to be the causes of the distinction of species, 370

Model, artificial, of a foot, and true foot, difference between, 24

Modification. It is only on modification that reason reasserts itself, 55

---- there have been two factors of, one producing variations, and the other accumulating them, 227

---- arrived at by struggle round three great wants, Erasmus Darwin on, 226-229

---- Lamarck on the same, 257, 279, 300, 301

---- the cause of survival, not survival the cause of modification, 302

Moral, an organism is most, when looking a little ahead, but not too far, 44

---- struggle, the history of organic development, the history of a, 45

---- more, and safer, to be behind the age than in front of it, 401

Movement, Buffon's great criterion of sensation, 127

Mummies, Egyptian, Lamarck on, 274, 275

Murphy, Rev. J. J. , mentioned, 22

---- referred to, 66, 67

Mutability of species commonly held to be incompatible with a belief in design, 9, 10

Mystery-mongering, that Buffon wished to protest against, 81, 171

Mystification, scientific, and orthodoxy, Buffon on, 138

NAIVELY, as Mr. Darwin naively adds, "_sometimes_ equally convenient, " 354

Natural selection, the essence of the theory is that the variations shall have been mainly accidental, 7

Natural selection, the unerring skill of, 9

---- Sir William Thomson and Sir John Herschel on, 10

---- Button, and, "by _some chance_ common enough with Nature, " 122

---- spoken of as though synonymous with descent with modification, 248, 285, 356

---- C. Darwin attributes the instincts of neuter insects to, 249

---- Mr. Patrick Matthew and, 323

---- like the secretion of a cuttle-fish, 332

---- G. H. Lewes's objection to C. Darwin's language concerning, 346

---- if this is declared to be a cause, the fact of variation is declared to be the cause of variation, 347

---- declared by C. Darwin to be a means of variation, 347

---- treated as a cause, 348

---- G. H. Lewes on, 348, 349, 350

---- identity with "conditions of existence, " 351-354

---- according to C. Darwin, "fully embraces" and yet "is included in" conditions of existence, 355

---- a cloak for want of precision of thought, and of substantial difference from Lamarck, 358

---- "some have even imagined that it induces variability;" and small wonder, considering C. Darwin's language concerning it, 362

---- C. Darwin's reply to those who have objected to the term, 362-368

---- a cloak of difference from C. Darwin's predecessors, under which there lurks a concealed identity of opinion as to main facts, 362, 363

---- "implies only the preservation of such variations as arise, " &c. , 363

---- admitted by C. Darwin to be a false term, 364

---- the complaint is that the expression has been retained when an avowedly more accurate one is to hand, 365, 366

---- only another way of saying Nature, 368, 369

---- the dislike of it is increasing, 368, 369

---- Francis Darwin does not use the expression, 368, 369

---- daily and hourly scrutinizing throughout the world, &c. , 369

---- practically repudiated by C. Darwin himself, 369

---- Professor Mivart declares it to be "simply nothing, " 370

---- a "puerile hypothesis, " 371

---- and not disuse, the true main cause of the winglessness of Madeira beetles, according to C. Darwin, 374

---- _not_ the main cause of the winglessness of Madeira beetles, according to C. Darwin, 377

---- "combined probably with disuse, " will account, according to C. Darwin, for the winglessness of Madeira beetles, 375

_Naturalistes_, _le peuple des_, 80, 171

Nature, the personification of comparatively venial, 367

---- and natural selection the same thing, 368, 369

---- the most important means of modification, and variation the cause of variation, 369

Neck, Paley on the human, 17, 18

Need, sense of, the main idea in connection with evolution that is left with the reader by the "Zoonomia, " or "Philosophie Zoologique, " 363

Needle, 20, 000 devils dancing a saraband on the point of a, 216

Nest, a bird will alter its nest a little, to meet altered circumstances, 55

Nests, birds', Dr. E. Darwin on, 201

Neuter insects, "the demonstrative case of neuter insects, " &c. , 249, 298, 314

New countries, Buffon a hater of, 146

Nomenclature, mistaken for knowledge, 141

Nottingham market-place, Erasmus Darwin in, 182, 184, 197

OAK and man, the germs of, indistinguishable, 334

---- man may become as long-lived as the, 382

Obvious, Erasmus Darwin had no wish to see far beyond the, 197

Oken, alluded to, 72

Old age, the phenomena of, 67, 204, 381

---- and new worlds, Buffon on the fauna of, 145, &c. 

One source for all life, Buffon on, 91

---- Erasmus Darwin on, 109, 233

Oneness of personality between parents and offspring, 37, 38, 39

---- Buffon on the, 151

---- Erasmus Darwin and Professor Hering on the, 198-200

---- Dr. E. Darwin's failure to grasp the whole facts in connection with this, 198, 201, 203

---- Dr. E. Darwin on, 214, 215

---- Patrick Matthew on, 322, 323

---- mentioned, 332, 380, 381

Orang-outang, Buffon on the, 156-159

Organ and use. _See_ "Use. "

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

---- and faculty, Lamarck on, 255

Organs are living tools, 2

---- the manufacture of, and that of tools, two species of the same genus, 39, 43, &c. 

---- are the expressions of mental phases, 339, 341

Organic structures have a margin, 49, 50

Organic strictures and inorganic, Buffon on the, 153, &c. 

Organisms, have been developed as man's inventions have, 44, 46, 47, 384

"Origin of Species, " the, cannot take permanent rank in the literature of evolution, 62

---- has no _raison d'être_, if natural selection is not a cause of variation, 346

---- a piece of intellectual sleight of hand, 346

---- compared to the advice of a lawyer who wanted to leave plenty of loopholes, or to a cobbled Act of Parliament, 358

---- is "Hamlet" with the part of Hamlet cut out, 363

---- most readers would say that it advocated natural selection as the most important cause of variation, 363

---- and the "Zoonomia, " or the "Philosophie Zoologique"; the one upholds natural selection, the other, sense of need, 363

Orthodoxy, scientific, and mystification, Buffon on, 138

---- scientific, clamouring for endowment, 360

---- dangers of, 368

Overseeing tends to oversight, 197

PAINS, genius a supreme capacity for taking, 76

Painting, a man should do _something_, no matter what, 51, 52

Paley, quotations from, 12, &c. 

---- his argument a juggle, unless some one designed man, much as man designed the watch, 14, 16

---- on ordinary mechanism, as showing design, 15

---- on the human neck, 16, 17

---- on the patella, 18

---- on the joints, 19, 20

---- as a writer against evolution, 21

---- on the ligament that binds the tendons of the instep, 21, 22

---- opposes the view that structures have been formed through appetency, endeavour or effort, 22, 45

---- we turn on him and say, Show us your designer, 29

---- asks, How will our philosopher get an eye? 46

---- his "Natural Theology" written throughout at the "Zoonomia, " 195

---- never gives a reference when quoting an opponent, 195, 306

Pantheism and Rome will in the end be the two sole combatants, 401

---- common ground held by Rome and Pantheism, 403-405

---- of Paul, 404

Parents and offspring, oneness of personality between (_see_ "Personality")

Passions, of like passions, men of science are, with other pastors and prophets, 253

Patella, or knee-pan, Paley on the, 18

Paul, St. , his pantheistic tendencies, 404

---- we want to accept him literally, 405

Peace, the, that passeth understanding, 35

Perception and sensation, Buffon on the difference between, 129, 130

Personality, oneness of, between parents and offspring, 37, 38, 39

---- Buffon on the, 151

---- Erasmus Darwin and Professor Hering on the, 198-200

---- Erasmus Darwin's failure to grasp the whole conception, 198, 201, 203

---- Erasmus Darwin on the, 214, 215

---- Patrick Matthew on the, 322, 323

---- mentioned, 332, 380, 381

Personification, the, of Nature, comparatively venial, 367

Pessimism: "Which is the pessimist I or Mr. Darwin?" 59

Peuple des Naturalistes, le, 80, 171

"Philosophie Zoologique, " summary of, 261-314

---- the, leaves "sense of need" on the reader's mind; the "Origin of Species, " natural selection, 363

Pig, Buffon on the, 118, &c. 

Pigeons and fowls, Buffon on, 169

Plaisanterie, Button's disclaimer of, 93

Planted upside down, the vertebrata regarded as vegetables, 137

Plants under domestication, Buffon on, 167, &c. 

---- Dr. Erasmus Darwin, on the life of, 206, &c. 

---- Lamarck's assertion that they have no action nor habits, 294, 295

Plato upheld teleology, 4

_Plus il a su_, &c. , 44

Poem, a, by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 189

Poetry, Dr. Erasmus Darwin's, 83, 189, 193

Pope's shoes, scientists would step into the, if we would let them, 360, 394

Portrait of Mr. Day, author of "Sandford and Merton, " 180

Potto, the missing forefinger of the, 303

Power and desire, interaction of, 44, 45, 47, 127, 217, 221, 300, 323

Praising, with faint damnation, 111

Prescience, need not extend over more than the next step, and yet the whole road may have been travelled presciently, 52, 384

Present, development due to a wise use of the, 50-52

Probable, whatever in the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas is not probable is to be rejected, 402, 403

Proficiency is due to design if each step was taken designedly, though the end was not far foreseen, 52, 384

Protestantism tends towards disintegration, 396

Proteus principle of life, one, 320

Pump, Erasmus Darwin's poetry about the, 84, 193

Purpose, instinctive actions were once done with a, 54

---- spent or extinct, and rudimentary organs, 38, 383

Purposive, if each step is purposive, the whole is purposive, 52, 384

Purposiveness: I maintain the lungs to be as purposive us the corkscrew, 5, 6, 7, 58

RACE, the runners in a, and natural selection, 366, 367

---- significance of the words being used for a breed and a competition, 366, 367

Racehorse or greyhound, "the well-adapted forms of the, " 359

Ranunculus aquatilis, Lamarck's passage on, 260, 297

Raleigh, Sir Walter, and evolution, 21, 70

Ray Lankester, Professor, on Hering's theory connecting memory and heredity, 198-200

Reason, there is less reason than feeling in animals, Buffon, 51

---- perfected becomes instinct, but reasserts itself when the circumstances alter, 54, 55, 56, 203

---- and instinct, Buffon on, 110, 116

---- Erasmus Darwin on, 115, 116, 201-205

---- a less remarkable faculty than generation, Hume on, 233

---- and instinct, Lamarck on, 256, 274

---- declared to be incipient instinct, 256

_Réel_, _au_, Buffon's use of these words, 126

Relativity of the sciences, Buffon on the, 140

Religion, Buffon's appeals to, 91, 115

Reopen settled questions, animals cannot, serpents must have no more than four legs, 303

Resume earlier habits, the tendency to, on the approach of a difficulty, 312, 313

Retrogressive, Mr. Darwin's views of evolution retrogressive, 66

Revelation, Buffon's appeals to, against evolution, 91, 115

Reviews of "Evolution, Old and New, " 385, &c. 

Riches, the normal growth of, and evolution, 222

Roman Empire, the, prophetic, 397

Romanes, G. R. , on "Evolution, Old and New, " 391-393

Rome, Church of, means the same by "gentleman" as we do, 395

---- I would join, if I could, 395, 396

---- a unifier, 398

---- the only source from which a church can come, 398-401

---- and Pantheism, the ultimate fight will be between, 401

---- points of agreement between Rome and Pantheists, 403-405

---- may, and should get rid of Protestantism by outbidding it, 407

Rousseau, Buffon would not play part of, 81

Rudimentary organs, the crux of the early evolutionist in respect of design, 34

---- are now mere cant formulæ, force of habit, 38, 383

---- like the protuberance at the bottom of a tobacco-pipe, 38

---- Buffon would not accept them as designed, 83

---- Buffon on, 120

---- Professor Haeckel on, 383

Run, how did the winner come to be able to run ever such a little faster than his fellows, 367

Runners in a race and natural selection, 366, 367

"SANDFORD and Merton, " Miss Seward on the author of, 179, 180

Saints will commonly strain a point or two in their own favour, 253

_Saturday Review_ on "Evolution, Old and New, " 389-391

Savery, Captain, 54

Science, men of, of like passions with other priests and prophets, 253

---- not a kingdom into which a poor man can enter easily, 253

---- the leaders of will generally burke new-born wit unless, &c. , 315

---- not of that kind which desires to know, 392

Scientific orthodoxy and mystification, Buffon on, 138

---- danger of, 360, 368

Scramble, birds learned to swim through scrambling, 48, 51

Self-indulgence, virtue has ever erred rather on the side of, than on that of asceticism, 35

Sensation, Buffon on, 126, 129

Sense, "in one sense, " 355

Sensitive plants, Dr. E. Darwin on, 206, 210

Seriously, Buffon speaking, 126

Serpents, how it is that they have lost their legs, 302

Seward, Miss, her life of Erasmus Darwin, 174, &c. 

Shakspeare and Handel address the many as well as the few, 81

Shortest day, and shortest day but one, no difference perceptible between, 48

Skeletons, the, of man and of the horse, 88, &c. 

Skill, the unerring, of natural selection, 9

Siamese twins, desire and power compared to, 218, 300

Simplicity, happy, an example of, 276

Sisters, "his, and his cousins and his aunts, " 253

Slit, a slit in one tendon to let another pass through, 20

Something a man should do, no matter what, 51

Sometimes, "equally convenient" ("the survival of the fittest" with natural selection), 9, 354, 365

Son, the people who can get good sons and retain their affection are the only ones worth studying from, 76

Sorbonne, the, and Buffon, 82, 84

Sorbonnes, never do like people who write in this way, 143

Specialists, embryos are, 28

Species, Buffon on the causes or means of transformation, 159, &c. 

---- Lamarck on, 267, &c. 

---- clusters of, Lamarck on, 288

---- C. Darwin on, 289

Specific characteristics vary more than generic, Lamarck on, 287, 288

---- C. Darwin on, 288

Speech, Lamarck on, 313, 314

Spencer, Herbert, on Lamarck's hypothesis, 330, 331

---- a follower of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, 332

Spent, or extinct purpose, and rudimentary organs, 383

Spontaneous: C. Darwin uses this word in connection with variability, 358

---- variability (or unknown causes), C. Darwin, on what it will account for, or make known, 358

Steam engine, latest development of, not foreseen, though each immediate step in advance was so, 54, 384

---- design lost sight of in the most common patterns, as with a bird's-nest, or the wheel, 55

Step, if each step is purposive, the whole road has been travelled purposively, 52, 384

---- only the few nearest are taken definitely, 44, 384

Sterility of hybrids, Lamarck on, 272

---- C. Darwin on, 273

Stock, Buffon on the, and the diaphragm, 130

Stronger, the, succeed, and the weaker fail, 320, 321

Strongest, the, eat the weaker, 282

Struggle for existence, Buffon on the, 123

---- and hence modification, according to Dr. Erasmus Darwin, mainly conversant about three wants, 226-229, 232

---- comparison between Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck's views on the foregoing, 257

---- Lamarck on the foregoing, 279

---- and survival of the fittest, Lamarck on the, 281, 282

---- Patrick Matthew on, 321

Style, Buffon on, 76, 77

Sudden, the question what is too, to be settled by higgling and haggling, 50

---- modifications, missionaries should avoid trying to effect, 183

Superficial, philosophy of the, 34, 35, 36, 198, 204

Supply and demand, and desire and power, 223, 300

Survival of the fittest, a synonym for natural selection, 9

---- Dr. Erasmus Darwin on the, 227

---- in the struggle for existence, Lamarck on the, 281, 282

---- understood and admitted by Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, 301

---- subsequent to modification, and therefore not the cause of it, 302, 346

---- Patrick Matthew on, 321

---- this is not a theory, but a fact, 356, 357

Swimming, no shore bird ever set itself to learn, of malice prepense, 48, 51

TAIL, the beaver's, has become an incarnate trowel, 8

Teething, the pain an infant feels is the death-cry of many a good cell, 75

Teleological, failure of the early evolutionists to see their position as, 34

Teleology, statement of the question, 1

---- Aristotle denied, Plato upheld, 4

---- the, of Paley and the theologians, 12, &c. 

---- internal as much teleology as external, 36

---- _See_ also "Design. "

Telescope, Lord Rosse's, and dew-drop, 44, 47

Tempering, the felicitous, of two great contradictory principles, 35

Tendon, a slit in one, to let another pass through, 20

Terminology of botany harder than botany, 108

---- Buffon on, 140, 141

Test, Buffon's, as to the name an object is to bear, 115

---- of perception and sensation, Buffon's, 127

Theological writer, few passages in any, displease me more, &c. , 368

Theory, the survival of the fittest is a fact, not a theory, 356, 357

Theories, true, Fontenelle on, 22, 23

---- to be ordered out of court if troublesome, 35

This: "I can no more believe in this, " &c. , 359

---- "it is impossible to attribute to this cause, " 358

Thomas, St. , Aquinas, Papal encyclical on, 402, 403

Thomson, Sir W. , natural selection and design, 10

Thought is expressed in organ, 339, 341

Time, Buffon on, 103

---- Lamarck on, 241

Tobacco-pipe, a rudimentary organ on a, 38

Toes, a man who plays the violin with his, 50

Tools, organs are living tools, 2

---- the manufacture of, and that of organs, two species of the same genus, 39

Touch, all senses modifications of the sense of touch, 47

Transformation of species, Buffon on the causes or means of, 159

Translation of the "Loves of the Plants" into French, 63, 258, 259

Translation of the "Zoonomia" into German, 71

---- of Dr. E. Darwin's other works, 195

Trapa Natans, Erasmus Darwin's note on, 260

Treviranus alluded to, 72

Tree, life seen as a tree, by Lamarck, 269

---- by C. Darwin, 270

---- nature compared to a, by Buffon, 171

Trees, the blind man who saw men as trees walking, 137

Trowel, the beaver has an incarnate trowel, 8

True, vitally, 227

---- all very, as far as it goes (that Nature is the most important means of modification), 369

Truism, the survival of the fittest, a, 351

Tutbury bull running, 187

Tyndall, Professor, a rhapsody about C. Darwin, 41

---- calls evolution C. Darwin's theory, 360, 361

UNCLES and aunts do not beget their nephews and nieces, 367, 376

Unconscious, our acquired habits come to be done as unconsciously as though instinctive, on repetition, 56

---- difference between my view of the, and Von Hartmann's, 58

Unconsciousness, the, with which habitual actions come to be performed, 37, 38, 39, 56-58, 67, 203, 332, 381

Understanding, the peace of mind that passeth, 35

Unity of the individual, Buffon on the, 127, 128. (_See_ "Oneness")

"Unknown causes, " according to Mr. Darwin, can do so much, but not so much more, 359

---- their identity with spontaneous variability, 359

---- heredity only another name for, unless the "Life and Habit" theory be adopted, 384

Upright position in man and certain apes, and children, Lamarck on, 312

Upside down, the vertebrata are perambulating vegetables planted, 137

Use and organ, 44, 45, 47, 217, 218, 221, 292, 294, 296, 299, 301, 302, 304, 305, 307-309, 311, 323

VACUUM, an omniscient and omnipotent, 28

Vague, efforts and desires are vague in the outset, 47, 52, 384

Variation, C. Darwin declares the fact of variation to be the cause of variation, 8, 9, 347, 369

Variations, one factor of modification provides, the other accumulates, 227

---- Lamarck strove to discover the law underlying, 337

---- C. Darwin sees no cause underlying them, 339, 340

---- according to Lamarck, they will tend to appear in definite directions in large numbers of individuals, for long periods together; according to C. Darwin they will not do thus, 341

---- must appear before they can be preserved, 346

---- the cause of variations is the cause of species (Professor Mivart on this), 370

Vary, man cannot vary his practices much more than animals can, 55

"Vestiges of Creation, " the, 65

---- C. Darwin on the, 65

---- the author of, on Lamarck, 247

---- Darwin's treatment of, 247, 248

Virtue has ever erred on the side of excess than on that of asceticism, 35

Violin, a man who plays the, with his toes, 50

Vitally true, 227

Volition. (_See_ "Will")

Voltaire, Buffon would not play the part of, 81

WALLACE, A. R. , his review of Professor Haeckel's "Evolution of Man, " 382-384

Want and power, interaction of, 44, 45, 47, 48, 217, 218, 221, 300, 323

Wasp, cutting a fly in half, Dr. Erasmus Darwin on, 205

Watch, Paley's argument from the, 13

Weaker, the strongest eat the, 282

Wealth, the normal growth of, and evolution, 222

Web-footed, how birds, became, 48, 49, 51

---- development of, birds, Lamarck on, 305

---- Paley on, 305

Wedge, Buffon let in the thin end of the wedge, by saying that changed habits modify form, 105, 106

Whisky, God keep you from--if he can, 176

Will, Patrick Matthew on, as influencing organism, 320-322. (_See_ also "Desire, " "Design, " "Want, " "Wish")

Will-o'-the-wisp, C. Darwin like a, 372

Wish and power, their interaction, 44, 45, 47, 48, 217, 218, 221, 300, 323

Wit, brevity may be its soul, but the leaders of science, &c. , 315

Worcester, the Marquis of, 54

Words are apt to turn out compendious false analogies, 365

Worms, reasonable creatures, 255

Worth, nothing worth looking at or doing, except at a fair price, 35

Wright, of Derby, his portrait of Mr. Day, 180

ZEBRA and horse, Buffon on the, 80, 155, 164

"Zoonomia, " German translation of the, 71

---- Paley's "Natural Theology" written at the, 195

---- fuller quotations from the, 214, &c. 

---- the, and the "Origin of Species, " the different ideas that an average reader would carry away with him from these two works ("Sense of Need" and "Natural Selection"), 363

_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, England. _ William Brendon & Son, Ltd.