{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48987/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48987","id":"gutenberg_48987","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48987","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Science - Biology","Evolution"],"text":"ESSAYS ON DARWINISM.\n\n\n    BY\n    THOMAS R. R. STEBBING, M.A.\n\n    _Late Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College, Oxford._\n\n\n    LONDON:\n    LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.\n    1871.\n\n    [_All rights reserved_]\n\n\n\n\n    OXFORD:\n    BY T. COMBE, M.A., E. B. GARDNER, AND E. PICKARD HALL,\n    PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe opinions of Mr. Darwin have now been for many years before the\nworld. His own book on \u2018The Origin of Species by means of Natural\nSelection,\u2019 unfolds and supports them with admirable clearness of\nargument. Far from being an abstruse and tedious work, it carries the\nreader on with unflagging interest to the close. Observations and\nexperiments, some the most simple, some the most elaborate, notes\non natural history, as well from every quarter of the globe as from\nalmost every province of nature, are brought to bear upon the subject\nwithout confusion of thought or embarrassment of style. The language\nflows easily in its calm, temperate, unegotistical course. There is no\ndisguising of objections, no seeking of opponents. There is an evident\nsearching after truth. Of its form or of its shadow the author\u2019s mind\nas evidently retains a bright clear vision, and what he sees he tries\nto make others see as clearly as he sees it himself. The suspicion and\ndislike which are aroused in some minds by the very name of Darwinism\ncannot be retained by those who read Mr. Darwin\u2019s own description\nof his theory and the grounds which slowly led him to adopt it. Few\nreaders can be dull enough to feel no charm at finding the most\nunlooked-for results deduced from the simplest illustrations, from\nold familiar facts, from every-day occurrences, or at finding what\nseem examples of the most special and varied contrivance reconciled to\nthe simplicity of a single general law. Many readers will be inclined\nto whisper to themselves at many passages, \u2018we never thought of that\nbefore,\u2019 \u2018we never looked at the matter in that light,\u2019 \u2018how curious\nif after all it should be true,\u2019 \u2018it looks less wicked and silly than\nwe used to think it.\u2019 Whether the theory itself be right or wrong, the\ngeneral effect of the book which describes it can only be to quicken\nthe minds of its readers, to enlarge for them the circle of ideas, to\nopen up before them new lines of thought and enquiry, to let them see\nthe whole face of nature teeming with mysteries and revelations, an\ninexhaustible vintage for the human reason to gather in.\n\nSuch being the character of Mr. Darwin\u2019s own Work, the handful of\nEssays and Letters contained in the present volume, supporting the same\nviews by almost the same arguments, may seem a superfluous contribution\nto the literature of the question. And so it would be if all who\ncondemn and ridicule Darwinism would be at the pains to study Mr.\nDarwin\u2019s Work. But opinions passed upon it and allusions made to it in\ncommon conversation and in popular lectures often testify to nothing\nexcept supreme ignorance of its general merits. To judge by such\nhearsay, one might believe that Mr. Darwin had lived all his life shut\nup in a dove-cote, and never seen or examined any other living creature\nthan a pigeon. Another estimate will dismiss the whole subject, scathed\nwith indignant laughter, by simply explaining, that, according to\nthis fatuous theory, man is descended from a monkey. Naturally no\nwell-minded persons will consent to be _pithecoid_ in origin, whether\nthey know what _pithecoid_ means or not; still less can a theory be\naccepted as moral and good, according to which, as some will tell\nyou, the giraffe lengthened its neck by a series of stretchings, and\nthe elephant acquired a trunk by continually pulling its own nose.\nA disinterested advocate will perhaps be allowed to deprecate these\nburlesque and ignorant representations, and to strip from what is\nmerely vulgar prejudice the guise of magnanimity and fine feeling. The\nrange of topics embraced in the present volume, however feebly handled,\nand however inaccurate that handling may in some points prove to be,\nshould at least teach those who are willing to learn, that the whole\nsubject is a great one, and worthy of attention, claiming earnest\nthought and varied learning to decide upon it in all its bearings;\nit cannot be disposed of by caricaturing; it cannot be settled in\ndeference to any religious prepossession; it must be examined with open\neyes, and with the full candour of mind which great subjects demand,\nand which great subjects nobly repay.\n\nSome of the following papers treat of matters on which no man of\nscientific education can be supposed at the present day to retain even\na vestige of doubt. But thousands of persons, whom in ordinary courtesy\nwe must call well-educated, although they know nothing of science,\nhold opinions on the Flood and the age of the world as irreconcileable\nwith the best-approved scientific conclusions as they are with the\nDarwinian Theory. In appealing to the judgment of such persons, as well\nas in considering the measure of his own powers, the present writer\nhas thought it expedient to confine himself, for the most part, to the\nclearest and simplest arguments, leaving on one side the subtle and\nintricate.\n\nThe letters collected at the end of the volume may be looked on\nas short essays of a somewhat informal character. The apology for\nreprinting them is this, that whereas in a regular essay the writer\nassumes his own standpoint, and may be suspected of ignoring the\nvantage-ground of his opponents, in replying to a correspondent he\nmust, at least to some extent, follow the lead of an antagonist, and\nfight, if he fights at all, on the field which another has chosen. As\nI cannot reprint the various able compositions which I have attempted\nto answer, it will be fair, to one at least of the writers, to remark\nthat I have personal reason to know that he still retains the opinions\nof which I attempted to disabuse him. He contrives to reconcile this\nobduracy to his own intelligence by laying stress on the candid\nadmission made by Darwinians, that the Theory of Development is for the\npresent that which they call it,--a Theory, and not a demonstration.\nNo one pretends to answer fully every objection that has been urged\nagainst the Theory. The evidence is as yet incomplete. By its very\nnature it must perhaps always to some extent remain so. The proof\ndepends in part upon analogy, which leads to conclusions possible\nor probable, rather than to what is demonstrably certain. But the\nadvocates of the Theory, remembering Bishop Butler\u2019s maxim, that \u2018to\nus probability is the very guide of life,\u2019 endeavour to maintain that\ntheir opinions have far more than that minimum of preponderance which,\nin Butler\u2019s view, not only justifies, but imperiously exacts, the\nadhesion of reasonable beings.\n\n            THOMAS R. R. STEBBING.\n\n    Torquay, Feb. 6, 1871.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                            PAGE\n\n    DARWINISM[1]                                               3\n\n    THE NOACHIAN FLOOD[1]                                     34\n\n    INSTINCT AND REASON[2]                                    62\n\n    HUMAN NATURE AND BRUTE NATURE                             82\n\n    THE LAPSE OF TIME[1]                                      93\n\n    NOTE ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION[1]      126\n\n    IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD[1]                 133\n\n    DARWINISM: THE NOACHIAN FLOOD                            147\n\n    DARWINISM: SCIENCE AND RELIGION                          152\n\n    DARWINISM, AND THE FIRST VERTEBRATE                      156\n\n    THE FIRST VERTEBRATE, AND THE BEGINNING OF REASON        160\n\n    OYSTERS OF THE CHALK, AND THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT      165\n\n    THE MATHEMATICAL TEST OF NATURAL SELECTION               168\n\n    THE GENESIS OF SPECIES                                   173\n\n    INDEX                                                    181\n\n\n\n\nNOTES to pp. 13 and 34.\n\n\nIt has been kindly pointed out to me by Mr. James Parker of Oxford\nthat there is an error in Mr. Darwin\u2019s calculation reproduced in page\n13 of this volume. Upon the data supplied, the increase in the number\nof elephants there mentioned would require 750 years instead of 500.\nThe further increase calculated in the same page, would in like manner\nrequire seven or eight additional centuries instead of five.\n\nMr. Parker also suggests that the expressions in page 34, \u2018taken for\ngranted,\u2019 \u2018taught for centuries,\u2019 seem to ignore Bishop Stillingfleet\nand other writers of his time, who saw good reason for believing the\nFlood in the days of Noah not to have been universal. I am glad to\nexplain that I did not by any means intend to imply that there were no\nexceptions to the general state of opinion, for I am well aware that\nthere are at the present day some schools, a few nurseries, and even\none or two pulpits, into which the truth on this point has been allowed\nto penetrate.\n\n\n\n\nDARWINISM.\n\n\n\n\nDARWINISM.\n\n\nThe object of this lecture is to explain, with as much simplicity as\npossible, the opinions of Darwin on the chain of secondary causes\nwhich has resulted in the wonderful structures known to us as living\ncreatures, and including, in an almost infinite variety, lichen and\nmoss, mite and mildew, grass and flower and branching tree; mollusk and\nreptile and fish; the swan, the petrel, the ostrich and the eagle; the\ncunning ape; the faithful hound; the elephant, sagacious and mindful of\ninsults; the lion, capable of generosity; the horse, patient of labours\nand eager for victory; and, along with a multitude of others diversely\nqualified, One, without doubt partaking of the animal nature that lives\nand dies, yet seeming to partake of something beyond it, seeming to\nbe distinguished from all the rest by its postures, by its laughing,\nby its cooking its food, by its articulate language, by its powers of\nreasoning; and yet linked and united to its inferiors by a multitude\nof affinities and sympathies, resemblances of form and nature, and\nby the very details of its superiority. So ran the Pagan legend that\nProvidence had compacted man\u2019s moral nature out of particles taken from\neach of the lower animals, giving him the wisdom of the serpent and\nthe fiery courage of the lion[3]. To this sense of an intimate union\nbetween man and the rest of the animate creation have the writers of\nfables in all ages appealed, while imparting their lessons of prudence\nand virtue under the guise of transactions between birds and beasts and\ntrees of the forest.\n\nIt is well known that after the discovery of almost every great\ntruth a sort of feeling or instinct of it can be traced back in\nobscure hints, in chance expressions, in vague guesses, in flights\nof imagination, so that people very soon begin to fancy that they\nhave all along understood and maintained the very theory, which, on\nits first appearance, they violently rejected as something false and\neven vicious. Darwinism has this characteristic of truth, that it has\noften been obscurely anticipated. It has this other characteristic,\nthat its fiercest opponents have already begun insensibly to adopt its\nconclusions, and to speak its language, to opine, even, that the credit\nof its promulgation belongs to themselves.\n\nIn Mr. Darwin\u2019s own historical sketch of the rise and progress of his\ndoctrine, he does full justice to those who have preceded and who\nhave worked with him in bringing it to light and in establishing its\nfoundations. The opinion that species originate, not by successive\nmiraculous interpositions or acts of creation, but by birth, was\nheld as far back as 1794-5, by four men of distinguished genius, by\nLamarck, by Mr. Darwin\u2019s own grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, by\nGeoffroy Saint Hilaire, and by the poet Goethe. In the present day, Mr.\nWallace, Mr. Herbert Spencer, the great zoologist Van Baer, and others,\nindependently of Mr. Darwin, seem to have come more or less to the same\nconclusions, which have been warmly espoused and powerfully vindicated\nby Dr. Hooker, Professor Huxley, and Sir Charles Lyell. I mention\nthese names because it seems to be their due, and not for the sake of\ngiving weight to any argument because of the scientific renown of its\nadvocates; there are names, it may be, equally distinguished on the\nopposite side. But one thing ought to be observed, that the progress\nof scientific enquiry has achieved so much during the last hundred\nyears that the opinions of the older Naturalists have an importance\nwhen they agree with modern conclusions, which they cannot have when\nthey differ from them, unless it can be shown that the observations,\nthe experiments, the discoveries of late years had all been made by,\nor were known to, the earlier enquirers. For those, however, who think\nthe opinions of a past generation of necessity more trustworthy than\nthose of the present, Sir Charles Lyell has done well to point out that\nLinn\u00e6us himself looked forward to a time when it should be proved that\nin botany, at least, all species of a genus had descended from the same\nmother[4].\n\nThis is precisely Mr. Darwin\u2019s opinion on the origin of species at\nlarge. He applies it to the animal as well as to the vegetable kingdom.\nHe extends it by considering genera themselves as species of the orders\nwhich contain them, and orders as species of the great classes to\nwhich they as orders respectively belong. In a word, he considers that\nall living forms whatsoever are descended from a very few original\nancestors of the simplest type, and that this prim\u00e6val group itself\nhad, probably, a common parentage. Wildly improbable, ludicrously\nabsurd, degrading to humanity, and irreligious, no doubt this\nhypothesis has appeared to many, and will continue so to appear till\nit has been studied with attention, and studied without prejudice. To\nrescue it from the prejudice which would make it in the eyes of some a\npernicious and forbidden study, is the hope which underlies the object\nof the present lecture.\n\nRound Nelson\u2019s Column in Trafalgar Square there are four colossal\nstatue lions, the conception of a great artist. They look unnatural,\nnot because of their size, or their position, or the material of which\nthey are made, but because they are all so exactly alike; and exact\nlikenesses are scarcely ever found in animate nature, unless it be\namong the very simplest organisms. When we speak of a striking likeness\nbetween two human beings, we evidently imply that a high degree of\nsimilarity is uncommon, and, therefore, noteworthy. What is true of\neven the most highly organized animals, is true, as far as observation\ngoes, of all below them. Horses, dogs, sheep, kine, afford familiar\nillustrations of this principle. To the uneducated eye, individual\ndifferences may be totally unapparent, which are yet perfectly\nconspicuous to the trainer, the huntsman, the shepherd, and the drover.\nWild creatures know their mates; wild herds select their leaders; the\nbee and the ant are capable of distinguishing the various individuals\nof their own communities, for strangers of the very self-same species\nwith themselves they repel or destroy[5]. As each creature is, in\nnumberless cases, the offspring of two unlike parents, it cannot be\nan exact copy of either, and the influences of the two parents may\nbe combined in various proportions in each of the offspring; but the\nparents themselves are continually changing, with the variations of\nage and food and climate, so that the very rule of resemblance between\nthe producers and the produced will entail another rule of unlikeness\nbetween the several members of an offspring not born all at once.\n\nIt is a fact, which cannot be denied, that in numberless instances the\nyoung of a creature differ more or less from the parents and likewise\namong themselves. Why it should be so has been in part explained.\nThis is the _Variability_, without which Natural Selection could\nnever have been thought of, because without differences there would\nhave been nothing to select. But this Variability being granted, the\nDarwinian theory becomes possible--becomes quite capable of referring\nback the elephant and the pig, for instance, to the same ancestry. The\ndifference between progenitors and their immediate offspring are, it\nis true, comparatively slight. It would, indeed, be a prodigious birth\nif one family contained at once a young monkey, a little pig, a big\ndonkey, and a great goose; but it is obviously possible that any amount\nof unlikeness may be found between the descendants of common ancestors,\nif we are not confined to the differences of a single generation, but\nare allowed to multiply them through as many thousands as we require.\nSay that two race-courses differ in length by one yard; multiply that\ndifference 1760 times and they will then differ by a whole mile. If,\non leaving this Lecture-room, you found the trees--which half-an-hour\nago were bare and leafless--clothed with summer verdure, your gardens\nblooming with a wealth of roses, your orchards laden with autumnal\nfruits, you would scarcely credit your senses; and yet, when the\nrequisite number of half-hours, reckoned by days and months, shall\nhave elapsed, you will greet these wonderful changes as perfectly\nnatural and nothing to be wondered at. In a dissolving view that is\nwell managed, Alpine peak and glacier-pass melt imperceptibly into some\ntall cathedral and sunshiny market-place. The two scenes are wholly\nunlike, and yet it is contrived that at no moment should the passage\nfrom one to the other be discernibly abrupt. Is it not possible then to\nconceive that through an immense multitude of generations the form of\nan ape might be derived from the form of a fish? We do not mean to say\nthat this has actually happened, but supposing the descendant of the\nfish to vary continuously in the direction of the ape-like form, the\nresult would be intelligible enough. What, then, is there to determine\nvariation in any particular direction, and what limits are there,\nif any, to the system of interminable change which the principle of\nvariation seems to involve?\n\nOf course it is understood that the general mass of characters or\nqualities belonging to any creature are inherited by one generation\nfrom its immediate ancestors and transmitted to its immediate\ndescendants, so that for a long period there would be a large number\nof individuals in the world united into a group by common characters,\nwhich according to their supposed importance we might call specific\nor generic. But besides this, there is the very curious principle of\n_Reversion_ to be taken into account, as largely conducing to the\ncomparative permanence of species. In Norway, I believe, when the\nfather\u2019s name is Jack, and the son\u2019s name is Tom, Tom is called Tom\nJackson, and Tom is in the habit of giving his own eldest son the\ngrandfather\u2019s name, and then Tom Jackson\u2019s son is called Jack Tomson.\nNow, in the same way, in nature it not unfrequently happens that\nwhen a long-nosed man is father of a short-nosed son, the son of the\nshort-nosed man inherits by reversion the more elongated feature of\nhis grandsire. Under certain conditions, which however greatly limit\nit, the operation of this principle of Reversion may extend, so far as\nwe know, to any quality whatever after an interval of any number of\ngenerations. The tendency, therefore, is to the permanence of species,\nand yet, as will be shown in the sequel, it has furnished Mr. Darwin\nwith an additional argument to prove that species are not permanent. It\nmust be borne in mind that when a character reverts from a very distant\nancestor, the creature which inherits it will have numerous other\nqualities, all probably more or less differing from those originally\nunited to the reversionary character; just as if, in the School of Art,\na picture by Raffaelle were shown to fifty pupils, and when it had been\ncopied by the first, the second pupil were to make a copy of the copy,\nand so on to the end, each of the copies would no doubt differ more and\nmore from the original, and yet in the very last, by the help of memory\nor sympathetic genius, there might be some beauty not to be found in\nany of the others, recalling the hand of the great master; while it\nis true, that if the sketch were something exceedingly simple, the\nfiftieth copy, and all the intermediate ones, might be almost exactly\nlike the original; and so in nature, exceedingly simple organisms are\nseemingly reproduced for almost endless generations with no change, or\nscarcely any.\n\nIf it be true that all living creatures on this earth spring from a\nvery few, extremely simple, original germs of life, we have to explain\nhow it is that now there is an enormous variety of highly organised\ncreatures, and at the same time some of extreme simplicity. For, if the\nsimplest forms are permanent, how can the more complex be derived from\nthem? On the other hand, if the simplest forms vary, how is it that we\nfind, as we do, the very earliest known form of life still living at\nthe present day? The solution is easy to suggest, that the offspring\nof very simple forms are sometimes exactly like their parents,\nand sometimes not exactly like. From what has been said above of\nInheritance and Variation, this is in the highest degree probable, and,\nthis being admitted, it will follow that according to circumstances the\nprogeny that are like their parents, or those that are unlike, will\nhave the best of it. Why this follows will now have to be explained.\n\nAll over the surface of our globe there is _a struggle for life_ going\non. The instinct of self-preservation is probably stronger than any\nother, so that we may rely upon it that the creatures of every race\nwill strive to preserve their own existence, if need be, at the expense\nof that of others. It may be horrible to the sentimentalist, but it\nis true; and remember that man as well as the tiger is a carnivorous\nmammal. There is no beast or bird of prey that can be compared with\nman for his ravaging, destructive, butchering, remorseless dissipation\nof other forms of life, to preserve his own existence and make it\ncomfortable. He secures his gluttony from famine, as far as he can,\nby being omnivorous. Moss and fungus, grass and herb, leaf and flower\nand stem and fruit, all alike find a grave in man. The lion and the\nflea are the victims of his fear; many a harmless snake and toad of\nhis antipathy; the otter and the fox die for his sport; the ostrich\nand the ermine for his vanity. For his food, like a wolf, he slays the\nharmless sheep; like a hawk, he pounces on the innocent chicken; like a\nwily panther, surprises the antlered stag; devours fish like a shark;\nspreads nets for his prey like a spider; and in some instances acquires\na well-developed taste for the flesh of his fellow-man. Practically\nwith all living animals, the first consideration is food. If all\nliving animals could obtain abundance of pleasant and suitable food\nwithout preying on one another, the scene of war which Nature presents\nwould perhaps in a great measure disappear. Yet this warfare is as\nconspicuous in the vegetable as it is in the animal kingdom. There is\na certain amount of nourishment in a given piece of ground, and for\nthat nourishment the plants upon it will compete, some thriving and\nmultiplying to the hindrance and destruction of the others. Here again,\nif the surface of the globe supplied nutriment for all its plants,\nthere would be at least no need for this destructive competition.\n\nAnd how is it that this wide, wide world does not supply food enough\nfor all the vegetable forms that make an effort to live upon it?\nThe answer to this curious question has long been known, though not\nsufficiently attended to. It would not be fair to say that Nature is\nstingy in her supplies of food, but rather that she is too generously\nprolific of forms of life. For, take the supposition that all living\ncreatures, whether animal or vegetable, were shielded from all enemies\nand influences at present hurtful to them, and let us see to what it\nwould bring us. A single grain of wheat produces an ear containing ten,\ntwenty, or some larger number of grains. But if the ear contained\nonly two grains, still, at that rate of increase, a single grain would\nin thirty years be represented by more than a thousand millions of\ngrains[6]. What, then, would be the position of the world, if, starting\nwith a thousand millions of grains, this rate of increase were allowed\nto continue unchecked, not for thirty years, but for three thousand?\nBut Mr. Darwin has calculated in regard to the elephant, which is\nreckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, that, according\nto the very lowest probable rate of natural increase, a single pair\nwould in five hundred years have a progeny of fifteen million living\nelephants[7]. Now fancy an island like our own, only in a climate\nsuitable to elephants, into which a couple should have found their\nway a thousand years back. At the end of five hundred years, if all\nthat were born were enabled to breed unchecked, there would be at\nleast fifteen millions of their huge descendants stalking about the\nland; but, at the end of five hundred years more, there would be one\nhundred and twelve millions of millions of elephants. Goodness! What\na stupendous menagerie! What a zoological garden! What a prospect at\nthe end of the next five hundred years! And all this time, remember,\naccording to our sentimental, philanthropic, philelephantine,\nnature-improving scheme, the men and women, the donkeys with a soul\nabove thistles, the thistles no longer toothsome to donkeys, the mice,\nthe rats, the cats, the oaks, the cabbages, the toadstools, would have\nbeen multiplying, not in the same proportion as the elephants, but very\nmuch more rapidly. The great desideratum would be standing room. The\nback of an elephant, or the branch of an oak, would no doubt command an\nenormous rent, and a right of way across the heads of your neighbours\nwould be religiously guarded by the law of the land. Nor would the\nposition of affairs be better in the surrounding sea; for while these\nelephants have been computed to breed at the rate of two young ones\nin thirty years, a single codfish has been found to produce in one\nyear more than six millions of eggs, and there are other creatures\ninfinitely more prolific[8].\n\nYou see, then, that the struggle for existence is an absolute\nnecessity; and out of this all-essential strife springs what has been\nwell called Natural Selection. What is meant by this will more easily\nbe understood by looking first at Artificial Selection, which has been\npractised by man, sometimes consciously, and oftener unconsciously,\nin the process of domesticating a great number of plants and animals.\nDogs, sheep, bulls, pigs, horses, fowls, pigeons, cabbages, and other\nculinary vegetables, strawberries, and all manner of edible fruits,\ntogether with gay-coloured, curiously-formed, sweetly-perfumed\ngarden-flowers innumerable, have been, and are still being, subjected\nto man\u2019s selection. That the wonderful changes which occur are indeed\ndue to man\u2019s repeated choice of the varieties which suit his purposes,\nis clear from this, that all the remarkable changes have taken place\nin those particular qualities which man has valued, leaving the other\nqualities comparatively unaltered. Let it be speed, size, taste,\ncolour, form, temper, the coat, the feathers, the flesh, the muscular\nstrength, the powers of endurance; in a vegetable, let it be the root,\nthe stem, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, the seed, let it be what\nit will that is of value, that part and that character have been in\neach case most highly developed. To take a few examples: You are fond\nof peas, and you sow in your garden what your seedsman tells you are\nthe finest new varieties; you like strawberries, you admire roses, you\nfancy a good cabbage, you are particular about having a mealy potato;\nso in each case you plant what you understand to be the best new\nkinds. What will you say if it turns out that the roses have improved\nin their roots but not in the bloom, and the potatoes in the bloom\nbut not in their tubers; that the strawberries have remarkably fine\nleaves but very small fruit; that the peas and the cabbages have indeed\nenormous stems, while the seed of the one and the leaf of the other\nare insignificant in size and tasteless to the palate? So, too, if you\npurchase a race-horse and a pig from the most noted breeders of those\nanimals, will you not be disgusted if it turns out that the horse has\na remarkable propensity for fattening, while the pig is distinguished\nby nothing but its extreme fleetness of foot? These disappointments do\nnot occur, because the variations of domesticated plants and animals\nare selected by competent persons. Were strawberry-leaves of as much\nimportance in horticulture as they are in heraldry, many fine varieties\nwould soon be exhibited. As soon as the most minute tendency to vary\nin any particular direction has been descried in any living creature,\nthe fancier can exaggerate the difference to an extent inconceivable\nto the inexperienced. As a popular illustration of this we may take\nthe Big Gooseberry, which fills so large a space in the newspapers\nwhen Parliament is prorogued. A gooseberry has been grown weighing\nmore than 37 pennyweights--that is, nearly two ounces[9]. But mere\nsize is not a fair test of the extreme plasticity of living organisms.\nYou may have your trees growing stiffly upright, or with pendulous\nbranches and prostrate stems; you may have your cattle long-horned,\nshort-horned, or with no horns at all; your rabbits straight-eared or\nlop-eared; your fowls with every variety of comb and crest and wattles\nand plumage; and your pigeons pretty well at discretion. A type is\nprefigured, and the fancier produces it; and what is done for amusement\nwith pigeons, is done for food, for profit, for the good of mankind at\nlarge, by the grower of corn, by the breeder of sheep, by all the wise\nproduce-masters of the world[10].\n\nSuch is Artificial Selection; but man is after all but one of Nature\u2019s\nworks, and one of her numerous agents. All that he does, however\nmiraculous it may seem, can only be done under her conditions, and\nby the means which she supplies. In Artificial Selection man does\nbut take advantage of the natural laws of Inheritance and Variation,\nand while he is seeking by means of these to produce one alteration,\nNature herself is producing perhaps a hundred others. For, by the law\nof _Correlation_, when one part changes, some other or others almost\ninevitably change with it. Whether it be shortening the beak of a\npigeon or lengthening the neck of a giraffe that is in question, Nature\ntakes care, along with the change, to make other adaptations of the\nstructure in the creature\u2019s interest under its altered circumstances.\nSurely, the working of this principle of Correlation indicates a\nfar-sighted Providence of the results, the disastrous monstrosities,\nthat would otherwise have sprung from the law of Variation.\n\nMan\u2019s efforts are considerably limited, moreover, by the law of\nReversion. Now, supposing many differing species to be descended, as\nwe maintain, from common ancestors, what ought to be the observable\neffects of this law? Evidently, we should expect the character of one\nspecies now and then to appear in species allied to it, or species of\nkindred origin to vary in the same manner. In accordance with such\nan expectation, we find the horse and the ass sometimes assuming the\nstripes of the quagga and the zebra; certain varieties of the pigeon,\nthe fowl, the turkey, the canary-bird, the duck, and the goose, all\nhave top-knots or reversed feathers on their heads; one kind of melon\nresembles a cucumber in everything but taste; there are purple-leaved\nvarieties of the beech and the hazel; and a great multitude of plants\nsometimes exhibit their leaves cut, blotched, and variegated[11].\n\nNow, from the working of Nature under, as it were, man\u2019s guidance, we\npass to the working of Nature when left to her own discretion. The work\nof Natural Selection is a very slow and secret work: the slowness of it\nveils the movement. As with the hour-hand of a tiny watch travelling\nbut an inch in a day, there is progress which you cannot discern, there\nis change that can be marked and registered at intervals, though each\nsuccessive moment and each successive movement seem to leave things\nexactly as they were. You have heard of the Greek simpleton who had\nbeen told that a raven lived three hundred years, and so bought one\nto see. We might live three thousand years instead of three hundred\nwithout being able to prove the theory of Natural Selection by actual\nobserving. But when a group of most important observed facts can be\nexplained consistently by this theory, and by none other, while no\nfact has been brought forward to make it inadmissible, it ought to be\naccepted till some theory can be produced equally unimpeachable and\nexplanatory of a larger group of facts.\n\nQualities are inherited; but with this peculiarity, that very\ngenerally, and sometimes of necessity, the inheritor comes into\npossession of the inherited quality at the same period of life at\nwhich it was acquired by the parent. As, for instance, the child\nof a gouty father, though it may be destined in old age to inherit\nthe disease, is not born with the gout, any more than a calf is born\nwith horns, or a cherry-tree produced covered with cherries. In the\nlife of every creature there is not merely growth, but development.\nAt every stage of life it is possible for some quality acquired by\nvariation to be fixed by Natural Selection. But in the embryonic and\nearliest stages of development, variation is least likely to be of\nservice to any creature. Such variations, therefore, will less often\nbe selected than others, and if it be true that many species have a\ncommon ancestry, then it ought to be found that in their embryonic\nand earliest stages they resemble one another. This is precisely what\nwe do find. Plants, the most remote in appearance and properties when\nfull grown, differ but slightly in their cotyledons: the difference\nbetween the egg of a nightingale and the egg of an ostrich bears no\nproportion to the dissimilarity between the two birds when fully\ndeveloped; nor by comparing the roe of a herring with the roe of a\nsalmon could you possibly guess, before experience, how the full-grown\nfish would differ. But in the life of every human being there is a\nstage of development, at which the most sagacious physician could\nnot distinguish him from the embryo of a snake, a lizard, a bird, or\nan ape[12]. Now, if the simplest embryonic forms of life were the\nprogenitors of all existing forms, this is intelligible; but how else\ncan it be explained?\n\nBut, again, if species do not vary, how comes it that those living at\nthe present day are for the most part not to be found among the fossil\ncreatures of the ancient rocks? Well, some will tell you there have\nbeen many distinct creations, following after many catastrophes potent\nto destroy all the previous inhabitants of the globe. Well, I will\nanswer, if you rest on Scripture, that view has no basis in Scripture,\nbut if you do not rest on Scripture, it certainly has no scientific\nfoundation, for though the crust of the globe has been made what it is\nalmost exclusively by the action of fire and water, the effect of any\nsudden convulsions has been a mere nothing as compared with the results\nfrom the steady, slow-going, ceaselessly-operating forces of those two\nagents. Besides, when you look back through the rocks of different\nages, not only do you find some forms the same in all, which testifies\nto the permanent unity of the living creation, but in those forms which\ndiffer, you find the differences increasing the further you go back,\nand some forms you find which have no modern representatives, forms,\nthat is, which have been beaten in the struggle for existence.\n\nTravel over the globe, and every country will present you with some\nnew species; distant rivers, distant islands, in the ocean shallows\nseparated by great deeps, the opposite sides of a continent, the twin\nsides of a mountain chain, the foot, the spur, the knee, the breast,\nthe snow-clad head of an Alpine range, will all present you with their\nown peculiar forms of life. And how came they there? Created, some\nwill say, _in_ those regions and _for_ those regions, because of their\nspecial adaptation to them. Yet, since the globe has been inhabited,\nvast tracts of it have changed their climates from tropical heat to\nfrozen gloom, and again, yielded the thick-ribbed ice to genial suns\nand fragrant zephyrs. Unhappy species, the creatures of a fixed idea,\ncreated for the temperate meridian of Devonshire, and condemned by the\nthoughtlessness of nature, to pass their lives in a climate like that\nof Nova Zembla!\n\nBut further, had each species been assigned to its station as some\nsuppose, by a single act of creation, is it not reasonable, does not\nreverence require us to expect, that each species would have been best\noff in its own station? But this is not the case. On the contrary,\nimported species of plants and animals often thrive prodigiously in\ntheir new _habitat_, and over-run it.\n\nOnce more, we find in numberless plants and animals rudimentary organs\nthat are of no use to the possessors,--mamm\u00e6, that give no milk;\npistils, in male florets; in insects wings too small for flight, and\nsoldered to the wing cases; the fifth toe in the hind-foot of the\ndog; the spur of the hen; the wing of the Apteryx; and the stunted,\nineffectual, but ever-present tail in our noble selves.\n\nOn the old theory of creation, in face of these facts, we cannot\nsave the admired doctrine that nature does nothing in vain; but on\nthe Darwinian theory of creation, that doctrine still holds good,\nand wisdom is still justified by all her productions; for Natural\nSelection works only for the good of a species; it does not work in\nvain, or waste its efforts in getting rid of any organ simply because\nit is useless, so long as it is not injurious; it leaves it as it was\nand where it was, a germ, a capacity, perhaps, in the future, to be\nre-developed or fitted for a new purpose.\n\nHere we have incidentally touched upon what seems to be morally the\ngrandest part of the whole theory, an even sublime explanation, as\nfar as it goes, of that small fraction which we see in terrestrial\nlife of the great and manifold works of God. We noted above that it\nis to death, a necessity much hated, much maligned, that we owe the\npossibility of our own birth and standing-room on the face of the\nglobe; but the theory of Natural Selection makes it further clear\nthat the causes of death which we most dread and think evil of--war\nand famine and pestilence--are tending continually to improve the\nraces of living creatures. On the whole, the wisest, the strongest,\nthe healthiest survive to propagate their species. In the long run,\nprudence, courage, and temperance prevail, and their owners become the\nparents of the later generations.\n\nWhen the competition for life becomes severe, as to every race\nof creatures, man included, it does at times become, the smallest\nadvantageous variation will give its possessor a superior chance of\nsurviving, while the smallest that is disadvantageous will diminish\nthe chance. Take the apposite instance of a number of quadrupeds\nincapable of climbing, supported by browsing on the leaves of trees\nduring a dearth of other suitable food. When the lower leaves within\nthe general reach were exhausted, the famine still continuing, those\nanimals alone would survive which, by some peculiarity, could reach the\nhigher leaves. In this way, those that could spring best, those that\ncould assume even a climbing posture, those endowed with the longest\nlegs, snouts, or necks, would be selected. In some such a way, then, we\ncan conceive the jumping powers of the kangaroo and the antelope, the\nclimbing powers of the bear and the cat, the trunk of the elephant, and\nthe long neck of the giraffe to have been evolved by natural selection.\nThe keen scent of the hound, the sharp eye of the lynx, the gay colours\nof the butterfly, the splendid plumage of the bird of Paradise, are all\neasy to account for on this principle of natural selection. So, too,\nare the dull colours of many female birds, to whom obscurity is useful\nin protecting their young; so, too, the almost blindness of the mole,\nwhich works in the dark, and to which an instrument at once delicate\nand useless, would entail the risk of positive injury.\n\nThe principle explains what no other hypothesis has ever done, not\nonly Nature\u2019s perfection, which, in the hour of ease, we are ready to\nbelieve in, but what has hitherto been a much greater puzzle to those\nwho knew of its existence, Nature\u2019s imperfection. The whole creation is\nin constant travail to bring forth something better than its present\nbest. The products of man\u2019s reason are not, you will readily admit,\nalways perfect, and yet man\u2019s reason is a part of the creation, and\nof nature\u2019s work. The waste of life is prodigious, if such a term\nis applicable to the circumstance that often millions of spores are\nproduced in order that half a dozen plants may grow; millions of eggs\nin the roe of a fish, in order that the parents may be represented by\nthree or four individuals. The bee defends itself by its sting, but its\nweapon of defence is fatal to itself. Were a merchant habitually to\nsend five or six million articles of merchandize across the Atlantic\non the bare possibility that five or six articles out of the number\nmight reach their destination; or, were a father to arm his son with\na weapon on the presumption that the first time he used it, it would\ncost him his life; you would think the man mad, not wise. Yet, if the\nastonishing fecundity of the braken, the mushroom, and the codfish, if\nthe sting of the bee with its backward serratures, be the products of\ndirect creation, the analogy is somewhat telling. How different, on\nthe other hand, must our judgment be of those contrivances, when we\ntrace them to the simple, primary, beneficent law of natural selection,\nworking always steadily for the good of each species, and so working,\nthat we may feel tolerably sure that when any species dies out and\ndisappears, it has been replaced by something better. For by this law,\nwe see that fertility itself is a character which will be selected as\ntending to the preservation of a species, and that many creatures must\nhave acquired the power of what looks like wasteful reproduction in the\nlong-continued struggle for existence. We can see, too, how in that\nsame struggle, it may have proved expedient for a creature to be armed\nwith a weapon capable of inspiring terror, yet so contrived that its\npossessor should, of necessity, be peaceful towards its neighbours.\nTrue, this might have been done by a single act of creation, but why,\nthen, was it not done also in the case of the mosquito, the wasp, and\nthe hornet?\n\nOn the theory of sudden creation, how can we account in any but an\narbitrary manner, for the innumerable cases in which slight differences\nseparate various species; for the confused neutral ground between\ndifferent classes, as where, for example, a creature seems half animal\nhalf plant; for the isolation of many forms from the stations they\nare admirably fitted to occupy; for the fact that many creatures are\nhideous, weak, timid, violent, and venomous; for the imperfection of an\ninstinct in one species found perfected in another, which Mr. Darwin\nexemplifies by comparing the cells of the humble-bee, the _melipona\ndomestica_ of Mexico, and the hive-bee, ranging from great simplicity\nto an extreme perfection[13]? But the principle of natural selection\noffers a solution to every one of these enigmas. It embraces all the\nvarious phases of life of the ancient world as well as the modern, and\ngives a key to the whole grand uninterrupted plan. It carries back the\nmind to a period when the earth was destitute of life; when yet, as it\nwere, the thought in the Divine mind was still unspoken, that of one,\nand that as good as dead, should spring seed like the sand which is\nupon the sea-shore for multitude. Then it came to pass that the dust\nof the earth was called into life by the Life-Giver, and received the\nstrange command and the mysterious power to multiply, and to replenish\nthe earth. As soon as living creatures multiplied to any great extent,\nthey would spread themselves into different lands and seas and\nclimates; they would find different sources of nourishment, and then\nvariation would come into play, and close upon variation would follow\nselection, not of necessity destroying the old forms, but establishing\nnew ones, because in some stations the form that had not varied might\nthrive best, in others the variety would have an advantage[14]. As time\nwent on, through the constant changes that the surface of the globe is\nundergoing, one variety would be isolated from another, and in such\nan isolation the differences would increase. And the more a species\nvaried, the more fitted it might become for some _habitat_, from which\nit was completely cut off by a chain of mountains, a rapid river,\nor a deep sea. As the competition became more intense, variations\nwould become more and more valuable, enabling creatures to occupy\npositions before untenable, ocean-depths, sandy shores, holes in rocks,\nfresh-water lakes, tops of mountains, branches of trees, the bodies\nof other living beings. Some would be taught by necessity and enabled\nby favourable variations to prey, as well as take up their abode, on\nother creatures. And as the strife became more and more urgent, all\nsorts of qualities that from our point of view may seem noxious and\ndegrading might prove of the highest service and advantage to their own\npossessors. Plants with sharp thorns and envenomed hairs, poisonous\nsnakes, trichin\u00e6 and other parasites horrible to man, would find their\nadvantage at our cost, or by unparalleled fertility would defy all\nefforts to extirpate them. Some species would profit by minuteness,\nothers by size; others, in various ways, by talons, beak, thread-like\ntongue, prehensile tail, or furry coat; and, just as men are said to\ngo through fire and water for the sake of money, so for the sake of\npreservation, no habit, no locality would be too uncongenial for a\nspecies to develope adaptation thereunto. And, accordingly, we find\nthat the water-ouzel, which is a species of thrush, subsists entirely\nby diving; there is a tree-climbing lobster in the Mauritius; there\nare fishes which ramble about on the land, and one fish, the _anabas\nscandens_, can climb eight or ten feet up the trunk of a palm[15].\n\nThe choice of food, the choice of habitation, the construction of\ndwelling-places for themselves or their offspring, methods of defence,\nmethods of attack, are variously carried out by myriads of species.\nThe processes employed, in man we call for the most part rational; in\nthe lower animals we call them instinctive; but there are processes\nemployed for these self-same objects by vegetables as well as by men.\nFor plants, in one sense stationary, travel towards water by their\nroots, towards light by their branches; they assimilate the elements of\nnutriment that suit them, rejecting others. The Sensitive plant shrinks\nfrom the touch, Venus\u2019s fly-trap closes round unwary insects and\ndestroys them. Tendrils fasten on the supports that are offered them.\nTrees keep in their delicate blossoms till the weather is genial. Many\na corolla folds carefully round stamens and pistils when the chilly\ntwilight approaches.\n\nPass from proceedings like these to the swimming movements of a\nbeheaded Dytiscus[16], and other reflex actions in animals, to the\nfood-seeking movements of the tentacul\u00e6 of the Hydra or fresh-water\nPolype, which hover doubtfully between reflex and instinctive action:\ngo forward through the innumerable gradations of instinct till you\ncome, for instance, to the spider, weaving its symmetrical web, rushing\nout of its lair to seize the prey when the web is shaken lightly,\nbut keeping itself close from a too dangerous foe when the web is\nvehemently shaken. Examine the nest of the Mygale (the trap-door\nspider) lined with silken tapestry, furnished with a door on a silken\nhinge, which it covers above with materials like the surrounding soil,\nand holds from beneath against an intruder, by applying its claws to\nthe most advantageous point, the point most distant from the hinge:\nconsider the little Sylvia Sutoria, or tailor-bird, which draws\nfilaments of cotton from the cotton-plant, and sews leaves together\nwith its beak and feet to form a nest; go to the huts and river-dams of\nthe beaver; attend a conclave of rooks judging an offender; look into\nthe hive of the hive-bee; observe the conscious vanity of the peacock;\npreach liberty to the slave-making ants; watch the sagacious ways of\ndogs and horses; and then lastly see if it be possible to resist the\nconclusion that, were all forms that ever existed, from the earliest\ngeological times to our own, present before us in the order of their\ngenealogies, we should see them to be the members of a single family,\nnow, indeed, immensely divergent, yet all united by some affinity or\naffinities, whether dimly or conspicuously shown.\n\nHow strangely men and beasts are united by similarity of blood and\nfibre! How strangely fishes, birds, and mammals by the likeness of the\nvertebrate skeleton! How strangely plants and animals by the phenomena\nof generation, not only in the union of the sexes, but also in\n(_agamogenesis_) or asexual reproduction! Need we wonder at community\nof origin between a coral and a cactus, a whale and a sloth, a wolf and\na Shylock, when we find that a lady\u2019s silken tresses, the bristles of\na boar, the quill of the porcupine, the feathers of the owl, and the\nhorns of the buffalo, are parallel and specifically interchangeable\ndevelopments?\n\nConsider the vine, with its stem, branches, twigs, roots, rootlets,\nleaves, tendrils, and the luscious grapes of the ripe cluster. From one\nseed sprang all of these. On the bough of an orange tree there live\nand grow together leaf and petiole, flower and fruit, the green unripe\nfruit, the yellow and the golden-ripe. All these from one seed. Yet\nthere is no jealousy among them. No one disowns a kindred origin for\nthe root of the tree and its golden fruit, utterly unlike as these are,\nbut, like so many other utterly unlike things in this world, sprung\nfrom the same germ.\n\nTo have produced and accumulated the vast divergences that now exist,\na lapse of time, indeed, must be conceded, unmeasured and perhaps\nimmeasurable; but this lapse of time is precisely what geology,\nindependently of Darwinism, has already demanded. As the Scriptures\nspeak of the earth as immoveable, because so it is in reference to\nthe senses of man, they speak also of the everlasting mountains, and\nwith them the rocks are a type of the eternal: compared with the life\nof man these expressions are truthful and well-chosen, but they do\nnot mean to say the rocks are as eternal as God, nor yet everlasting\ncompared with the existence of the globe. It may have taken ten\nthousand centuries to rear up a mountain, and yet, if we reckon the\nage of the globe on the scale of a man\u2019s life, the mountain be but of\nyesterday.\n\nThe immense antiquity, not only of the globe, but of that thin crust of\nit open to our inspection, has been ascertained by geology. Geology,\nagain, has made it certain that during millions of years, changes on\nthe earth\u2019s surface have been in continual progress, so that not once\nmerely, but many times over, continents and oceans must have yielded\nto one another, yet by no sudden, but ever by a gradual transposition,\nsuch as is in constant progress at the present day.\n\nSeeing that the dwelling-place of living creatures is thus continually\nand continuously changing, how clumsy an arrangement it would have been\nhad the forms of life been made constant, instead of being endowed,\nas they clearly have been, with a wonderful power of adaptation. The\nquestion, be it remembered, is not for a moment whether God has made\nthe universe, but _how_ He has made that portion of it which He has\nenabled us to see and examine. Nor yet, to be thoroughly accurate, is\nit in question _how_ He has worked, but how He has been pleased to\nexhibit His operations to the reasoning minds of men. What is worthy\nof God we cannot indeed judge. We can only believe that the things\nwhich are, stand worthiest of His wisdom and goodness, whatever\nfaults may seem in them to our rashly-judging short-sightedness. But\ncomparing theories of creation according to human notions, is it a\nnobler conception that God should have made successively groups of\nbeings to fill the world, and then swept them away to make room for\nothers nearly like them; each time, as it were, improving on His first\nidea, and so arguing the imperfection of what had gone before by the\nvery improvement of what followed; or that, foreseeing the perfect\ntypes from the beginning, He should have called into existence seeds\nof life capable, under the laws He gave them, of rising in successive\ngenerations through countless ages, to endowments of the noblest order,\nto a conscious life, to a reasoning faculty, to a moral sense, to a\nknowledge of God? In such an origin there is for man no degradation,\nsince the lowliness of his parentage has ever been traced back to\nthe dust of the ground; and the lowest form of life is higher in\nour imaginations than the dull brute earth. Indeed, if we desire to\nexalt our self-appreciation, whether is it grander for us to have\nbeen the work of an instant, or to have been elaborated with Divine\ncare through millions of ages? Will not any miracle in our behalf,\nhowever stupendous, seem more credible on the latter than on the former\nsupposition? When we see what Development has already done for the\nhuman species, we can the more readily imagine what, under the same\nLawgiver, it may do in the future for the individuals of our race.\nWhen we find it possible or probable that our own bodies contain\nresemblances to ancestors enormously remote in time, simply because\nthey contain atoms from the bodies of those very ancestors living\nagain in ourselves, we can understand how in a future, whether near or\nenormously remote, atoms from the very body of the man that dies may\nbe called into a renewed existence, and clothed again with all that\nis necessary to personal identity, though haply more transformed and\nhigher raised above the old self, than would be an orang-outang or a\nnaked savage, were either of these enabled to combine the chivalric\ncourtesy of Sir Philip Sydney with the genius of Sophocles and\nShakespeare.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NOACHIAN FLOOD.[17]\n\n\nDarwinism implies almost throughout that no universal Deluge has\ndrowned our globe, either within the last ten thousand years, or even\nwithin a period indefinitely longer. Let us speak with due respect\nof the contrary belief. It _seems_ to rest upon the testimony of\na Volume the most precious in the world. It was taken for granted\ntill a few years back as much in science as in religion. For a\nwhile, the arguments that began to be raised against it were met by\ncounter-arguments so plausible, and the objectors differed so widely\namong themselves, that unscientific opinion had a kind of right and\nprudence in adhering to that which had been taught for centuries, and\nwas still taught without deviation in nursery, and school, and pulpit.\n\nWe should have asserted a better right and shown a higher prudence,\nhad we waited, in a matter which concerned science full as much as it\nconcerned religion, till, by learning facts and weighing arguments,\nwe had become able to form an opinion no longer unscientific, or, at\nthe very least, to appreciate the difficulties involved in the ancient\nbelief.\n\nWe are forced to take a controversy of this kind as it stands;\notherwise, there is a simple principle which ought to make all\ncontroversy on the subject needless. All authors endowed with common\nsense, let alone divine inspiration, use language which their intended\nreaders may be expected to understand, and language appropriate to the\nscope and design of their writings. Unless, therefore, we suppose that\nthe Old Testament writers proposed to teach natural science to the\nHebrew nation, we ought to expect from them what we actually find: as\nto natural phenomena, past and present, they use the language not of\nfar-advanced knowledge and minute particular research, but simply the\nlanguage current in their own day and nation.\n\nBut, setting aside the general principle, in the present instance there\nis a second possibility of quashing the controversy, if it can be shown\nor made probable that the author, whose narrative is in question, never\nmeant to imply that which for thousands of years has been held to be\nhis meaning.\n\nThe whole point at issue is the _universality_ of the Noachian\nDeluge, and the narrative has been thought to be uncompromising in\nits declarations that all the earth, to the very mountain-tops, was\nindeed enveloped in water, and, excepting the handful rescued in the\nark, that all men and cattle and creeping things and fowls of the air\nwere inexorably destroyed. But to this view of the narrative there is\nmore than one objection upon the very surface of the narrative itself.\nAnd, by way of preface, let it be remarked how vague and indefinite is\nthe use in ordinary language of such terms as \u2018all\u2019 and \u2018every\u2019 and\n\u2018universal.\u2019 For instance, if a popular lady gives a kettledrum, we\nsay, \u2018all the world was at it,\u2019 although 500 persons could not have\nbeen squeezed into the rooms without being suffocated; or we say, \u2018so\nand so is a thing which every school-boy knows,\u2019 when we only mean that\na good many lads of a particular age, in a particular rank of life, and\nbelonging to one particular country, have most probably been taught\nit. And again we say, \u2018smoking is universal with the Dutch,\u2019 without\nimplying that every baby in Holland has a pipe instead of a rattle. You\nare not to suppose that this is a view of language invented for the\noccasion, frivolously explaining grave and sacred composition by the\ntrivialities of common speech. On the contrary, it is precisely to the\nunquestioned prevalence of such phraseology, in all but the most exact\nscientific writing, that the late Dr. M\u2019Caul appealed, and appealed\nsuccessfully, against more than one of the objections to the authority\nof the Pentateuch, which were raised some time ago by the well-known\nand ingenious arithmetician who presides over the see of Natal. When we\nread that \u2018there went out a decree from C\u00e6sar Augustus that _all the\nworld_ should be taxed: and _all_ went to be taxed, _every one_ into\nhis own city,\u2019 are we to infer either that the clever practical Roman\ndecreed the taxation of barbarians over whom he had not the faintest\nshadow of control, or that every Israelite, without exception, found\nand visited his ancestral home in Palestine--merchants from Gades and\nOphir and Tarshish, slaves and prisoners, sucking children, bed-ridden\nold men, dying sufferers? We shall not, if we are wise, shut up either\nC\u00e6sar Augustus or the Evangelist St. Luke to so preposterous a meaning.\n\nIn this and ten thousand other instances, our general knowledge of the\nattendant circumstances, or what we call \u2018the nature of the case,\u2019\nsupplies the necessary exceptions. To have them all drawn out in detail\nwould be tedious and troublesome. Suppose a glorious comet is about\nto make its appearance, and some astronomer publicly advises every\none to be on the look-out for it on a certain night, how ridiculous\nwould he appear if he made express exception of persons on the other\nside of the globe, of persons immured in dungeons, of persons not yet\nborn, of persons who were blind, of persons who were dead! Yet an\nauthor, writing some three or four thousand years back, and borrowing\nperhaps from picture-records, certainly from the traditions, however\ndelivered, of an age long anterior to his own, when language was far\nless ample and precise than it has since become, is treated as though\nevery word must bear the full and exact force which it would have in\na carefully-written treatise upon logic in the present day. We may\nassume that the author either had sound and accurate information in the\nordinary course of human tradition, or else that he was endowed with\na super-human knowledge of the historical events in question. But,\non either assumption, what conceivable warrant have we for imagining\nthat he was deprived of common sense? Either he knew the contradictions\nwhich natural science offers to the belief in a recent universal\ndeluge, or he did not know them. If he knew them, we may infer from\nhis silence that his narrative was not open to those contradictions;\nin other words, that the deluge of which he speaks was not universal.\nIf he did not know them, his ignorance points to the same conclusion:\notherwise, we shall have a divine miracle, intended for the warning\nand the benefit of the human race, yet so contrived that all its most\nsurprising circumstances should be absolutely unknown to one half of\nmankind, and as absolutely incredible to the other half.\n\nThe historical account informs us that \u2018the waters prevailed\nexceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under\nthe whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters\nprevail; and the mountains were covered.\u2019 But Europe possesses\nmountains rising to a height of more than 10,000 cubits or 15,000\nfeet--one peak in Asia is 29,000 feet above the level of the sea--so\nthat, on the common interpretation, the waters of the flood must have\nrisen to a thickness above the ordinary sea-level of nearly 30,000 feet\nover the whole of the globe. But, on this supposition, the narrative is\nnot only bewildering and morally impossible, but positively untruthful,\nfor it declares the physical means employed in the production of\nthe flood to be the fountains of the great deep and the rain from\nheaven--means entirely sufficient to produce a partial flood over\na limited area, but utterly and ludicrously inadequate to produce a\ntotal deluge enveloping \u2018all the high hills under the whole heaven.\u2019\nThe notion is self-contradictory that the ocean can be employed to\nraise its own level, or that its general height can be increased by the\nrain which it is its own part to supply. Nor is there any indication\nafforded that a supernatural supply of water was added to our planet,\nto the extent of several hundred millions of cubic miles of liquid,\nwhich would have been required for the purpose of drowning the Caucasus\nand the Alps and Teneriffe and Popocatapetl and Chimilari. We must\nconsider also the difficulty of breathing, and the intense cold that\nwould have been experienced at that stupendous altitude. There is the\nold question of space in the ark; there is the old question of the\nfood-supply, sufficient and appropriate, to be stored and sorted for\nits various occupants, carnivorous and herbivorous, beasts of prey,\ncarrion-birds, and amphibious monsters. But what are these compared\nwith the question how life could be sustained in the bitter freezing\natmosphere, thousands of feet above the line of perpetual snow, by\ncreatures accustomed to the lowlands of the tropics? Supposing,\nhowever, the atmosphere to have been completely warmed by the rise\nof the ocean, or even if the air within the ark was kept warm by its\nenormous crowd of denizens, we are confronted by a new difficulty, one\nthat might seem laughable and improper to mention but for its vast\nand pressing importance in our own days, thwarting the physician,\nperplexing the statesman, baffling the chemist and the engineer. To\nthis supposed epitome of the world\u2019s inhabitants, shut up for months\nwithin the ark, who were the scavengers?\n\nBut suppose every one of these problems to be solved by a miracle,\nalthough of such miracles not a hint is given, there still remains\nthe statement to be dealt with, that \u2018God made a wind to pass over\nthe earth, and the waters assuaged.\u2019 Surely this, if nothing else, is\nconclusive that the writer had all along been describing a local and\npartial deluge upon which a wind could have some sensible effect, not\nan universal flood wrapping all the mountains of the globe in water, in\nwhich case the mightiest wind that ever was, or could be dreamed of,\ncould only have laid bare the surface of the land by piling up great\nhills and precipices of water upon the ocean.\n\nWhen we wish to expose the miracles of a false religion or of a\nsuperstitious aberrant creed, we point out, as the case may be, that\nthey are frivolous, useless, unmeaning, devoid of adequate motive, the\nend achieved and the means employed bearing no reasonable proportion;\nor we show that the testimony in their favour is inconsistent with\nitself, or that the consequences which should have flowed from the\nmiracle, had it been genuine, are certainly wanting, unless, to bolster\nup one extreme improbability, a hundred others are invented and\nswallowed. To every one of these imputations the common theory of the\nNoachian Deluge lies open. But concede a few grains of common sense to\nthe narrator; read his narrative in the spirit in which such a person\nmust have written it; remember that he is not writing a scientific\ntreatise, nor using the phraseology of modern Europe; bear in mind that\nhe is speaking in an idiom no longer or now but seldom used, yet a just\nand noble idiom, which ascribes to God all that is done upon earth,\nwhether good or evil, the works of man and the common processes of\nnature, as well as things super-human and miraculous; and, with these\nconsiderations before us, we shall save the venerable record from every\nimputation, either of folly or of falsehood.\n\nThat which we have described to us is a vast penal catastrophe\nsweeping away some great centre of civilization by means of a terrible\ninundation. Along some ocean-border the far-stretching plains were\ndotted thickly with towns and villages. There were fields waving\nwith corn; the vine and the olive, the orange and the palm abounded;\nthere were cattle feeding in green pastures beside the still waters;\nthere were populous tribes and nations carrying on all the business\nand revelry of life; they bought, they sold, they builded, they\nplanted, they were marrying and giving in marriage, when suddenly\nthe fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the earthquake\nwave rolled in upon them, and swept all the beauty and the glory and\nthe sin remorselessly away. At the same time, the angry heavens were\novercast, and the floodgates of the clouds poured down their volumes of\nceaselessly-descending rain. The distant mountains were torn from the\nsight; nay, every high hill under the whole heaven was itself covered\nand enfolded in a liquid veil, for every rill was now a torrent, every\ntiny silver thread of a cascade now a dark unbroken avalanche of\nwaters. One family alone, alone obedient to the warning which all had\nreceived, were saved amidst this universal ruin, and took with them\ninto the ark of their refuge specimens of every bird and beast and\ncreeping thing that their own country produced, and that was in any\nway serviceable to man. When cloud and mist had rolled away from the\nmountain-tops, when the face of the ground was once more dry--with\nthese creatures they stocked their new settlement. The well-watered\nplain was speedily replenished; the vine flourished; the cattle brought\nforth abundantly; the children of the patriarch multiplied rapidly and\nspread far and wide over their rich and undisputed inheritance.\n\nSuch is the narrative as it glimmers through the haze of forty\ncenturies, only told in the original with unrivalled simplicity and\nforce, grander than any description by forbearing to describe, told as\none would tell it, who in that convulsion of nature had lost kindred,\nfriends and countrymen, as one who had seen the whole world, so far\nas he knew it or cared for it, foundering in the waves, and yet had\nlived on through all the unutterable calamity to see himself once more\nsurrounded by fruitful fields and smiling homesteads, and all that\nmight make what was to him emphatically a new world the counterpart of\nthe old.\n\nSome may permit themselves for a moment to set aside the limitation\nwe have suggested to the number of animals in the ark as fanciful and\nunwarranted. It will be proper therefore to draw out the consequences\nattaching to the old opinion. We find from the words of the narrative,\nthat the patriarch Noah was intrusted with the task of collection. To\nachieve it, then, he must have gone in person, or sent expeditions,\nto Australia for the kangaroo and the wombat, to the frozen North for\nthe Polar bear, to Africa for the gorilla and the chimpanzee; the\nhippopotamus of the Nile, the elk, the bison, the dodo, the apteryx,\nthe emeu and the cassowary must have been brought together by vast\nefforts from distant quarters. The patriarch or his agents must\nhave been endowed with a supernatural knowledge of natural history\nfar surpassing Solomon\u2019s or that of our own times, that they might\nproperly distinguish varieties and species, so that no species might be\nomitted and none represented by more than one variety. To accomplish\nthis with the minutest insects, they must have been provided with\npowerful microscopes. Every portion of the dry land of the globe must\nhave been accessible to them; every jungle, cavern, and ravine. The\nlittle islands that lose themselves in mid-ocean must all have been\nransacked; the search, too, that might not neglect any acre of ground\nin all the continents of the world, would be distracted with the most\nvaried and incongruous pursuits. Sheep, game, caterpillars, beasts of\nprey, snails, eagles, fleas and titmice, must all have their share of\nattention. Unusual pains must be employed to secure them uninjured.\nThey must be fed and cared for during a journey, perhaps, of thousands\nof miles, till they reach the ark; they must be hindered from devouring\none another while the search is continued for rats and bats and\nvipers and toads and scorpions, and other animals which a patriarch,\nspecially singled out as just and upright and a lover of peace, would\nnaturally wish and naturally be selected to transmit as a boon to his\nfavoured descendants.\n\nIt might be asked how, with the supernatural knowledge requisite for\ncollecting all the terrestrial animals of the globe, and the unique\nopportunity for observation afforded by a residence of some months\nwith them in the ark, no more scientific classification was arrived at\nthan that into birds and beasts and creeping things? But letting this\npass, or scattering it and other objections to the winds by inventing a\nmiracle to explain the gathering together of the animals, we shall then\nhave to give some account of their re-distribution. Instead of worrying\nourselves with the problem, shall we at once solve it by asserting\nthat they were miraculously re-transferred to the habitations from\nwhich they came? This will be a highly satisfactory plan, if only it\nwill stop the mouths of those inquisitive persons who never know when\nthey are beaten in an argument. But one cavil may easily be foreseen,\nrequiring a new miracle to satisfy it; for many of the animals must\neither have been miraculously supplied with provisions, or miraculously\nenabled to do without them; or else, to take a single instance, two\nspiders would have been limited to a couple of flies, and when the\nflies had become extinct, because devoured by the spiders, the spiders\nalso would have become extinct through having no more flies to devour;\nand thus their preservation in the ark, at the expense of a great many\nunrecorded and highly improbable miracles, would have been utterly\nuseless.\n\nSuppose, however, that they were spread over the earth again by the\nslow process of natural distribution. Certain perplexities, indeed,\nmay have arisen when they first issued from the ark, when the cobra\nand the rattlesnake, the hungry wolf and the relentless tiger were let\nloose upon the impoverished world and its defenceless inhabitants.\nFor at that conjuncture to have destroyed even one cruel and venomous\nbeast might have blotted out a whole species. It is surely a little\nremarkable that ravenous beasts and birds of prey should have been\nlimited, even while in the ark, to feeding upon animals in a ceremonial\nor ecclesiastical sense clean; but if, after they had left the ark,\nand had once more to provide for themselves, the wily panther and the\ntreacherous hyena must be imagined debating before every meal whether\ntheir victim belonged to the sevens of the clean or the couples of the\nunclean animals, shall we not turn in pity and vexation from any view\nthat involves and admits so monstrous a supposition?\n\nBut we will concede that every creature bore a charmed life, that it\nmight not perish by famine or violence till it had propagated its\nkind. We should then expect to observe that species had distributed\nthemselves over the globe in lines either tortuous or direct, single\nor branching, broad or narrow, but all diverging from a common centre.\nYet nothing of the kind is found. On the contrary, the species of the\nnew world differ from those of the old, the species of one continent\nfrom those of another[18]. The marsupials of Australia and Polynesia\nare generically distinct from all other animals on the globe except the\nopossum. The elephant of Africa is not the same species as the elephant\nof India: so with the lion, so with the rhinoceros. The apes and\nbaboons of the old world are nowhere to be found in America, nor the\nAmerican monkeys anywhere in the old world. In Madagascar, separated\nfrom Africa by less than the breadth of England, all the species\nexcept one, and nearly all the genera, are peculiar[19]. Everywhere\nspecies are found limited in their range by natural barriers, such\nas climate, rivers, mountains, oceans. Are we to suppose that the\nprisoners could scramble into their prisons, and then suddenly became\nincapable of scrambling out again? Everywhere, as a rule, this range\nis consistent with the hypothesis of an origin central to the range,\ninconsistent with that of an origin distant from it. Where, as on\nmountain ranges, we find, contrary to the general rule, the same\nspecies in different localities, the migration from the door of the ark\nloses all semblance of probability, unless we are pleased to imagine\nthat creatures, now without the instinct of migration, for a long time\npossessed it, and roamed about the world through many a sultry plain\nto pick out a hill-side here and there with a temperature suited to\ntheir constitutions. But the exceptional phenomenon, otherwise so hard\nto account for, Darwin has admirably explained, by pointing out that\nspecies adapted to a low temperature would naturally have occupied\nlowlands in the Glacial Period, from which, as the cold gradually grew\nless and less intense, they would as naturally have retired, some of\nthem northwards, others to the cool heights of various mountains.\n\nThat there was a Glacial Period, when great icebergs travelled over\nEngland, a period geologically as but of yesterday, though enormously\nmore remote than any historical dates, is now beyond all question.\nEqually beyond question is it that countless ages and generations\nof living beings on the earth preceded that Glacial Period. And,\nadded to this, we find that there are forms of life just where they\nwould have been left by the effect of that period, had there been\nan unbroken succession from that time to this, and just where it is\nmost unlikely they should be found, had they been forced to travel\nto those habitations from the door of the ark within the practically\ninsignificant period of 4300 years.\n\nBut still further, we may compare the world of life before the Flood\nwith the world of life since. And here surely it needs not the genius\nof Darwin or Lyell or Owen to perceive the conclusiveness of the\nargument which their genius has pointed out and enforced. For instance,\nwhere the marsupials now live, there lived marsupials in ages long\nbefore Noah, as the fossil remains testify. The fossils are fossil\nmarsupials, but marsupials of species now extinct. So that the \u2018door of\nthe ark\u2019 theory requires us to believe that the marsupials found their\nway to Australia, leaving no traces of their route on land, crossing\nseas which they never subsequently recrossed, and planting themselves\nprecisely in that region which other marsupials, generically the same\nbut specifically different, had occupied before them.\n\nWe are to believe this of countless other species in all parts of the\nworld. We are to believe that they slowly and in many generations\nworked their way back to these quasi-ancestral homes, and yet neglected\nto occupy vast tracts equally or even better adapted to their wants.\nWe must believe also that some of the fleetest, strongest, and most\nsagacious animals, as the horse and the elephant, failed to trace\nout the abodes of their ancient representatives, since America, when\ndiscovered a few years ago, possessed these quadrupeds only in fossil\nand in no living species[20].\n\nThere is indeed one animal, whose powers of contrivance would account\nfor its distribution over the globe, even supposing it to have begun\nwith a single family, not more than 4300 years ago, and to have ranged\nfrom a single centre. Man is that animal. Yet, if all the other\nfacts that bear on the universality of the Noachian Deluge were in\nan agreement with it as entire as their irreconcileability is utter\nand complete, still the circumstances of the human race alone would\ndisable us from believing that the Flood of Noah\u2019s epoch extended\nover all the globe. With other animals it might be advanced that the\ndifferent species and main varieties had been represented in the ark\nand were thence disseminated; but in the case of man we are precluded\nfrom such an explanatory device by the express terms of the diluvian\nrecord. If the Noachian Flood was universal, then from Noah alone\nmust be descended all the races of man now upon the earth: all the\ngreat and curious variations they display must have been evolved, not\nin countless generations as Darwinism supposes, but in some two or\nthree hundred or less. From Noah alone must have sprung within a mere\nhandful of centuries races so widely unlike one another as Greeks\nand Negroes, Jews and Egyptians, Saxons and Ojibbeways, Caffirs and\nHottentots, Fuegians and Patagonians, Californians and Chinese, Arabs\nand Esquimaux. In the same archipelago we have the Malay, the Papuan,\nand the dwarf snub-nosed Negrito. To give the contrast between the\ntwo former in the words of Mr. Wallace[21]:--\u2018The Malay is of short\nstature, brown-skinned, straight-haired, beardless, and smooth-bodied.\nThe Papuan is taller, is black-skinned, frizzly-haired, bearded, and\nhairy-bodied. The former is broad-faced, has a small nose, and flat\neyebrows; the latter is long-faced, has a large and prominent nose,\nand projecting eyebrows. The Malay is bashful, cold, undemonstrative,\nand quiet; the Papuan is bold, impetuous, excitable, and noisy.\nThe former is grave, and seldom laughs; the latter is joyous and\nlaughter-loving,--the one conceals his emotions, the other displays\nthem.\u2019 Such is the description and contrast of two types of mankind\ngeographically separated from one another by an interval of not more\nthan 300 miles; yet the line which separates these two races of the\nhuman family is almost exactly coincident with that deep-sea line\nwhich forms the boundary between two great zoological provinces.\nEither, then, in these two distinct but neighbouring localities, the\nwhole multitude of species, man included, must have been undergoing\nvariation simultaneously for tens of thousands of years, or else the\ndifferences in the whole multitude, man included, must have been\nalready established, or nearly so, when first they stepped forth\nin singular procession from the door of the ark. But the former\nalternative, which is the Darwinian, is consistent with the record of\nthe Noachian Flood in implying that the inundation was only partial;\nwhile the latter alternative contradicts the record in an essential\npoint on which it is perfectly explicit, by necessitating the presence\nin the ark of more than one human family.\n\nAs long as we are content to speak of 4000 years or so, some one might\nbe tempted to fancy, however erroneously, that such a period would be\nadequate to produce the existing varieties of mankind, because there\nis some evidence of comparatively rapid changes of colour having\ntaken place under the influence of climate, and because a new type of\nfeatures appears to be forming itself with a noticeable progress under\nthe absolutely unique circumstances which have governed the recent\ncolonization of North America. Unique those circumstances are, because\nnever before has there been so much mingling of the blood of different\nnations and races in a new and unoccupied field, with much to stimulate\nand nothing to curb or repress variation. Never before have men\u2019s minds\nand bodies in every faculty been so taxed and strained to activity\nby the very superabundance of their resources, the virgin soil of a\nnew country, an inherited civilization, enormous and ever-enlarging\nfacilities for doing, for living, moving, and learning--facilities\nsometimes that cannot be declined or escaped from, though they \u2018fret\nthe pigmy body to decay, and o\u2019er-inform the tenement of clay.\u2019\n\nBut, in truth, there is no question of 4000 years in the matter; for\nthere were black people in the time of Herodotus and in the time\nof Solomon. Already in the time of Moses there existed a race in\nPalestine so different from the Israelites, that the first Hebrew\nexplorers were daunted by the sight of them, although, in fact, they\nwere looking on a race no longer in its prime, but one that was dying\nout. Egyptian monuments, dating back to the same period and earlier,\ngive representations of Africans, Asiatics, and Europeans, with\ntheir physical characteristics then as now unmistakeably distinct;\nthey portray the Negro as the Negro still is both in colour and in\nfeatures[22].\n\nIf it took only 800 years, then, which is the interval between the\nFlood and the birth of Moses, to originate and establish types so\ndistinct as Jews, Egyptians, Negroes, and Anakim, all gathered together\nin a little corner of the world, might not Nature, having done so\nmuch in so short a time for the highest animal, do a little more in a\nlonger time for lower animals, and so supply that origin of species\nby variation for which Mr. Darwin contends? Would not the obvious\ninference be that Nature had done so, if it were not fancied that\nsuch an origin of species was still more repugnant to the Book of\nGenesis than even a limitation of the area covered by the Flood? But\nthe Darwinian theory, happily for itself, is not dependent upon any\nsupposition so incredible as one which would warrant us in expecting\namong the descendants, for example, of William the Conqueror, people\nas little like one another as John Bull and John Chinaman, Uncle Sambo\nand the last of the Mohicans. There are circumstances of immense\nweight to convince us that certain marked divisions of mankind\noriginated in the regions which they are now occupying. There are\nother circumstances preponderating for the common origin of mankind.\nDarwinism has at length shown how these phenomena can be reconciled, by\nsimply connecting the history of man with that vast duration of life\nupon the globe which geological science has unveiled. The likenesses\namong races of men demand a common parentage for all those races; the\nunlikenesses can only be accounted for on the view of an isolation\nimmensely protracted of one race from another. Thus the primary origin\nis common to all; the secondary origin is peculiar to each: but now\nthat the primary origin has been proved to be so vastly more remote\nthan was once supposed, the secondary origin recedes of itself into a\nfar distant past, to give time for differences to arise and develope,\nsince, if the actually existing unlikenesses were only skin-deep,\ninstead of affecting, as they do, the bones of the skeleton and the\nwhole fibre of the mind, they would still be too great to admit a\ncommon derivation of the whole human family from the patriarch Noah.\n\nWhat Geology teaches to demonstration is, that all parts of the dry\nland have been not once only but many times under the waters of the\nocean; but it teaches likewise to demonstration that at least for many\nand many an age, almost beyond our powers of conceiving duration of\ntime, there has been no total submergence of the land. That interchange\nof lake and sea with isle and continent which is now going on under our\neyes, has been going on for ages innumerable. By this and kindred means\nhuman beings, like all kinds of animals and all kinds of plants, have\nat intervals experienced severance into groups and isolation. Thus has\nmankind been broken up into distinct families, at first with no line\nof demarcation except the geographical, but gradually in successive\ngenerations becoming more and more unlike in manners, morals, language,\nfeatures, intelligence, and civilization. But since the era of the\nNoachian Deluge neither has there been time for Nature, with her slow\nthough certain processes, to effect so great a reconstruction of\nbarriers as to break up the human family, if till then continuous and\nunited; nor, if there had been time for the geographical severance,\nwould there have been time for the constitutional changes.\n\nAmong the ancients some believed that the sun, moon, and stars were in\nreality about the size which they appear to the unassisted eyesight;\nothers supposed the vault of the sky to be a revolving dome of solid\ncrystal pierced with little holes through which men saw in starry\nshapes the fire of the ethereal region beyond it. Persons with such\nideas of space and physical science might not readily have accepted on\nthe moment the Copernican system of astronomy. In the same way persons\nwith a narrow and limited view of the duration of time may find a\ndifficulty in receiving arguments based on or implying the enormous\nextent of it, which all sciences are now combining to demonstrate.\nBut this mental incapacity, the result of false education and early\nprejudice, may be defied to resist any real investigation of the facts\nor study of what has been written upon them. Let any man of mature mind\nand average intellect read through Sir John Lubbock\u2019s \u2018Prehistoric\nTimes,\u2019 Mr. Darwin\u2019s \u2018Origin of Species,\u2019 and Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s\n\u2018Principles of Geology,\u2019 and retain if he can the opinion that our\nglobe was first peopled about 6000 years ago, and subsequently all\nbut depopulated by an universal Flood. Let him see, indeed, whether\nhe can read Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s account of the progress of opinion\nand controversy on these subjects and refrain from blushing. He\nwill recognize in that account a turmoil and clamour of fools and\nphilosophers, of laymen and divines. He will have to set to the credit\nof intelligent humanity and enlightened Christendom a long tissue of\npious frauds, jesuitical defences, arguments based on imaginary facts,\nand facts perverted by imagination, till he comes down to the present\ntime and finds a great multitude of all classes at length agreed in\naffirming that life has endured on the globe with unbroken continuity\nthrough a past as yet unfathomable. His own mind, he will perceive,\nhas actually reached maturity without having admitted the voice of\nthis multitude, although, to apply almost literally the words of his\ngreat Master, \u2018If these should hold their peace, the stones would cry\nout[23].\u2019\n\nThe world and its wonders are of no mushroom growth, although even\nthe mushroom, which is commonly supposed to spring up in a single\nnight, requires a much longer period, often many weeks, for its\nproduction[24]. The Book of Genesis itself most clearly warns any\ncareful reader against attempting to build a chronology upon the brief\nmemoranda of names and dates which for other reasons are inserted in\nit. For, taking them simply as they stand, Shem, the son of Noah,\nis represented as long surviving the birth of Isaac, while Abraham,\nthe father of Isaac, appears as the contemporary of a vast number of\ndifferent and strange tribes and nations--Egyptians, Philistines,\nCanaanites, Syrians, and many more, besides the Chaldeans from among\nwhom he came. To find a parallel to all this, we should imagine our\nown Edward III, instead of dying in 1377 as he did, living on and\non to the present day, a forgotten old man, not noticed in the page\nof history throughout 500 eventful years, during which the whole of\nEurope was becoming peopled with descendants of himself and his\nfather, men speaking languages mutually unintelligible, holding creeds\nmutually abhorrent, with strange diversities in dress, manners and\ngovernment, and some prevented by national custom from even eating at\nthe same table with guests of another neighbouring and kindred tribe.\nIn vain should we search through history for any actual parallel,\nfor any instance of developments so extraordinary, and estrangements\nso complete, occurring within a space of only 500 years. If all the\nnations spoken of as contemporary with Abraham were only 500 years\ndistant from the Flood, as the Book of Genesis shows them to have\nbeen, we may be certain that they could trace back their lineage,\nindependently of Noah and his family, far beyond the era of the Deluge.\nThe monumental evidence of Egyptian chronology carries us back to a\nPharaoh reigning some three or four hundred years before that date[25].\nThe Book of Genesis introduces us to another Pharaoh reigning some\n400 years after it. Are we to set aside the monumental evidence, and\nmake this later Pharaoh a descendant of Noah, reigning as a powerful\nmonarch, while Abraham, the rightful heir of a patriarchal monarchy\nover all the earth, was nothing but a wandering shepherd? Religion,\nmorals, civilization, as far as we know anything about them in those\nages, whether we regard their advancement in some quarters or their\ndecay in others, all protest against having their progress cramped into\nthose four or five hundred years. They protest against being ascribed\nwith all their conspicuous diversities to the offspring of one man,\nwhose son, grandson, great-grandson and great-great-grandson, Shem,\nArphaxad, Salah, and Eber, were actually still living during all these\nsupposed revolutions[26].\n\nIndeed, if we go back from our 400 to our 4000 years, the protests on\nthese points are almost equally forcible. In the matter of language,\nestimate how many generations must have passed away before the children\nof a common parent came to vary in speech as much as Chinese, Russians,\nEnglishmen, and clucking Hottentots. Form some estimate of the time\nrequired for the rise and growth of civilization, not only in the\nold-world centres of Nineveh and Babylon and Egyptian Thebes, but in\nthe separate and independent centres of Mexico and Peru. Explain,\nmoreover, what, on the hypothesis of a common Noachian descent, must\nbe called the rise and growth of barbarism. Show, if it be possible,\nhow, amidst the rapid strides of civilization, side by side with the\nadvancement of taste, literature, and science, the descendants of\nNoah in some cases degenerated from all culture, sank away from all\nmorality, lost all religion, forgot all useful arts, even those most\nessential to the lowest degree of comfort, the kindling of fire, the\nuse of metals, the construction of dwellings, while they learned the\nhabits and acquired something more than the innocent shamelessness of\nbrutes--learned to prefer the flesh of their own species to any other,\nlearned to make a duty in some regions of putting their parents to\ndeath, in others, of eating their dead bodies[27]. Such customs we\nhave on record four centuries before Christ, such customs on record as\nexisting nineteen centuries after. Will any one attempt to persuade us\nthat the savages of Andaman and the Feejee Islands are cousins, through\nan ancestor no more remote than Noah, of Chatham and Wilberforce, and\nLesseps and Brunel?\n\nTraditions of a Deluge, it is true, are found almost everywhere. The\nreason doubtless is that almost everywhere some tremendous calamity of\nthis description has at one time or another occurred. Inundations on\na small scale are common and frequent, but on a scale great enough to\nsurprise the imagination and become traditional in the memories of a\npeople, they would naturally be rare and infrequent in the extreme, so\nthat the fact of such an experience belonging to the history of so many\ndifferent races, is but another proof, or at least another indication,\nof the antiquity of man. If stress is to be laid on the points of\nsimilarity between the traditions, as proving that every land has been\nravaged by the waters of a flood, equal stress may in fairness be laid\non the points of difference, as proving that not one common universal\nDeluge is spoken of, but many separate and partial floods, distinct in\ntime, in place, and in results. If stress again is to be laid on the\ntradition because it is common to so many tribes, let equal importance\nbe granted to the traditions of time among the Chaldeans and the\nEgyptians, the Chinese and the Hindus, who reckon the years of their\nuninterrupted histories by tens of thousands[28].\n\nFinally, we may ask, where are the traces of so tremendous and\nunparalleled a convulsion as one that could wrap the whole world in\nwater, and hold all its d\u00e6dal beauty for many months in that drowned\ncondition, till a tempest still more furious and unparalleled drave\nheaven and earth, the clouds and ocean, once more asunder? We know\nhow the little trilobite in the Devonian seas behaved in its hour of\nperil millions of years back; we know what food men ate long ages\nbefore the Flood, what weapons they used, what houses they built, what\nanimals they tamed; but what became of man and beast and bird and\nforest in the supposed universal Deluge, no one knows. The signs and\nnatural monuments of the catastrophe, which should have been visible\nor discoverable on every side, can nowhere be ascertained,--things\nthat the waters should have swept away or torn down they have left\nundisturbed, shell-mounds and glacier moraines and boulderstones on the\nmountain-side; while the great museum of the dead which they should\nhave formed, one would think, over all the earth, to constitute one\nstriking and indisputable geological date, as well as a world-wide\nmonument of religion, is nowhere to be found.\n\nWhat became of flower and herb, of creatures that live between the\nzones of high and low water, of mollusk and coral and fish that require\nan appropriate depth and a fitting temperature in their liquid homes,\nit will be useless to speculate, if, after all that has been urged\nupon other points, there are some who still think that the description\nin Genesis is the description of a Flood that prevailed over all the\nworld, and intend still to believe in such a Flood, and to teach it\nas a part of religious doctrine, notwithstanding any argument or\nscientific proof to the contrary. For them we can do no more than\ncommend to their daily reflection a few lines from the lives of two\nfamous men:--\u2018In spite,\u2019 says Dr. Wilson, \u2018alike of the science and the\ndevout religious spirit of Columbus, the Salamanca divines pronounced\nthe idea of the earth\u2019s spherical form heterodox, and a belief in\nantipodes incompatible with the historical traditions of our faith:\nsince to assert that there were inhabited lands on the opposite side of\nthe globe would be to maintain that there were nations not descended\nfrom Adam, it being impossible for them to have passed the intervening\nocean. This would therefore be to discredit the Bible, which expressly\ndeclares that all men are descended from one common parent[29].\u2019 And\nthus another author describes a well-known incident in the life of\nGalileo:--\u2018Clad in a penitent\u2019s sackcloth, the mighty, self-relying\nphilosopher and genius fell upon his knees, and, with his hands laid\non the Holy Evangelists, declared that he abjured, detested, and\nwould never again teach, the doctrine of the sun\u2019s stability and the\nearth\u2019s motion. Having confirmed his oath in writing, and promised to\nperform the enjoined penance, he rose from his knees a pardoned man;\nand turning about to one of his friends, stamped on the ground, and\npronounced in an emphatic whisper, \u201cEppure si muove[30],\u201d--but still it\n_does_ move.\u2019\n\nAs the antipodes exist, as the earth goes round the sun, and as the\nBible continues to be true, in spite of the theologians and inquisitors\nat Salamanca and at Rome, so will it continue to be true and full\nof truth, when at length it shall be acknowledged, as it will be,\nthat there is nothing universal about the Noachian Deluge except the\ndisbelief in its universality.\n\n\n\n\nINSTINCT AND REASON.\n\n\nAn initial probability has been established by Mr. Darwin and Mr.\nWallace that the reason or mind of man, as well as his body, has\nattained its present complete excellence through gradual development.\nNo one denies that, between a man\u2019s birth and his prime of life, time\nis required for the intellectual powers to unfold; but it demands an\neffort which few have as yet made to see in this progression of the\nindividual mind a compendious history of the indefinitely slow process\nby which the human mind itself has been formed, passing upward, step by\nstep, from simple vitality, dawning consciousness, the various grades\nof so-called instinct, to the full capacities of the most enlightened\nreason.\n\nThe theory of development or evolution has excited immense opposition\nand distrust, because of its obvious application to the human body. Its\napplication to the human mind, which, though less obvious at the first\nglance, almost inevitably follows, seems to have inspired Mr. Wallace\nhimself with alarm. He winds up the admirable series of essays in\nwhich he supports the theory under discussion with one that earnestly\npropounds \u2018the _limits_ of natural selection as applied to man.\u2019 His\narguments on this subject are drawn from physical science, though his\nmind is evidently, and even confessedly, swayed throughout by other\nthan physical considerations. He represents, in fact, and endeavours to\nreconcile to his own scientific views, the weight of popular prejudice\nwhich has hitherto condemned those views with some vehemence of\nopposition.\n\nThe sentiment in question amounts to this, that certain powers or\nfaculties of the human mind are so wonderful and so unique, that they\ncould not have originated in the ordinary processes of nature without\nsome special intervention. Antecedents conforming to the usual observed\norder in other living productions are not sufficiently magnificent\nfor the soul of man. Something sudden, something mysterious, is\ndemanded in the agency of its creation. It must be like Pallas Athene,\nspringing from the brain of Zeus, a goddess fully armed from her birth\nin the panoply of wisdom and virtue. Yet the whole feeling thus to be\ndescribed of what is fit and worthy must be accredited, as we desire to\nshow, simply to prejudice. Nothing can really depend for its intrinsic\ngrandeur upon our knowledge or ignorance of its origin. A single cause\ninstantaneously producing its effect does not make the result in any\nway more admirable or magnificent than the like result coming at the\nclose of an indefinitely extended chain of causation. Feelings of\nsurprise and wonder are excited when we find that ten thousand copies\nof the _Times_ newspaper can be printed within a single hour; but the\nsame feelings move us in the granite-yards of Scotland, when we learn\nthat many months are required for cutting through a single block. At\nthe first proposal of railways, a pace of twenty or five-and-twenty\nmiles an hour was thought too wonderful for belief; while now, from\nfamiliarity with far higher rates of speed, we think it miserably slow.\nA child is surprised to learn that the light of the sun requires time\nto reach the eye; but a new and even greater surprise is aroused by the\ninformation that the time so required is only a few minutes for ninety\nmillions of miles. The swiftness of thought is proverbial. A single act\nof thought is commonly supposed to be absolutely instantaneous; and\nyet presence of mind, which depends on rapidity of thought, is fully\nrecognized as an uncommon quality, while it has now been ascertained by\nexperiment that every thought requires a definite, and in many cases\nmeasurable, length of time for its production and exercise. Following\nthe analogy of these illustrations, we may expect that the popular\nopinion or prejudice as to the instantaneous creation of the human mind\nwill vanish and subside when men become familiar with the idea of its\nslow development. It will at least be seen that there is no special\ndignity and grandeur in the supposed suddenness of its introduction\ninto the universe. The general scheme of nature, so far as we can\npenetrate its working, seems to show that there is some proportion\nobserved between the time spent in producing and the perfection of\nthe thing produced. Religion itself is an unquestionable witness to\nthis method of procedure. There is no great religion of which the\nadherents claim to have had it revealed to them from the first in its\nfull perfection. What is true of religion, is true of all arts and\nsciences. Their progress has been gradual. The greatness of nations,\neven when it seems to blaze forth in history most suddenly, ever\nfinds its true origin in numerous steps of slow preparation. A hardy,\nfrugal tribe of warriors is nursed in some obscure mountain cradle.\nThe struggle for existence fosters their preservative virtues. A line\nof rulers is evoked, forced by the circumstances of their tenure to\nacquire, as their leading qualities, cunning, prudence, self-control,\nfertility of resource, promptitude of action, till at length the hour\nand the man coincide, and a handful of barbarians give their name\nto a great empire. The same rule prevails with languages, and the\nliteratures that adorn them. So fully is this established in regard to\nliterature, that men who examine the subject deeply are almost led to\ndisbelieve in originality of genius altogether, from the invariable\nindebtedness of the noblest authors to the thoughts and imaginings\nof earlier minds. There is, therefore, no antecedent improbability\nthat can fairly be pleaded against the gradual development of the\nhuman mind. On the contrary, every possible analogy is in its favour.\nA supposition so favoured becomes at least a lawful and reasonable\nsubject of enquiry. If it be true that the theory of evolution applies\nto the mind of man, we should expect to find in that mind itself traces\nof the earlier steps, or grades of development, through which it has\npassed, and also in the world around creatures lower than humanity in\nsome sort representing those earlier stages of slowly unfolding reason.\nIn other words, we should expect to find in human nature itself those\nvery inequalities, that very conflict of the higher and the lower\nelements on which moralists so urgently insist, and we should expect\nto find affinities and resemblances, more or less close, pervading\nthe whole animal creation, and exhibiting human reason and brute\nintelligence as, upon a broad view, one in kind, however different in\ndegree.\n\nThe first requisite for intelligence is the possession of memory.\nWithout this faculty, intelligence is impossible; but, on the other\nhand, memory that does not subserve some sort of intelligence, is a\nuseless faculty; and in this the old theory of creation agrees with the\nnew, that nothing obtains a footing in the world without a use. It may\nbe urged, that the human memory is incomparably superior to that of\nthe lower animals; but there are surprising differences in the powers\nof memory among human beings, and the effects of cultivation, with the\nfacilities for that cultivation supplied by language, should be taken\ninto account. It is important to observe also, that with brutes, as\nwith men, some individuals are quicker than others; that the memory of\nbrutes, like our own, can be improved by training; and that its powers\nare not equally distributed to all classes. The dog, the horse, the\nparrot, the elephant, are probably not further below mankind in the\nfaculty of memory, than they are superior in it to the oyster and the\njelly-fish.\n\nTo make the most of humanity, without introducing the question of\nman\u2019s material form and structure, one would naturally insist upon\nhis docility or power of being taught; upon his versatility or power\nof adapting various means to the same or various ends; upon his\nmoral nature, embracing the different passions and affections, and\nthe knowledge of good and evil; and, lastly, no doubt, one would be\ninclined and one would have a right to insist on the grandeur of his\naspirations. A crafty rhetorician would perhaps dwell on the collective\nvalue of these endowments, and then exhibit them, separately, rising\nto their height and fulness in men like Archimedes, and Chrysostom,\nand Dante. He would dare us to trace back the mental ancestry of these\ntrue heroes to apes and fishes. Yet the reason, piety, and imagination\nof such men, are themselves developed between childhood and maturity;\ntheir very pre-eminence shows that improvement in such qualities is\npossible from one generation to another, and that therefore meanness of\norigin needs only to be coupled with remoteness in time to reconcile\nthe supremacy of man\u2019s intelligence with its ultimate derivation from\nthe lowest powers of consciousness.\n\nMr. Wallace has pointed out very clearly and conclusively the\nfallacious character of the evidence on which the old theory of\ninstinct was founded. Starting with the notion that wild animals had\nnone of that docility and versatility which man possesses through his\nreasoning powers, yet seeing them produce effects like those which\nman produces by the help of teachers or his own choice of means, we\ninferred the existence of as many separate faculties as there are kinds\nof animals. Each of these faculties was thought to resemble reason\nabout as much as a jack-in-the-box resembles a man. The faculty came\ninto exercise in one invariable way without any choice on its owner\u2019s\npart, just as the jack starts up, whether he will or no, when his lid\nis taken off. We wondered at the admirable contrivance and design\nby which these very limited faculties were adapted in each case to\nthe wants and preservation of the species to which they belonged. At\ntimes, it is true, with some inconsistency, we permitted ourselves to\nupbraid the goose with its stupidity; to speak of the sheep as silly,\nand the ostrich as wanting intelligence; we even expunged the dodo,\nwith its self-preserving instinct, from the face of the earth; but in\nspite of these slips and mischances, we still kept gaping and wondering\nat our own explanation of things, and calling it an excessively wise\nand ingenious contrivance that every species of animal should have a\nseparate faculty to itself, when one and the same faculty for them\nall would not only do just as well, but a great deal better. We were\nfar from perceiving how strong a support to Materialism our theory\ninvolved, since if the lower animals without reason produce effects\nlike those of reason, then effects like those of reason in a number of\ncases beyond calculation must be the result of bodily structure. It\nmight not follow that the effects of reason itself were the results of\nbodily structure, but it would become startlingly probable.\n\nThe history of domesticated animals is a continuous proof that some at\nleast of the lower creatures are capable of learning, and how learning\ncan be achieved without intelligence has never yet been explained,\nand is never likely to be. But Mr. Wallace points out that we have\nmade a gratuitous assumption, unsupported by evidence, in supposing\nbirds, for example, to build their nests by instinct rather than by\nfollowing the example and instruction of their parents. Many things,\nhe remarks, which we ourselves are said to do instinctively, such as\nputting out our hands to save ourselves from falling, are acquired\nhabits, not instinctive actions, and in fact not possessed by infants.\nMr. Darwin[31] tells us of a species of ant which behaves differently\ntowards its slaves in England and in Switzerland respectively. In his\nmemorable account of the busy bee, he shows that some species of bees\nare less clever at their work than others, and that the accuracy even\nof the most advanced cell-makers has been overrated. This is the more\nworthy to be noted, because the same persons who are extremely zealous\nto set forth reason as superior in kind to what they call instinct,\nare yet often eager to extol the effects of the lower faculty above\nthose of the higher. An interesting account has recently been given\nof baboons in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope combining\nto pursue, and after a chase of two days and a night, successfully\ndestroying a leopard which had invaded their haunts. Two tribes\nof baboons in the same locality, the occupants of separate rocky\nstrongholds, are described as upon one occasion meeting in battle, the\nresult being, that nearly a hundred were afterwards found dead or\ndying on the scene of action[32]. The shape of the creature, and the\ncombination for warlike purposes, which carries with it such a tinge\nof humanity, can scarcely fail to affect the imagination. Yet these\nisolated instances must be far less telling than the comparison which\nMr. Wallace has so ingeniously instituted between man as a builder and\nbirds in the same capacity. The shelter of the savage is in many cases\na less finished contrivance than the nest which the bird prepares for\nits young. The featherless biped, like the feathered one, takes the\nmaterials readiest to its digits. Generations upon generations follow\none another without improvement or signs of inventive skill. Even\nin the days of enlightenment, and in nations which pride themselves\nmost upon it, the human nest is repeatedly constructed without the\nsmallest attention to comfort, health, or beauty. Men, whose fathers\nbefore them have built long rows of red-brick boxes to live in, build,\nby instinct if you will, for it can scarcely be by reason, more\nlengthening chains of red-brick boxes. There is no reason, indeed,\nfor supposing that the bird consults any principle of beauty in the\nconstruction of its nest, but a principle of expedience some birds\ncertainly do consult; the orchard oriole, for example, building its\nnest shallow or deep, according as it is placed among firm and stiff\nbranches, or suspended from the slender wind-swayed twigs of the\nweeping-willow[33]. The fact that birds build in human habitations,\nand make use of human manufactures, is a proof that they are capable\nof choice both as to locality and materials. The often-observed\ncircumstance, that animals in a newly-discovered country are without\nfear of man,--a fear which they speedily acquire from experience of his\nmischievous propensities,--is a clear proof that they are capable of\nlearning caution. It cannot be pretended that a caution which thus only\ncomes in conjunction with experience is instinctive, or anything else\nthan the result of observation, and therefore a sign of intelligent\njudgment. The lower animals, then, can learn prudence; can profit by\nexperience. In the training of domesticated animals, the same motives\nof pleasure and pain are applied, and applied effectually, as are used\nin the education of human beings by parents and schoolmasters and\nlawgivers. This could not be if the groundwork of the moral nature were\nnot the same in man and the lower animals. Addison was inclined to\nhold the old opinion, that \u2018God himself is the soul of brutes,\u2019 _Deus\nest anima brutorum._ \u2018One would wonder,\u2019 he says, \u2018to hear sceptical\nmen disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only\nour pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that\nfaculty[34].\u2019 And yet his charming essays upon the natural history\nof animals, in which he took so keen a personal pleasure, with very\nlittle alteration, might be read as arguments in defence of the opinion\nhe thus condemns. He remarks that birds, which ordinarily drive away\ntheir young as soon as they are able to get their own livelihood,\nnevertheless continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or\nconfined within a cage, or by any other means appear to be out of a\ncondition of supplying their own necessities. He observes, that the\nbrood-hen will leave her eggs longer in summer than in winter, because\nin summer they will cool less speedily. But apart from the ingenuity\nnecessary for the propagation of the species, he considers the same\nbird to be a very idiot, without the least glimmering of thought or\ncommon sense, mistaking a piece of chalk for an egg, and sitting upon\nit as though it were one, insensible of an increase or diminution\nin the number of those she lays, not distinguishing between her own\nand those of another species; and when the birth appears of never so\ndifferent a bird, cherishing it for her own.\n\nIt is curious that we should abuse the hen for being now and then\ndeceived by our impostures, considering the immense quantities of\ncounterfeit coin we ourselves accept as currency, and the strange\ncompounds of chalk and mud and alum and poisonous herbs and minerals\nwhich, according to the analysts, we contentedly swallow down as\nmilk and butter, bread and beer. But the hen in a wild state is not\nsubject to our impositions, and possibly the domestic hen finds it\nbetter for herself to overlook them. At any rate, as the mistakes\nconcern her progeny, if her conduct is other than beneficial, it is\nan argument _against_ the perfection of instinct, which it tends to\nbring down to the level of imperfect human reason. It is commonly\nsupposed that ducklings take to the water by instinct. And Addison\ntells us that on one occasion, as he was walking in the yard of\nhis friend\u2019s country-house, he \u2018was wonderfully pleased to see the\ndifferent workings of instinct in a hen followed by a brood of ducks.\nThe young, upon the sight of a pond, immediately ran into it; while\nthe step-mother, with all imaginable anxiety, hovered about the\nborders of it, to call them out of an element that appeared to her so\ndangerous and destructive[35].\u2019 In order to test the real force of\nnature in this matter, as distinct from experience and education, I\nventured on the experiment of placing some little orphan ducklings,\nwhich had been reared away from any pond, in a shallow bath of water\njust deep enough for them to swim in. The experiment was two or three\ntimes repeated, but in each case with a sort of impiety, or, at any\nrate, gross disrespect towards the grand principle of instinct, the\nducklings, instead of enjoying themselves in their appropriate element,\nmade the most violent and unceasing efforts to escape from it. The\nwhole theory of instinct, indeed, probably rests on a multitude of\nevidences which have themselves been taken for granted. At every point\nminute observation, or actual questioning of the facts asserted,\nundermines it. Addison himself must have begun to waver, before he\ninserted in the numbers of the \u2018Guardian[36]\u2019 the French philosopher\u2019s\naccount of the ant, and its wonderful ingenuity and perseverance. Nor\nare passages wanting in his works, which might have been expressly\nwritten in support of the theory of development. After commenting on\nthe various insensible gradations of perceptive being, \u2018If we look,\u2019\nhe says, \u2018into the several inward perfections of cunning and sagacity,\nor what we generally call instinct, we find them rising after the same\nmanner, imperceptibly one above another, and receiving additional\nimprovements, according to the species in which they are implanted.\nThis progress in nature is so very gradual, that the most perfect of an\ninferior species comes very near to the most imperfect of that which is\nimmediately above it.\u2019 Again: \u2018The whole chasm in nature, from a plant\nto a man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one over\nanother, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions\nand deviations from one species to another are almost insensible;\u2019 and\nhe quotes with approbation a passage from Locke, in which we read,\n\u2018There are some brutes that seem to have as much knowledge and reason\nas some that are called men[37].\u2019 Pope, who pursues much the same track\nin his \u2018Essay on Man,\u2019 permits himself to speak of \u2018the half-reasoning\nelephant.\u2019 Any one who doubts the appropriateness of such an epithet,\nnot only to the elephant but to many other animals, should begin to\nstudy the ways and doings of the lower creatures with an eye to this\nvery question,--at every turn asking himself how the action observed\ncan be accounted for by a blind irrational instinct. A stumbling\nhorse, for example, that is generally beaten for stumbling, starts\nafter a false step before the lash is applied. How ridiculous will it\nbe to ascribe to horses an instinct of starting after stumbling--a\nconditional instinct, that appears only in those horses that have\nbeen previously beaten when they stumbled! We need not suppose, as\nLord Bacon appears to have done, that \u2018dogs know the dog-killer\u2019 by a\nkind of power of divination[38]. By their watchful habits, and quick\ninference from acute observation of the few particulars they are able\nto comprehend, it can scarcely be doubted that dogs learn something of\nthe dispositions and intentions of mankind, recognize their humours,\nand distinguish those who are friendly to themselves from those who are\nhostile.\n\nNumberless writers have noticed the different dispositions of the lower\nanimals, differing not merely in separate species, but in various\nindividuals of the same. There has been no scruple in taking the brutes\nthemselves as types and emblems of moral qualities. Almost every vice\nand virtue has been unsparingly assigned to one or other of the brute\ncreation. They are brave or cowardly, savage and treacherous, gentle\nand generous, industrious, idle, obedient, wayward, affectionate,\nmalicious, working always for the common good, or full of rapacity\nand selfishness. It is likely enough that we often misapply these\nepithets, and call that courage which is only consciousness of\nstrength, and that malignant ferocity which is really a hungry stomach\nand a badly-furnished larder; for such mistakes we commit also in\njudging of our fellow-men. But there are many beautiful instances on\nrecord in which dumb creatures have shown themselves capable beyond\nquestion of faithful friendship, and therefore as possessing at least\nthe beginnings, if not any high advancement, of a moral nature. None\nperhaps is more beautiful than that told by Henry Brookes, a writer\nof the last century, about one of the lions in the Tower of London.\nA little spaniel picked up in the streets was thrown into the cage\nof the largest of these beasts, called for his size the king\u2019s lion.\n\u2018Immediately the little animal trembled, and shivered, and crouched,\nand threw itself on its back, and put forth its tongue, and held up\nits paws, in supplicatory attitudes, as an acknowledgment of superior\npower, and praying for mercy. In the meantime the lordly brute, instead\nof devouring it, beheld it with an eye of philosophic inspection.\nHe turned it over with one paw, and then turned it over with the\nother, and smelled to it, and seemed desirous of courting a further\nacquaintance. From this day the strictest friendship commenced between\nthem, a friendship consisting of all possible affection and tenderness\non the part of the lion, and of the utmost confidence and boldness on\nthe part of the dog, insomuch that he would lay himself down to sleep,\nwithin the fangs and under the jaws of his terrible patron.\u2019\n\nThe sequel of the story is pathetic. To tell it briefly, in twelve\nmonths the little spaniel sickened and died. The lion at first supposed\nhim to be asleep, but finding that all his efforts to awaken him were\nin vain, he was filled with intense anguish, would not allow the dead\nbody to be removed, refused all sustenance or comfort, spending his\ntime between rage and grief, till after five days of such an existence,\none morning he was found dead, with his head lovingly reclined on the\ncarcase of his little friend[39].\n\nWere this only a fable instead of an actual incident, there is nothing\nin it revolting to our sense of probability, because we are perfectly\naware that the lower animals constantly give indications of what in\nourselves we call the moral feelings. We continually see them behaving\nas we ourselves behave when we submit to self-sacrifice for the sake of\nthose we love.\n\nWe see many animals in possession of laws and constitutions answering\nto our own in all but one particular, namely, that theirs appear to be\nfixed while ours are continually changing. But most likely we overrate\nboth the fixed character of theirs, and the instability of our own.\nChanges in the politics of an oyster may easily escape the notice of\na man in the midst of some vast revolution (as he thinks it) of human\naffairs, some vast revolution which proves in the end to be nothing\nmore than a change of names. For mankind the acquisition of language\nhas indefinitely quickened the movement of ideas, but where language is\nwithout the aids of writing and printing, as among savage tribes, and\nwhere the language itself is an imperfect instrument of thought, the\nsame routine seems to prevail from generation to generation. Fashion in\ndress changes but slowly when the dress itself is nothing but a girdle;\nand the fashions of the mind change with as little facility when ideas\nand wants, and the means of expressing the one and gratifying the\nother, are all alike few and extremely simple.\n\nSo simple are the wants and ideas of the savage, so little above those\nof the elephant and the ape, that Mr. Wallace finds himself driven\nto the conclusion that the savage \u2018in his large and well-developed\nbrain possesses an organ quite disproportionate to his actual\nrequirements--an organ that seems prepared in advance, only to be\nfully utilized as he progresses in civilization.\u2019 But anything _quite\ndisproportionate_ to its actual place in nature cannot have been\nproduced according to the theory of development. This theory therefore\nMr. Wallace deems and declares inapplicable to the brain and mind of\nman. In support of his view he adduces several circumstances both of\nman\u2019s bodily and mental constitution, which he considers this theory\nincapable of explaining. He maintains that natural selection will not\naccount for those rudiments of logical, moral, and \u00e6sthetic faculties\nwhich are to be found in uncivilized man; for the nakedness of the\nhuman skin, though hair upon the back would be of essential service to\nthe unclad savage; for the absence of prehensile power from the human\nfoot, a power which he thinks would be useful, or for those perfections\nof hand and voice which he thinks would be useless, to uncultivated\nhuman beings. The inference he draws \u2018from this class of phenomena is,\nthat a superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a\ndefinite direction and for a special purpose, just as man guides the\ndevelopment of many animal and vegetable forms.\u2019\n\nIn this illustration he overlooks the circumstance that man\u2019s selection\nis after all nothing more nor less than part and parcel of natural\nselection. In his argument from the various uses and powers of the hand\nand brain, which could have been of no service to men in a wild state,\nhe neglects the consideration that what is selected through being\nuseful in one direction may incidentally become useful in another.\nHad he employed his usual ingenuity on the question of man\u2019s hairless\nskin, he might have seen the possibility of its \u2018selection\u2019 through its\nsuperior beauty or the health attaching to superior cleanliness. At\nany rate it is surprising that he should picture to himself a superior\nintelligence plucking the hair from the backs of savage men, (to whom\naccording to his own account it would have been useful and beneficial)\nin order that the descendants of the poor shorn wretches might, after\nmany deaths from cold and damp, in the course of many generations take\nto tailoring and dabbling in bricks and mortar. In regard to the voice\nhe makes an assertion which is surely impossible for himself or any one\nelse to prove, namely, that \u2018savages certainly never choose their wives\nfor fine voices.\u2019 But upon this assertion the whole of his argument\nabout the voice depends. And as for the stress which he lays upon the\nrudimentary moral and \u00e6sthetic faculties of savages, we have shown that\nnumbers of other animals likewise have rudimentary moral faculties,\nwhile Mr. Wallace himself makes it probable that many have a taste for\ncolour[40], and that \u2018their powers of vision and their faculties of\nperception and emotion must be essentially of the same nature as our\nown[41].\u2019\n\nTruly in one sense every variation is prepared in advance, only to be\nfully utilized in the future progress of the creature that varies.\nEvery variation, I doubt not, is so prepared in advance by a superior\nintelligence, but under the general laws which that intelligence\nhas ordained, and not by a special interference. The real progress\nof each creature, within the spheres at least of consciousness and\nintelligence, would seem to consist in its growing capacity for\nperceiving and understanding, for entering into fellowship with, beings\nsuperior to itself. In mental powers the dog and the horse become more\nand more like man, the closer and the more continuous the intercourse.\nCould they learn our language or we theirs, the progress might be\nindefinitely hastened. In the general progress onwards and upwards,\nman, it may be believed, then first became the indisputable lord and\nchief over his fellow animals, when his reason had so far advanced\nthat he could comprehend the idea of God, when his reason had grown\ninto a capacity of hearing the divine voice, which since then, not by\ninterference with physical conditions, but by intercourse of mind with\nmind, has led him forward step by step from darkness into twilight,\nfrom the twilight is still leading him forward, as his eyes become able\nto bear it, towards the beauty of the rosy-fingered dawn; and just as\nthose of the lower animals are considered the most intelligent which\nmake the most successful efforts at intercourse with man and at serving\nhim, so, by a true analogy, may the philosopher deem those men and\nthose races of men to be furthest on the path of enlightenment who know\nmost of God and serve Him best.\n\n\n\n\nHUMAN NATURE AND BRUTE NATURE.[42]\n\n\nA poor slave, named Androcles, escaped from his master into a sandy\ndesert. While there a lion came suddenly upon him, and by signs made\nhim understand that it was in an agony of pain. This the slave was\nable to relieve by extracting a large thorn from its paw and by gentle\ntreatment of the wound. From this time the lion shared its prey with\nthe man, till Androcles, pining for human society, and facing even\ndeath to regain it, at length gave himself up to his master. It so\nhappened that the slave was sent to Rome to be exposed to wild beasts\nat the same time that the very lion which he had befriended was\nsent thither, among many others, to supply the cruel sports of the\namphitheatre. The moment came when Androcles was to be torn in pieces.\nA huge famished lion rushed forth in fury upon him; then paused, crept\ngently towards him, and ended by fawning upon him with caressing\nmovements. It was the lion he had known in the desert.\n\nThis is no fable, but a piece of well-known history; and the sequel is\nequally well-known, that the applause and admiration of all beholders\nat this wonderful instance of fraternity between man and beast, at this\nmarvellous exemplification of the powers of memory and gratitude in a\nwild animal, secured the lives both of slave and lion.\n\nHad this been recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, in that noble and\nreverent phraseology which so often leaves out of sight all secondary\ncauses as by comparison insignificant, and ascribes all that is good\nand wonderful directly to God, there can be little doubt that it would\nhave borne a striking resemblance to the miracles wrought in favour of\nElijah and Daniel; when for the one God commanded the ravens to feed\nhim, and the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and\nbread and flesh in the evening; and for the other God sent his angel\nand stopped the mouths of the lions even in their den, and they did him\nno hurt. Explain these miracles as you will, and the kindred one quoted\nby St. Peter, or accept them all without explanation as occurrences\nout of the course of nature and beyond our comprehension, it still\nfollows from the language of the sacred writers that they at least\nsupposed these brute creatures capable of intelligence, an intelligence\nsufficient to receive the divine commands and to avoid, so far as they\nmight, opposition to God\u2019s will. For how else could there be any moral\nteaching in the circumstance that \u2018the dumb ass speaking with man\u2019s\nvoice forbad the madness of the prophet?\u2019 How else can the miracle seem\nanything else or anything better than a piece of puerile conjuring?\nBut this faculty, which the sacred writers therefore attribute to the\nbrutes, the faculty of hearing and obeying the voice of God, is the\nbasis of the highest intelligence, the basis of all true morality and\nreligion.\n\nThat which we are now concerned to prove is, that human reason is an\noutgrowth and development of a faculty common to the whole animal\ncreation; that we are the heirs of the past in fact, as we are\ninheritors of the future in hope; that an incalculable multitude of\nsmall advantages acquired in successive generations has brought man to\nhis present vantage-ground of superiority; and that this very footing\nof advantage has now become in its turn simply the starting-point for\nfuture improvement to an estate indefinitely higher and better. It may\nwell be impossible in a few minutes\u2019 discourse to do more than indicate\nthe bare outline of the proof; and even this might seem inappropriate\nto the time and place, did we not hope to show further that these\nopinions, startling or even dangerous as they may seem to some, give\nsupport to high principles of humanity, and are in accordance with the\ncourse and progress of God\u2019s revelation of Himself to mankind.\n\nIt is well established that the human body in all its parts corresponds\nto the structure of certain of the lower animals. When first discovered\nthis was extremely shocking to the sentiments of mankind, shocking\nto their pride, but shocking also to their religious sentiment,\nbecause they had been accustomed to speak of the \u2018human form divine,\u2019\nto represent the supreme God, \u2018Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,\u2019 as wearing\nthe form and acting with the members of a man, and because in the\nwritings sacred alike to the Jew and to the Christian, they found it\nwritten that God created man in His own image; in the image of God\ncreated He him.\u2019 They did not stop to enquire what sort of creation\nwas intended or what sort of likeness. They failed to observe that\nthe vague indefinite notion they entertained of a bodily likeness was\ninconsistent with the Christian\u2019s cardinal doctrine of the Incarnation,\naccording to which it is not man that wears the form of God, but God\nthat took upon him the form of man.\n\nIt will now for a time perhaps seem equally shocking that the mind\nof man, which alone is left him for the divine resemblance, should\nnotwithstanding have been developed from the mind of a brute creature,\nor if not developed, at any rate framed upon the same type and pattern.\n\nA broad line has till lately been drawn between reason and instinct,\ninstinct appearing in a large number of instances to do or even to\nsurpass the work of reason, but within an exceedingly limited sphere,\nand according to a fixed invariable course. Ingenious and thoughtful\nmen, however, taking their opinions not from hearsay and tradition, but\nfounding them on careful observation of the works and ways of God in\nnature itself, have now shown the baselessness of this ancient estimate.\n\nThe bird building its nest does not follow an invariable rule,\nbut accommodates itself to circumstances, to the materials of the\nlocality, to the requirements of defence, as man does with his own\nhabitations. There is no proof that the bird builds untaught by its\nelders, or that it does not improve by practice. Since wasps have been\nknown to construct their nest out of paper, itself a fabric of human\ninvention, it is impossible they can have chosen their material by an\noriginal instinct. The cells which various bees construct attain to\nvarious degrees of perfection, and imperfections may be found in the\nmost perfect. It has indeed been a curious fancy for men so long to\nentertain, that though they were created in the image of God to have\ndominion over the lower creatures, yet those creatures without reason,\nwithout teaching, without the God-likeness, should be able to surpass\nthem, by a miracle or a mystery, in the accuracy or perfection of their\nworks.\n\nThe pursuit which man in a low state of civilization has ever thought\nmost noble is that of war. The essence of war lies in the combination\nof forces and the choice of opportunity. Of both these the lower\nanimals are known to be capable. Their armies resemble human armies in\nfollowing leaders, in posting sentinels, in carrying off captives, in\nmaking slaves. Creatures that are very weak combine not unfrequently\nto repel or to destroy an antagonist immensely too strong for their\nindividual efforts. That rooks and other animals try, and execute\njustice upon, offenders against the laws and customs of their society\nis probable, if it cannot be absolutely proved.\n\nThe objection is sure to be urged that if the dumb animals have the\nprogressive plastic intelligence which is thus claimed for them,\nit ought, in the innumerable generations which have existed, to\nhave attained to something far higher than there is any pretence\nfor thinking it to have done. But this objection leaves important\nconsiderations out of sight. It is true here, as in so many cases,\nthat to him that hath shall more be given. The intelligence of man\nreached a point not all at once but by degrees, at which it was able\nto invent helps and appliances for its own benefit and improvement,\nand thenceforward its strides were more rapid and its distinction from\nlower intelligences more marked. Cancel the art of printing, cancel\nthe signs of the alphabet, cancel the forms of articulate language,\nand with each one of these steps you will thrust back and degrade, not\nperhaps every single human intellect, but certainly the whole mass\nand average of human intelligence. There is no need to ask or answer\nthe question whether thought without language is possible: without\nlanguage thought cannot move, it has no grasp upon the world; it may\nflicker for a moment in the mind that kindles it, as a light under a\nbushel, but it cannot shine before men that they may see its goodness\nand glorify their Father in heaven. We see the proof of this in races\nof men that have no printed books, no symbols for writing, and but\nfeeble imperfect languages. Civilization is wanting to them; their\nworship is degraded; in their habits and general morality they rise but\nlittle above the brute creation. Moreover, century after century they\ncontinue without making any apparent improvement or advance. Contrast\nor compare with these the lower animal creation, and it will be found,\nif not in its separate members, still in the whole group, not to fall\nso infinitely below humanity as human beings have long been pleased to\nimagine: for the lower animals can be taught to recognize man as their\nsuperior and friend, though his mind is beyond their comprehension,\nand a similar recognition is exactly what we men have to attain to in\nregard to God; they can be taught by pleasure and pain, motives by\nwhich we ourselves both in childhood and in age are taught, motives by\nwhich God Himself declares that He teaches us, if we are to believe His\nword.\n\nThat they are capable of our virtues has been shown in a notable\ninstance; that they are capable of our follies is clear in the\nconspicuous vanity of the peacock; and no weakness cleaves more\npertinaciously to the human mind than this of vanity, which is often\nfound combined even with the noblest intellect. That they are\ninfluenced by feelings like ours may be learned from the gay plumage\nof the bird of Paradise, acquired under the same influence of the\npreference and admiration of others, for which fair women wear fair\nraiment, and for which the soldier, at extra risk to his life, is clad\nin scarlet.\n\nAccording to a principle now well known, the earlier the period of life\nthe greater the resemblance is likely to be between creatures akin to\none another. Hence we may explain the phenomenon that some children,\nthroughout their childhood prone to causeless mischief and stubborn\nresistance, become at length reasonable and self-controlled men. As\nfor the child, so for the brute, a future of enlightened reason and\nself-control may be in store. The largest and most generous minds are\nnow beginning to contemplate the possibility of an immortal destiny\nfor all animals whatsoever. To my own mind, as doubtless to many of\nyours, such a conception has often seemed fanciful and ridiculous,\nas the greatest and best notions often do to minds that are narrow\nor unexpanded by a wisdom higher than their own. So it was that the\ngossips and philosophers of Athens mocked when they heard of the\nresurrection of the dead, though St. Paul was preaching only the\nresurrection of human beings. To extend this belief in the resurrection\nto all the animate creation is to extend our conception of the power\nand the goodness of God, to make easy many things that otherwise seem\nappallingly difficult in regard to His justice and His mercy. Does\nit seem a thing impossible with you that God should raise the dead?\nIs the Lord\u2019s arm shortened that it cannot save, whether it be man,\nor the worm that Scripture deems his fitting emblem? Or, as the Jews\nwere jealous that the Gentiles should be saved, are we jealous that\nfor creatures which we slaughter, trample on, enslave, and crowd out\nof existence, happiness and life should yet be in store as well as for\nourselves?\n\nBe willing to believe that language, reason, spiritual insight, which\nis the reason elevated to the capacity of knowing God--be willing to\nbelieve that these have been gradual acquisitions to humanity, and the\nwhole course of God\u2019s Providence will at once stand out in a clearer,\npurer light. Supposing the soul of man thousands of years back to have\nbeen precisely what the soul of man is now, its requirements and its\naptitudes must have been the same then as they are to-day, so that\nif the doctrine of the Trinity is essential now, it must have been\nessential then, when it had not been revealed. On the same supposition,\ntoo, either the record of God\u2019s will in the earliest portion of the\nBible is incredibly defective, or the record of it in the completed\ncanon of Scripture must be charged with bewildering superfluity.\n\nBut God has not dealt so with His children. He has given them their\nheavenly food as they were able to bear it. First by allegory and\nparable He unfolds His will, as a father tells his little ones the\nstories which they love to hear, minding ever within the stories and by\nmeans of the stories to present the truth, the lessons of the beautiful\nand the upright. The earliest revelation of God presents Him in the\nsimplest form, the easiest for us to understand, as the Great Patriarch\nof mankind. Along with this revelation came simple commands and\nprohibitions, the requirements of external sacrifice, the promise and\nwarning of temporal rewards and punishments. The law of retaliation, an\neye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, seems brutal now, but it is the\nbeginning of a noble education. It says indeed, \u2018Do to others as they\nhave done to you,\u2019 but then in regard to injuries it bids you exact\nno more than you have suffered, instead of taking a brutal revenge by\nrepaying the injury tenfold: and in regard to benefits it bids you\nnever forget to be grateful. From it springs the higher and better law,\nof doing to others, not as they have done to you, but as you would\nhave them do to you. Without these beginnings the human mind could\nnever have comprehended or received the highest education--that we are\nnot only to forgive but to love our enemies. The system of material\nsacrifices trained men to a capability of understanding and of offering\nthe sacrifice of the heart; the outward cleansings demanded by the law\nled them by degrees to recognize the need of inward purity. By the law\ncame the knowledge of sin. Not till man knew that sin was sinful could\nhe either wish for or receive a Saviour. Hence it was that Christ came\nnot at the beginning, but only in the fulness of time. The gift of the\nHoly Ghost was not outpoured till men in part were ready to receive\nit. That it is still bestowed with so sparing a hand is not the fault\nof God\u2019s liberality, but of our backwardness to believe in God, to\ncommune with Him, and thereby to grow up into His likeness. We are the\nmirror in which the divine image shines, if only the mirror can be made\nto receive the requisite brightness.\n\nTo know that sin is sinful is to become conscious of the will of God,\nto become conscious of a good and perfect will to which our own ought\nto be conformed. Not to know this will is to be still brutish; to know\nit only by the teaching of others is to be still among the things of\na child; to know it of oneself, which is in other words to know it by\nthe teaching of the Holy Ghost, who alone can implant the doctrine with\nunfailing demonstration and enable us to receive His discipline,--this\nat length is to be a man made in the image of God. For the fear of\nthe Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil that\nis understanding; and to love God with all the heart and all the\nunderstanding and all the soul and all the strength, is the single aim\nas it is the crowning effort of the highest and purest intelligence.\nTo be able to pray to God is the glory of reason; to do it, is the\nsafeguard of life.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAPSE OF TIME.\n\n\nThe divergence of opinion between scientific and unscientific persons\nis scarcely anywhere more conspicuous than in their measurements of the\nage of the world we live in. A popular impression still prevails that\nthe old beldame earth, as Hotspur calls it, is about six thousand years\nof age. A little margin is sometimes allowed. By an exercise of heroic\nliberality a period of ten or twelve thousand years is occasionally\nconceded for the earth\u2019s existence. Any chronology discontented with\nthese ample limits comes within the domain of rash and dangerous\nspeculation. Some, indeed, who would fain conciliate all parties, are\nwilling to extend the bounds on certain conditions. They will grant a\nlarge extra slice of time, provided that during that period the earth\nwas a shapeless uninhabited lump, or if inhabited, not inhabited by\nmen. \u2018Come, now,\u2019 says the cheap-jack, \u2018I\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019ll do with\nyou; I\u2019ll throw you in another five thousand years; fifteen thousand\nyears! and take the lot. What! not do? I\u2019ll make it twenty thousand.\nNow, I\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019ll do with you: I\u2019ll make it five-and-twenty\nthousand years, and if that won\u2019t satisfy you, you aren\u2019t worth arguing\nwith.\u2019\n\nWhat scientific men think of the cheap-jack\u2019s offer it is the object of\nthis essay to consider.\n\nThe problem upon which many thoughts and speculations of science are\nfor the moment converging is the origin of life. There are some who\nbelieve that under certain chemical conditions living creatures are\ncontinually coming into existence, ungenerated by any living parent,\nborn as it were without birth, acquiring an animated existence, with\npowers of motion, feeding, and reproduction, from substances previously\nwanting in one or all of these capacities; such creatures, in short,\nas, if asked for their parentage, could but answer, each for itself, my\nfather was an atom, and my mother a molecule. It should be remembered\nthat the little animals supposed to arise in the manner described first\nbecome visible, if at all, as the tiniest objects that microscopes\ncan detect. But whether there is or is not in these days a continual\ncoming into existence of these infinitesimal pigmies, they are just\nsuch productions as the Theory of Development would suppose to have\narisen originally, constituting the first outburst of life upon the\nglobe, ancestral to the noblest forms of animated nature now extant,\nprogenitors in an unbroken line of man himself. As a rule, among living\nthings we find that offspring bear a tolerably exact resemblance\nto their parents. The lower the organism the less easy is it to\ndistinguish specimens of one generation from those of another; and\neven in the most highly organized creatures the points of resemblance\ngenerally far outweigh the points of difference between the parents\nand their children. In short, under ordinary circumstances, not one\ngeneration only, but a hundred, may pass away without registering\nany perceptible alteration in the character of a species. A hundred\ngenerations of mankind would require a period of about three thousand\nyears. A hundred generations of less important creatures might not\nperhaps require even as large a number of hours. But between the two\nextremes the necessary periods would bear a kind of ratio to the\nperfection of the organism. Variations might now and then follow one\nanother in quick succession, and then a pause come of a thousand\ngenerations or so before any further changes in the character of a\nspecies.\n\nSuch are the conditions under which Mr. Darwin and his followers\nbelieve it possible for the whole sequence of changes to have been\neffected, which have ended in peopling the whole earth with a countless\nvariety of the most diverse forms of life. Many persons are horrified\nat the notion of linking together a man and a monkey even by the most\ndistant ties of consanguinity; what will they say to a genealogy which\nbegins with an almost invisible speck and ends with a Patagonian\ngiant--a genealogy which asserts that, through the slow process of\nminute changes occurring for the most part at rare intervals, our\nfair humanity has been developed or evolved out of creatures which\nno unaided human eye could distinguish from the dust on which we\ncarelessly trample. To some ears such a theory must sound wild and\npreposterous beyond all the boundaries of sane and rational thinking.\nAnd, in truth, no censure could be too severe, no ridicule too keen for\nso extravagant a piece of folly as this theory must be, if the old and\nstill prevailing notions about the age of the world have any foundation\nin fact. It only begins to be reasonable, if we can afford to stretch\nour notions of history from the narrow margin of six thousand to the\nbroader field of six hundred thousand years, with an indefinite past in\nthe background.\n\nThis vast lapse of time, as commensurate with the existence of the\ninhabited globe, is essential to the Theory of Development. It must be\nestablished, as it has been, by independent evidence of its own, before\nit can give to that theory its absolutely necessary support. But the\nTheory of Development in its turn helps the mind to believe and realize\nthis enormous lapse of time, with its seemingly never-ending march and\nflow, rank upon rank, wave upon wave, by finding work and employment\nfor all its almost measureless duration. It explains, as it were, why\nthe drama of life still goes on, why the play was not long ago played\nout, and the curtain let fall upon all the busy multitudinous actors.\n\nTime of itself does nothing; but nothing can be done without time.\nIt is not a personal agent, but a necessary condition. We cannot\neven think, much less reason, of things as occurring out of time\nand independently of it, any more than we can think or reason of\nmatter as existing independent of space. Every occurrence takes\ntime: and yet we may not leap from this fact to the conclusion that\na countless multitude of occurrences will require a vast duration of\ntime. Professor Tyndal, in his Lecture on the Scientific Use of the\nImagination, refers to waves of light less than 1/50000 of an inch in\nlength. How many do you suppose of such waves would be required to\ncompass a mile? How many to accomplish the 185,000 miles which light\ntravels in a second? Each undulation is a separate occurrence, so that\nwe have millions of millions of occurrences following one upon another\nin a second of time. In studying, therefore, the complete fabric of\nthe globe, or even of the whole material universe as far as it comes\nwithin our ken, the problem for solution is not whether these great\nresults could or could not have been brought to pass in an indefinitely\nshort space of time, in the twinkling of an eye, as one might say, but\nwhether the space of time employed in their production has actually and\nin fact been indefinitely short or indefinitely long. We ought also to\nbear in mind that the terms we use when we speak of _long_ and _short_,\nare relative not absolute--relative to the duration of our own lives,\nor to some other arbitrary standard which we are pleased to set up for\npurposes of comparison. Thus a year is long compared with a minute, but\nshort compared with a millennium; a thousand years would be an enormous\nlength for the life of a mortal man, but compared with the ceaseless\nflow of ages, which we call eternity, this same thousand years becomes,\nas it were, an imperceptible speck, less than a drop of water compared\nto the Atlantic, a point of time so inconceivably minute, that no human\nmind could grasp it as an intelligible unit of measurement. For time,\nwe have an inexhaustible past on which to draw. Against any given\ntheory of production, no objection pure and simple that the theory\nmakes too large a demand upon time, can be maintained. An objection,\nto be valid against the existence of life on the earth a million of\nyears back, must postulate that there was no earth then in existence,\nor none capable of supporting life; for if we choose to stand by the\ndoctrine of final causes, life upon the earth must have begun as soon\nas life upon the earth was possible, otherwise we should have a fair\nand perfect design with its purpose unaccomplished; or, if we prefer\nthe Theory of Development carried out to its legitimate consequences,\nequally must we admit, that as soon as the earth was fitted for living\ncreatures, living creatures would be generated upon it.\n\nIn tracing back the duration of the globe, the first demand of the\nuninitiated will be for the written evidence of historical records. The\npopular impression claims to be founded upon such evidence of the most\nauthoritative description. Little do the upholders of this impression\nin general understand that they are building their faith, not upon the\nBook of Genesis, or the inspiration of the Hebrew lawgiver, but on\nthe arithmetical speculations of an Irish archbishop, who lived in the\nseventeenth century.\n\nBefore we can accept the Hebrew genealogies as competent data for\nhistorical chronology, we must understand the principles on which they\nwere framed. In ancient languages we have abundant evidence to show\nthat the ties of blood were not as sharply distinguished as among\nourselves. The same word sufficed to designate son and grandson, and\neven the most remote descendant. A man\u2019s heir was called his son;\nan usurping successor might receive the same title[43]; and, beyond\nall this, it has been shown to have been \u2018a common practice with\nthe Jews to distribute genealogies into divisions, each containing\nsome favourite or mystical number; and that, in order to do this,\ngenerations were either repeated or left out.\u2019 Some persons, perhaps,\nwill say, \u2018We don\u2019t believe it, or we don\u2019t believe it in regard to\nany of the biblical genealogies.\u2019 And yet the very first chapter of\nthe New Testament is the most conclusive and incontrovertible proof of\nthe statement; for our Lord\u2019s genealogy[44] is there expressly divided\ninto three periods of fourteen generations each, and the middle period\nhas been stripped of three generations in order to bring it down to the\npre-determined number. The names of three well-known princes (Ahaziah,\nJoash, Amaziah), whose histories occupy several chapters in the Second\nBook of Kings, are omitted, and Amaziah\u2019s son is described, without\nfurther note or comment, as a son begotten by one who was really his\nfather\u2019s great-grandfather. In a matter so obvious, there cannot attach\nto the compiler of the genealogy the very faintest suspicion of bad\nfaith. He was following the custom of his country, for reasons then\ndeemed, and perhaps in those days actually being, good and sufficient.\nCan we make as satisfactory an apology for men in the present day,\nwho shut their eyes to the nature of the evidence on which they build\nopinions about the age of the world opposed to the discoveries of\nscience? If in the first century of the Christian era, in times of\ncomparative enlightenment, by men of approved truth and uprightness,\ngenealogies could be compiled without the smallest regard being paid\nto the actual number of successive generations, it becomes impossible\nto attach any value as chronological evidence to Hebrew genealogies\nfifteen hundred, or, for all that we can tell, fifteen thousand\nyears more ancient. Had the genealogy on which this conclusion rests\nadmitted a chance of error, had there been any motive for fraud in its\nconstruction, did any suspicion lie against its authenticity, the case\nwould be weakened. But just because there neither was nor could have\nbeen error in the mind of the writer, or deceit in his intention, just\nbecause what he wrote, he wrote deliberately and of set purpose, it is\ncertain that his record is not, and was never meant to be, a measure\nof time; and that those who persist in measuring time by similar\nrecords, are the victims of a manifest delusion, ensnared, it may be\nfeared in too many cases, with their eyes open.\n\nThere is an old jest that, in the pride of antiquity, a Welshman\ngenerally traces back his lineage not only as far as Adam, but a\ngreat deal further. Nothing was easier, before the age of historical\ncriticism, than for men or nations, whose real origin was lost in\nobscurity, to link their names to an illustrious past. Nothing was\neasier than to develope the obscurity itself into a long line of remote\nancestors, whose names and virtues could be invented and multiplied\nat pleasure. What the poet was only too willing to imagine, the\nmathematician seemed able to confirm, by registering astronomical\noccurrences in far-distant long-past ages with as much precision as\nthose which he predicted, and predicted truly, for his own and future\ntimes. The Hindoo chronology reckons the age of the world by millions\nof years. The Egyptians twenty centuries ago used to tell of 330\nkings of whom they knew no more than the names. There were Greeks who\nclaimed to be older than the moon; others who anticipated the theory of\n_abiogenesis_ by claiming to be sprung from the earth itself without\nthe intervention of parents; and yet others, who with more modesty\nor more pride, as we please to regard it, derived their origin from\ngods and demigods. None were willing to be thought new people. The man\nof yesterday, the _novus homo_, the upstart, the parvenu, has ever\nbeen disliked and laughed at by society. And in like manner, among\nnations, a new rival excites the fears and encounters the ridicule\nof the established clique. Claims to antiquity, therefore, were as\nadvantageous to possess as they were easy to forge. Those that have\nbeen mentioned, being unattested by any corroborative facts, and,\nwhere they are not obviously false, being unsusceptible of proof, are\nworthless in themselves. One thing they tend to show, namely, that all\nremembrance of the real origin of mankind, and of the date of that\norigin, had been absolutely lost to those ancient peoples. From over\nthe sea, from beyond the mountains, from the bright east or the frozen\nnorth, they might know that their forefathers had made pilgrimage\nin distant ages--or they might know of no time, however far back,\nwhen the seat of their habitation had not been occupied by their own\nprogenitors. In either case their ignorance of primeval history is as\nabsolute as it is conspicuous. One prevailing tradition, it is true,\nis current alike in sacred and profane literature, of a far-off golden\ntime, an age of simplicity, when man conversed with the beasts of the\nfield, when the earth brought forth her fruits spontaneously, with\nher bosom as yet unvexed by the ploughshare, ere the knowledge or the\ndiscrimination of good and evil had come into the world--the record,\nin one word, as all these details tend to prove, of a time before man\nhad become a moral being; a dim mysterious recollection, almost like a\ndream, of a time before the animal nature had been decisively exalted\ninto humanity.\n\nSome persons believe, against all probability of evidence, that spoken\nlanguage was a sudden original inspiration instead of a gradual\ninvention. None, however, assert the right of believing the same thing\nin regard to letters or written language. The progressive origin of\nalphabetical signs is admitted on all sides, so that there must have\nbeen a time when man had to trust to his fallible memory instead of\nwritten memoranda. The growth of picture-writing itself must have been\nextremely slow, from the difficulty of establishing an agreement as to\nthe meaning of particular representations. What this difficulty amounts\nto may to some extent be tested any day in a picture-gallery, where all\nthe appliances and skill of modern art are at our service. Without the\naid of a descriptive catalogue, it is but seldom that any two accounts\nof the meaning of the same picture would be found to agree. The art of\ndrawing, it may well be supposed, was not an inspiration. It had to be\ninvented. The very idea of transmitting a record to future ages would\nonly occur with the advance of civilization. The crumbling surface of\nthe rock, the decaying bark of trees, would be the first perishable and\nsoon obliterated manuscripts. Before account could be taken of months\nand years, astronomy must have made some progress. Before the flow of\ncenturies could be accurately noted, arithmetic must have advanced\nfar beyond the stage at which we still find it among numerous savage\nnations. An Esquimaux couple, it is said, find it difficult to count\ntheir own children, even when they are no more than four or five[45].\n\nFrom these considerations alone we may feel perfectly certain that\nnumbers of ages elapsed before men acquired the means of recording\nthe duration of time by any definite measurements. Unconsciously and\nwithout set purpose, perhaps the very earliest tribes and the most\nuntutored have left behind them traces not only of their existence but\nof the date and era at which they lived; traces which we are only now\nbeginning to decipher, and to read with faltering lips.\n\nAll around us in England, in Devonshire, in Torquay, and all over the\nglobe, lie the memorials of human beings, of whose day and generation\nthe oldest historical records we possess know absolutely nothing. Here\nand there the tale is told by a heap of shells. From such heaps we know\nwhat dishes were served at the Dane\u2019s dinner-table, at a time when\ncereal crops were unknown in Denmark, and sea-weed was used instead of\nsalt[46]. Oysters and cockles, mussels and periwinkles, seem to have\nbeen _ad libitum_; the stag, the roe-deer, and the wild boar were at\nthe service of that ancient Dane as often as he could catch them with\nhis weapons of wood, stone, horn, or bone[47]; when pork and venison\nwere scarce, his palate could content itself with dog or fox. From the\nwaters of the mountain-lake, from the centre of the high-piled barrow,\nin the circles of giant stones upon broad-stretching plain or wild\nmoorland, from peat-moss and railway-cutting and limestone cavern,\nwe obtain, as Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Pengelly and others have so\nwell shown, the unwritten records of prehistoric man, of human beings\nunnoticed in any credible history, and preceding all well-established\ndefinite historical dates whether of sacred or profane literature.\nWho reared the Titanic monuments of Stonehenge and Abury we know\nnot. We know not who constructed the extraordinary animal-mounds of\nWisconsin in North America--mounds hundreds of feet long, reared a\nfew feet above the level plains, in the figures of men and beasts and\nbirds and reptiles. These monuments, if such they were intended to be,\nmust have demanded prodigious industry for their construction. They\nimply a considerable population, and some advance in artistic skill.\nBut why they were designed, and who designed them, are circumstances\nalike unknown. It is necessary to press home this argument founded\nupon our ignorance, and to dwell upon it with some emphasis, because\nnumbers of persons are pleased to imagine and assert that, within two\nor three thousand years before the Christian era, the whole human\npopulation of the globe was as it were still in the bud, and that from\na single family, not mustering a dozen members to start with, all its\ntribes have since then been derived, with their endless diversities of\nfeatures, hair, complexion, customs, tastes, and other qualities both\nof mind and body. According to the old chronology we are to suppose\nthat within this limited space of time, from under a single roof, the\nchildren went forth, spreading over all lands, not only miraculously\nforgetting the common ancestral language, but forgetting the arts, the\ntraditions, the sentiments, which they had in common, retrograding in\nsome cases into a savage ferocity or an almost imbecile simplicity,\nin others retaining or developing forms of an advanced civilization.\nEsquimaux and Hottentots, Japanese and Red Indians, the Negro and\nthe Greek, are thus united in ties of cousinship by no means remote.\nArts, monuments, and modes of life essentially different in spirit and\ncharacter are supposed, within these narrow bounds of time, to have\nsprung up; nor only to have sprung up, but to have passed away, leaving\nonly a few faint vestiges to recall the artists, the heroes, the\nlawgivers, the national temper, the genius of the time, whereunto they\nowed their existence. It must surely be allowed that marriage customs\nchange with slow reluctance; an alteration of the sentiment with which\nwomen are regarded is not easily or quickly produced. Yet on no subject\nare the practices and opinions of mankind more widely diversified.\nOne wife to one husband is in some places the rule; but in others,\none husband to many wives, one wife to many husbands, or husbands\nand wives without any special appropriation, which some societies\nconsider a selfish infringement of the general right. According to the\ncustoms of different nations, wives must be fought for, or stolen,\nor purchased, or caught in a race, or wooed and won with pin-money\nand other endearments. According to the feeling of different races,\nthe wife is a chattel, a beast of burden, a slave, a stewardess, a\ndomestic ornament, an equal, or a master[48]. Let it be granted that\nmany of these customs and sentiments may have been contemporaneous in\ntheir growth or development, the same thing cannot be admitted of the\ndifferent centres of colonization in which they grew and developed. Men\ndo not without cause quit their ancestral homes to found colonies in\nremote parts of the world; and the causes only arise at intervals. When\nthe cause has arisen, and the new settlement been occupied, the exiles\nretain for the most part, and long retain in affectionate remembrance\nthe manners and customs, the religion and laws, of the mother-country;\nor when the remembrance is other than affectionate, they retain them\nfrom the want of an alternative, from the conservatism in which all men\nto a greater or less degree participate, from the incapacity of the\nhuman mind to strike out new customs, or revolutionize ideas, except by\na gradual and half-unconscious progression.\n\nAmong the visible and tangible proofs of man\u2019s and the earth\u2019s\nantiquity, few are more interesting than those presented in the\nsection, well known to geologists, cut by the railway through the delta\nof the Tini\u00e8re, a torrent flowing into the Lake of Geneva[49]. Three\nlayers of vegetable soil appear in the section, at depths of four and\nten and nineteen feet respectively below the present surface. These\nlayers contained distinctive relics. In the first were found \u2018Roman\ntiles and a coin,\u2019 in the second \u2018fragments of unvarnished pottery,\nand a pair of tweezers in bronze;\u2019 in the third, \u2018fragments of rude\npottery, pieces of charcoal, broken bones, and a human skeleton having\na small, round, and very thick skull.\u2019 The thick-headed owner of that\nskull is computed to have lived, at the lowest estimate, about five\nthousand years ago. But the cone of the delta began to be formed long\nbefore the man was buried in it, and higher up the stream another cone\nis found about twelve times as large, requiring therefore a time for\nits formation about twelve times as long, unless we have recourse to\nthat miserable refuge for the destitute in argument, which consists in\nsupposing that causes now slow and comparatively regular, operated in\nformer times with an incomparably greater speed and a more spasmodic\nviolence, of which no trace remains, nor likelihood appears in the\nrecord. In a word, we may infer that, so far from the shapely order and\ndecorous arrangement of the earth\u2019s surface being only six thousand\nyears old, it has taken no less than fifty or a hundred thousand years\nto pile up this one little heap of mud and gravel. The age of human\nworks buried under the fertilizing sediment of the stately Nile is much\ndisputed, but there can be little doubt, if we take into consideration\nthe ancient fluviatile deposits in terraces sometimes hundreds of\nfeet above the present alluvial plain, that the long-unknown sources\nof the mysterious river have produced ten myriad repetitions of the\nannual overflow, pouring down its waters to the sea through a thousand\ncenturies.[50]\n\nBut Egypt and Switzerland are a long way off; geologizing in a\nrailway-cutting has been before now a fatal employment; and digging\npits forty feet deep into the mud of the Nile is an operation attended\nwith difficulties peculiar to itself. Here, however, in Torquay, close\nat hand, we possess a register of time as compact, as accessible, as\ngenuine, as the Library of the British Museum. Limestone, it is well\nknown, is formed beneath the waters of the sea. When it appears above\nthe sea-level, it must have been upheaved from its ocean-bed. How long\na period must be allowed for the hill which contains Kent\u2019s cavern to\nhave been formed by this double process, may be left for the present\nto the imagination. How long a time elapsed before the cavern was\nburst open or eaten out from the solid limestone, we will not enquire.\nThanks to the diligent exploration of it; thanks to the unwearied\ncourtesy of its scientific curators[51], the contents of the cavern,\nor at least a portion of them, are now well known. Not only do they\nembrace the remains of animals not now existing in England, but they\nembrace the remains of animals long since lost to the globe. With these\nare mingled the products of human intelligence, the weapons of the\nsavage. The cave-earth which, as well as the stalagmite, contains these\nrelics of a most remote antiquity, is itself permeated with films of\nstalagmite, a conclusive proof of its gradual introduction. Over the\nlower portions have been formed in succession three solid stalagmitic\nfloors, remnants of which have quite lately been discovered still\nimbedded in the cavern[52]. Let us for a moment consider what this\nimplies. If we transport ourselves to Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, for\nthe small fee of a penny, any one of its \u2018petrifying wells\u2019[53] will\nbe open to our inspection. In these curious grottoes whatever object\nyou please, natural or artificial, be it skull or the cap that once\ncovered it, be it basket or bird, or shell or leaf, may be encrusted\nwith a coating of stalagmite. The inexperienced visitor would like to\nplace an object in the well, and to wait while the \u2018petrifying\u2019 waters\ndo their work. He is surprised to find that in that case he must wait\nand watch for months and years, while the slow persevering stream falls\nupon his treasure with its ceaseless drip, drip, drip, and that the\nwork so slowly accomplished would not be accomplished at all if the\nflowing of the stream were hastened. Imagine, then, in this famous\ncavern of ours what an interminable song, though an intermittent one,\nmust have been sung with this drip, drip, drip, through ages and ages,\nto produce, as in one place it has done, a solid stalagmitic mass full\ntwelve feet in thickness. Now, according to Usher\u2019s chronology, we have\nseventeen centuries from Adam to the Flood, and twenty-three centuries\nfrom the Flood to the age of Julius C\u00e6sar. If this chronology is to\nbe accepted, Kent\u2019s cavern must have been filled either in the first\nperiod or in the second. As the same arguments will apply to each, let\nus assume that the second or longer period sufficed for this purpose,\nand see what further admissions this assumption will involve. We have\nthree and twenty centuries at our disposal. At the end of that time\nwe know historically that Britain was occupied by tribes more or less\nsavage, some of them going about almost naked, destitute of almost\nall the arts of civilization. We are to imagine the ancestors of this\nwild race migrating from Asia and slowly pioneering their way to the\nwestern limits of Europe. Necessity is the mother of invention; but\nthese men in their difficult adventurous travel through unknown seas\nand pathless jungles tenanted by dangerous beasts, learn only how to\nforget. They forget the use of brass and iron, and take to weapons and\ntools of flint; they give up tillage; they give up building strong\ntowers, and shelter themselves in wooden huts or caves and dens of the\nearth. The climate of Western Asia is warm and sunny, that of England\noften, and in many parts, bleak and foggy and cold; therefore these\nintelligent children of Noah, in order perhaps to harden themselves\nin the process of acclimatization, as they force their way into the\nfog and mist, instead of keeping or assuming the flowing robes of the\nAsiatic, exchange their garments, at any rate in battle, for a wash of\npaint. How interesting it would be to have the family portraits of a\nHighland clan from the earliest times, showing how they gradually made\nit fashionable to do without the various articles of clothing which one\nby one they have been induced to resume[54]! During the same epoch,\nwithin the same limits of time, migrating also from the warm regions\nof Asia, came elephants and lions, hyenas and bears, the rhinoceros\nand the elk. Little recked they then of change of climate, which now\nthey so ill endure. They prowled all over Europe; they swam across the\nEnglish Channel. Yet before the historical period begins in Gaul and\nBritain, most of these species had had time not only to make their way\nthither, not only to nourish and abound in these habitations, but to\ndie out and to be forgotten. We know for certain that elephants once\nroamed over Devon. Did they succumb to the flint weapons of the savage?\nWas the same savage able to extirpate the hyena and the lion, though\nthe representatives of those fierce beasts still partially set us at\ndefiance in India, notwithstanding the rifles and gunpowder of modern\ncivilization? Let us imagine that within the specified time all that\nhas been mentioned could have happened, and that some of the animals,\nsuch as the woolly rhinoceros, had time to assume the characters of\nnorthern species, or that the climate had time for vast changes and\nalterations, or that the winds perhaps in those days blew hot and\ncold with the same breath so as to suit arctic and tropical species\nindifferently;--we must imagine further that within the same limits the\nthree floors of stalagmite could have been formed in succession, and\ntwo of them successively broken up. They must have been formed, not\nduring the whole of the period, but only during that part of it which\n_followed_ the introduction into Britain of wild beasts, and of men who\nused flint weapons; for one unmistakeable weapon of human manufacture,\nand innumerable bones of the great old cave bear have been found within\nthe rock-like breccia of stone and stalagmite and cave-earth, some feet\nbelow both the floors of more recent formation[55]. The longer the\nperiod, therefore, we allow for the migration from the East and the\ndying out of civilized life, the shorter is the period left for the\nstalagmitic formation. Yet probably the whole twenty-three centuries\nwould not suffice for the formation of one of the floors; how much less\ncould a fraction of the period suffice to form all three, and to supply\nthe intervals during which, through some change of circumstances, the\ncave-earth was accumulating, and consequently no solid floor being\nformed.\n\nAt Matlock the drip is continuous, being supplied by a stream, and not\nbeing, as in Kent\u2019s cavern, dependent on the chances of the rainfall\nand the quantity of water that may percolate through a limestone roof.\nAt Matlock, for purposes of trade, it is an object that a coating of\nstalagmite should be formed as quickly as possible. With this view the\nwater is allowed to fall at the rate of fifty or sixty drops a minute,\nthe drip being maintained at numerous points simultaneously. At Matlock\nwe may roughly estimate that an inch of stalagmite would require four\nyears for its formation, so that twelve feet and a half would require\nsix hundred years. In Kent\u2019s cavern, on the other hand, the drip is\noften interrupted. There is no commercial interest at hand to regulate\nthe speed in the most advantageous manner, so that it falls sometimes\ntoo quickly and sometimes too slowly. The points at which it falls are\nfew and far between. It cannot reasonably be supposed in any year to\nproduce even a twentieth of the effect we have estimated for the drip\nat Matlock. In other words, the two later floors of the cavern would\nalone require a period of twelve thousand years for their formation.\nEven at this rate the cavern would probably have been so extremely damp\nand uncomfortable that no men or beasts would have chosen it for a\nshelter in rainy weather.\n\nBut the cavern inscriptions make it as certain as can be that the rate\nof speed here allowed for the formation of stalagmite is vastly too\nhigh, and therefore that the time allowed for the formation is vastly\ntoo low. The famous inscription of 1688 was shown to me a few days\nback[56]. It was at that very time wet with the drip from the cavern\nroof, a drip falling at the rate of thirty-four drops a minute. If\nthe date were really cut in the year 1688 (and there is no reason to\nsuppose that it was not), by our first calculation more than two inches\nof stalagmite ought to have formed over it. Instead of which there is\nbut a thin veneer, a veneer that was observed upon it more than forty\nyears ago, and which has not in all those forty years increased enough\nto make such a description of it inappropriate. If the date 1615 be\nauthentic, over which, in the opinion of the superintendents of the\nexploration, not one-eighth of an inch of stalagmite has been formed\nin more than two centuries and a-half, at the same rate of progression\ntwelve feet and a-half of stalagmite would demand for its formation\nthree hundred thousand years.\n\nThis cavern by itself, therefore--this one little crack in the\noutermost rind of the earth\u2019s surface--proves a comparatively immense\nantiquity for the existence of organic life and of human beings upon\nthe globe. But to compare the antiquity of the cavern contents with\nthe antiquity of the limestone formation in which they are contained\nis positively beyond any intelligible numerical measurement. Yet\nthe limestone formation itself is filled with the relics of living\ncreatures, and in some parts, if not in all, is one gigantic mass of\nsuch remains.\n\nIn cliffs of sea-shore and river, in railway-cuttings, in mine-shafts\nand quarries, we may often see layers of the earth\u2019s crust in the\norder of their original deposition. Except where the signs are\npresent of some subsequent violent interference, this order is\nuniform and invariable. It is not that all the members of the series\nare invariably present, far from it; but in order of deposition the\nrelations of higher and lower are never interchanged. Every one of\nthe many different layers which have been distinguished by geologists\nhas a distinctive group of fossils. You may, if you please, suppose\nthat for each of these layers of the earth\u2019s crust there was a new\ncreation of living creatures, wonderfully like at each successive\nstep, though wonderfully different at long intervals, as though they\nwere the work of an artist whose ideas moved but slowly; but for\nsuch a supposition you have no authority; the conception has neither\nsimplicity nor grandeur; it does not even accord with the facts, since,\namid the general change of organic structures, we find the permanence\nof a few; and while the groups of two successive layers have, each\nof them, numerous distinctive forms, it is impossible to draw any\ndefinite boundary-line between the groups themselves, which sometimes\nintermingle with an inextricable interlacing on their confines. Nothing\ncomes out more clearly to the student of the rocks, than that the world\nof to-day is the world of millions of years back; from one point of\nview ever-changing, yet ever essentially the same; from another point\nof view, out of the utmost regularity of alternation, never producing\nthe same thing, or presenting the same aspect twice. We think that\nthe stage has been essentially altered, because in the days of that\nimmeasurable past _we_ did not strut upon it. We are unable to fathom\nthe depth of our own insignificance, and are unwilling to believe in a\nmarch of time, compared with which the span of our own lives seems so\ncontemptible. In the depths of the ocean the formation of chalk is said\nto be going on at this very day. Probably there is no time known to the\ngeologist at which the formation of chalk has not been going on in the\ndepths of the ocean; but its older layers have been altered by chemical\nand mechanical forces, by fire, by pressure, and by other means.\n\nWe know that chalk and limestone do not form in the open air. If we\nfind them piled up in enormous hills and mountains high above the level\nof the sea, and far from its coasts, we know that they did not grow in\nthat position; that once their proud crests and ridges lay low in an\nocean bed. They could not have been formed on a sudden, or rapidly, or\nby any other than the slow steps of infinitesimally small successive\naccumulations: for we find them filled throughout with the evidences of\nlife, shells and sponges, and corals of exquisite beauty and delicacy,\ngenerations after generations of which must have had time to build up\ntheir beautiful fabrics. Many things may be hastened; you may quicken\nthe growth of many; but you can\u2019t hurry a sponge. Every foot and inch\nof a chalk cliff, of a limestone mountain, must have been formed\noriginally under water with almost incredible slowness. It must have\nbeen raised up to meet the clouds of heaven since its formation in the\nocean-depth. Do you think that this can have been a rapid process?\nVolcanic cones, it is true, are sometimes piled up by a sudden effort.\nBut with widespread platforms of solid rock the upheaving forces deal\nmore respectfully. An average elevation of a foot or two in a century,\nis perhaps a high exceptional speed for such movements. But this rate\nrequires a thousand centuries for a hill only one or two thousand feet\nhigh, to rise, not from the depths, but from the surface of the water.\nIf we had only a single formation to deal with instead of scores of\nthem; if we had a thickness of only one thousand feet of the earth\u2019s\ncrust to consider, instead of scores of thousands, the proved antiquity\nof the globe would be enormous. What is to be said, then, when we stand\nface to face with what geologists have been pleased to call the new\nred sandstone? This formation cannot be less than millions of years\nold, although in relation to the Devonian limestone it is indisputably\nnew. Those deep red rocks, that with their fantastic profiles in so\nmany places fringe the southern border of Devon, must have been formed\nsince the limestone; for the simple reason, that in every part they are\nfull of pebbles or fragments of the limestone containing characteristic\nfossils of the earlier formations. It will at least be granted that you\ncannot break off a piece from a rock before the rock itself exists.\nPrior, then, to the very beginning of the formation of these red\nconglomerates, the limestone rock must have been formed; it must have\nbeen heaved up above the level of the sea; fragments must have been\nbroken off from it, rolled into pebbles, triturated into sand. As the\nbreaking, and the rolling, and the grinding went on, so with equal\nsteps would the growth of the conglomerate proceed. But the workshop\nand the work must still have been beneath the waters of the ocean, and\nnot till the whole work of formation was finished could the further\nprocess be begun of raising the work above the level of the waves.\n\nIt is not uncommon to find fossils in the pebbles of a conglomerate\nrock showing lines of a dislocating fracture filled with spar. The\nfossil shell or coral once had an inhabitant. We must allow time\nfor its life and death. Its vacant tabernacle must then have become\nfilled with extraneous matter. This must have required time to harden\ninto rock. While that rock was still in the mass, some cause must\nhave operated to fracture it, and such causes are not of every-day\noperation. After this, more time was needed to fill up the divisional\nline with spar; more time to break off the fragment containing the\nshell from the general mass of the rock; more time to roll it into a\npebble; more time to imbed it hard and fast in a conglomerate rock;\nmore time to raise the rock high out of the waters; and, lastly, one\nmore vast addition of time for the crumbling away of the conglomerate\nformation, so as to expose the tall sea-cliff from which human hands\nmight gather this memorial relic of untold ages.\n\nThe same tale is told by the coal-measures. Dr. Dawson, of Montreal,\nhas drawn out the argument from the carboniferous formation[57] with\nextraordinary force and a convincing plainness that leaves nothing to\nbe desired, for the benefit of any one who will read his great work on\nAcadian geology. The formation of coal depends on sub-a\u00ebrial growths,\naffected by sub-aqueous action. The trees and plants, out of which\ncoal is formed, for the most part could not possibly have grown under\nwater. The mud, the sand, the stone which cover seams of coal, could\nnot have been laid over them without the agency of water to bring them\ndown, and spread them out in regular layers of stratification. When the\nhollow bark of a tall tree is found erect upon its roots, with those\nroots still permeating the clay from which they once drew nourishment,\nit is evident that time must be allowed for the growth of the tree,\nfor the almost complete decay which left nothing of it but its bark\nand roots, and for the slow accumulation of sediment which has encased\nwithout overthrowing it. A complete alteration must have taken place\nin the conditions of the ground in the interval between the time when\nthe tree began to grow, and the time when a length of seven or eight\nfeet of its upright stem was buried in mud. Layers, indeed, of sand and\nmud may be spread out over small areas by storms and inundations with\ncomparative speed; but if above the sands we come to thicknesses of\nlimestone composed almost entirely of animal remains, such as those\nof shells and fish, not only are we forced to admit a long period for\nthe successive generations of those creatures, but we are forced to\nobserve the products of the ocean lying actually above the products of\nthe dry land, as though, according to the old poetical extravagance,\nthe stag and doe had taken to the waters and the fishes been building\nin the tree-tops. The conclusion is inevitable, that what was once dry\nland, fruitful in vegetation, in process of time became a swamp, and\nfrom the swamp became a sea. It will be a fresh surprise, but a fresh\nevidence of time\u2019s duration, if above the limestone we find more clay\nwith more plants buried in more mud, and over-topped by more limestone.\nBearing in mind the old supposition, that order and beauty and life\nupon the globe are only six thousand years\u2019 old, astonishment should\nreach its climax when we find, as we do, that within the thickness of\nonly a few feet of the earth\u2019s crust, the record that we have been\ndescribing is repeated again and again and again; but beyond the\nclimax, a fresh and overpowering marvel awaits us, when, as at one spot\nin British America, the record expands itself from a few feet into\nsixteen thousand, showing conclusively by eighty successive bands of\ncoal that fourscore times at least, and perhaps many more, while that\nthickness of the earth\u2019s crust was forming, the waters gave place to\ndry land, and in turn the dry land to the waters,--showing conclusively\nthat during all the period of these changes tall forests of graceful\ntrees abounded on the globe, along with exquisite ferns and curious\nreptiles, and beetles and winged insects of great size and beauty;\nwhile fish replenished the waters, along with an infinity of shells and\ncorals, and other inhabitants of the deep. Yet these sixteen thousand\nfeet, these eighty successive forests, these hundred and sixty changes,\ncomprise but a small fraction of the whole known succession of strata.\n\nIt is true that different strata not only may, but must have been\nforming at one and the same time in different parts of the world.\nBut when one stratum has been formed out of the wreck of another, it\nis self-evident that they cannot have been formed together. The same\nthing is obvious in regard to any number of layers found lying in\nundisturbed succession one above the other. They must have been formed\nsuccessively, the lowest first, the highest last. But one point about\nthem is far from obvious, namely, the length of the interval that may\nhave intervened between the end of one formation and the beginning of\nanother. The great African desert has been the great African desert as\nfar back as human histories extend; yet in times geologically recent\nit lay beneath the waters of the ocean. Should it be again submerged\nbefore any fertilizing agencies have covered it with signs of its\nsub-a\u00ebrial exposure, another layer of sand may be thrown down upon it,\ncontaining new marine fossils, and no memorial be left to the future\ngeologist of the vast era during which its kindly influence was warming\nthe winds of Europe, and saving us from a glacial climate. The ground\nyou stand on is passing through such an interval. It was under the sea\nonce; doubtless it will be under the sea again in the future. Look\ninto that future; look into that past. Can you measure either of those\nintervals in the years of common chronology? Yet all over the world the\nsuccession of geological strata proclaims the recurrence over and over\nagain of such intervals; silent, indeed, as to positive evidence, but\nwidening the possible limits of time\u2019s duration to the furthest stretch\nof fancy.\n\nAll our great continents have been ever so many times, either in the\nmass or piecemeal, under the waves of the ocean. Nothing hinders that\nthe bed of every great ocean should have been ever so many times turned\ninto dry land. This interchange is going on now in numberless regions\nof sea and land. All the facts as we find them are such as they might\nbe expected to be had this interchange been going on, as no doubt it\nhas been, through an indefinite past. We are bound to allow millions\nof years for the formation of the strata that have been already\nexamined. There may be depths below the lowest depths yet explored by\ngeologists; there have certainly been immense intervals which have left\nno materials for the geologist to explore; and when all the profoundest\ndeep of stratification shall have been explored, we may still find that\nthe record of all these unnumbered millions of years is but, as it\nwere, the latest page of the volume--a page that may have been preceded\nby a thousand others now almost irrevocably lost or become utterly\nillegible. There is nothing to hinder the supposition that those\nearlier pages, if they existed, were, amidst innumerable differences,\nstill in their general aspect very like the latest, as long or longer,\nas full of the memorials of eventful circumstance, of constant change\ndominated by and springing from the operation of unchanging laws. As\nthe time is absolutely incalculable which the theory of evolution\nrequires to account for the highest forms of life upon the earth, so\nthe time which all these considerations leave open for the work is\nabsolutely beyond calculation. The theory cannot ask for more than the\nfacts make it possible to offer.\n\nWe hear men sometimes dwell on an expression which they fancy to be\nScriptural, \u2018that there should be time no longer[58];\u2019 as if time by\nany possibility could ever come to an end! It is a pity that they\nshould completely misinterpret the passage on which their opinion\nfancies itself to be grounded. It is a still greater pity that they\nshould use the language of rational human beings, without being at the\npains to determine whether their words have any intelligible meaning:\nfor certainly to the human mind any beginning or end of time is wholly\ninconceivable. Language itself will not bear with the conception,\nunless it be consistent to speak of a _time_ when time was not, of a\n_time_ when time will be no more.\n\nThere is a poem, and a sweet one, by the present Poet-Laureate,\nin which the murmuring brook is made to speak the language of the\nmoralist, and to proclaim the transitory nature of all human affairs,\nby a comparison between the short duration of man\u2019s life and its own\nunceasing current--\n\n    \u2018For men may come, and men may go,\n      But I flow on for ever.\u2019\n\nSuch is the proud language of the murmuring brook. Yet the boast is\nan untrue one; for if any conclusion in regard to the future can be\nwarranted from the facts of the past, none can be more sure than\nthat no particular brook will flow on for ever. Instead of a brook,\nit may become a mighty river like the St. Lawrence; it may dash over\nprecipitous cliffs with a vaster fall and volume than Niagara; and,\nafter all, the slow inexorable changes of the earth\u2019s crust will one\nday make its flow impossible, and the channel of it shall know its\nstream no more. Only the flow of time is unending, of time which does\nnothing, but out of or without which nothing can be done,--of time,\nreplete with glorious wonders as far back as the knowledge or the\nimagination of man can penetrate, through every age, through every\nmillion of years that can be rescued from forgetfulness, bearing fresh\ntestimony, in the greatness and the endlessness of the work, to the\neternal power and wisdom of the Supreme Worker.\n\n\n\n\nNOTE ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.\n\n\nPresuming that there is not a particle of evidence as yet established\nin favour of the supposition known as the doctrine of _abiogenesis_,\nit does not follow that no such evidence ever will, or ever can, be\nforthcoming. The advancement of science is continually doing away with\nharsh, abrupt outlines, and revealing the softest shades of transition\nin the varied scenery of nature. Between organic and inorganic matter,\nbetween the inert and the living mass, the line of separation has\nbeen hitherto, to our minds, the hardest and sharpest of all. We have\nindeed become so accustomed to this violation of the cosmos, this harsh\ninterruption to the continuous order of nature, and to the simplicity\nof its general plan, that we are apt to be rather annoyed than pleased\nwith the first efforts made to prove them only imaginary. There is a\ndignity about life which requires, it is thought, to be defended from\ntoo close a proximity in character to the chemical solids and liquids\namongst which it makes its appearance, even though the life whose\ndignity is thus maintained exhibit little more than the functions of a\nstomach, or be presented in the somewhat dull animation of a chrysalis\nand the torpor of a slug.\n\nA _Wellingtonia gigantea_, with its stupendous height and graceful\nform, with its bark and wood, and sap and pith, and cones and\ninnumerable spikelets, seems wonderfully noble and vastly superior in\nthe scale of creation to a spoonful of salt; yet every one of the tiny\ngrains has, so far as we know, full as much sense and as much power\nof enjoyment as the stately tree. The mineral and the vegetable are,\nin fact, alike destitute of any qualities on which a comparison of\ndignity can properly be founded. The organic depends ultimately upon\nthe inorganic for its nutriment. It is itself ultimately reduced to\nthe inorganic. It does not, therefore, seem incredible that living\norganisms, simpler perhaps than any yet detected by the microscope,\nshould be or should have been produced without generation proper by the\nmere combining of inorganic materials.\n\nThis is the hypothesis of Spontaneous Generation, so called, or\n_abiogenesis_, unproved and extremely difficult of proof, but precisely\nfilling that gap in the order and continuity of nature which is so\npuzzling without it.\n\nPractically it makes no difference to the theory of development\nwhether the simple organisms from which that theory supposes the more\ncomplicated to be derived, originated at a single era or at several.\nThe theory does not deny the perpetuation throughout vast ages of\nextremely simple organisms. To the general cohesion of the theory,\ntherefore, it is unimportant whether we affiliate each of these\nliving motes to a parent like itself, or to a combination of chemical\nsubstances previously without life.\n\nConsidering the vast results attributed to the principle of\n_variability_, it has been thought strange that any organisms\nshould through great cycles of time have escaped its operation, and\ntransmitted their original simplicity to an endless succession of\ndescendants.\n\nOn the hypothesis of spontaneous generation working continuously this\ndifficulty would disappear; simple organisms would be continually\nlosing their simplicity by variation, but new organisms of equal\nsimplicity would continually appear in the world, spontaneously\ngenerated.\n\nIt might still be true that all but the least conspicuous members of\nthe world\u2019s population belong to a single family, or to an extremely\nsmall number of separate lines of descent. If we suppose that, as soon\nas the globe was fitted for living occupants, a single simple organism\nwas spontaneously generated, or, if you please, created, or, in any\nother way that may be named, introduced upon the earth, the results in\naccordance with actual facts may be logically deduced agreeably to the\nvarious principles of the theory of development. Its descendants would\nmultiply and replenish the earth, unchecked, in all parts suited to\ntheir conditions of existence, till all such parts were occupied. No\nfurther advance in the population of the world could then take place\nuntil some variation had occurred, making possible the occupation of\nnew regions, or of the old regions, under new conditions. But the new\nspecies, constituted by some advantageous variation, would be likely\nto overrun the whole field, to the almost complete suppression of the\nearlier and more simple form. The distance thus gained in the race of\nprogressive organization it would be likely not only to maintain, but\ngreatly to increase. Its descendants would vary in more than one useful\ndirection, till it might, as we have said, become the parent of all\nthe conspicuous members of the earth\u2019s population. The earliest and\nsimplest form might still have representatives inheriting its likeness\nby direct descent, but unable to make their way in the world, not from\nwanting the power to vary, but from finding the world pre-occupied by\nspecies too powerful for them to compete with. In this way they would\nbe restrained to their original insignificance.\n\nNow exactly the same result would follow, if, instead of being born in\nwhat we consider the ordinary course of parentage, these simple forms\nwere ever being spontaneously generated. They would find the world\npre-occupied against their advancement in the scale of organization;\nthey would rarely, if ever, be allowed to lead up by successive useful\nvariations to highly organized forms; and if ever, only in periods of\ntime so enormous as to perplex the acutest human understanding.\n\nWhat is commonly supposed to be the Biblical theory of Creation, is\nin truth a theory of spontaneous generation, only multiplying a\nmillion-fold the difficulty, if it be a difficulty, involved in that\nhypothesis. Unless we suppose the globe to have always existed, and\nalways to have been tenanted by creatures endowed with life, we are\nforced to believe in the occurrence at some time or other of what,\nin the language of science, must have been spontaneous generation.\nAs there is no historical reason for confining such an occurrence to\nany particular era; as science can give no reason why, if it happened\nonce, it should not happen an indefinite number of times; as all\nanalogy is in favour of uniform laws of nature rather than exceptional\nsurprises; and, lastly, as numerous phenomena that have to do with\nthe reproduction and maintenance of life are all continuous, and\nnot interjectional--it seems at least an open question whether the\norigin of life itself may not also be sometimes, or even continually\nrepeated. For, imagine what conditions we will to have prevailed when\nthe elementary substances coalesced, out of which were compounded the\nfirst living being, it is difficult to imagine that the same conditions\nshould never have recurred to produce a similar result, since the\nconditions are so far limited, that they must have been consistent, not\nonly with the birth, but with the life after its birth, of that most\nantique animalcule. So many wonderful and hitherto unsuspected effects\nin the working of Nature have of late years been unveiled, so much of\nmarvellous analysis successfully carried out, that it would surely be\nsuperstitious to despair of finding fresh links in the chain that binds\ntogether the lifeless and the living. Experiments in this direction\nmay hitherto have failed from want of skill or care, or proper means\nat the command of those who conducted them. Yet it is not too much to\nask of men renowned in science, that in pointing out the errors, they\nshould abstain from discouraging the efforts.\n\nLet it not be thought irreligious to anticipate the possible\nestablishment of the supposition now under discussion. It cannot be\nirreverent to think that the bestowal of life upon a particle of matter\ntoo minute for human eye to see, requires no more special apparatus\nthan that allotted to the exquisite crystals of the frost. \u2018Out of\nwhose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath\ngendered it?\u2019 Yet in the workmanship of these a Divine hand is to the\nfull as visible as in a diatom or a puff-ball. That the life-giving\nenergy should have been exhausted in a single effort, is contrary\nbeyond doubt to the analogy of religion, whatever may be thought of the\nanalogy of nature.\n\nOn the other hand, let it not be thought unscientific to advocate the\nclaims of an unproved hypothesis. It is the nature of hypotheses to\nbe unproved. As they gather proof, the hypothetical becomes a theory.\nAt length the theory goes on to demonstration. The use of hypotheses\nhas often been explained. The human mind is easily exhausted by the\nobservation of numerous incoherent facts. It is impelled to arrange\nand classify, to find some thread or threads of association on which\nthe facts may be strung, some principle on which they may be parcelled\nout into groups. The arrangement may be erroneous, the explanatory\nprinciple untrue; they may be so plausible, so apparently satisfactory,\nso fascinating withal in general aspect, as for a long time to hinder\nthe real solution of great problems; and nevertheless it may be judged\nthat their services in the advancement of knowledge far outweigh the\nhindrances caused by the too servile acceptance accorded them. The\nfoibles of a great writer may long infect the literature which his\ngreatness has ennobled. A constitution grandly conceived in proportion\nto the moral and social ideas prevailing at the time of its conception\nmay be clung to with servility long after it has been outstripped\nby the progress of civilization. But neither the genius of the poet\nnor the skill of the lawgiver could be spared in its own day and\ngeneration; neither could have been sacrificed to prevent the follies\nof the plagiarist, or the dulness of eyes that in after ages might read\nthe letter without discerning the spirit.\n\nWe may almost say that a bad hypothesis is better than none; but a\nwrong hypothesis need not be a bad one. It may tend so to group around\nit the facts contributed by supporters and opponents, that when the\nreal explanation of them all comes to be suggested, the fraternization\nof the confronting armies may be easy, and the truth be greeted and\nacknowledged with general acclaim.\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD.\n\n\nThe general who is for ever counter-marching and skilfully executing\nretrograde movements cannot always sustain the enthusiasm of his\nown troops, much less excite in his favour that of the civilian\nmultitude. To many minds, the reliance placed on the imperfection of\nthe geological record appears to be a rather damaging retreat in the\nstrategy of science. They were just beginning to believe in geology as\na wonderful revelation of the past history of the globe, when suddenly\nthey are told that the fragments of that history which have been saved\nare merely tattered pages out of different chapters, giving no adequate\nnotion of the enormous bulk and varied contents of the whole volume.\nSince, without the geological evidence of time\u2019s duration and of the\ncountless changes in organic structures which that duration embraces,\nthe theory of development could never have been imagined, it seems\nhalf ungrateful and inconsistent in the author of the theory to turn\nround upon geological evidence and tax it with its extreme poverty\nand even delusive misleading appearances. But, in fact, Mr. Darwin in\nno way detracts from the value of geological evidence. The researches\nnecessary to extend it are invested, to those who accept his theory,\nwith tenfold interest. The deficiencies and interruptions in it which\nhe has pointed out as necessarily occurring must sooner or later have\nbecome apparent. They were dangerous to science only as long as they\nwere unobserved, or not sufficiently taken into account.\n\nThat the record is really imperfect is not a matter which admits of\ncontroversy. No one supposes that every species and variety that\never existed in past ages on the globe is represented at this very\nday by fossil specimens in prime enough condition to exhibit all the\ncharacteristics of the creature as it once lived. No one supposes\nthat, if such specimens existed, all of them ever could or would be\nfound by human beings. It is not in the nature of a fossil to present\nall the characteristics of the creature as it once lived. It cannot\npossibly do it; for the fossil is without life and motion. There is no\nrespiration, no circulation of the blood going on. As a rule, only the\nhard parts of the creature, such as shell, scales, or bony skeleton,\ncan be preserved. In most cases all these relics have been chemically\naltered. Nevertheless, in fossils from the very lowest strata, from\nthe very earliest formations that yield any, we find certain analogies\nto creatures now living. We reason from these analogies without any\nhesitation to the characteristics which the fossil creature will\nprobably have presented in its living state. Our reasonings may\noften be erroneous, but the mere fact of our accepting the apparent\nanalogies as a ground for reasoning at all, implies a belief in the\nuniformity of the conditions of animal existence between our own times\nand the most distant ages of the past. We argue as if generation had\nsucceeded generation without interruption, not as if there had been\nnew independent creations from time to time, since these would imply\nnew conditions replacing the old, and make the argument from analogy\nbetween the items of the different creations of no value. For these\nindependent creations, whether capricious or not in themselves, could\nonly exhibit to our minds the symptoms of caprice. The mere fact of\ntheir being independent one of another would be so wanting in congruity\nwith all the rest of our experience, that we should reasonably expect\ntheir minor details as well as the general plan to be wholly fantastic.\nIn other words, the fossil memorials of life in past ages, imperfect\nas we confess and maintain them to be, still present so many general\nresemblances to one another and to living structures of the present\nday, that if they do not prove the continuity of life upon the globe,\nthey cannot be held to prove anything at all; they should be regarded\nas a very elaborate practical joke played upon the human reason.\n\nPal\u00e6ontology is defined as \u2018the science which treats of fossil remains\nboth animal and vegetable.\u2019 This principle of the continuity of life\nfrom age to age may be considered as one of its definite acquisitions.\nThere is no single point of geological time at which it can be said,\n\u2018at this epoch clearly all old species had passed away, all kinds\nof life had become new.\u2019 Not only is there no indication of such a\nbreak, but there is the strongest evidence against any such having\never occurred. In spite, however, of the completeness of the evidence\nrequired for proving this single conclusion, the general incompleteness\nand enormous deficiencies in some parts of the pal\u00e6ontological record\ncan be established beyond dispute. We are in the position of a man\nwho has kept the title-deeds to a large estate, while almost all the\nestate itself has been buried under the encroachments of the sea. Here\nand there some old landmarks may be discernible far out in the waters,\nshowing the extent of what had once been meadow and woodland, farm and\ngarden, but unable to show how these were distributed, or to exhibit\nany of their details.\n\nMr. Parfitt, in his paper on \u2018Fossil Sponge Spicules,\u2019 told the\nDevonshire Association last year (1870) that we have evidence more or\nless exact of sponges in a fossil state as far back in time as the\nSilurian system, mentioning specimens of _Acanthospongia Siluriensis_,\n_Cliona antiqua_, and _Cliona prisca_, and stating in regard to the two\nlatter that the genus is still in our own seas. He then referred to\nlarge masses of a fossil in the Devonian rocks of Cornwall, believed\nby some to be sponges, and by others to be the remains of fish. That\nthese are in reality fish-remains has, in fact, been shown pretty\nconclusively[59]. From this point, however, up to the Great Oolite,\nMr. Parfitt tells us that scarcely a vestige of the sponges is to be\nfound, although since that time they have been very abundant. Between\nthe Silurian and the Great Oolite the interval of time must have\nbeen enormous. It is occupied by a vast series of sedimentary rocks,\nembracing very varied mineral characteristics. From this series our\nmuseums have been, and are still being, supplied with vast heaps of\nfossil organic structures, including among numerous others, plants and\ncorals and fish and reptiles. Through all that protracted period there\nis no reason to suppose, in regard to the outer rind of the globe, that\nthe general conditions of earth, air, and water were other than they\nare now. All England may have been under water; delicate creatures may\nhave wintered at the North Pole for the sake of its genial climate;\nand an infinity of other local and temporary differences may have\nprevailed, without making the habitable globe of those days essentially\ndifferent from our own. The laws of chemistry and mechanics, the laws\nof heat and motion, must have been just the same as they are now.\nThen, as now, there must have been oceans and continents, winds and\ncurrents, forests growing, decaying, and being buried, sand and chalk\nbeing deposited in layers, molten minerals thrown up by volcanoes,\nice forming at a definite temperature, glaciers scoring the rocks,\nicebergs transporting boulders, rains and rivers slowly washing down\nthe hills, and waves corroding the cliffs on the sea-shore. We have\nevidence also that life in many forms abounded. Those forms, though\nseldom transmitted to creatures of the present day with anything\napproaching an exact likeness, can yet be classified under the same\ngeneral names with the most modern forms of life. Now sponges are forms\nof an extremely simple organization. The silicious spicules are well\nadapted for the wear and tear of a fossil existence. In the greensand\nand the chalk they are actually found in extraordinary abundance. It\nwould be inconvenient upon any theory to have to suppose these very\nsimple structures introduced into the world for the first time quite\nlate in the series of living organisms, and after beings much more\ncomplicated and higher in the scale of existence, unless, indeed, we\nsuppose that about the time of the Great Oolite the evolution of man\nwas first thought of, and the sponge accordingly prepared for him to\nwash his face with. But even if the bath and the basin be admitted\nas the final causes of sponge-existence, the conception of it must\nbe carried back, as we have seen, to the Silurian period; while,\naccording to Mr. Parfitt, the immense interval of Lias and Trias,\nPermian, Carboniferous, and Devonian remains black and spongeless,\nas though it were the appropriate era of the great unwashed. But if\nthe Darwinian theory be a true one, sponge-life having begun in the\nSilurian period, and being in existence now, must have been continuous\nthrough the whole interval; every single deposit in the entire series\nsince the Silurian must have been contemporary with some of the\nsponges; and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Parfitt\u2019s statement, however\ntrue of the condition of our knowledge a few years back, must now be\nqualified by the addition of several species spread over the interval\nin Britain alone, even if we exclude some indefinite structures, of\nwhich no opinion can be at present pronounced with safety. Mr. Parfitt\nhimself, in a paper read at Honiton in 1868, remarks that \u2018the Devonian\nformation has furnished a great number of specimens of what appear to\nbe species of sponges.\u2019 From Permian and Triassic beds on the continent\nof Europe, a very large number of forms are said to be more or less\ndistinctly made out. Mr. Salter, in 1864, reported the discovery of\nProtospongia Fenestrata in the Lingula flags of St. David\u2019s, thus\ncarrying back this form of life beyond the Silurian to the Cambrian\nera. It is an interesting illustration of the great ambiguity of these\nancient fossils, that two such authorities as Mr. Salter and Dr.\nBowerbank differed about the Protospongia, the one supposing it to\nexhibit the spicules, the other the fibre of the sponge. The simple\nfacts that species have to be moved backwards and forwards between the\namorphozoic and zoophytic groups, that relics may pass for fish in one\nyear and sponges in another, and by-and-by be recognised again as fish,\nshow the often imperfect condition of the record, even where it is not\na complete blank.\n\nWhere direct evidence of any kind is still unavailable, it may\npossibly be said that no sponges are found for such and such a period,\nbecause none existed in it. The plausibility of such an opinion can\nonly be tested in fresh illustrations of the general argument. The\ncoalfield of Nova Scotia has been described by Professor Dawson\nof Montreal. As it afforded a fine field for the exertions of the\ngeologist, so it repaid him by its great richness in the fossil remains\nof plants. But in the coal formations of England and of Westphalia\ninsects also had been found of different genera in addition to plants,\nwhile Nova Scotia, with all its vegetable wealth, yielded the anxious\nexplorer but a single specimen of the still more interesting relics.\nThat specimen consisted of the head and some other fragments of a large\ninsect, probably neuropterous. That single specimen Professor Dawson\ntells us he found in a coprolite, in the fossil excrement of a reptile\nenclosed in the trunk of an erect sigillaria. Could any one invent a\nmore curious cabinet to preserve so fragile a specimen for millions\nof years? Can it in this case be argued, that of insect remains\nnothing was found in the carboniferous of Nova Scotia but the head\nand some other appurtenances of a single neuropterous insect, because\nthat head and those appurtenances were all that had ever flourished\nthere? It cannot so be argued, not only because the analogies of the\ncarboniferous formation in other parts of the world are conclusive\nagainst such argument, but also because within the last three or four\nyears, after long and diligent search, two more species have been added\nto the collection of carboniferous insects from Nova Scotia itself.\nTwo delicate wings, one very large and one small, have been found, each\nsealed, as it were, with a fern-leaf; each a frail but enduring record\nof life that must once have been brilliant and abundant[60].\n\nWhen the zeal of a collector adds a new species to those already\nknown, by finding the fragment of a butterfly\u2019s wing that had been for\nmillions of years in a seam of coal, how many considerations are forced\nupon the mind! Our sensitive nerves are comparatively seldom troubled\nby the perceived presence of dead creatures. With the exception of our\nown food, such sights are pretty well confined to the carcase of a dog\nfloating on a pool, the feathers of a torn bird, a parched mole, and a\nsprinkling of blue-bottles in an unused room. Yet countless millions\nof creatures are annually dying, ready and willing to become fossils.\nFossils, however, they do not become, simply because other creatures\neat them up. For this reason alone, not one in ten thousand of any\nparticular terrestrial species is likely to become fossil, because\nto some creature or another it is almost sure to be good eating, and\ntherefore in the living state or the dead, sure to be ravenously seized\nupon and devoured.\n\nSome forms of marine life are indeed represented by a wonderful number\nof specimens or fragments of specimens. Silicious and calcareous exuvi\u00e6\nof minute creatures deposited in the still depths of the ocean may be\npreserved by myriads, but neither these \u2018in number numberless\u2019 nor the\ngiant-bones of ancient Saurians convey any adequate notion of the whole\npopulation of the globe at any one era. The pal\u00e6ontologist, guiding\nhimself only by prominent details of this description, would be like\na child over a child\u2019s history of England, to whom the fabric of the\nConstitution and the Reformation of the Church seem matters obscure,\nand scarcely worthy of notice, while Alfred burning the cakes, and\nHenry VIII in his well-known character of Bluebeard, stand out in bold\nrelief.\n\nNo one will doubt, that within the last ten years tens of thousands\nof the common white butterfly have disported themselves in England,\nyet a man might easily starve if he were allowed no food till he had\nfound some of their fossil remains. The dodo has not long been extinct,\nbut nevertheless fossil dodos are extremely rare. It may be thought\nthat the date of extinction has little to do with the matter, and that\neach relic when enshrined in the rock, may claim to be by a sort of\nindelible character \u2018once a fossil and always a fossil.\u2019 This, however,\nis in reality far from its true condition. Let a creature\u2019s remains\nescape being devoured, or burnt, or trampled to pieces, or being\ndissolved by the rain, or crumbled into dust by rolling waves and mud\nand stones gathered upon them, their perils are not yet over. Even in\nthe grasp of the hard rock, the fossil may be horribly distorted by\npressure, split asunder by cleavage, boiled and baked and crystallized,\ntill none of its features remain what they were, or till the very fact\nof its presence becomes only the question of a dim surmise. The rude\njolt of an earthquake, that splits asunder a mountain, may sometimes be\ntender over a butterfly\u2019s wing; but there are chemical agencies which\nwork without any compassion for what is fine and delicate, and by these\nwe find great thicknesses of rock apparently stripped of their fossils.\nWhere the whole stratum consists of remains of once living organisms,\nas in seams of coal, it has been shown that we have no reason to\nsuppose that any complete or adequate memorials are left us of the\nwhole vegetation of any particular period or any particular area; since\nDr. Lindley has found, by actual experiment, that different vegetables\nhave very different powers of resisting decay, and that pines and\nferns and lycopodia will be well preserved after long immersion in\nwater, while the same treatment causes the disappearance of grasses and\nsedges, of the oak-tree and the ash[61].\n\nEven those rocks which preserve fossils most carefully may themselves\nbe crumbled to pieces, fossils and all, by the process of denudation.\n\nDenudation is the laying bare of one stratum, or portion of a stratum,\nby the removal of another. It is carried on principally by rains and\nrivers and the action of the sea-waves upon the sea-border. To the\nlast-mentioned agency the geologist is highly indebted; to the others\nalso he owes a debt: but consider how they all do their work. Much\nof the material dealt with they pound into mud or sand, and in these\nany fragments that escape the trituration are, sooner or later, again\nburied. They may tear open the rocks, and expose for a brief period the\nmost interesting and unique fossils; but, unfortunately, they carry\non their work by night as well as day, on desolate coasts, in places\nwhere the Pal\u00e6ontographical Society has no missionaries, or when the\nmissionary, if there be one, is in-doors writing a book; so that a very\nsmall percentage of all that might be discovered is ever actually found.\n\nIn the artificial denudation of mining and quarrying, though the\nrude forces of Nature are dispensed with, the enlightened hammer of\nthe geologist can do very little by itself. In most cases it can but\nfollow where commercial enterprise leads the way, and be grateful for\npermission to rummage among the _d\u00e9bris_, when pickaxe and blasting\nhave done their work.\n\nThe chances against a fossil\u2019s being found to any useful purpose in\nquarrying are very numerous. The rock must chance to split so as to\ndisclose it; the workman must chance to notice it; he must chance to\nhave knowledge enough to think it worth notice; have time enough to\nstop from his work and take it; have sense enough to keep it safe; have\nmemory enough to recollect where he hides it; and, lastly, have the\nluck to meet with a customer who knows its scientific value.\n\nNumbers of rare specimens must continually be consigned to the furnace\nand the limekiln, or buried under mounds and hills of refuse. Sometimes\nthe character of the matrix, by its hardness or its softness, makes\nit impossible to disengage the fossil without complete disfigurement;\nsometimes the fossil itself is so fragmentary as rather to confuse than\nto teach. Dr. Hooker gives an instance, in which a geologist assigned\nthree pieces of fossil-leaf to plants of three different genera, which\na subsequent observer maintained to be merely the separated portions of\na single leaf of one and the same plant[62].\n\nIn the slates and limestones of Torquay, full as they are of marine\nfossils, no fish-remains have been identified, with one exception. Yet\nthese rocks have been searched by numerous sharp eyes and clever hands,\nprofessional as well as amateur, with regular investigation, and in\nthe sometimes more successful trifling of idle moments. It is worthy\nof note that the one exception is no scarcely decipherable relic, the\nnature of which might remain an open question, but a beautiful and\nfinely-preserved scale of _phyllolepis concentricus_[63]. Had there\nbeen only one fish in the \u2018Devonian\u2019 waters of the neighbourhood, the\none fish must have had more than one scale; yet none of the others are\nforthcoming. The science of to-morrow may find them; to the science of\nto-day they are lost irrecoverably.\n\nThe still-living varieties of the oyster are a miserable remnant of\nthe 255 fossil species from the chalk described in Coquand\u2019s recent\nwork. Professor Flower, in reviewing this monograph, remarks, that\n\u2018with these mollusks, numerous as they are, there are no forms that can\nfairly be recognized as transitional.\u2019 But inasmuch as the succession\nin time of these species is well-established by the different zones of\nthe chalk in which they are found, we must either accept some nine or\nten successive creations concerned in the production of oysters, or we\nmust allow the various fossil species to be connected with one another\nby descent. Upon the latter alternative, a whole chain of transitional\nlinks must once have existed between the earliest form of oyster and\nthe latest; and though many of these links have been preserved, still\nmore must have been lost, or deprived of their distinctive features; so\nthat here, where the geological record is, to all appearance, unusually\nperfect, its actual imperfection is more clearly than ever established.\n\nTo conclude, then, in few words:--The majority of dead creatures never\nbecome fossils at all.\n\nThe majority of fossils perish miserably in their hiding-places.\n\nOf those that are saved, the majority cannot be got at by man.\n\nOf those that can be, the majority never are.\n\nOf those that are, a large number prove illegible; a large number are\nfragments; a large number duplicates; and, lastly, a large number fall\ninto hands which again lose or destroy them.\n\nWe cannot therefore argue, because fossils of such-and-such forms of\nlife have never been found, that such-and-such forms never existed.\nThey may have existed, and left no fossils. The fossils may have been\nleft, and subsequently destroyed. The fossils may be undestroyed, but\nnever have been found. The sum-total of acquisitions is small, but\nprecious; it never can make a complete record, but it may make one\nsufficiently ample to establish the Darwinian Theory, or to replace it\nby some still wider and still simpler generalization.\n\n\n\n\nDARWINISM.\n\nTHE NOACHIAN FLOOD.\n\n\nSir,--A friendly correspondent has done me the honour of noticing my\nlecture on the Noachian Flood in more than one contribution to your\ncolumns. The easy way in which he admits the possibility of a partial\ndeluge and of pre-Adamite races, together with other symptoms of\nliberal thought and a trust in the conclusions of science, makes me\ntremble to think what would have befallen him had he lived \u2018in happier\nages of the Church.\u2019 At the same time these dangerous and lamentable\ntendencies towards free-thinking make it needless for me to urge upon\nhim those other and further conclusions towards which he is evidently\nof his own accord rapidly finding his way. But there are numerous\npersons who may read his pleasantly-written letters without perceiving\nhow very far gone he himself is from the original simplicity of an\nunquestioning faith, and may, therefore, fancy that he is a champion\nof orthodoxy putting down an anti-Scriptural disputant, or showing\nat least, if he shows nothing more, that the questions in dispute\nare still too unsettled and vague for plain folks to meddle with or\nunderstand. Such a result is directly opposed to that which my lecture\naimed at, which was to show plain folks that the subject not only could\nbe understood, but ought to be; to convince them, if possible, that on\nthis subject, and perhaps a few others, they were bound by all the laws\nof truth and honesty either to learn what there was to be learned, or\nfor the future to hold their peace. Two striking examples were quoted,\nfrom the lives of Columbus and Galileo, to show that theologians had\ndragged the Holy Scriptures through the dirt, by presuming to use their\nauthority for a purpose for which it was never designed, in a province\nto which it never lays claim, namely, the trial of evidence in natural\nscience. It seems to have escaped the notice of your correspondent,\nthat geography and astronomy were no more advanced in those days than\ngeology and pal\u00e6ontology in our own. But will any one presume to tell\nus that the Bible is a match for struggling infant sciences, and may be\nquoted to contradict, suppress, and crush them, but that when they are\nfull-grown it must in turn succumb to their dictation? That is indeed\nthe principle on which, in the old Greek comedy, the son justifies\nhis thrashing his aged father, because in bygone years, when their\nstrength was different, his aged father had thrashed him. Only this, we\nmust remember, is the invention of an incomparable satirist, meant for\navoidance, not for imitation.\n\nIt may be remarked, by the way, that in taking objection to the\nopening sentence of the lecture, my friendly opponent seems to have\nmisconceived its purport. \u2018Darwinism implies,\u2019 it says, \u2018almost\nthroughout, that no universal deluge has drowned our globe,\neither within the last ten thousand years, or even within a period\nindefinitely longer.\u2019 Now, since certainly no Darwinian accepts\nthe old views about the Deluge, this sentence could scarcely have\nbeen written for the benefit of Darwinians; and it would have\nbeen a very unsophisticated piece of rhetoric to say to a popular\naudience--\u2018Darwinism is true, so you see the old views about the Deluge\nare false,\u2019 seeing that the popular audience might have disposed of the\nargument by the simple plan of interchanging the two adjectives. But\nthe lecture opens with an acknowledgment that a recent universal deluge\nwould be an argument sufficient to upset the Darwinian Theory, prior\nto showing that so important an objection to the theory is itself on\nnumerous independent grounds untenable. Some arguments are equally in\nharmony with Darwinism, and inconsistent with the universality of the\nNoachian Flood. One of these is to be found in the existing diversities\nof the human race: but your correspondent appears to suppose that the\nelement of time has nothing to do with the theory of development, when\nhe says that \u2018to represent the divergence of races as impossible in any\ngiven period, however short, is strange ground for a Darwinian to take\nup.\u2019 He might as well require an engineer to believe that an engine had\nbeen driven at six hundred miles an hour, because the engineer himself\nbelieved it to have been driven at the rate of fifty or sixty. He only\nhalf states the argument against a common Noachian descent founded\non the difference between the Papuans and the Malays. The striking\npoint is, that these two contrasted races are separated by almost the\nvery same line which separates two great zoological provinces. On the\nold supposition of migration from the ark, that the lower animals, as\nwell as men, should have \u2018agreed to differ\u2019 on the opposite sides of a\nnarrow deep-sea channel, was indeed a remarkable bundle of coincidences.\n\nThat traditions of a deluge are wide-spread is acknowledged. That they\nare traditions of a universal deluge neither is nor can be proved.\nThat with all their local variations and discrepancies they point\nto one and the same deluge, is a question of probability, much more\nproper to follow than to lead the main argument. We shall not gain much\nfor science or religion out of the story of Deucalion\u2019s flood, which\nattributes the origin of the new stock of men and women to the pebbles\nthat Deucalion and his wife threw over their shoulders; an ancestry\nsurely less dignified even than that from the orang-outang and the\ngorilla with which Mr. Pengelly and Professor Huxley are supposed to\nhave mortified the dignity of mankind.\n\nIt is surprising that so many good Christian people should feel touchy\non this question of an enormously remote ancestry, although they\nwould, upon occasion, join with earnestness and true humility in the\nconfession that \u2018dust we are, and unto dust shall we return.\u2019 In their\nreluctance even to examine the real truth of the question, they fail\nto perceive that the true sons of the Prophets are not their lineal\ndescendants, but those who inherit their wisdom; and that \u2018a man\u2019s a\nman for a\u2019 that,\u2019 although his great-grandfather should prove to have\nbeen a lob-worm or a toad-stool.\n\nToo much injury to religion has been done already by confounding false\nscience with Scriptural truth, to make it either \u2018fair or reverent\u2019\nto hold back from protesting, whenever occasion offers, against the\nmischief. Persons accustomed with presumptuous or careless ignorance\nto denounce geology and Darwinism, and the results connected with\nthem, may have had their consciences soothed and encouraged by your\ncorrespondent. My charitable object is to make those consciences uneasy\nagain[64].\n\nMarch 23rd, 1870.\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND RELIGION.\n\n\nSir,--One of your correspondents has pithily observed, that if he\nhas denounced Darwinism, it is simply because he believes it to be\nuntrue. Could you not, Sir, in the interests of science and Christian\ncharity, prevail upon him to recall his denunciation, by showing him\nthat intellectual error requires not to be denounced, but to be set\nright? The prejudice against Darwinism has undoubtedly arisen from\na conflict--real or apparent--between its conclusions and certain\npassages of Scripture. Such a prejudice arose against the earlier\nadvancement of astronomy and geology, and the new conclusions arrived\nat were \u2018denounced in the interests of Christian orthodoxy,\u2019 _simply\nbecause those who denounced them believed them to be untrue._ It is\na little sad, though withal a little amusing, to observe how many\npersons, eminent at once for piety and Protestantism, inveigh against\nthe Papal assumption of infallibility, while assuming an infallibility\nof their own. They know precisely what is Scripture doctrine and what\nis not. They know exactly what measure of inspiration God has been\npleased to give to this writer or the other. At one time they are\nsure that a science is not true, because the Bible does not speak in\naccordance with the language of the science; at another time they\ndiscover that the science had all along been very clearly revealed in\nthe Bible under a disguise. It unfortunately escapes their notice that\nby this means, while they are reverently denouncing the science \u2018in the\ninterests of Christian orthodoxy,\u2019 they are under a disguise denouncing\nthe Bible.\n\n\u2018In my view,\u2019 says your correspondent above referred to, \u2018the Mosaic\nwriters were divinely taught, and knew what they wrote about with\na most perfect knowledge.\u2019 In one sense, no doubt, they _did_ know\nwhat they were writing about--they knew that it was religion, and,\ntherefore, they never pretended to \u2018enunciate\u2019 science, whether false\nor true; but in any other sense to say that they knew what they wrote\nabout with a most perfect knowledge, is to assert what is highly\nimprobable, and cannot be proved. Either it makes every writer a\nkind of god, so far as the attribute of infallibility is concerned,\nor it destroys all independence of testimony. To claim for them a\nperfect knowledge of which they made no use, except to mislead the\nworld for thousands of years, is surely to commit the capital offence\nof \u2018inciting to hatred and contempt\u2019 of their writings. How alien,\nmoreover, is it to the spirit of the writers themselves--men who are\nconstantly confessing their own errors, doubts, and perplexities; men\nwhose path in moral, let alone intellectual excellence, was not always\ndirect and straightforward, and who knew and owned their infirmity of\nnature. How contrary, too, to every analogy of life is this notion of a\nBook, written in perfect language by men of perfect knowledge in every\nsubject that may be even incidentally referred to in its pages. For\nnot only is man an imperfect being, but his language is an imperfect\ninstrument of his imperfect thoughts. His conscience is fallible;\nhis understanding is fallible; let the Book which guides him be as\ninfallible as you please, he will still bring it back to the inherent\nimperfection of things human by misreading and misconceiving it. That\nthe law of God is perfect, follows from the very thought of God; that\nany particular exposition of that law to finite minds either is or can\nbe perfect, is almost, or altogether, a contradiction in terms. Far\nfrom knowing all about modern systems of Botany, Moses did not even\nknow all about religion as the later prophets knew; nor did _they_\nknow as we know. Their mission would probably have been hidden rather\nthan forwarded, had they been able to \u2018enunciate\u2019 scientific truths in\nadvance of their age. Their new views in religion were often roundly\nabused; their new views in science would hardly have escaped denouncing.\n\nAs a caution to the unwary, it should be remarked that the opposition\nsupposed to exist between Mr. Darwin\u2019s phrase \u2018Natural Selection,\u2019 and\nMr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s \u2018Survival of the Fittest,\u2019 is purely imaginary.\nThe latter, no doubt, is the more philosophically accurate, the former\nis a convenient, popular, and telling metaphor. They both express\nthe same conception of a large and wonderful group of facts. Perhaps\nit will be scarcely necessary to caution the unwary against taking\nfor granted that \u2018vestigiform structures are proofs of a typical\nformation;\u2019 but if they are, they prove that in the typical formation\nof man a tail was included, which would be such a disgrace to the\ntypical formation as would prevent all worthy and decorously-minded\npersons from believing in typical formations for a moment.\n\n\n\n\nDARWINISM, AND THE FIRST VERTEBRATE.\n\n\nSir,--Your amiable and earnest correspondent does not seem to\nunderstand that men like Darwin and Wallace, who have spent years of\npatient labour and thought in amassing observations of nature, and\ngrouping together the facts out of which their theories have been\nformed, have a right to \u2018an air of philosophical superiority,\u2019 if they\nchoose to display it, when questions are asked or arguments put forward\nwhich imply ignorance or misconception of all they have been doing in\nthe interests of science. When Mr. Wallace \u2018very coolly\u2019 asserts that\nhe sees no force in an argument, it will as a rule be advisable for the\nargument either to withdraw itself from the public gaze, or get itself\nstated a little more lucidly. Again, when Mr. Darwin \u2018rashly affirms\nthat he has distinct evidence\u2019 of a thing, it would perhaps be a good\nplan to get the Commissioners in Lunacy to examine the astonishing\nnumber of hard-headed men whom he induces to believe his unfounded\nassertion.\n\nBut now that I have prevailed with your correspondent to give up\n\u2018denouncing\u2019 Darwinism, I wish further to press upon him the advantage\nof ceasing to \u2018deny\u2019 it, and, above all, of ceasing to deny it with\nany admixture of religious phraseology in his denial. He has himself\nallowed that sciences, seemingly most at variance with the language of\nScripture, have come to be reconciled with it; he must see, therefore,\nthat the appearances of Scriptural language can be no objection to\nDarwinism or to any other scientific theory whatever. Darwinism is\nfounded on the comparison of an enormous number of well-ascertained\nfacts issuing in a few generalizations of extreme importance if\ntrue, but also of considerable importance, even if far short of\nthe truth. Every hypothesis which will explain a large number of\nhitherto disconnected facts, though it may be in itself erroneous,\nhelps and guides men in the end towards the true explanation. To\n\u2018deny,\u2019 or, in other words, to make a public protest against such\nhypotheses without having anything better or equal, or a tenth part\nas good to offer in their stead, is to be a hinderer of science, and,\ninstead of being really pious and reverent, is a very pretty, though\ndoubtless unconscious imitation of that rhetoric which, because of the\nacknowledged difficulties in every form of religion, \u2018denies\u2019 religion\naltogether.\n\nThat your correspondent _does_ lay just a little tiny claim to\ninfallibility is clear from the very letter in which he modestly\ndisowns it: for he therein prays always to be enabled to think and act\nabout the interpretation of Scripture as he now thinks and acts, which\nwould be a foolish prayer, if his present thoughts and actions might\npossibly be wrong or misguided. And yet he differs from a very large\nnumber of divines, in supposing that the prophets, for instance, knew\nall that their own prophecies portended; so that if all those worthy\ndivines be right in assuming that the inspired writers did not always\n\u2018know what they wrote about,\u2019 then your correspondent, who makes the\ncontrary supposition, must be wrong,--and there will still be some hope\nfor Darwinism.\n\nIt is scarcely fair to ask for space to answer his momentous challenge\nabout the first vertebrate, or to explain the thoroughly sceptical\nform which the challenge assumes. When the Apostle Thomas said,\n\u2018except I see the print of the nails, I will not believe,\u2019 he had\nno logical claim to receive the proof of the resurrection which he\ndemanded, because _a priori_ it would have been quite fair to suppose\nour Lord\u2019s resurrection-body would retain no such signs of previous\noutrage; and it is a kindred mistake to suppose that the truth of\nthe development-theory in any way hinges upon the possibility of\nconstructing an effigy of the first vertebrate either as it actually\nwas, or to suit an anti-Darwinian\u2019s notions of what it ought to have\nbeen. According to the development-theory, it must have been the\nproduct of innumerable antecedent factors, itself the heir of many\nfar-descended and often modified characters; and yet, for all that, it\nwill probably have been a far simpler organism than the simplest modern\nvertebrate. It is well known by what insensible gradations the natural\nkingdoms and the classes in those great divisions pass, so to speak,\ninto one another; it need, therefore, cause no surprise if the primary\nvertebrate of all the vertebrates should prove neither to have been\nfish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring; but for an actual specimen\nof a living vertebrate that can neither \u2018swim, crawl, fly, nor walk,\u2019\nI cannot do better than refer my philosophical opponent to a new-born\nbaby.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST VERTEBRATE, AND THE BEGINNING OF REASON.\n\n\nSir,--Against your correspondent\u2019s preference for vernacular terms\nmay be set a remark by Dr. Whewell, that \u2018the loose and _infantine_\ngrasp of common language cannot hold objects steadily enough for\nscientific examination, or lift them from one stage of generalization\nto another. They must be secured by the rigid mechanism of a\nscientific phraseology.\u2019 To say that \u2018the first vertebrate must have\nbeen the product of innumerable antecedent factors,\u2019 is, perhaps, an\nexpression more puzzling than if one merely said that \u2018its immediate\nprogenitors\u2019 were \u2018a single pair;\u2019 but then it has the advantage\nof being considerably more suggestive, and a good deal more to the\npurpose. Among these \u2018factors\u2019 of a living creature parents commonly\nfind a place,--two parents generally; in some cases, only one; in some\ncases, not even one, if we are to believe the advocates of spontaneous\ngeneration, or the still popular view in regard to the Creation. To\nthe parental factors of any particular offspring must be added those\nwhich are constituted by food and climate and a multitude of changes\nand chances in the whole course of its existence. Some characters it\nmay derive from remote ancestors, transmitted through, though not\ndeveloped in, its \u2018immediate progenitors.\u2019 It is now forty years since\ntwo French anatomists showed the possibility, or even probability, of\na connection between the molluscous cuttle-fish and the vertebrate\ntype; and, considering the propensity of the highest vertebrate for\nperpetually squirting ink at those who meddle with it, most readers\nof controversy will think the instance well selected. Those who wish\nto be told what the first vertebrate was probably like, should first\naccurately define what they mean by a vertebrate. Is a jointed backbone\nthe only essential? And if so, how many vertebr\u00e6 are essentially\nrequisite? A creature with two vertebr\u00e6 would be as much a vertebrate\nas a creature with three. What shall we say, then, of a creature\npossessing, if we may use the expression, but a single vertebra? It\nwould not have a jointed backbone. It would not be a vertebrate. Yet,\nby the simple multiplication of similar parts, in accordance with a\nthousand analogies, a vertebrate could be developed from it. By the\ndifferentiation of these similar parts, which not only might follow,\nbut must follow, a great variety of species could easily be evolved.\nThose who really take an interest in the problems connected with this\nsubject, and whose \u2018convictions\u2019 are not too strong and absolute to be\nswayed by ascertained facts and logical reasoning will do well to study\nthe \u2018Principles of Biology,\u2019 Herbert Spencer. They will there see\nby what extraordinarily simple gradations the lowliest organisms are\nconnected with higher and the highest forms. They will there find that\n\u2018modification of characters\u2019 is a doctrine less intricate than might\nbe supposed, even if it cannot be wholly explained in words of one\nsyllable.\n\nIf any intelligent persons can discern the undulatory theory of light\nand the modern system of botany in the first chapter of Genesis, no\none would wish to complain of their ingenuity, unless they proposed to\nsupport a particular theory of inspiration by these discoveries. But\nthen, if the theories of science are only \u2018the undulations of human\nopinion,\u2019 it becomes necessary to ask why the botanical undulation of\nthe present day is accepted as a witness, and the Darwinian undulation\nrejected. Had the famous Pagan critic, to whom your correspondent\n\u2018R.\u00a0T.\u00a0E.\u2019 refers, imagined the sentence, \u2018Let there be light,\nand there was light,\u2019 to be a scientific description instead of a\ntheological one, we may feel sure that he would have condemned it for\nbombast instead of praising it for its majesty of expression. As it\nis, he does not declare it to be the sublimest sentence ever uttered,\nbut remarks that \u2018the lawgiver of the Jews, no common man, having\ncomprehended the power of the divinity according to the just conception\nof it, unfolded it agreeably thereto,\u2019 both in this and in the parallel\nphrase, \u2018Let the dry land appear, and it was so.\u2019 That all things which\n_are_ and which _become_, both are what they are and become what they\nbecome by the simple fiat of the supreme God, is a piece of elementary\nphilosophy and religion, which, I conceive, Sir, none of your\ncorrespondents can have any wish to dispute; but that the writer of\nGenesis anticipated by his scientific knowledge the epoch of Copernicus\nand Newton, Young and Fresnel, Linn\u00e6us, De Jussieu and Cuvier, is not\nonly not proven by the few simple phrases of his writings that have\nanything remotely to do with the branches of science which they so\nnobly illustrated; much more than this, it would be a disgrace and\nheavy imputation upon him had he known all _they_ believed, and yet\nexpressed himself so badly as to leave the world for thousands of years\nin ignorance of the very germs of the true theories, so obscurely\nthat no one should ever have dreamed that he was alluding to the true\ntheories till after they had been independently discovered.\n\nYour correspondent \u2018Xn\u2019 will find both his pleasure and his profit in\nreading the chapter on Instinct in \u2018Darwin\u2019s Origin of Species.\u2019 It\nwill give him some idea, I say not, how the reasoning faculty was first\nacquired, but how it may have been gradually developed. By a careful\nstudy of the same work he, and many others who need the knowledge, will\nsee that in accordance with Darwinism the deterioration of a species is\nquite possible. His quaintly expressed argument about Adam\u2019s \u2018immediate\nprogenitor\u2019 omits to notice that in the moral world it is a step\nupward to become capable of sinning, just as in the physical world it\nis a step upward to become capable of dying, so that the wretchedest\nman with reason is higher in the scale than the noblest dog, and the\nhumblest plant than the costliest and most beautiful stone. The other\ndifficulty which he puts forward of an abrupt transition between the\nfirst man with reason and the parents of such a man without reason is a\ndifficulty, like that in regard to the first vertebrate, one of words\nrather than of facts. As with the origin of language and of languages,\nas with the origin of the natural kingdoms and of every individual form\nof life, so with the origin of reason; could we see the whole series of\nsteps, with their infinitely numerous and sometimes almost infinitely\nfine and subtle points of discrimination, we should probably be unable\nto fix upon any one definite division and say, here noise ends and\narticulate language begins; or, here Saxon ends and English begins; or,\n_this_ is the top of instinct, and _this_ the dawn of reason.\n\n\n\n\nOYSTERS OF THE CHALK, AND THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT.[65]\n\n\nThe interesting notice in your last number, of M. Coquand\u2019s \u2018Oysters of\nthe Chalk,\u2019 draws inferences unfavourable to the theory of development\nor evolution which scarcely seem warranted by the facts. It need not be\n\u2018difficult to imagine the creature as existing under such conditions,\nthat one species, while engaged in \u201cthe struggle for existence,\u201d should\nstarve out and extinguish another;\u2019 for however widely we may find\na fossil species dispersed, it is not probable that it occupied the\nwhole of its territory at one and the same time, and in the limited\narea occupied immediately before its extinction, new varieties may\nhave prevailed over and displaced the old by some slightly superior\nadaptation to the food-supply of the region. The extinction of\nany particular species may in some instances have been due to the\nextinction, or loss by other means, of its own appropriate food.\nAgain, it is not necessary to suppose that the hinge, or the internal\nor external structure of the shell of an oyster, has been altered by\nwhat may be called the direct action of \u2018natural selection,\u2019 since by\nthe well-established principle of \u2018correlation\u2019 the variation in one\npart of an organism is nearly or quite certain to produce variations\nin other parts. \u2018If any such change did occur,\u2019 it is argued, \u2018it must\nhave been _per saltum_, since with these mollusks, numerous as they\nare, there are no forms that can fairly be recognised as transitional.\u2019\nBut this appeal to the evidence of facts is somewhat premature. The\nimmense difference pointed out between the geological records of\nEngland and France in regard to these very oysters of the chalk,\nleaves it perfectly open for us to suppose that even the comparatively\nfull French record is itself exceedingly imperfect, and that the\ntransitional forms have either not been preserved, or remain yet to be\ndiscovered. Mr. Darwin gives reasons for believing that when variation\nonce begins it continues with some vigour; hence, between two settled\nwide-spread species connected genealogically together we might expect a\nlarge number of transitional varieties, each represented by only a few\nindividuals, so that the whole number of these transitional forms might\nwell be lost to the genealogical record.\n\nFinally, the objection from the scarcity of oysters at the present\nday, compared with the great abundance of species in the past, does\nnot really touch the theory of development, which is concerned to\nexplain how species come into existence, not how they go out of it.\nThat varieties, species, genera, have been superseded or extinguished,\nwithin longer or shorter periods, is a fact admitted on all hands.\nThe general principle of natural selection will account for this in\nthe rough, maintaining as it does that fresh varieties, species, and\ngenera better adapted to the surrounding circumstances have arisen,\nand by their superior adaptation unavoidably ousted the older forms.\nDigging down into the records of history we find a time when the\nRomans were supreme in the civilized world; no two consecutive years\nof the interval present any remarkable divergence of the prevailing\nconditions, yet now we may say of that Roman supremacy in the civilized\nworld, that, \u2018like the Mastodon, it is a thing of the past.\u2019\n\nTorquay, May 14, 1870.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MATHEMATICAL TEST OF NATURAL SELECTION.[66]\n\n\nThe soul of many an anti-Darwinian will have been cheered by Mr. A.\u00a0W.\nBennett\u2019s paper on \u2018The Theory of Natural Selection from a Mathematical\nPoint of View.\u2019 It is, in fact, a very admirable piece of special\npleading, based on a skilful assumption of premisses which, to a\ncareless or biassed observer, might seem indisputable.\n\nThe tendency to variation is spoken of as something very mysterious, of\nwhich no adequate account has ever yet been given. Yet the very simple\nexplanation is no bad one,--that where two parents are concerned in\nthe production of any offspring, the product in part resembling each\nof the producers must of necessity also in part differ from each of\nthem. Between the parents themselves, Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown\nthat differences of age and external circumstances would ensure the\nrequisite want of resemblance in the absence of any other cause.\n\n\u2018The rigid test of mathematical calculation\u2019 is then applied to the\ncase of mimetic butterflies, with the view of showing that they could\nnot have been produced simply according to the laws of variation,\ninheritance, and natural selection. In the application of this rigid\ntest, the very first step is a perfectly gratuitous assumption, \u2018that\nit would require, at the very lowest calculation, one thousand steps\nto enable the normal _Leptalis_ to put on its protective form.\u2019 Who is\nto prove that fifty differences would be insufficient? An interval of\na thousand years might be granted for establishing each one of these\nvariations. Suppose even fifty thousand, instead of only fifty steps,\nto be necessary, it is another gratuitous assumption that \u2018the smallest\nchange in the direction of the _Ithomia_, which we can conceive on any\nhypothesis to be beneficial to the _Leptalis_, is at the very lowest\none-fiftieth of the change required to produce perfect resemblance.\u2019\nHow small a difference must decide the choice made by a donkey placed\nequidistant between two bundles of hay! Certainly, then, a bird on the\nwing, having to choose amidst myriads of butterflies, may be determined\nby an almost infinitesimal distinction. Further, though the whole\nchange may be produced by an immense number of small changes, it is not\nnecessary to suppose that all the changes will be equally small. It\nis merely begging the question to assume that the first change could\nnot possibly be large enough to be of any use. And if it may be of\nuse, the whole mathematical calculation, based on its being useless,\nbreaks down from the beginning. Again, since the _Leptalis_ may have\nspent one million years in arriving at its present likeness to the\npresent _Ithomia_, it is impossible to assert that the normal forms\nof the two butterflies were as wide apart at the beginning of that\nperiod as they are at present. The mimicry having once set in, might be\nretained by parallel variations. This, indeed, cannot fail to be the\ncase, if the protection is to be a lasting one; for when the _Ithomia_\nvaries in outward appearance, unless the _Leptalis_ varies in the same\ndirection, the resemblance will be lost. This progressive mimicry\nwould be more valuable than an imitation in which no changes occurred,\nsince the enemies of a mimetic species would in time become aware of\na fraud which had no variations at its command, as birds are said\nnow-a-days to pounce without hesitation upon caterpillars which very\nmuch resemble twigs[67]. Even \u2018a rough imitation\u2019 may be useful in the\nfirst instance, and yet when hostile eyes have long been exercised, and\nhave acquired greater and greater sharpness, finally nothing less than\n_absolute identity_ of appearance may be thoroughly effective. Thus\nthe perfecting of the resemblance will be no \u2018mere freak of Nature,\u2019\nnor shall we be \u2018landed in the dilemma that the _last_ stages are\ncomparatively useless\u2019 in this procedure.\n\nThe array of figures brought forward to prove that the _Leptalis_\ncould not have made twenty steps of variation in the direction of the\n_Ithomia by chance_, would be much to the purpose if any exponent of\nthe theory of Natural Selection had ever argued or supposed that\nit could. The calculation takes it for granted that the theory is\nerroneous, instead of proving it to be in error. Upon this assumption,\nit might have been put far more strongly, only that a stronger way\nof putting it would have borne on the face of it the suspicion of\nsome inherent fallacy. It begins by supposing that there are \u2018twenty\ndifferent ways in which a _Leptalis_ may vary, only one of these being\nin the direction ultimately required;\u2019 it might quite as truthfully,\nor even more so, have said a thousand instead of twenty, and then the\nsecond step would have given the chance as only one in a million,\ninstead of one in four hundred. But while the theory of Natural\nSelection speaks of numerous minute useful variations, Mr. Bennett\nwill not allow that combination of terms. Let them be numerous and\nminute, if you will, he says; but if small, they cannot be useful; if\nuseful, they cannot be small. He claims to have Mr. Darwin\u2019s own word\nfor it, that a large variation would not be permanent, as though Mr.\nDarwin had said, \u2018living creatures have come to be what they are by\nsuccessive useful deviations of structure permanently propagated, but\nno large deviations are permanent, and no small ones are useful.\u2019 It\nis quite obvious that in the use of relative terms, such as great and\nsmall, Mr. Darwin neither intended to stultify himself nor has done\nso. A thing may be large enough to be useful without being large as\ncompared with something twenty times its own size; and a man may be\nsaid to have a huge brain in a very small body, although the body in\nsolid content far exceeds the brain. When Mr. Darwin says that \u2018Natural\nSelection always acts with extreme slowness\u2019, he does not imply that\nits steps must therefore be so numerous as to be too small to confer\nany advantage. This would be a contradiction in terms. But the steps\nmay be exceedingly small notwithstanding, and also sometimes separated\nby enormous intervals of time from one another.\n\nIn introducing his own explanation of things, Mr. Bennett affirms that\n\u2018resemblances, and resemblances of the most wonderful and perfect kind\u2019\nin the vegetable kingdom, \u2018are in no sense mimetic or protective.\u2019 This\nmay be so, but it can hardly be said to be proved. When he speaks of\n\u2018man\u2019s reason\u2019 having \u2018assisted him so to modify his body as to adapt\nhimself to the circumstances with which he is surrounded,\u2019 and suggests\nthat the instinct of animals may have assisted them also to modify\ntheir bodies by slow and gradual degrees to the same purpose, it is\ndifficult to imagine the process intended, and still more difficult to\nsee how \u2018the slow and gradual degrees\u2019 will escape the rigid test of\nmathematical calculation which Mr. Bennett has elsewhere applied; for\nif the steps are great, they ought not to be permanent; and if small,\nthey ought not to be useful. A theory which makes it possible for a\nbee to \u2018modify its proboscis\u2019 by instinct, or for a man to treat his\nnose in the same manner by reason, seems harder of digestion than the\nDarwinian.\n\nTorquay, Nov. 12, 1870.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GENESIS OF SPECIES.\n\n\nA review in \u2018Nature,\u2019 by Mr. A.\u00a0W. Bennett, of Mr. Mivart\u2019s \u2018Genesis of\nSpecies,\u2019 contains the following passage:--\n\n\u2018It behoves, therefore, every Darwinian to satisfy himself that either\nMr. Mivart\u2019s premisses or his line of argument is unsound.\n\n\u2018The objections brought forward by the author are summed up as\nfollows:--(1) That Natural Selection is incompetent to account for the\nincipient stages of useful structures. (2) That it does not harmonize\nwith the coexistence of closely similar structures of diverse origin.\n(3) That there are grounds for thinking that specific differences may\nbe developed suddenly instead of gradually. (4) That the opinion that\nspecies have definite though different limits to their variability is\nstill tenable. (5) That certain fossil transitional forms are absent\nwhich might have been expected to be present. (6) That some facts of\ngeological distribution supplement other difficulties. (7) That the\nobjection drawn from the physiological difference between \u201cspecies\u201d\nand \u201craces\u201d still exists unrefuted. (8) That there are many remarkable\nphenomena in organic forms upon which Natural Selection throws no\nlight whatever, but the explanations of which, if they could be\nattained, might throw light upon specific origination.\n\n\u2018If these objections are not new, they are at least sustained by new\narguments. They are evidently of very unequal value. The third is very\ndifficult of proof or disproof. The fifth may be true in our present\nstate of knowledge, but would be very unsafe by itself as the basis of\nan argument. The first, second, and eighth are of greatest value, and\nare those which Mr. Mivart has most closely worked out[68].\u2019\n\nThe review containing the above passage did not appear till the\npresent volume was on the very eve of publication. Even a hasty glance\nat Mr. Mivart\u2019s book is sufficient to show that Mr. Bennett has not\nover-estimated its importance and value. It is scarcely possible here\nto do more than make a few reflections upon its general scope, in reply\nto the challenge offered to Darwinians. The first objection, as it\nstands in the summary, wears the appearance of a misconception. It is\nalmost certain to produce one. When Mr. Darwin attributes the origin\nof species to Natural Selection, he includes expressly, and where not\nexpressly, by obvious implication, the principle of Variability. He\nnever maintains that the first or any subsequent stage of a useful\nstructure can be produced by Natural Selection. Natural Selection\nonly operates to preserve. Without Variation it would have no sphere\nin which to operate, so that from one point of view Mr. Darwin may\nbe said to attribute the origin of species to Variation rather than\nNatural Selection. He is, moreover, far from ignoring the influence\nof other principles, such as Inheritance, Reversion, and Correlation,\nupon the total result. He may be thought inconsistent with himself in\nlaying stress at times upon the minuteness of the variations which he\nsupposes to have slowly accumulated into specific differences, and at\nother times admitting the sudden appearance of variations which may\nbe considered as large ones, and which are certainly striking. But in\nthe first instance the great and almost overwhelming difficulty was to\ninduce a belief that forms specifically different could be connected\nwith one another by descent. By showing that a multitude of small\ndifferences accumulated would make a large total difference, he made\nas it were a bridge for the existing incredulity. It now appears that\nthe gulf may be passed with easy strides instead of the little slow\nsteps at first thought necessary. This fortifies the doctrine of the\nTransmutation of Species, in proportion as there are fewer \u2018missing\nlinks,\u2019 fewer transitional forms that need to be accounted for.\n\nOf \u2018the coexistence of closely similar structures of diverse origin,\u2019\nillustrated so forcibly by the instance of the eye, \u2018in at least\nthree independent lines of descent, the Mollusca, the Annulosa, and\nthe Vertebrata,\u2019 it can scarcely be denied that Natural Selection\nalone would be an inadequate explanation. But here again it should\nbe observed that Darwinism does not attribute everything to Natural\nSelection. It assumes, what must be allowed, that variations occur. In\nobedience to what laws those variations themselves are produced is an\ninteresting speculation, and a most important subject of inquiry. That\nsuch laws or conditions of Variation exist no one can doubt, unless he\nhas been seduced by Ovidian metamorphoses to believe in trees bleeding\nhuman blood and human foreheads branching with the antlers of the stag.\nA knowledge of those conditions might fully explain the coexistence of\nsimilar structures of diverse origin, consistently with the principle\nof Natural Selection. The ignorance of them is scarcely a proof that\nsuch coexistence does not harmonize with it.\n\nThe objection that giraffes, which profited by long necks in a time\nof drought, would find them a disadvantage subsequently, as requiring\na greatly increased size and strength of muscles to support them,\noverlooks the law of correlation, by assuming that the elongated neck\nwould be out of proportion to the other conditions of the creature\u2019s\nfabric.\n\nMr. Mivart\u2019s fourth objection seems at least an extremely improbable\nopinion. He refers to Mr. Darwin\u2019s expression, that the goose appears\nto have a highly inflexible organization, as if he himself thought\nit possible for a species at length to attain to an organization\ncompletely inflexible. Such a view would imply two parents exactly like\none another, producing offspring exactly like themselves; and of such\nexact likenesses no known families afford examples.\n\nThe seventh objection recalls the still unexplained physiological\ndifference between \u2018species\u2019 and \u2018races,\u2019 unions between the former\nbeing sterile, and between the latter fertile. In this branch of the\nsubject there is much scope still for inquiry. Some of the difficulty\nmay be due to a trick played us by language. True species have been\ndefined to be those that are not fertile together; and from the\ndefinition it follows that races which _are_ fertile together are\nnot true species. But the question is obscured by the use of the two\ndifferent words \u2018races\u2019 and \u2018species,\u2019 the real issue being, whether\nraces that are and races that are not fertile together can originate\nin the same way. The subject in its other bearings has been largely\ndiscussed by Mr. Darwin in his work on \u2018Animals and Plants under\nDomestication.\u2019\n\nIt remains only to say a few words on the argument from the calculation\nof chances which is supposed to reduce the survival by natural\nselection of any particular useful variation almost or altogether to\nan arithmetical impossibility. \u2018The advantage,\u2019 we are told, \u2018whatever\nit may be, is utterly outbalanced by numerical inferiority. A million\ncreatures are born: ten thousand survive to produce offspring. One of\nthe million has twice as good a chance as any other of surviving: but\nthe chances are fifty to one against the gifted individual\u2019s being\none of the hundred survivors. No doubt the chances are twice as great\nagainst any one other individual, but this does not prevent their\nbeing enormously in favour of _some_ average individual[69].\u2019 In this\ncalculation it seems to be overlooked that every individual will vary\nmore or less, and that out of a million variations there is a very\ngreat probability that _one_ should give much more than the amount of\nadvantage which the calculation supposes. Nor does it follow that a\nvariation conferring great advantage in the struggle for life should be\ngreat in comparison with a creature\u2019s general organization. There is\na very probable alternative, that when the advantages are exceedingly\nslight they may be shared by a great many, and that when falling to\nthe lot of only one or a few, they may be exceedingly important. The\ndoctrines of reversion and inheritance are pressed into the service\nof the arithmetical argument to show that the acquired advantage\nwould be gradually diminished and finally lost. But Mr. Darwin tells\nus that, \u2018when a new character appears, it is occasionally from the\nfirst well-fixed[70].\u2019 The chances upon one principle that a character\nwill not be transmitted are not worth consideration, if, under the\noperation of some other principle known or unknown, the transmission\nof the character actually takes place. We are asked whether one white\nman, introduced into an island otherwise inhabited only by negroes,\nwould be likely to give the whole island eventually a white, or even\na yellow, population. Without trying the experiment, we may perhaps\nsafely answer in the negative. But the illustration loses much or all\nof its point, when we consider how little the circumstances of the\nexperiment would correspond with what ordinarily happens in nature,\nhow little we know whether the white man\u2019s colour would be really an\nadvantage or the reverse, and how complicated are the differences\nbetween a white man and a negro. If the blackness of the negro be due\nto Natural Selection in any considerable degree, we should expect it to\nsuit the conditions which surround him in his native habitation better\nthan a white skin would do. In this case the pallor introduced into the\nbreed by a solitary stranger would gradually disappear in obedience\nto the principles of Natural Selection, not in opposition to them. To\ntake once more the instance of the giraffe; the useful variation is\nhere by hypothesis an elongated neck; it is conceivable that out of\nlarge herds the few survivors of a drought might be exclusively such as\npossessed this advantage to some extent. These would probably transmit\nto a large majority of their descendants the tendency to vary in a\ngiven direction which they had themselves all more or less exhibited.\nTheir progeny, moreover, would be placed in exceptionally favourable\ncircumstances by the very fact that in the previous drought so many of\nthe same species had been starved to death, who would otherwise have\nfurnished their chief competitors in the struggle for existence. It\nis still objected that upon this supposition many other animals ought\nto have acquired giraffe-like necks. But such an expectation is far\nfrom being warranted by the principles of Natural Selection. Since\nall variations are potentially useful, but only those are preserved\nwhich suit the surrounding conditions among which they are exhibited,\nthe calculation of chances will itself plead for the probability that\na variety of variations will be preserved, rather than the same many\ntimes over. Other species competing with the giraffe for food would\nbe little likely to gain an advantage over it by a slight increase in\nlength of neck, though by other variations they might achieve a decided\nsuperiority. It is obvious, also, that the advantage assigned to the\nelongated neck would belong to many other possible variations, such as\na lengthened proboscis, far-reaching arms, the climbing powers of the\nsnake or the monkey, the flight of the bird or the insect; all of which\nmay be due to Natural Selection and the subsidiary principles which the\ntheory of Development embraces.\n\nThe calling in of subsidiary principles may be thought to spoil the\nboasted simplicity of the theory. But such an opinion is hypercritical.\nOne might truthfully say of a great patriot that all he did was in\nobedience to the simple law of duty, without implying that he was\nexempt from the law of association of ideas, or independent of the\nmechanical, chemical, and vital laws which regulate many of the\nfunctions of all human beings alike.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES.\n\n\n[1] These papers were read at various dates between February 1869 and\nJanuary 1871, before the Torquay Natural History Society.\n\n[2] Read before the Devonshire Association, July 1870.\n\n[3] Horace, Odes, I. xvi. 13:--\n\n    Fertur Prometheus addere principi\n    Limo coactus particulam undique\n      Desectam, et insani leonis\n        Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro.\n\n\n[4] Lyell, \u2018Principles of Geology,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 324. Tenth Edition.\n\n[5] Darwin, \u2018Animals and Plants under Domestication,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 251.\n\n[6] 1,073,741,824 grains.\n\n[7] \u2018On the Origin of Species,\u2019 p. 74. Fourth Edition.\n\n[8] Darwin, \u2018Animals and Plants under Domestication,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 379.\n\n[9] 37 dwts. 7 grs., or 895 grs., between seven and eight times the\nsize of the wild fruit. See \u2018Animals and Plants under Domestication,\u2019\nvol. i. p. 356.\n\n[10] Darwin, \u2018Animals and Plants under Domestication,\u2019 passim.\n\n[11] \u2018Animals and Plants under Domestication,\u2019 vol. ii. pp. 348-351.\n\n[12] An important caution may here be quoted from Mr. Herbert Spencer.\n\u2018An impression,\u2019 he says, \u2018has been given by those who have popularized\nthe sentiments of Embryologists, that, during its development, each\nhigher organism passes through stages in which it resembles the adult\nforms of lower organisms--that the embryo of a man is at one time like\na fish, and at another time like a reptile. This is not the fact. The\nfact established is, that up to a certain point the embryos of a man\nand a fish continue similar, and that then differences begin to appear\nand increase--the one embryo approaching more and more towards the form\nof a fish; the other diverging from it more and more. And so with the\nresemblances to the more advanced types.\u2019--_Principles of Biology_,\nvol. i. p. 143.\n\n[13] \u2018Origin of Species,\u2019 p. 270. Mr. Darwin shows how the hexagonal\ncells of the hive-bee can have arisen from the simple cylindrical form,\nby bringing the cylinders sufficiently near together, so that their\noutlines, if completed, would intersect.\n\nThe humble-bee makes separate and very irregular rounded cells.\n\nThe _melipona domestica_ makes cells that are nearly spherical, but too\nnear together for the spheres to be complete, flat walls of wax being\nbuilt where they tend to intersect.\n\nA little extra regularity, advantageous for the saving of wax and\nlabour, would produce the symmetrical comb of the hive-bee with its two\nlayers of hexagonal prisms.\n\n[14] See \u2018Principles of Biology,\u2019 vol. i. pp. 428-431.\n\n[15] \u2018Origin of Species,\u2019 p. 213; \u2018Principles of Biology,\u2019 vol. i. pp.\n392, 394. The walking-fishes of India and the mud-fishes of Ceylon\nand New Zealand are described in an interesting article by Dr. Day of\nTorquay, in \u2018All the Year Round\u2019 for June 11th, 1870. Dr. Day seems to\nthink the climbing powers of the _anabas scandens_ less satisfactorily\nattested than other attributes of these extraordinary groups.\n\n[16] Carpenter, \u2018Animal Physiology,\u2019 chap. 14.\n\n[17] The design of this Essay was not, as has been erroneously\nsupposed, to disprove the universality of the Deluge by help of\nDarwinism, but to remove one great obstacle to the general acceptance\nof Darwinism by disproving the universality of the Deluge. Taking the\nTheory of Development for granted, a recent universal Deluge would be\ntoo obviously impossible to need arguing against.\n\n[18] Lyell, \u2018Principles of Geology,\u2019 ii. 332.\n\n[19] Ibid. ii. 344.\n\n[20] Lyell, ii. 336.\n\n[21] \u2018The Malay Archipelago,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 448.\n\n[22] \u2018Genesis of the Earth and of Man,\u2019 p. 117; quoted in Sir J.\nLubbock\u2019s \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 314.\n\n[23] A religious and supremely orthodox poet of the last century\nenquires, \u2018Where is the dust that has not been alive?\u2019--Young, \u2018Night\nThoughts,\u2019 Night IX, 1. 87.\n\n[24] \u2018Mushrooms and Toadstools.\u2019--Worthington G. Smith, p. 17.\n\n[25] \u2018Genesis of the Earth and of Man,\u2019 pp. 113, 114.\n\n[26] Genesis, chap. xi.\n\n[27] Sir John Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 pp. 338, 346, 452;\nHerodotus, iv. 26.\n\n[28] See Mill\u2019s \u2018History of British India,\u2019 book ii. ch. i. and notes.\n\n[29] \u2018Prehistoric Man,\u2019 Dr. Daniel Wilson, p. 101.\n\n[30] \u2018The Daughter of Galileo,\u2019 by the author of \u2018Mary Powell,\u2019 p. 283.\n\n[31] \u2018Origin of Species,\u2019 p. 268.\n\n[32] \u2018Good Words for the Young,\u2019 June 1870. Animal Defences. By A.\u00a0W.\nDrayson.\n\n[33] Wallace, \u2018Essays on Natural Selection,\u2019 p. 227.\n\n[34] \u2018The Spectator,\u2019 No. 120.\n\n[35] \u2018Spectator,\u2019 No. 121.\n\n[36] Nos. 156, 157.\n\n[37] \u2018Spectator,\u2019 No. 519.\n\n[38] \u2018Natural History,\u2019 \u00a7 985. \u2018It is a common experience that dogs\nknow the dog-killer; when, as in times of infection, some petty fellow\nis sent out to kill the dogs; and that though they have never seen him\nbefore, yet they will all come forth, and bark and fly at him.\u2019\n\n[39] See \u2018Knight\u2019s Half-Hours with the Best Authors.\u2019 No. 185: from\n\u2018The Fool of Quality.\u2019\n\n[40] \u2018Essays on Natural Selection,\u2019 p. 248.\n\n[41] Ibid. p. 128.\n\n[42] This Essay was originally prepared as a sermon for Trinity\nSunday. For the text were quoted the well-known words of 2 Peter ii.\n16, \u2018The dumb ass, speaking with man\u2019s voice, forbad the madness of\nthe prophet.\u2019 The design was to show that some of the most unpopular\nnovelties in scientific opinion bore no necessary antagonism to the\ndeepest mysteries of Christian doctrine. In regard to such an attempt\nit is perhaps needless to add that the kindliness of the design was not\nfully appreciated by those for whose benefit it was intended.\n\n[43] As in the inscription \u2018Jehu, the son of Omri,\u2019 referred to by Lord\nA.\u00a0C. Hervey, in Smith\u2019s Dict. of the Bible, Art. \u2018Genealogy.\u2019\n\n[44] Smith\u2019s Dictionary of the Bible, Art. \u2018Genealogy of Jesus Christ,\u2019\nLord A.\u00a0C. Hervey, referring to Dr. Mill. Compare also Hengstenberg,\nGenuineness of the Pentateuch, vol. ii. p. 294, Translation, 1847.\n\n[45] Sir J. Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 502, second edition.\n\n[46] Ibid. p. 223.\n\n[47] Ibid. p. 233.\n\n[48] See chapter on Marriage, in Sir J. Lubbock\u2019s \u2018Origin of\nCivilization.\u2019\n\n[49] Sir J. Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 380; Sir C. Lyell,\n\u2018Antiquity of Man,\u2019 p. 27.\n\n[50] Lyell, \u2018Elements of Geology,\u2019 p. 118, ed. 1865.\n\n[51] Messrs. Pengelly and Vivian, resident at Torquay, acting members\nof the distinguished committee of exploration.\n\n[52] See Reports of British Association, 1868, p. 57, and 1869, p. 199,\nby W. Pengelly, Esq., F.R.S.\n\n[53] This is the popular name for them. They do not petrify the\nspecimens placed in them, but only coat them with stalagmite.\n\n[54] The resuming process has not yet been adopted by the modern\nFuegians, for Dr. Hooker informs us that at the extreme south of\nTierra del Fuego, and in mid-winter, he has often seen the men lying\nasleep in their wigwams, without a scrap of clothing, and the women\nstanding naked, and some with children at their breasts, in the water\nup to their middles gathering limpets and other shell fish, while the\nsnow fell thickly on them and on their equally naked babies.\u2019--Sir\nJ. Lubbock, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 p. 532. Jerome declares that he had\nhimself seen the Attacotti, a British tribe, eating human flesh.\nSee Gibbon (vol. iii. p. 270, ed. 1854), who in several passages\nrefers to the practice among various British tribes of going naked,\nespecially in war, citing Appian, Ammianus, and Giraldus Cambrensis\nas his authorities for British customs. It will be remembered that\nC\u00e6sar speaks even of the Southern Britons as fighting \u2018omnibus membris\nexpediti.\u2019\n\n[55] \u2018Report of British Association, 1869,\u2019 p. 201.\n\n[56] Nov. 21, 1870.\n\n[57] A formation later than the Devonian, and earlier than the New Red\nSandstone.\n\n[58] Revelation x. 6, Authorised Version.\n\n[59] See Mr. Pengelly\u2019s paper on the subject in the Transactions of the\nDevonshire Association for 1868.\n\n[60] \u2018Acadian Geology,\u2019 Dawson, p. 386.\n\n[61] See \u2018Lecture on Coal,\u2019 by W. Boyd Dawkins, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.\nManchester, 1870.\n\n[62] Address to the British Association, 1868, p. 66 of the Report.\n\n[63] In the Collection of W. Pengelly, Esq., F.R.S.\n\n[64] This and the three following letters were originally addressed to\nthe Editor of the _Torquay Directory_, in answer to a gentleman who,\nin company with large multitudes of his fellow-Britons, both male and\nfemale, holds and upon occasion upholds a mass of opinions on Science\nand Religion, any one of which opinions individually may be right or\nmay be wrong, but which, when held collectively, seem to my humble\nunderstanding to be logically incoherent.\n\n[65] Reprinted from \u2018Nature,\u2019 No. 30.\n\n[66] Reprinted from \u2018Nature,\u2019 No. 56.\n\n[67] Applying to these caterpillars Mr. A Murray\u2019s recent hypothesis\nfor explaining \u2018mimicry\u2019 by hybridization, we should draw the poetical\ninference that a happy marriage is possible between a butterfly and a\nrose-bush.\n\n[68] \u2018Nature,\u2019 No. 66.\n\n[69] \u2018Genesis of Species,\u2019 p. 57, quotation (somewhat obscure as it\nstands) from the North British Review for June, 1867.\n\n[70] \u2018Animals and Plants under Domestication,\u2019 vol. ii. p. 63.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  Abiogenesis, note on hypothesis of, 126-132.\n\n  Addison, his opinion about Instinct, 71;\n    his description of the brood-hen, 72;\n    his account of a hen with brood of ducks, 73;\n    on the insensible gradations of species, 74.\n\n  African desert, geological evidence of, 122.\n\n  Anabas scandens, its climbing powers, 28;\n    Dr. Day\u2019s opinion thereon, 28, note.\n\n  Androcles, story of, 82.\n\n  Animal mounds, of Wisconsin, 105.\n\n  Ants, slave-making, 29, 69;\n    French philosopher\u2019s account of, 73.\n\n  Artificial selection, part of Natural selection, 16.\n\n\n  Baboons, warfare of, 69.\n\n  Bacon, Lord, his statement about dogs, 75.\n\n  Barbarism, time required for development of, 57.\n\n  Bees, progress of, in cell-making, 25;\n    their accuracy overrated, 69, 86.\n\n  Bennett, Mr. A.\u00a0W., Mathematical test applied by, 168;\n    Review by, 173.\n\n  Birds\u2019 nests, reasoning powers employed in construction of, 69, 86;\n    compared with human dwellings, 70;\n    use of human manufactures in, 71.\n\n  British Association, exploration of Kent\u2019s cavern by, 109.\n\n  Britons, ancient, condition of, 111.\n\n  Brookes, Henry, story of a lion quoted from, 76.\n\n  Brutes, man\u2019s treatment of, 11, 90;\n    opinion that God is the soul of, 71;\n    compared with men, 74;\n    their moral qualities, 75, 88;\n    their laws and constitutions, 77;\n    their perceptions and emotions, 80;\n    language of scripture about, 84;\n    motives of pleasure and pain applied to, 88;\n    children compared with, 89.\n\n\n  Cannibalism, 57;\n    of British tribes, 112.\n\n  Caterpillars, resembling twigs, 170.\n\n  Chalk, continuous formation of, 117.\n\n  Civilization, its dependence on language and the art of writing, 88.\n\n  Coal-measures, 119-121, 140.\n\n  Columbus, his opinion of the earth\u2019s spherical form condemned,\n        60, 148.\n\n  Coquand\u2019s Oysters of the Chalk, Professor Flower\u2019s review\n        of, 145, 165.\n\n  Correlation, 17, 166, 176.\n\n  Creation, sudden, not reconcilable with the order of nature, 25;\n    theories of, compared, 32;\n    prejudice in favour of its suddenness, 63, 64;\n    Biblical theory of, 129.\n\n  Creations, many distinct, not warranted by scripture or science,\n        20, 116, 135;\n    special, for special localities, untenable, 21.\n\n\n  Danes, ancient, food and weapons of, 104.\n\n  Darwin, his account of the development of his theory, 4;\n    his calculation about elephants, 13;\n    allusion to his theory of Pangenesis, 33;\n    his explanation of the fauna and flora of mountain-tops, 46;\n    his account of slave-making ants, 69;\n    his treatment of geology, 134;\n    his chapter on instinct, 163.\n\n  Darwinism, 3-33;\n    obscurely anticipated, 2;\n    its supporters, 3;\n    prejudice against, 4, 152;\n    its bearing on the seeming imperfection of nature, 24;\n    inconsistent with a recent universal deluge, 31, 34.\n\n  Dawkins, Mr. W. Boyd, lecture on coal by, 143.\n\n  Dawson, Dr., Acadian Geology, 120, 140.\n\n  Day, Dr., paper by, on the Mud-fish and Anabas scandens, 28.\n\n  Denudation, 143.\n\n  Deucalion\u2019s Flood, argument from rebutted, 150.\n\n  Development, theory of, by whom originated and supported, 4;\n    opinion of its absurdity, 6;\n    facts and principles necessary to, (variation, 7;\n      Inheritance and Reversion, 9;\n      struggle for life, 11;\n      antiquity of the globe, 30;\n      freedom of the globe from any recent universal catastrophe, 31);\n    application of, to human body and mind, 62, 95;\n    time required for, 122;\n    not materially affected by hypothesis of spontaneous\n        generation, 127.\n\n  Ducklings, experiment with, 73.\n\n\n  Earth, immense age of, required by Theory of Development, 30, 67;\n    proved by geology, 31, 54, 107, 121;\n    popular impression as to age of, 93, 121;\n    reckoned by millions of years, 123.\n\n  Egypt, its monuments, 51;\n    its chronology, 56, 101.\n\n  Elephant, its sagacity, 3;\n    its rate of breeding, 13;\n    its different species, 46;\n    its memory, 66;\n    epithet applied to it by Pope, 74;\n    in Devonshire, 112.\n\n  Esquimaux, their ignorance of arithmetic, 103.\n\n\n  Flint-tools, 109, 111, 113.\n\n  Flood, the Noachian, 34-61;\n    historical account of, 38;\n    explanation suggested, 41;\n    how consistent with Darwinism, 50;\n    traditions of a, 58;\n    no traces of its universality, 59.\n\n  Food, its influence on the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 12;\n    in the competition for life, 22.\n\n  Fossils, an evidence of variation, 20;\n    different in different strata, 116;\n    time required for vicissitudes of, 119;\n    necessary imperfection of, 134;\n    their scarcity and abundance, 141;\n    numerous chances of loss and destruction for, 146.\n\n  Fuegians, nakedness of, 112, _note_.\n\n\n  Galileo, his doctrine of the earth\u2019s motion condemned, 60, 148.\n\n  Genesis, book of, its chronology, 55.\n\n  \u2018Genesis of Species,\u2019 by Mr. Mivart, 173.\n\n  Geology, its conclusions, 31, 53;\n    imperfection of its record, 133-146.\n\n  Giraffes, 176, 179.\n\n  Glacial Period, its effect on distribution of species, 47.\n\n  Gooseberry, the big, 16.\n\n\n  Horse, career of, in America, 48;\n    its endurance and ambition, 3;\n    its intelligence, 66;\n    instance thereof, 74;\n    its intercourse with man, 80.\n\n  Hypotheses, use of, 131.\n\n\n  Inheritance, 9;\n    at different periods of life, 18.\n\n  Instinct, of bees, 25;\n    employment and gradations of, in various animals, 28;\n    compared with reason, 62-81, 164;\n    fallacious theory of, 67;\n    ignored by ducklings, 73;\n    fancied excellence of, 86.\n\n\n  Kent\u2019s cavern, 109-115.\n\n\n  Language, time required for variations of, 57;\n    its influence on mankind, 77, 87;\n    origin of, 103.\n\n  Light, rapidity of, 97.\n\n  Limestone, formation of, 109;\n    contents of, 115;\n    slow formation of, 117;\n    Devonian, older than the New Red Sandstone, 118.\n\n  Lindley, Dr., his experiment with immersed vegetables, 143.\n\n  Linn\u00e6us, on the common descent of species, 3.\n\n  Lion, its generosity, 3;\n    instance of its affection, 76;\n    instance of its gratitude, 83;\n    in Britain, 112.\n\n  Locke, on the reason of brutes, 74.\n\n  Lubbock, Sir John, \u2018Prehistoric Times,\u2019 54, 104, 107, 112;\n    \u2018Origin of Civilization,\u2019 107.\n\n  Lyell, Sir Charles, \u2018Principles of Geology,\u2019 3, 54;\n    \u2018Antiquity of Man,\u2019 107;\n    \u2018Elements of Geology,\u2019 109.\n\n\n  Madagascar, its species and genera, 46.\n\n  Malay, compared with the Papuan by Mr. Wallace, 49, 150.\n\n  Man, his destructiveness, 11;\n    his likeness to other animals in blood, fibre, and skeleton, 29;\n    distribution of his varieties, 48;\n    traced back for thousands of years, 51;\n    a common origin for all families of, 52;\n    his chief endowments, 67;\n    compared as a builder with birds, 70;\n    his brain and hairless skin, 73;\n    his bodily structure, 85;\n    his opinion of war, 86;\n    real origin of, forgotten, 102.\n\n  Marriage-customs, slow change of, 106.\n\n  Marsupials, 46;\n    fossil, 47.\n\n  Matlock Bath, formation of stalagmite at, 110, 114.\n\n  Memory, necessary to intelligence, 66;\n    unequal distribution of, 66.\n\n  Miracles, treatment of false ones, 40;\n    of the Old Testament, 83.\n\n  Mivart, St. George, Mr., \u2018Genesis of Species\u2019 by, 173.\n\n  Mushroom, time required for its growth, 55.\n\n  Mygale, the trap-door spider, its ingenious nest, 29.\n\n\n  Natural Selection, illustrated by artificial selection, 14;\n    the slowness of its movement, 18;\n    explains the order of nature, and in part its seeming disorder, 26;\n    limits of, propounded by Mr. Wallace, 62.\n\n  Nile, articles in sediment of, 108.\n\n\n  Origin of life, opinions on, 94.\n\n  Oysters, memory of, 66;\n    obscure politics of, 77.\n\n\n  Pal\u00e6ontology, Lyell\u2019s definition of, 135.\n\n  Papuan, compared with the Malay, 49, 150.\n\n  Parfitt, Mr., on Fossil Sponge Spicules, 136, 139.\n\n  Pengelly, Mr., on pre-historic man, 105;\n    exploration of Kent\u2019s cavern by, 109, 110, 113.\n\n  Pigeons, subjected to man\u2019s selection, 14, 16, 17.\n\n  Plants, their struggle for food, 12;\n    their movements, 28.\n\n  Pope, his epithet for the elephant, 74.\n\n\n  Reason, progressive development of, in individual minds, 62, 67;\n    that of men, one in kind with the intelligence of brutes, 66, 84;\n    helps to, 86.\n\n  Relative terms, 97, 171.\n\n  Religion, development of, 64, 90.\n\n  Reversion, 9;\n    limits artificial selection, 17.\n\n  Rudimentary organs, 21.\n\n\n  Sandstone, New Red, 118.\n\n  Savages, question of their degeneracy, 57;\n    brain, skin, and voice of, 78.\n\n  Science, not antagonistic to Christian doctrine, 82, _note_.\n\n  Scripture, no warrant for distinct creations, 20;\n    does not profess to\n  teach Natural Science, 35;\n    its use of ordinary language, 36;\n    its historical account of the Flood, 38;\n    explanation thereof, 41;\n    disregard of secondary causes in, 83;\n    character of genealogies in, 99;\n    mistaken quotation of, 124;\n    invidious connection of, with false science, 151;\n    supposed opposition between it and Darwinism, 157.\n\n  Species, permanence of, 9;\n    some benefited by change of habitat, 21;\n    variations of, how advantageous, 27;\n    difficulty of collecting all for the Ark, 43;\n    distribution of, 45.\n\n  Spencer, Mr. Herbert, his caution about embryonic forms, 19, _note_;\n    his accurate phrase, \u2018Survival of the fittest,\u2019 154;\n    his \u2018Principles of Biology,\u2019 161.\n\n  Sponges, not to be hurried, 117;\n    range of in geology, 136;\n    final cause of, 138.\n\n  Stalagmite, thickness of in Kent\u2019s cavern, 110;\n    time required for forming, 113;\n    dates carved upon, 115.\n\n  Stratification, uniform order of, 116, 122.\n\n  Struggle for life, 11;\n    great fecundity useful to a species in, 24.\n\n  Sylvia Sutoria, the tailor-bird, its nest, 29.\n\n\n  Tails, rudimentary, in man, 22, 155.\n\n  Tennyson, language of \u2018the Brook\u2019 in, 125.\n\n  Theories, when to be accepted, 18.\n\n  Thought, time required for, 64;\n    movement of, depending on language, 87.\n\n  Time, immense duration of, required by the Theory of Natural\n        Selection, 30, 67;\n    lapse of, 93-125;\n    (see _Earth_, age of);\n    inexhaustible, 98, 125.\n\n  Tini\u00e8re, delta of, 107.\n\n  Tyndal, Professor, on \u2018The Minuteness of Waves of Light,\u2019 97.\n\n\n  Usher, archbishop, Bible-chronology of, 99, 110.\n\n\n  Variability, 7;\n    objection to, considered, 128.\n\n  Vertebrate, the first, how originated, 158;\n    type of, supposed to be connected with cuttle-fish, 161;\n    definition of, investigated, 161.\n\n  Vivian, Mr., exploration of Kent\u2019s cavern by, 109.\n\n\n  Wallace, Mr., his originality recognized, 5;\n    his opinion of the limits of Natural Selection, 62;\n    his exposure of fallacious views about Instinct, 67;\n    his theory of birds\u2019 nests, 69;\n    his comparison of birds with men as builders, 70;\n    his speculation about the brain of the savage, 78.\n\n  War, in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 12;\n    combination of baboons for, 69;\n    comparison of man and other animals engaged in, 86.\n\n  Wasps, their defensive weapon, 25;\n    materials used by, 86.\n\n  Whewell, Dr., his remark on Scientific Phraseology, 160.\n\n  Writing, invention of, 103.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nThe cover of this eBook was made by the Transcriber, by combining the\noriginal Title Page and the blank green cover provided with the printed\nbook. The result remains in the Public Domain.\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not\nchanged.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced\nquotation marks remedied.\n\nAmbiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.\n\nFootnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been collected and\nrepositioned after the last chapter of the book, just before the Index.\n\nIndex not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.\n\nPage 3: \u201cOne\u201d was capitalized in \u201cqualified, One, without doubt\u201d.","title":"Essays on Darwinism","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":48797}