The Origin of the Moral and Intellectual Nature of Man.

From the foregoing discussion it will be seen that I fully accept Mr. Darwin's conclusion as to the essential identity of man's bodily structure with that of the higher mammalia, and his descent from some ancestral form common to man and the anthropoid apes. The evidence of such descent appears to me to be overwhelming and conclusive. Again, as to the cause and method of such descent and modification, we may admit, at all events provisionally, that the laws of variation and natural selection, acting through the struggle for existence and the continual need of more perfect adaptation to the physical and biological environments, may have brought about, first that perfection of bodily structure in which he is so far above all other animals, and in co-ordination with it the larger and more developed brain, by means of which he has been able to utilise that structure in the more and more complete subjection of the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms to his service.

But this is only the beginning of Mr. Darwin's work, since he goes on to discuss the moral nature and mental faculties of man, and derives these too by gradual modification and development from the lower animals. Although, perhaps, nowhere distinctly formulated, his whole argument tends to the conclusion that man's entire nature and all his faculties, whether moral, intellectual, or spiritual, have been derived from their rudiments in the lower animals, in the same manner and by the action of the same general laws as his physical structure has been derived. As this conclusion appears to me not to be supported by adequate evidence, and to be directly opposed to many well-ascertained facts, I propose to devote a brief space to its discussion.

The Argument from Continuity.

Mr. Darwin's mode of argument consists in showing that the rudiments of most, if not of all, the mental and moral faculties of man can be detected in some animals. The manifestations of intelligence, amounting in some cases to distinct acts of reasoning, in many animals, are adduced as exhibiting in a much less degree the intelligence and reason of man. Instances of curiosity, imitation, attention, wonder, and memory are given; while examples are also adduced which may be interpreted as proving that animals exhibit kindness to their fellows, or manifest pride, contempt, and shame. Some are said to have the rudiments of language, because they utter several different sounds, each of which has a definite meaning to their fellows or to their young; others the rudiments of arithmetic, because they seem to count and remember up to three, four, or even five. A sense of beauty is imputed to them on account of their own bright colours or the use of coloured objects in their nests; while dogs, cats, and horses are said to have imagination, because they appear to be disturbed by dreams. Even some distant approach to the rudiments of religion is said to be found in the deep love and complete submission of a dog to his master.[228]

Turning from animals to man, it is shown that in the lowest savages many of these faculties are very little advanced from the condition in which they appear in the higher animals; while others, although fairly well exhibited, are yet greatly inferior to the point of development they have reached in civilised races. In particular, the moral sense is said to have been developed from the social instincts of savages, and to depend mainly on the enduring discomfort produced by any action which excites the general disapproval of the tribe. Thus, every act of an individual which is believed to be contrary to the interests of the tribe, excites its unvarying disapprobation and is held to be immoral; while every act, on the other hand, which is, as a rule, beneficial to the tribe, is warmly and constantly approved, and is thus considered to be right or moral. From the mental struggle, when an act that would benefit self is injurious to the tribe, there arises conscience; and thus the social instincts are the foundation of the moral sense and of the fundamental principles of morality.[229]

The question of the origin and nature of the moral sense and of conscience is far too vast and complex to be discussed here, and a reference to it has been introduced only to complete the sketch of Mr. Darwin's view of the continuity and gradual development of all human faculties from the lower animals up to savages, and from savage up to civilised man. The point to which I wish specially to call attention is, that to prove continuity and the progressive development of the intellectual and moral faculties from animals to man, is not the same as proving that these faculties have been developed by natural selection; and this last is what Mr. Darwin has hardly attempted, although to support his theory it was absolutely essential to prove it. Because man's physical structure has been developed from an animal form by natural selection, it does not necessarily follow that his mental nature, even though developed pari passu with it, has been developed by the same causes only. To illustrate by a physical analogy. Upheaval and depression of land, combined with sub-aerial denudation by wind and frost, rain and rivers, and marine denudation on coastlines, were long thought to account for all the modelling of the earth's surface not directly due to volcanic action; and in the early editions of Lyell's Principles of Geology these are the sole causes appealed to. But when the action of glaciers was studied and the recent occurrence of a glacial epoch demonstrated as a fact, many phenomena—such as moraines and other gravel deposits, boulder clay, erratic boulders, grooved and rounded rocks, and Alpine lake basins—were seen to be due to this altogether distinct cause. There was no breach of continuity, no sudden catastrophe; the cold period came on and passed away in the most gradual manner, and its effects often passed insensibly into those produced by denudation or upheaval; yet none the less a new agency appeared at a definite time, and new effects were produced which, though continuous with preceding effects, were not due to the same causes. It is not, therefore, to be assumed, without proof or against independent evidence, that the later stages of an apparently continuous development are necessarily due to the same causes only as the earlier stages. Applying this argument to the case of man's intellectual and moral nature, I propose to show that certain definite portions of it could not have been developed by variation and natural selection alone, and that, therefore, some other influence, law, or agency is required to account for them. If this can be clearly shown for any one or more of the special faculties of intellectual man, we shall be justified in assuming that the same unknown cause or power may have had a much wider influence, and may have profoundly influenced the whole course of his development.

The Origin of the Mathematical Faculty.

We have ample evidence that, in all the lower races of man, what may be termed the mathematical faculty is, either absent, or, if present, quite unexercised. The Bushmen and the Brazilian Wood-Indians are said not to count beyond two. Many Australian tribes only have words for one and two, which are combined to make three, four, five, or six, beyond which they do not count. The Damaras of South Africa only count to three; and Mr. Galton gives a curious description of how one of them was hopelessly puzzled when he had sold two sheep for two sticks of tobacco each, and received four sticks in payment. He could only find out that he was correctly paid by taking two sticks and then giving one sheep, then receiving two sticks more and giving the other sheep. Even the comparatively intellectual Zulus can only count up to ten by using the hands and fingers. The Ahts of North-West America count in nearly the same manner, and most of the tribes of South America are no further advanced.[230] The Kaffirs have great herds of cattle, and if one is lost they miss it immediately, but this is not by counting, but by noticing the absence of one they know; just as in a large family or a school a boy is missed without going through the process of counting. Somewhat higher races, as the Esquimaux, can count up to twenty by using the hands and the feet; and other races get even further than this by saying "one man" for twenty, "two men" for forty, and so on, equivalent to our rural mode of reckoning by scores. From the fact that so many of the existing savage races can only count to four or five, Sir John Lubbock thinks it improbable that our earliest ancestors could have counted as high as ten.[231]

When we turn to the more civilised races, we find the use of numbers and the art of counting greatly extended. Even the Tongas of the South Sea islands are said to have been able to count as high as 100,000. But mere counting does not imply either the possession or the use of anything that can be really called the mathematical faculty, the exercise of which in any broad sense has only been possible since the introduction of the decimal notation. The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Jews, and the Chinese had all such cumbrous systems, that anything like a science of arithmetic, beyond very simple operations, was impossible; and the Roman system, by which the year 1888 would be written MDCCCLXXXVIII, was that in common use in Europe down to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and even much later in some places. Algebra, which was invented by the Hindoos, from whom also came the decimal notation, was not introduced into Europe till the thirteenth century, although the Greeks had some acquaintance with it; and it reached Western Europe from Italy only in the sixteenth century.[232] It was, no doubt, owing to the absence of a sound system of numeration that the mathematical talent of the Greeks was directed chiefly to geometry, in which science Euclid, Archimedes, and others made such brilliant discoveries. It is, however, during the last three centuries only that the civilised world appears to have become conscious of the possession of a marvellous faculty which, when supplied with the necessary tools in the decimal notation, the elements of algebra and geometry, and the power of rapidly communicating discoveries and ideas by the art of printing, has developed to an extent, the full grandeur of which can be appreciated only by those who have devoted some time (even if unsuccessfully) to the study.

The facts now set forth as to the almost total absence of mathematical faculty in savages and its wonderful development in quite recent times, are exceedingly suggestive, and in regard to them we are limited to two possible theories. Either prehistoric and savage man did not possess this faculty at all (or only in its merest rudiments); or they did possess it, but had neither the means nor the incitements for its exercise. In the former case we have to ask by what means has this faculty been so rapidly developed in all civilised races, many of which a few centuries back were, in this respect, almost savages themselves; while in the latter case the difficulty is still greater, for we have to assume the existence of a faculty which had never been used either by the supposed possessors of it or by their ancestors.

Let us take, then, the least difficult supposition—that savages possessed only the mere rudiments of the faculty, such as their ability to count, sometimes up to ten, but with an utter inability to perform the very simplest processes of arithmetic or of geometry—and inquire how this rudimentary faculty became rapidly developed into that of a Newton, a La Place, a Gauss, or a Cayley. We will admit that there is every possible gradation between these extremes, and that there has been perfect continuity in the development of the faculty; but we ask, What motive power caused its development?

It must be remembered we are here dealing solely with the capability of the Darwinian theory to account for the origin of the mind, as well as it accounts for the origin of the body of man, and we must, therefore, recall the essential features of that theory. These are, the preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life; that no creature can be improved beyond its necessities for the time being; that the law acts by life and death, and by the survival of the fittest. We have to ask, therefore, what relation the successive stages of improvement of the mathematical faculty had to the life or death of its possessors; to the struggles of tribe with tribe, or nation with nation; or to the ultimate survival of one race and the extinction of another. If it cannot possibly have had any such effects, then it cannot have been produced by natural selection.

It is evident that in the struggles of savage man with the elements and with wild beasts, or of tribe with tribe, this faculty can have had no influence. It had nothing to do with the early migrations of man, or with the conquest and extermination of weaker by more powerful peoples. The Greeks did not successfully resist the Persian invaders by any aid from their few mathematicians, but by military training, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. The barbarous conquerors of the East, Timurlane and Gengkhis Khan, did not owe their success to any superiority of intellect or of mathematical faculty in themselves or their followers. Even if the great conquests of the Romans were, in part, due to their systematic military organisation, and to their skill in making roads and encampments, which may, perhaps, be imputed to some exercise of the mathematical faculty, that did not prevent them from being conquered in turn by barbarians, in whom it was almost entirely absent. And if we take the most civilised peoples of the ancient world—the Hindoos, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Romans, all of whom had some amount of mathematical talent—we find that it is not these, but the descendants of the barbarians of those days—the Celts, the Teutons, and the Slavs—who have proved themselves the fittest to survive in the great struggle of races, although we cannot trace their steadily growing success during past centuries either to the possession of any exceptional mathematical faculty or to its exercise. They have indeed proved themselves, to-day, to be possessed of a marvellous endowment of the mathematical faculty; but their success at home and abroad, as colonists or as conquerors, as individuals or as nations, can in no way be traced to this faculty, since they were almost the last who devoted themselves to its exercise. We conclude, then, that the present gigantic development of the mathematical faculty is wholly unexplained by the theory of natural selection, and must be due to some altogether distinct cause.

The Origin of the Musical and Artistic Faculties.

These distinctively human faculties follow very closely the lines of the mathematical faculty in their progressive development, and serve to enforce the same argument. Among the lower savages music, as we understand it, hardly exists, though they all delight in rude musical sounds, as of drums, tom-toms, or gongs; and they also sing in monotonous chants. Almost exactly as they advance in general intellect, and in the arts of social life, their appreciation of music appears to rise in proportion; and we find among them rude stringed instruments and whistles, till, in Java, we have regular bands of skilled performers probably the successors of Hindoo musicians of the age before the Mahometan conquest. The Egyptians are believed to have been the earliest musicians, and from them the Jews and the Greeks, no doubt, derived their knowledge of the art; but it seems to be admitted that neither the latter nor the Romans knew anything of harmony or of the essential features of modern music.[233] Till the fifteenth century little progress appears to have been made in the science or the practice of music; but since that era it has advanced with marvellous rapidity, its progress being curiously parallel with that of mathematics, inasmuch as great musical geniuses appeared suddenly among different nations, equal in their possession of this special faculty to any that have since arisen.

As with the mathematical, so with the musical faculty, it is impossible to trace any connection between its possession and survival in the struggle for existence. It seems to have arisen as a result of social and intellectual advancement, not as a cause; and there is some evidence that it is latent in the lower races, since under European training native military bands have been formed in many parts of the world, which have been able to perform creditably the best modern music.

The artistic faculty has run a somewhat different course, though analogous to that of the faculties already discussed. Most savages exhibit some rudiments of it, either in drawing or carving human or animal figures; but, almost without exception, these figures are rude and such as would be executed by the ordinary inartistic child. In fact, modern savages are, in this respect hardly equal to those prehistoric men who represented the mammoth and the reindeer on pieces of horn or bone. With any advance in the arts of social life, we have a corresponding advance in artistic skill and taste, rising very high in the art of Japan and India, but culminating in the marvellous sculpture of the best period of Grecian history. In the Middle Ages art was chiefly manifested in ecclesiastical architecture and the illumination of manuscripts, but from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries pictorial art revived in Italy and attained to a degree of perfection which has never been surpassed. This revival was followed closely by the schools of Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, and England, showing that the true artistic faculty belonged to no one nation, but was fairly distributed among the various European races.

These several developments of the artistic faculty, whether manifested in sculpture, painting, or architecture, are evidently outgrowths of the human intellect which have no immediate influence on the survival of individuals or of tribes, or on the success of nations in their struggles for supremacy or for existence. The glorious art of Greece did not prevent the nation from falling under the sway of the less advanced Roman; while we ourselves, among whom art was the latest to arise, have taken the lead in the colonisation of the world, thus proving our mixed race to be the fittest to survive.

Independent Proof that the Mathematical, Musical, and Artistic Faculties have not been Developed under the Law of Natural Selection.

The law of Natural Selection or the survival of the fittest is, as its name implies, a rigid law, which acts by the life or death of the individuals submitted to its action. From its very nature it can act only on useful or hurtful characteristics, eliminating the latter and keeping up the former to a fairly general level of efficiency. Hence it necessarily follows that the characters developed by its means will be present in all the individuals of a species, and, though varying, will not vary very widely from a common standard. The amount of variation we found, in our third chapter, to be about one-fifth or one-sixth of the mean value—that is, if the mean value were taken at 100, the variations would reach from 80 to 120, or somewhat more, if very large numbers were compared. In accordance with this law we find, that all those characters in man which were certainly essential to him during his early stages of development, exist in all savages with some approach to equality. In the speed of running, in bodily strength, in skill with weapons, in acuteness of vision, or in power of following a trail, all are fairly proficient, and the differences of endowment do not probably exceed the limits of variation in animals above referred to. So, in animal instinct or intelligence, we find the same general level of development. Every wren makes a fairly good nest like its fellows; every fox has an average amount of the sagacity of its race; while all the higher birds and mammals have the necessary affections and instincts needful for the protection and bringing-up of their offspring.

But in those specially developed faculties of civilised man which we have been considering, the case is very different. They exist only in a small proportion of individuals, while the difference of capacity between these favoured individuals and the average of mankind is enormous. Taking first the mathematical faculty, probably fewer than one in a hundred really possess it, the great bulk of the population having no natural ability for the study, or feeling the slightest interest in it.[234] And if we attempt to measure the amount of variation in the faculty itself between a first-class mathematician and the ordinary run of people who find any kind of calculation confusing and altogether devoid of interest, it is probable that the former could not be estimated at less than a hundred times the latter, and perhaps a thousand times would more nearly measure the difference between them.

The artistic faculty appears to agree pretty closely with the mathematical in its frequency. The boys and girls who, going beyond the mere conventional designs of children, draw what they see, not what they know to be the shape of things; who naturally sketch in perspective, because it is thus they see objects; who see, and represent in their sketches, the light and shade as well as the mere outlines of objects; and who can draw recognisable sketches of every one they know, are certainly very few compared with those who are totally incapable of anything of the kind. From some inquiries I have made in schools, and from my own observation, I believe that those who are endowed with this natural artistic talent do not exceed, even if they come up to, one per cent of the whole population.

The variations in the amount of artistic faculty are certainly very great, even if we do not take the extremes. The gradations of power between the ordinary man or woman "who does not draw," and whose attempts at representing any object, animate or inanimate, would be laughable, and the average good artist who, with a few bold strokes, can produce a recognisable and even effective sketch of a landscape, a street, or an animal, are very numerous; and we can hardly measure the difference between them at less than fifty or a hundred fold.

The musical faculty is undoubtedly, in its lower forms, less uncommon than either of the preceding, but it still differs essentially from the necessary or useful faculties in that it is almost entirely wanting in one-half even of civilised men. For every person who draws, as it were instinctively, there are probably five or ten who sing or play without having been taught and from mere innate love and perception of melody and harmony.[235] On the other hand, there are probably about as many who seem absolutely deficient in musical perception, who take little pleasure in it, who cannot perceive discords or remember tunes, and who could not learn to sing or play with any amount of study. The gradations, too, are here quite as great as in mathematics or pictorial art, and the special faculty of the great musical composer must be reckoned many hundreds or perhaps thousands of times greater than that of the ordinary "unmusical" person above referred to.

It appears then, that, both on account of the limited number of persons gifted with the mathematical, the artistic, or the musical faculty, as well as from the enormous variations in its development, these mental powers differ widely from those which are essential to man, and are, for the most part, common to him and the lower animals; and that they could not, therefore, possibly have been developed in him by means of the law of natural selection.

* * * * *

We have thus shown, by two distinct lines of argument, that faculties are developed in civilised man which, both in their mode of origin, their function, and their variations, are altogether distinct from those other characters and faculties which are essential to him, and which have been brought to their actual state of efficiency by the necessities of his existence. And besides the three which have been specially referred to, there are others which evidently belong to the same class. Such is the metaphysical faculty, which enables us to form abstract conceptions of a kind the most remote from all practical applications, to discuss the ultimate causes of things, the nature and qualities of matter, motion, and force, of space and time, of cause and effect, of will and conscience. Speculations on these abstract and difficult questions are impossible to savages, who seem to have no mental faculty enabling them to grasp the essential ideas or conceptions; yet whenever any race attains to civilisation, and comprises a body of people who, whether as priests or philosophers, are relieved from the necessity of labour or of taking an active part in war or government, the metaphysical faculty appears to spring suddenly into existence, although, like the other faculties we have referred to, it is always confined to a very limited proportion of the population.

In the same class we may place the peculiar faculty of wit and humour, an altogether natural gift whose development appears to be parallel with that of the other exceptional faculties. Like them, it is almost unknown among savages, but appears more or less frequently as civilisation advances and the interests of life become more numerous and more complex. Like them, too, it is altogether removed from utility in the struggle for life, and appears sporadically in a very small percentage of the population; the majority being, as is well known, totally unable to say a witty thing or make a pun even to save their lives.[236]

The Interpretation of the Facts.

The facts now set forth prove the existence of a number of mental faculties which either do not exist at all or exist in a very rudimentary condition in savages, but appear almost suddenly and in perfect development in the higher civilised races. These same faculties are further distinguished by their sporadic character, being well developed only in a very small proportion of the community; and by the enormous amount of variation in their development, the higher manifestations of them being many times—perhaps a hundred or a thousand times—stronger than the lower. Each of these characteristics is totally inconsistent with any action of the law of natural selection in the production of the faculties referred to; and the facts, taken in their entirety, compel us to recognise some origin for them wholly distinct from that which has served to account for the animal characteristics—whether bodily or mental—of man.

The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point to the existence in man of something which he has not derived from his animal progenitors—something which we may best refer to as being of a spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive development under favourable conditions. On the hypothesis of this spiritual nature, superadded to the animal nature of man, we are able to understand much that is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible in regard to him, especially the enormous influence of ideas, principles, and beliefs over his whole life and actions. Thus alone we can understand the constancy of the martyr, the unselfishness of the philanthropist, the devotion of the patriot, the enthusiasm of the artist, and the resolute and persevering search of the scientific worker after nature's secrets. Thus we may perceive that the love of truth, the delight in beauty, the passion for justice, and the thrill of exultation with which we hear of any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings within us of a higher nature which has not been developed by means of the struggle for material existence.

It will, no doubt, be urged that the admitted continuity of man's progress from the brute does not admit of the introduction of new causes, and that we have no evidence of the sudden change of nature which such introduction would bring about. The fallacy as to new causes involving any breach of continuity, or any sudden or abrupt change, in the effects, has already been shown; but we will further point out that there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world when some new cause or power must necessarily have come into action.

The first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, when the earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of which it arose, first appeared. This is often imputed to a mere increase of complexity of chemical compounds; but increase of complexity, with consequent instability, even if we admit that it may have produced protoplasm as a chemical compound, could certainly not have produced living protoplasm—protoplasm which has the power of growth and of reproduction, and of that continuous process of development which has resulted in the marvellous variety and complex organisation of the whole vegetable kingdom. There is in all this something quite beyond and apart from chemical changes, however complex; and it has been well said that the first vegetable cell was a new thing in the world, possessing altogether new powers—that of extracting and fixing carbon from the carbon-dioxide of the atmosphere, that of indefinite reproduction, and, still more marvellous, the power of variation and of reproducing those variations till endless complications of structure and varieties of form have been the result. Here, then, we have indications of a new power at work, which we may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter all those characters and properties which constitute Life.

The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and forces. It is the introduction of sensation or consciousness, constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the question. We feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that complexity alone, an ego should start into existence, a thing that feels, that is conscious of its own existence. Here we have the certainty that something new has arisen, a being whose nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definiteness till it has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal explanation or attempt at explanation—such as the statement that life is the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic universe from the amaeba up to man was latent in the fire-mist from which the solar system was developed—can afford any mental satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the mystery.

The third stage is, as we have seen, the existence in man of a number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties, those which raise him furthest above the brutes and open up possibilities of almost indefinite advancement. These faculties could not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development of the organic world in general, and also of man's physical organism.[237]

These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of matter and motion up to man, point clearly to an unseen universe—to a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate. To this spiritual world we may refer the marvellously complex forces which we know as gravitation, cohesion, chemical force, radiant force, and electricity, without which the material universe could not exist for a moment in its present form, and perhaps not at all, since without these forces, and perhaps others which may be termed atomic, it is doubtful whether matter itself could have any existence. And still more surely can we refer to it those progressive manifestations of Life in the vegetable, the animal, and man—which we may classify as unconscious, conscious, and intellectual life,—and which probably depend upon different degrees of spiritual influx. I have already shown that this involves no necessary infraction of the law of continuity in physical or mental evolution; whence it follows that any difficulty we may find in discriminating the inorganic from the organic, the lower vegetable from the lower animal organisms, or the higher animals from the lowest types of man, has no bearing at all upon the question. This is to be decided by showing that a change in essential nature (due, probably, to causes of a higher order than those of the material universe) took place at the several stages of progress which I have indicated; a change which may be none the less real because absolutely imperceptible at its point of origin, as is the change that takes place in the curve in which a body is moving when the application of some new force causes the curve to be slightly altered.

Concluding Remarks.

Those who admit my interpretation of the evidence now adduced—strictly scientific evidence in its appeal to facts which are clearly what ought not to be on the materialistic theory—will be able to accept the spiritual nature of man, as not in any way inconsistent with the theory of evolution, but as dependent on those fundamental laws and causes which furnish the very materials for evolution to work with. They will also be relieved from the crushing mental burthen imposed upon those who—maintaining that we, in common with the rest of nature, are but products of the blind eternal forces of the universe, and believing also that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and all life on the earth necessarily cease—have to contemplate a not very distant future in which all this glorious earth—which for untold millions of years has been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate at last in man—shall be as if it had never existed; who are compelled to suppose that all the slow growths of our race struggling towards a higher life, all the agony of martyrs, all the groans of victims, all the evil and misery and undeserved suffering of the ages, all the struggles for freedom, all the efforts towards justice, all the aspirations for virtue and the wellbeing of humanity, shall absolutely vanish, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind."

As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d'etre of the world—with all its complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of man—was the development of the human spirit in association with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of man—the man himself—is so developed, we may well believe that this is the only, or at least the best, way for its development; and we may even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, one of the most efficient means of its growth. For we know that the noblest faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by struggle and effort; it is by unceasing warfare against physical evils and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, courage, self-reliance, and industry have become the common qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with moral evil in all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and self-sacrifice have been steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strengthened by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capable of such noble development, are surely destined for a higher and more permanent existence; and we may confidently believe with our greatest living poet—

That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter'd with the shocks of doom

To shape and use.

We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 218: Descent of Man, pp. 41-43; also pp. 13-15.]

[Footnote 219: Man's Place in Nature, p. 64.]

[Footnote 220: Man's Place in Nature, p. 67. See Figs. of Embryos of Man and Dog in Darwin's Descent of Man, p. 10.]

[Footnote 221: The Descent of Man, pp. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 222: Man and Apes. By St. George Mivart, F.R.S., 1873. It is an interesting fact (for which I am indebted to Mr. E.B. Poulton) that the human embryo possesses the extra rib and wrist-bone referred to above in (2) and (4) as occurring in some of the apes.]

[Footnote 223: Man and Apes, pp. 138, 144.]

[Footnote 224: For a sketch of the evidence of Man's Antiquity in America, see The Nineteenth Century for November 1887.]

[Footnote 225: This subject was first discussed in an article in the Anthropological Review, May 1864, and republished in my Contributions to Natural Selection, chap, ix, in 1870.]

[Footnote 226: Man's Place in Nature, p. 102.]

[Footnote 227: For a full discussion of this question, see the author's Geographical Distribution of Animals, vol. i. p. 285.]

[Footnote 228: For a full discussion of all these points, see Descent of Man, chap. iii.]

[Footnote 229: Descent of Man, chap. iv.]

[Footnote 230: Lubbock's Origin of Civilisation, fourth edition, pp. 434-440; Tylor's Primitive Culture, chap. vii.]

[Footnote 231: It has been recently stated that some of these facts are erroneous, and that some Australians can keep accurate reckoning up to 100, or more, when required. But this does not alter the general fact that many low races, including the Australians, have no words for high numbers and never require to use them. If they are now, with a little practice, able to count much higher, this indicates the possession of a faculty which could not have been developed under the law of utility only, since the absence of words for such high numbers shows that they were neither used nor required.]

[Footnote 232: Article Arithmetic in Eng. Cyc. of Arts and Sciences.]

[Footnote 233: See "History of Music," in Eng. Cyc., Science and Arts Division.]

[Footnote 234: This is the estimate furnished me by two mathematical masters in one of our great public schools of the proportion of boys who have any special taste or capacity for mathematical studies. Many more, of course, can be drilled into a fair knowledge of elementary mathematics, but only this small proportion possess the natural faculty which renders it possible for them ever to rank high as mathematicians, to take any pleasure in it, or to do any original mathematical work.]

[Footnote 235: I am informed, however, by a music master in a large school that only about one per cent have real or decided musical talent, corresponding curiously with the estimate of the mathematicians.]

[Footnote 236: In the latter part of his essay on Heredity (pp. 91-93 of the volume of Essays), Dr. Weismann refers to this question of the origin of "talents" in man, and, like myself, comes to the conclusion that they could not be developed under the law of natural selection. He says: "It may be objected that, in man, in addition to the instincts inherent in every individual, special individual predispositions are also found, of such a nature that it is impossible they can have arisen by individual variations of the germ-plasm. On the other hand, these predispositions—which we call talents—cannot have arisen through natural selection, because life is in no way dependent on their presence, and there seems to be no way of explaining their origin except by an assumption of the summation of the skill attained by exercise in the course of each single life. In this case, therefore, we seem at first sight to be compelled to accept the transmission of acquired characters." Weismann then goes on to show that the facts do not support this view; that the mathematical, musical, or artistic faculties often appear suddenly in a family whose other members and ancestors were in no way distinguished; and that even when hereditary in families, the talent often appears at its maximum at the commencement or in the middle of the series, not increasing to the end, as it should do if it depended in any way on the transmission of acquired skill. Gauss was not the son of a mathematician, nor Handel of a musician, nor Titian of a painter, and there is no proof of any special talent in the ancestors of these men of genius, who at once developed the most marvellous pre-eminence in their respective talents. And after showing that such great men only appear at certain stages of human development, and that two or more of the special talents are not unfrequently combined in one individual, he concludes thus—

"Upon this subject I only wish to add that, in my opinion, talents do not appear to depend upon the improvement of any special mental quality by continued practice, but they are the expression, and to a certain extent the bye-product, of the human mind, which is so highly developed in all directions."

It will, I think, be admitted that this view hardly accounts for the existence of the highly peculiar human faculties in question.]

[Footnote 237: For an earlier discussion of this subject, with some wider applications, see the author's Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, chap. x.]



INDEX



A

Abbott, Dr. C.C., instability of habits of birds, 76 on American water-thrushes (Seiurus), 117 Mr., drawings of caterpillars and their food plants, 203

Accessory plumes, development and display of, 293

Acclimatisation, 94

Achatinellidae, Gulick on variations in, 147

Acquired characters, non-heredity of, 440

Acraeidae, mimicry of, 247

Adaptation to conditions at various periods of life, 112

Adolias dirtea, sexual diversity of, 271

Aegeriidae, mimicry by, 240

Agaristidae, mimicry of, 246

Agassiz, on species, 5 on North American weeds, 15.

Agelaeus phoeniceus, diagram showing variations of, 56; proportionate numbers which vary, 64

Albatross, courtship of great, 287

Allen, Mr. Grant, on forms of leaves, 133 on degradation of wind-fertilised from insect-fertilised flowers, 325 (note) on insects and flowers, 332 on production of colour through the agency of the colour sense, 334 Mr. J.A., on the variability of birds, 50

Allen, Mr. J.A., on colour as influenced by climate, 228

Alluring coloration, 210

American school of evolutionists, 420

Anemone nemorosa, variability of, 78

Animal coloration, a theory of, 288 general laws of, 296 intelligence, supposed action of, 425 characteristics of man, 454

Animals, the struggle among, 18 wild, their enjoyment of life, 39 usually die painless deaths, 38 constitutional variation of, 94 uses of colours of, 134 supposed effects of disuse in wild, 415 most allied to man, 450

Antelopes, recognition marks of, 219

Anthrocera filipendula inedible, 235

Apples, variations of, 87

Arctic animals, supposed causes of white colour of, 191

Argyll, Duke of, on goose reared by a golden eagle, 75

Artemia salina and A. milhausenii, 426

Asclepias curassavica, spread of, 28

Asses running wild in Quito, 28

Attractive fruits, 306

Australia, spread of the Cape-weed in, 29 fossil and recent mammals of, 392

Azara, on cause of horses and cattle not running wild in Paraguay, 19

Azores, flora of, supports aerial transmission of seeds, 368

B

Baker, Mr. J.G., on rarity of spiny plants in Mauritius, 432

Ball, Mr., on cause of late appearance of exogens, 400

Barber, Mrs., on variable colouring of pupae of Papilio nireus, 197 on protective colours of African sun-birds, 200

Barbs, 91

Barriers, importance of, in questions of distribution, 341

Bates, Mr. H.W., on varieties of butterflies, 44 on inedibility of Heliconidae, 234 on a conspicuous caterpillar, 236 on mimicry, 240, 243, 249

Bathmism or growth-force, Cope on, 421

Beddard, Mr. F.E., variations of earthworms, 67 on plumes of bird of paradise, 292

Beech trees, aggressive in Denmark, 21

Beetle and wasp (figs.), 259

Beetle, fossil in coal measures of Silesia, 404

Beginnings of important organs, 128

Belt, Mr., on leaf-like locust, 203 on birds avoiding Heliconidae, 234

Belt's frog, 266

Birds, rate of increase of, 25 how destroyed, 26 variation among, 49 variation of markings of, 52 variation of wings and tails of, 53 diagram showing variation of tarsus and toes, 60 use of structural peculiarities of, 135 eggs, coloration of, 212 recognition marks of, 222 and butterflies, white in tropical islands, 230 sometimes seize inedible butterflies, 255 mimicry among, 263

Birds, sexual coloration of, 275 cause of dull colour of female, 277 choice of female not known to be determined by colour, etc., 285 decorative plumage of, 285 antics of unornamented, 287 which fertilise flowers, 319 colours of, not dependent on the colours of flowers, 336 no proof of aesthetic tastes in, 336 dispersal of, 355 and insects at sea, 357 of oceanic islands, 358 carrying seeds on their feet, 361 ancestral forms of, 407

Birthplace, probable, of man, 459

Bombyx regia, protective form of larva of, 210

Boyd Dawkins, on development of deer's horns, 389 on origin of man, 456

Brady, Mr. George, on protective colouring of starfishes, 209

Brain development, progressive, 390

Brains of man and apes, 452

Branner, Mr. J.C., on supposed proofs of glaciation in Brazil, 370

Brazil, supposed proof of glaciation in, 370

Brewer, Professor W.H., on want of symmetry in colours of animals, 217

Bromelia, animals inhabiting leaves of, 118

Bronn, Professor, on supposed uselessness of variations of ears and tails, 136

Butler, Mr. A.G., on inedibility of conspicuous caterpillars, 237

Butterflies, varieties of, 44 small, of Isle of Man, 106 special protective colouring of, 206 recognition by, 226 inedibility of some, 234 mimicry among, 240, 249 colour development of, 274 sexual coloration of, 271

C

Caddis-fly larvae inhabiting bromelia leaves, 118

Callophis, harmless mimicking poisonous species, 262

Candolle, Alp. de, on variation in oaks, 77 on variability of Papaver bracteatum, 79

Cardinalis virginianus, diagram showing proportionate numbers which vary, 65; variations of, 58

Carpenter, Dr. W.B., on variation in the Foraminifera, 43

Carriers, 91

Caterpillars, resemblance of, to their food plants, 203-205 inedible, 236

Cattle, how they prevent the growth of trees, 18 increase of, in St. Domingo, Mexico, and the pampas, 27

Ceylon, spread of Lantana mixta in, 29

Chaffinch, change of habit of, in New Zealand, 76

Chambers, Robert, on origin of species, 3

Chance rarely determines survival, 123

Change of conditions, utility of, 326

Characters, non-adaptive, 131 transferred from useless to useful class, 132

Charaxes psaphon persecuted by a bird, 235

Chile, numerous red tubular flowers in, 320

Chimpanzee, figure of, 454

Clark, Mr. Edwin, on cause of absence of forests on the pampas, 23 on the struggle for life in the South American valleys, 24

Cleistogamous flowers, 322

Close interbreeding, supposed evil results of, 326

Clover, white, spread of, in New Zealand, 28

Co-adaptation of parts by variation, no real difficulty, 418

Cobra, use of hood of, 262

Coccinella mimicked by grasshopper, (figure), 260

Collingwood, Mr., on butterflies recognising their kind, 226

Coloration, alluring, 210 of birds' eggs, 212 a theory of animal, 288

Colour correlated with sterility, 169 correlated with constitutional peculiarities, 170 in nature, the problem to be solved, 188 constancy, in animals indicates utility, 189 and environment, 190 general theories of animal, 193 animal, supposed causes of, 193 obscure, of many tropical animals, 194 produced by surrounding objects, 195 adaptations, local, 199 for recognition, 217 of wild animals not quite symmetrical, 217 (note) as influenced by locality or climate, 228 development in butterflies, 274 more variable than habits, 278 and nerve distribution, 290 and tegumentary appendages, 291 of flowers, 308 change of, in flowers when fertilised, 317 in nature, concluding remarks on, 299, 333 of fruits, 304 of flowers growing together contrasted, 318

Complexity of flowers due to alternate adaptation to insect and self-fertilisation, 328

Composite, a, widely dispersed without pappus, 367

Confinement, affecting fertility, 154

Continental and oceanic areas, 346

Continents and oceans cannot have changed places, 345 possible connections between, 349

Continuity does not prove identity of origin, 463

Cope, Dr. E.D., on non-adaptive characters, 131 on fundamental laws of growth, 420 on bathmism or growth-force, 421 on use producing structural change, 422 on law of centrifugal growth, 422 on origin of the feet of ungulates, 423 on action of animal intelligence, 425

Correlations in pigeons, horses, etc., 140

Corvus frugilegus, 2 corone, 2

Coursers, figures of secondary quills, 224

Cowslip, two forms of, 157

Crab, sexual diversity of colour of, 269

Cretaceous period, dicotyledons of, 400

Crisp, Dr., on variations of gall bladder and alimentary canal, 69

Crosses, a cause of variation, 99 reciprocal, 155

Cross-fertilisation, modes of securing, 310 difference in, 155

Crossing and changed conditions, parallelism of, 166

Cruciferae, variations of structure in, 80

Cuckoo, eggs of, 216

Cuckoos mimick hawks, 263

Cultivated plants, origin of useful, 97

Curculionidae mimicked by various insects (figs.), 260

Curves of variation, 64

D

Dana, Professor, on the permanence of continents, 342

Danaidae little attacked by mites, 235 mimicry of, 246

Darwin, change of opinion effected by, 8 the Newton of Natural History, 9 his view of his own work, 10 on the enemies of plants, 16 on fir-trees destroyed by cattle, 17 on change of plants and animals caused by planting, 18 on absence of wild cattle in Paraguay, 19 on cats and red clover, 20 on variety of plants in old turf, 35 on the beneficent action of the struggle for existence, 40 on variability of wild geraniums, 79 on variability of common species, 80 his non-recognition of extreme variability of wild species, 82 on races of domestic pigeon, 90 on constitutional variation in plants, 95 on unconscious selection, 96 on a case of divergence, 105 on advantage of diversification of structure in inhabitants of one region, 110 on species of plants in turf, 110 on isolation, 119 on origin of mammary glands, 129 on eyes of flatfish, 129 on origin of the eye, 130 on useless characters, 131 on use of ears and tails, 136 on disappearance of sports, 140 on tendency to vary in one direction, 141 on rare perpetuation of sports, 142 on utility of specific characters, 142 (note) on importance of biological environment, 148 on variable fertility of plants, 155 on fertile hybrids among plants, 164

Darwin, on correlation of sterility and colour, 169 on selective association, 172 on infertility and natural selection, 174 on cause of infertility of hybrids, 185 on white tail of rabbit, 218 on conspicuous caterpillars, 236 on sexual selection in insects, 274 on decorative plumage of male birds, 285 on development of ocelli, 290 on value of cross-fertilisation, 309 on limits to utility of intercrossing, 326 on flowers due to insects, 332 on oceanic islands, 342 on effects of disuse in domestic animals, 415, 435 on direct action of environment, 419 on unintelligibility of theory of retardation and acceleration, 421 (note) on origin of man's moral nature, 461 Mr. George, on intermarriages of British aristocracy, 326

Darwinian theory, statement of, 10 not opposed to spiritual nature of man, 478 Dawkins, Professor Boyd, on development of deer's horns, 389 on recent origin of man, 456 Dawson, Sir W., on determination of fossil plants by leaves, 398 (note)

Death of wild animals usually painless, 38

De Candolle, definition of species, 1 on difficulty of naturalising plants, 15 on war between plants, 16 on origin of useful cultivated plants, 97

Deer's horns, development of, 389

Degeneration, 121

Delboeuf's law of variation, 141

Dendraeca coronata, variation of wing-feathers of, 51

Denmark, struggle between trees in, 20

Denudation, evidences of, 379

Desert animals, colour of, 192

Deserts, effect of goats and camels in destroying vegetation in, 17

Development and display of accessory plumes, 293

Diadema anomala, 271 misippus, great diversity of sexes in, 271

Diaphora mendica mimics Spilosoma menthrasti, 249

Difficulties in the facts of fertilisation of flowers, 325

Dimorphism and trimorphism, 156

Dippers, probable origin of, 116

Disease and markings, 290

Diseases common to man and animals, 449

Display of decorative plumage, 287

Distribution of organisms should be explained by theory of descent, 338 conditions which have determined the, 341 of marsupials, 350 of tapirs, 352

Disuse, effects of, among wild animals, 415 no proof that the effects of, are inherited, 417

Divergence of character, 105-109 leads to maximum of forms of life in each area, 109

Diversity of fauna and flora with geographical proximity, 339

Dixon, Mr. C, changed habits of chaffinch in New Zealand, 76

Dogs, origin of, 88 varieties of, 89

Dolichonyx oryzivorus, diagram showing variations of, 55

Domestic animals, varieties of, 88

Draba verna, varieties of, 77

Dress of men not determined by female choice, 286

Dust from Krakatoa, size of particles of, 363

E

Eastern butterflies, variation of, 45

Eaton, Rev. A.E., on Kerguelen insects, 106

Edwards, Mr. W.H., on dark forms of Papilio turnus, 248

Eggs protectively coloured, 214, 215 theory of varied colours of, 216

Elaps mimicked by harmless snakes, 261

Embryonic development of man and other mammalia, 448

Ennis, Mr. John, on willows driving out watercresses from rivers of New Zealand, 24

Entomostraca, in bromelia leaves, 118

Environment never identical for two species, 149 direct action of, 418 direct influence of, 426 as initiator of variations, 436 action of, overpowered by natural selection, 437

Ethical aspect of the struggle for existence, 36

Euchelia jacobeae inedible, 235

Everett, Mr. A., on a caterpillar resembling moss, 205

Evidence of evolution that may be expected among fossil forms, 380

Evolutionists, American school of, 420

Exogens, possible cause of sudden late appearance of, 400

External differences of man and apes, 453

Extinct animals, number of species of, 376

Extinction of large animals, cause of, 394

Eye, origin of, 130

Eyes, explanation of loss of in cave animals, 416

F

Facts of natural selection, summary of, 122

Falcons illustrating divergence, 108 and butcher birds, hooked and toothed beaks of, 422

Fantails, 91

Female birds, why often dull coloured, 277

Female birds, what their choice of mates is determined by, 286 butterflies, why dull coloured, 272 brighter than male bird, 281 choice a doubtful agent in selection, 283 preference neutralised by natural selection, 294

Fertility of domestic animals, 154

Flatfish, eyes of, 129

Flesh-fly, enormous increase of, 25

Floral structure, great differences of, in allied genera and species, 329

Flowers, variations of, 88 colours of, 308 with sham nectaries, 317 changing colour when fertilised, 317 adapted to bees or to butterflies, 318 contrasted colours of, at same season and locality, 318 fertilisation of, by birds, 319 self-fertilisation of, 321 once insect-fertilised now self-fertile, 323 how the struggle for existence acts among, 328 repeatedly modified during whole Tertiary period, 331 the product of insect agency, 332

Forbes, Mr. H.O., on protective colour of a pigeon, 200 on spider imitating birds' dropping, 211

Fossil shells, complete series of transitional forms of, 381 crocodiles afford evidence of evolution, 383 horses in America, 386 and living animals, local relations of, 391

Fowl, early domestication of, 97

Frill-back, Indian, 93

Frog inhabiting bromelia leaves, 118

Fruits, use of characters of, 133 colours of, 304 edible or attractive, 306 poisonous, 307

Fulica atra, protectively coloured eggs of, 215

Fulmar petrel, abundance of, 30

G

Gallinaceae, ornamental plumes of, 292

Galton, Mr. F., diagrams of variability used by, 74 on markings of zebra, 220 (note) on regression towards mediocrity, 414 theory of heredity by, 443 (note) on imperfect counting of the Damaras, 464

Gaudry on extinct animals at Pikermi, 377

Gay, Mons. T., on variations of structure in Cruciferae, 80

Gazella soemmerringi (figure), 219

Gazelles, recognition marks of, 218

Geddes, Professor, on variation in plants, 428 objection to theory of, 430

Geikie, Dr. Archibald, on formation of marine stratified rocks, 344

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, on species, 6

Geological evidences of evolution, 376, 381 record, causes of imperfection of, 379 distribution of insects, 403 antiquity of man, 455

Ghost-moth, colours of, 270

Glaciation, no proofs of, in Brazil, 370

Glow-worm, light a warning of inedibility, 287

Gomphia oleaefolia, variability of, 79

Goose eating flesh, 75

Gosse, Mr. P.H., on variation in the sea-anemones, 43 on sea-anemone and bullhead, 265

Gould, Mr., on colours of coast and inland birds, 228

Grant Allen, on forms of leaves, 133 on insects and flowers, 332

Graphite in Laurentian implies abundant plant life, 398

Gray, Dr. Asa, on naturalised plants in the United States, 110 Dr. J.E., on variation of skulls of mammalia, 71

Great fertility not essential to rapid increase, 30

Great powers of increase of animals, 27

Green colour of birds in tropical forests, 192

Grouse, red, recent divergence of, 106

Gulick, Rev. J.T., on variation of land-shells, 43 on isolation and variation, 147, 150 on divergent evolution, 148

H

Habits of animals, variability of, 74

Hairy caterpillars inedible, 237

Hanbury, Mr. Thomas, on a remarkable case of wind conveyance of seed, 373 (note)

Hansten-Blangsted, on succession of trees in Denmark, 21

Harvest mice, prehensile tails of young, 136

Hawkweed, species and varieties of British, 77

Hector, Sir James, use of horns of deer, 137

Heliconidae, warning colours of, 234 mimicry of, 240

Helix nemoralis, varieties of, 43 hortensis, varieties of, 43

Hemsley, Mr., on rarity of spines in oceanic islands, 432

Henslow, Professor G., on vigour of self-fertilised plants, 323 on wind-fertilised as degradations from insect-fertilised flowers, 324 on origin of forms and structures of flowers, 434 (note)

Herbert, Dean, on species, 6 on plant hybrids, 164

Herbivora, recognition marks of, 218

Heredity, 11 Weismann's theory of, 437

Herschel, Sir John, on species, 3

Hooker, Sir Joseph, on attempts at naturalising Australian plants in New Zealand, 16

Home, Mr. C, on inedibility of an Indian locust, 267

Horns of deer, uses of, 136

Horse tribe, pedigree of, 384 ancestral forms of, 386

Humming-birds, recognition marks of, 226

Huth, Mr., on close interbreeding, 160

Huxley, Professor on the struggle for existence, 37 on fossil crocodiles, 383 on anatomical peculiarities of the horse tribe, 384 on development of vertebrates, 448 on early man, 456 on brains of man and the gorilla, 457

Hybridity, remarks on facts of, 166 summary on, 184

Hybrids, infertility of, supposed test of distinct species, 152 fertility of, 159 fertile among animals, 162 between sheep and goat, 162 fertile between distinct species of moths, 163 fertile among plants, 163

Hymenopus bicornis, resembling flower, 212

I

Icterus Baltimore, diagram showing proportionate numbers which vary, 63

Imitative resemblances, how produced, 205

Increase of organisms in a geometrical ratio, 25

Inedible fruits rarely coloured, 308

Insect and self-fertilisation, alternation of, in flowers, 328

Insect-fertilisation, facts relating to, 316

Insects, coloured for recognition, 226 warning colours of, 233 sexual coloration of, 269 importance of dull colours to female, 272 visiting one kind of flower at a time, 318 and flowers, the most brilliant not found together, 335

Insects, no proof of love of colour by, 336 and birds at sea, 357 in mid-ocean, 359 at great altitudes, 360 geological distribution of, 403 ancestral in Silurian, 405 fossil support evolution, 405

Instability of useless characters, 138

Instinct, the theory of, 441

Insular organisms illustrate powers of dispersal, 354

Interbreeding, close, injurious effects of, 160 supposed evil results of close, 326

Intercrossing, swamping effects of, 142 not necessarily useful, 325

Intermediate forms, why not found, 380

Islands, all oceanic are volcanic or coralline, 342

Isle of Man, small butterflies of, 106

Isolation, the importance of, 119 to prevent intercrossing, 144 by variations of habits, etc., 145 Rev. J.G. Gulick on, 147 when ineffective, 150

Ituna Ilione and Thyridia megisto, figures of wings of, 251

J

Jacobin, 93

Jenyns, Rev. L., on internal variations of mammalia, 69

Jordan, Mons. A., on varieties of Draba verna, 77

Judd, Professor, on dust fallen at Genoa, 363 on Hungarian fossil lacustrine shells, 381

K

Kerguelen Island, wingless insects of, 106

Kerivoula picta, protective colour of, 201

Kerner, Professor, on use of external characters of plants, 133 on seeds found on glaciers, 366

Kingfishers illustrating divergence of character, 109

L

Lacerta muralis, diagram of variation of, 47

Lagopus scoticus, origin of, 107

Lamarck, on origin of species, 3

Land debris deposited near coasts, 343 and ocean, diagram showing comparative height and depth of, 345

Large animals, cause of extinction of, 394

Larvae of moths, variability of, 46

Laughers, Frill-backs, Nuns, Spots, and Swallows, 93

Law of relation of colour and nest, 278, 279

Laws of animal coloration, 296

Lawson Tait, on uses of tails, 136

Leaf-butterflies, 207

Leguminosae, rare in oceanic islands, 368

Lemuria, an unsound hypothesis, 354

Lepidoptera, variation of, 44

Leyden Museum, diagram showing variability of birds in, 61

Life, Weismann on duration of, 437 (note)

Limenitis misippus mimics Danais archippus, 248 ursula mimics Papilio philenor, 248

Linnaeus, on rapid increase of the flesh-fly, 25

Livingstone, his sensations when seized by a lion, 38

Lizards, variation among, 46 diagram of variation of, 48 sexual colours of, 281

Local colour adaptations, 199

Locusts with warning colours inedible, 267

Longicorns mimic Malacoderms, 257

Low, Mr., on effects of close interbreeding, 160

Low, Mr., on fertile crosses between sheep and goat, 162 on selective association, 172

Low forms of life, continued existence of, explained, 114 forms, persistence of, 121 temperature of tropics not needed to explain plant dispersal, 370

Lower types, extinction of, among the higher animals, 114

Lubbock, Sir John, on forms of leaves, 133 on imperfect counting of early man, 464

Lyell, Sir Charles, on variation of species, 4 on the shifting of continents, 342

M

Madagascar and New Zealand, 347

Madeira, wingless beetles of, 105

Maize, origin of, 98

Male rivalry, a real cause of selection, 283

Males of many animals fights together, 282

Malm, on eyes of flatfish, 129

Mammalia, variation of, 65 sexual colours of, 281, 282 afford crucial tests of theories of distribution, 353 early forms of, 407 geological distribution of, 408

Mammary glands, supposed origin of, 129

Man, summary of animal characteristics of, 454 geological antiquity of, 455 early remains of, in California, 456 probably as old as the Miocene, 457 probable birthplace of, 459 origin of moral and intellectual nature of, 461 possesses mental qualities not derived exclusively from his animal progenitors, 474

Man's body that of an animal, 444 development similar to that of animals, 449 structure compared with that of the anthropoid apes, 451

Mania typica refused by lizards, 238

Mantidae resembling flowers, 212

Marcgravia nepenthoides fertilised by birds (woodcut), 320

Marine animals, protective resemblance among, 208 with warning colours, 266

Marsh, Mr., on destructiveness to vegetation of goats and camels, 17 Professor O., on the development of the horse tribe, 386 on brain development of Tertiary mammals, 391 on specialised forms dying out, 395

Marsupials, distribution of, 350

Mathematical faculty, the origin of the, 464 how developed, 466 not developed by law of natural selection, 469

Mathematics, late development of, 465

Meldola, Professor R., on variable protective colouring, 196 on mimicry among British moths, 249 (note) on an extension of the theory of mimicry, 255 (note)

Melons, variations of, 87

Methona psidii and Leptalis orise (figs.), 241

Meyer, Dr. A.B., on mimicry of snakes, 262

Milne Edwards, on variation of lizards, 46

Mimicking birds deceive naturalists, 264 butterfly, figure of, 241

Mimicry, 239 how it has been produced, 242 among protected genera, 249 extension of, 255 in various orders of insects, 257 among vertebrata, 261 among birds, 263 objections to theory of, 264

Mineral particles carried by wind, 363

Miocene fossils of North America, 378

Missing links, character of, 380

Mivart, Dr. St. George, on variation of ribs and dorsal vertebrae, 69 on supposed useless characters, 138 (note) on resemblance of man and apes, 451

Modifications for special purposes, 113

Mongrels, sterility of, 165

Monkeys affected by medicines as are men, 450

Monocotyledons degradations from dicotyledons, 325 (note) scarcity of, in Rocky Mountains, 401 scarcity of, in Alpine flora, 401

Moral nature of man, origin of, 461

Morse, Professor E.T., on protective colouring of marine mollusca, 209

Moseley, Professor, on protective resemblance among marine animals, 208 on courtship of Great Albatross, 287

Moths, protected groups of, 235

Mountains, remote, with identical plants, 369

Mueller, Dr. Fritz, on inhabitants of bromelia leaves, 118 on butterfly, deceived by its mimic, 245 his explanation of mimicry among protected genera, 252 Dr. Hermann, on variability of Myosurus minimus, 78

Murray, Mr. John, on bulk of land and ocean, 344 on quartz particles on ocean floor, 363 Rev. R.P., variation in the neuration of butterflies' wings, 45

Musical and artistic faculties, origin of, 467

Myosurns minimus, variability of, 78

N

Natural selection with changed and unchanged conditions, 103 and sterility, 173 overpowers effects of use and disuse, 435 the most important agency in modifying species, 444

Naturalist deceived by a mimicking insect, 259 by mimicking birds, 264

Naudin, M., on varieties of melons, 87

Nectarinea amethystina, protective colouring of, 201

Nestor notabilis, variation of habits of, 75

Nests of birds influence the colour of females, 278

New species, conditions favourable to origin of, 115

Newton, Professor A., on fertile hybrid ducks, 162

New Zealand, European plants in, 15 spread of white clover in, 28 effects of introduced plants in, 29 native rat and fly exterminated by European species, 34 many plants of, incapable of self-fertilisation, 321 fauna of, 348 few spiny plants in, 433

Nocturnal animals, colours of, 193

Non-adaptive characters, instability of, 138

Normandy pigs, fleshy appendages to jaws of, 139

North America, Miocene fossils of, 378

Northern plants in southern hemisphere, 368

Nostus Borbonicus, variability of, 80

Number of individuals which vary, 62

Nutmeg, how dispersed, 307

Nuts, not meant to be eaten, 305

O

Oaks, great variability of, 78

Objections to Darwin's theory, 126

Ocean floor, deposits on, 343

Oceanic animals, colours of, 193 and continental areas, 346 islands have no mammals or batrachia, 342

Oceans, the permanence of, 341

Oedicnemus, figures of wings of, 223

Opthalmis lincea and Artaxa simulans (figs.), 247

Orang-utans, variations of skull of, 69

Orchideae, why scarce on oceanic islands, 367

Orchis pyramidalis, mode of fertilisation of, 314 figures illustrating fertilisation of, 315

Organic development, three stages of, involving new cause or power, 474 world, the development of, implies a spiritual world, 476

Organisation, advance of, by natural selection, 120 degradation in, 121

Origin of species, objections, 7 of accessory plumes, 291

Orioles mimicking honey-suckers, 263

Ornamental plumes and vitality, 293

P

Pachyrhynchi subjects of mimicry, 261

Pampas, effects of drought in, 23

Papaver bracteatum, variability of, 79

Papilio, use of forked tentacle of larva of, 210 protected groups of, 235 mimicry of, 247

Paraguay, absence of wild cattle and horses, 19

Parnassia palustris, sham nectaries of, 317

Parrot, change of habits of New Zealand, 75

Parus, species of, illustrate divergence, of character, 107

Passenger-pigeon, account of its breeding-places and numbers, 31

Pelagic animals, colours of, 193

Phasmidae, resemblance of, to sticks and leaves, 203

Physiological selection, 180

Pickard-Cambridge, Rev. O., on sexual selection, 296 (note)

Pieridae, sexual diversity among, 271

Pigeons, varieties of, 89 domestic, derived from wild rock-pigeons, 90 curious correlations in, 140 white eggs of, protective, 213

Pigs, great increase of, in South America and New Zealand, 28

Pikermi, extinct animals of, 377

Pipits as illustrating divergence, 108

Planorbidae, variations of, 44

Plants, the enemies of, 16 variability of, 76 constitutional variation of, 94 colour relations of, 302 true mimicry rare in, 303 exotic rarely naturalised in Europe, 356 dispersal of, 361 northern, in southern hemisphere, 368 identical on summits of remote mountains, 369 progressive development of, 397 geological development of (diagram), 402

Plovers, recognition marks of (figure), 221

Plumes, origin of accessory, 291 muscular relation of ornamental, 292

Poisonous fruits, 307

Porto Santo, rabbits of, 326

Poulton, Mr. E.B., on variable colours of larvae and pupae, 196, 198 on concealments of insects by resemblance to environment, 202 on protective form of Notodonta ziczac, 210 on inedibility of conspicuous larvae, 237

Pouters, 90

Primulaceae, variations of structure in, 79

Problem, the, before Darwin, 6

Problems in variation and heredity, 410

Progression in plants and animals, 395

Protection by terrifying enemies, 209

Protective colouring, variable, 195 of white-headed fruit-pigeon, 200 of African sun-birds, 200 of Kerivoula picta, 201 of sloths, 201 of larva of Sphinx ligustri, 202 of stick and leaf insects, 203 of caterpillars, 203, 205 of butterflies, 206

Ptilopus cinctus, protective colour of, 200

Pugnacity of birds with accessory plumes, 294

R

Rabbit, use of white tail of, 218

Rapid increase of plants, 28

Raspail, M., on variability in a grass, 80

Rat, black, spread of, 34

Rattlesnake, use of rattle of, 262

Raven, why black in arctic regions, 191

Reciprocal crosses, 155

Recognition marks of herbivora, 218 of birds, 222 of tropical forest birds, 224 of insects, 226

Reproductive functions, susceptibility of, 153

Reptiles, geological distribution of, 406

Rhinoceroses, evidence of evolution afforded by fossil, 383

Rocks, all stratified formed in shallow water, 344

Rocky Mountains, scarcity of monocotyledons in, 401

Rodents, prevent woody vegetation in the pampas, 23

Romanes, Professor G.J., on useless characters, 131, 139 on meaningless peculiarities of structure, 140 on supposed absence of simultaneous variations, 142 on physiological selection, 180

Rook and crow, 2

Roses, Mr. Baker on varieties of, 77

Rubus, Bentham and Babington on species and varieties of, 77

Rudiments and variations in man, 446

Runts, 91

Rutaceae, variation of structure in, 79

S

St. Helena, destruction of forests by goats, 17

St. Hilaire, M. Aug., variability of Gomphia oleaefolia, 79

Saxicola, divergence of character in species of, 108 recognition marks of, 222

Scientific opinion before Darwin, 4

Scolopax, figures of tails of, 225

Scudder, Mr. S.H., on inedibility of Danais archippus, 238 on fossil insects, 403

Seebohm, Mr., on swamping effects of intercrossing, 143

Seeds, how dispersed, 306 how protected, 307 floating great distances, 361 dispersal of, by wind, 362 weight and dimensions of, 364 importance of wind-carriage of, 372 remarkable case of wind-carriage of, 373

Seiurus carolinensis, diagram of variation, 67 sp., habits of, 117

Selection, artificial, 84 by man, circumstances favourable to, 96 unconscious, 96

Selective association, isolation by, 171

Self-fertilisation of flowers, 321

Semper, Professor, on casting hairs of reptiles and Crustacea, 137 (note) on direct influence of environment, 426

Sesiidae, mimicry by, 240

Sex colour and nests of birds, 277

Sex, colours characteristic of, 269

Sexual colours of insects, probable causes of, 273 of birds, 275 characters due to natural selection, 283 diversity the cause of variation, 439

Sexual selection and colour, 274 by struggles of males, 282 neutralised by natural selection, 294-296 restricted to male struggles, 296

Shetland Islands, variety of ghost-moth in, 270

Shrews and field-mice, internal variations of, 69

Shrikes, recognition marks of, 222

Similarity of forms of life not due to similarity of conditions, 339

Singing of male birds, use of, 284

Skull of wolf, diagram of variations of, 70 of Ursus labiatus, diagram of variations of, 72 of Sus cristatus, diagram of variations of, 73

Skunk an illustration of warning colour, 233

Slack, Baron von, on protective markings of sloths, 201

Sloth, protective colour and marking of, 201

Snakes, mimicry of poisonous, 261

Snipe, tails of two species (figs.), 225

Sounds and odours peculiar to male, how useful, 284 produced by peculiar feathers, 284

South America, fossil and recent mammals of, 393

Species, definition of, 1, 2 origin of, 2, 6 Lyell on, 4 Agassiz on, 5 transmutation of, 6 Geoffroy St. Hilaire on, 6 Dean Herbert on, 6 Professor Grant on, 6 Von Buch on, 6 allied, found in distinct areas, 36

Species, which vary little, 80 closely allied inhabit distinct areas, 111 vigour and fertility of, how kept up, 327

Spencer, Mr. Herbert, on factors of organic evolution, 411 on effects of disuse, 413 on difficulty as to co-adaptation of parts, 417 on direct action of environment, 418

Sphingidae, protective attitudes of larvae, 210

Sphinx ligustri, general resemblance of larva to food plant, 202

Spider, alluring coloration of, 211

Spines, on origin of, 431 rarity of, in oceanic islands, 432

Spiny plants abundant in South Africa and Chile, 433

Spots a primitive ornamentation of animals, 289

Sprengel on flowers and insects, 309

Staphylinidae, protective habit of, 210

Sterility of mongrels, 165 correlated with colour, etc., 168 and natural selection, 173 of hybrids produced by natural selection, 179

Struggle for existence, 14 among plants, 15 for life, illustrations of, 18 for existence on the pampas, 22 for life between closely allied forms most severe, 33 for existence, ethics of, 36 how it acts among flowers, 328

Summary of facts of colouring for protection and recognition, 227

Survival of the fittest, 11, 122, 123

Swainson, definition of species, 2

Swamping effects of intercrossing, 142

Sweden, destruction of grass by larvae of moths in, 17

Swinhoe, Mr., on protective colouring of a bat, 201

Symmetry, bilateral in colours of animals needful for recognition, 217

T

Tails used as respirators, 136

Tapirs, distribution of, 352

Tegetmeier, Mr., on feeding habits of pigeons and fowls, 75 on sparrows and crocuses, 75 on curious correlations in pigeons, 140

Tegumentary appendages and colour, 291

Thousand-fathom line divides oceanic from continental islands, 347 the teachings of, 348 map showing, 349

Thwaites, Mr., on spread of Lantana mixta in Ceylon, 30

Tiger, use of stripes of, 199

Titmice as illustrating divergence, 107

Transformation of species of crustacea, 427

Transmutationists, the early, 3

Travers, Mr. W.L., on effects of introduced plants in New Zealand, 29

Trees, great variety of, in many forests, 36

Trimen, Mr., on butterfly deceived by its mimic, 245 on mimicry, 247

Tropical animals, why brilliantly coloured, 299

Tropics, no proof of lower temperature of, 369

Tropidorhynchi mimicked by orioles, 263

Trumpeter, 93

Tumblers, 91

Turbits and owls, 91

Tylor, Mr. A., on Coloration in Animals and Plants, 285

U

Ungulates, origin of feet of, 423

Use and disuse, effects of, overpowered by natural selection, 435

Useless characters, 131 not specific, 132

Useless specific characters, no proof of existence of, 141

Utriculariae inhabiting bromelias, 118

V

Vanessa callirhoe, small variety in Porto Santo, 106

Variability of the lower animals, 42 of the Foraminifera, 43 of sea-anemones, 43 of land mollusca, 43 of insects, 44 of lizards, 46 of birds, 49 of primary wing-feathers, 51 of wings and tail, 53 of Dolichonyx oryzivorus, 55 of Agelaeus phoeniceus, 56 of Cardinalis virginianus, 58 of tarsus and toes, 60 of birds in Leyden Museum, 61 of Sciurus carolinensis, 67 of skulls of wolf, 70 of skulls of a bear, 72 of skulls of Sus cristatus, 73 of plants, 76 of oaks, 77

Variation, Lyell on, 4 in internal organs, 66 the facts of, 83 proofs of generality of, 85 of vegetables and fruits, 86 of apples and melons, 87 under domestication accords with that under nature, 100 coincident not necessary, 127 and heredity, problems of, 410 Professor Geddes's theory of, 428 the cause of, 439

Variations of flowers, 88 of domestic animals, 88 of domestic pigeons, 89 conditions favourable to production of, 98 beneficial, 143

Varieties, importance of, 41 of same species adapted to self or to insect-fertilisation, 330

Vegetables, variation of, 86

Vegetation and reproduction, antagonism of, 428

Vertebrata, mimicry among, 261 geological succession of, 405

Vestiges of Creation, 3

Viola odorata, 2 canina, 2

Violets, as illustrating species, 2

Von Buch on species, 6

W

Wallace, Dr. Alexander, on absence of choice by female moths, 275

Ward, Mr. Lester F., on progressive development of plants, 398

Warning coloration, 232

Warning colours of marine animals, 265

Wasps and bees, mimicry of, 258 poisonous with warning colours, 287

Water-cress, chokes rivers in New Zealand, 24 driven out by willows, 24

Water-ouzels, probable origin of, 116

Weale, Mr. Mansel, on protective colours of butterflies, 206

Weeds of United States, 15

Weir, Mr. Jenner, on deceptive resemblance of a caterpillar to a twig, 204 on inedibility of conspicuous caterpillars, 236 on birds disregarding inedible larvae, 254

Weismann on progressive adaptation of colours of larva, 206 on non-heredity of acquired characters, 440 and Galton's theories of heredity almost identical, 443 (note) on origin of the mathematical faculty, 472 (note)

Weismann's theory of heredity, 437

Westwood, Professor, on variation of insects, 44 deceived by a mimicking cricket, 259

White coloration of insular birds and butterflies, 230

Whymper, Mr., his sensations when falling on the Matterhorn, 38

Willows, species and varieties of British, 77

Wilson, Alexander, his account of the passenger-pigeon in North America, 31

Wind-carriage of seeds explains many facts of plant distribution, 371

Wind-dispersal of seeds, objections to, 365

Wind-fertilised degraded from insect-fertilised flowers, 324

Wings of stone-curlews (figure), 223 why small but useless are retained, 416

Wit and humour, origin of faculties of, 472

Wollaston, Mr. T.W., on variation of beetles, 44 on small butterfly in Porto Santo, 106

Wolves, varieties of in Catskill Mountains, 105

Wood, Mr. J., on muscular variations, 447

Mr. T.W., on variable colouring of pupae of cabbage butterflies, 197

Woodward, Dr. S.P., on variation of mollusca, 43

Y

Youatt, on breeds of sheep, 97

Young animals often spotted, 289

Z

Zebra, markings for recognition and protection, 220 (note)



THE END