The doctrine that man is descended from some less highly organised form, Darwin asserts in his concluding chapter, rests on grounds which will never be shaken—namely, the similar structure and course of development of embryos of the higher animals, and vast numbers of facts of structure and constitution, rudimental structures, and abnormal reversions. The mental powers of the higher animals graduate into those of man. Language, and the use of tools, made man dominant. The brain then immensely developed, and morality sprang from the social instinct. Comparing and approving certain actions and disapproving others, remembering and looking back, he became conscientious and imaginative. Sympathy, arising in the desire to give aid to one's fellows, was strengthened by praise and blame, and conduces to happiness. "As happiness is an essential part of the general good, the greatest happiness principle indirectly serves as a nearly safe standard of right and wrong.... But with the less civilised nations reason often errs, and many bad customs and base superstitions come within the same scope, and consequently are esteemed as high virtues and their breach as heavy crimes."

The belief in God, the author says, is not innate or intuitive in man, but only arises after long culture. As to the bearing of the evolution theory on the immortality of the soul, Darwin thinks few people will find cause for anxiety in the impossibility of determining at what period in the ascending scale man became an immortal being. "The birth, both of the species and of the individual, are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a conclusion."

The bearing of the Darwinian doctrine on some important practical questions for society leads to the remark that, while man scans with scrupulous care the pedigree of his animals, when he comes to his own marriage he rarely or never takes any such care. Perhaps Darwin was somewhat in error here; and, also, he seems to have underrated the unconscious tendency to act according to natural law, which has no doubt influenced mankind largely. He lays down the principle that both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if markedly inferior in body or mind, or if they cannot avoid abject poverty for their children. When the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known, he says, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining, by an easy method, whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man. But Darwin is by no means in favour of any restriction on man's natural rate of increase; for it is the greatest means of preventing indolence from causing the race to become stagnant or to degenerate. Only, there should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring.

In summing up on the entire subject, Darwin expresses himself with more than his wonted vigour and point. On the one hand, he endeavours to disarm opposition by quoting heroic monkeys as contrasted with degraded barbarians; on the other hand, he welcomes the elevation of man so far above his barbarous ancestors. Finally, he takes his stand upon truth, as against likes and dislikes. "The astonishment which I felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore will never be forgotten by me, for the reflection at once rushed into my mind—such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint; their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed with excitement, and their expression was wild, startled, and distrustful. They possessed hardly any arts, and, like wild animals, lived on what they could catch. They had no government, and were merciless to every one not of their own small tribe. He who has seen a savage in his native land will not feel much shame, if forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins. For my own part, I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

"Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men, but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."

The reception accorded to "The Descent of Man" was more excited than that of "The Origin of Species." The first large edition was quickly exhausted, and discussion or ridicule of the book was the fashionable recreation. Mr. Punch, week after week, reflected passing opinion. One of his Darwinian ballads on our ancestors is worth quoting from:—

"They slept in a wood, Or wherever they could, For they didn't know how to make beds; They hadn't got huts, They dined upon nuts, Which they cracked upon each other's heads. They hadn't much scope For a comb, brush, or soap, Or towels, or kettle, or fire; They had no coats nor capes, For ne'er did these apes Invent what they didn't require.

. . . . .

From these though descended, Our manners are mended, Though still we can grin and backbite; We cut up each other, Be he friend or brother, And tails are the fashion—at night. This origination Is all speculation— We gamble in various shapes; So Mr. Darwin May speculate in Our ancestors having been apes."

The Athenaeum was unbelieving, but not denunciatory. The Edinburgh Review declared the doctrine of natural selection hopelessly inadequate to explain the phenomena of man's body; although its truth and falsehood had no necessary connection with the general theory of evolution: some law as yet unknown being looked for. Darwin's attempt to explain the evolution of mind and the moral sense is regarded as failing in every point. "Never, perhaps, in the history of philosophy, have such wide generalisations been derived from such a small basis of fact." The Quarterly Review now acknowledged that "the survival of the fittest" was a truth which readily presented itself to any one considering the subject, and that to Darwin was due the credit of having first brought it forward and demonstrated its truth, and asserted that the destruction of the least fit was recognised thousands of years ago. But, in regard to the descent of man, it fastens specially upon the author's theory of mental and moral evolution, and declares that he has utterly failed. The Saturday Review, however, admitted the high antiquity of man, and the nearness of his bodily structure to the apes, and went much further. In discussing the evolution of morals, the author's unexampled grasp of facts, with his power of correlation, is, according to The Saturday, seen at its highest, in an exquisite chain of philosophical deduction. The mode in which, at a remote period, the races of mankind became differentiated, is declared to be the weak point in the argument.



CHAPTER VIII.

"The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" followed "The Descent of Man" in 1872. The motive which suggested it was the desire to explain the complexities of expression on evolution principles. But the study of emotional expression had evidently engaged Darwin's attention at least from the time when the Fuegians and the Gauchos had vividly roused his imaginative faculties; and his direct observations commenced as early as 1838; when he was already inclined to believe in evolution, and were continued at intervals ever after. The third edition of Sir Charles Bell's "Anatomy of Expression," published in 1844, while greatly admired by him, was unsatisfactory in being throughout based on the conviction that species came into existence in their present condition; and notwithstanding that Bain and Herbert Spencer had made considerable advances in a treatment of the subject based on physiology, an exhaustive book was wanted, which should throw on Expression the new and interesting light of Darwinism.

What was Darwin's method? Observation, cleverly devised appeal to nature; observation over a wide field as to the varied races of man still existing, utilising the aid of travellers and residents in many lands; observation of domestic animals in familiar and in untried circumstances; observation of infants, especially his own, from a very early age; observation of the insane, who are liable to the strongest passions, and give them uncontrolled vent. It was in 1867 that Darwin circulated his group of questions designed to ascertain the mode of expressing every emotion, and their physical concomitants in every possible race. Sculpture, paintings, and engravings, afforded little evidence, because beauty is their main object, and "strongly contracted facial muscles destroy beauty." Information was specially sought as to natives who had had little communication with Europeans, and in whom imitation might not have destroyed ancestral and original expression.

The result was to develop three principles which appeared, in combination, to account for most of the expressions and gestures involuntarily used by man and animals. The first was that of serviceable associated habits: certain complex actions being somehow serviceable in particular states of mind, to gratify and relieve certain sensations, desires, &c., whenever the same state of feeling is repeated, there is a tendency to the same movements or actions, though they may not then be of the least use. The second principle, that of antithesis, is the converse of the last; when an opposite state of mind is induced, there is an involuntary tendency to directly opposite movements, though of no use. The third principle, that of the direct action of the nervous system, is independent of the will and of habit; nerve force being generated in excess by strong emotions.

In discussing all these principles we discover how every thought and every circumstance of the great naturalist seem to have been utilised in his life work. "I have noticed that persons in describing a horrid sight, often shut their eyes momentarily and firmly, or shake their heads as if not to see, or to drive away, something disagreeable; and I have caught myself, when thinking in the dark of a horrid spectacle, closing my eyes firmly." "I noticed a young lady earnestly trying to recollect a painter's name, and she first looked to one corner of the ceiling, and then to the opposite corner, arching the one eyebrow on that side, although of course there was nothing to be seen there." "Many years ago I laid a small wager with a dozen young men that they would not sneeze if they took snuff, although they all declared that they invariably did so; accordingly they all took a pinch, but from wishing much to succeed, not one sneezed, though their eyes watered, and all, without exception, had to pay me the wager." "I put my face close to the thick glass-plate in front of a puff-adder in the Zoological Gardens, with the firm determination of not starting back if the snake struck at me; but as soon as the blow was struck, my resolution went for nothing, and I jumped a yard or two backwards with astonishing rapidity. My will and reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger which had never been experienced." "I observed that though my infants started at sudden sounds, when under a fortnight old, they certainly did not always wink their eyes, and I believe never did so. The start of an older infant apparently represents a vague catching hold of something to prevent falling. I shook a pasteboard box close before the eyes of one of my infants, when 114 days old, and it did not in the least wink; but when I put a few comfits into the box, holding it in the same position as before, and rattled them, the child blinked its eyes violently every time, and started a little." The behaviour of dogs and horses under many circumstances was watched. Cats and monkeys were most carefully scrutinised. At all moments Darwin seized upon and recorded the passing emotion and its associated movements. "I remember once seeing a boy who had just shot his first snipe on the wing, and his hands trembled to such a degree from delight, that he could not for some time reload his gun;" an instance of an emotional movement being disadvantageous.

Some of Darwin's descriptions of emotional outbursts are among the best portions of his writing; as when he speaks of a mother whose infant has been intentionally injured, "how she starts up with threatening aspect, how her eyes sparkle and her face reddens, how her bosom heaves, nostrils dilate, and heart beats." In describing a mourner when quiescent, he says: "The sufferer sits motionless, or gently rocks to and fro; the circulation becomes languid; respiration is almost forgotten, and deep sighs are drawn. All this reacts on the brain, and prostration soon follows with collapsed muscles and dulled eyes."

One of the most striking features of this book is the evidence it affords of Darwin's acuteness and persistence in observation during his travels, and of the excellence of his memory. "I remember that my mules and dogs, brought from a lower and warmer country, after spending a night on the bleak Cordillera, had the hair all over their bodies as erect as under the greatest terror." He noted that Jemmy Button, the Fuegian, blushed when he was quizzed about the care which he took in polishing his shoes, and in otherwise adorning himself; and this fact long after is fitted into the theory of blushing. Guanacoes in South America, when not intending to bite, but merely to spit their offensive saliva from a distance at an intruder, yet retract their ears as a sign of their anger; and Darwin found the hides of several which he shot in Patagonia, deeply scored by teeth marks, in consequence of their battles with each other. A party of natives in Tierra del Fuego endeavoured to explain that their friend, the captain of a sealing vessel, was out of spirits, by pulling down their cheeks with both hands, so as to make their faces as long as possible; and the fact is treasured till it comes in to illustrate the lengthening of features under depression. As if he foreknew that he should want the fact forty years later, he inquired of Jemmy Button whether kissing was practised by his people, and learnt that it was unknown to them. "I remember," he says, "being struck whilst travelling in parts of South America, which were dangerous from the presence of Indians, how incessantly—yet as it appeared, unconsciously—the half-wild Gauchos closely scanned the whole horizon." "In Tierra del Fuego, a native touched with his finger some cold preserved meat which I was eating at our bivouac, and plainly showed utter disgust at its softness; whilst I felt utter disgust at my food being touched by a naked savage, though his hands did not appear dirty." And this illustrates the primary meaning of disgust—anything offensive to the taste.

In later years his own children, and his domestic pets, were incessantly watched, and suitable experiments were devised to bring out the real nature of their expressions. The period at which tears are formed and crying begins, the shape of the mouth in crying, the contraction of the muscles in shouting, the effects of steady gazing at objects, the various stages of smiling, the effects of shyness, shame, and fear, are all set before us, as thus observed. For instance, "I asked one of my boys to shout as loudly as he possibly could, and as soon as he began he firmly contracted his orbicular muscles (surrounding the eyes). I observed this repeatedly, and on asking him why he had every time so firmly closed his eyes, I found that he was quite unaware of the fact: he had acted instinctively or unconsciously." Some of his early observations were afterwards published by Darwin in Mind, vol. ii., under the title of "A Biographical Sketch of an Infant."

Here is a carefully-worded and very suggestive experiment on animals: "Many years ago, in the Zoological Gardens, I placed a looking-glass on the floor before two young orangs, who, as far as it was known, had never before seen one. At first they gazed at their own images with the most steady surprise, and often changed their point of view. They then approached close, and protruded their lips towards the image, as if to kiss it, in exactly the same manner as they had previously done towards each other when first placed, a few days before, in the same room. They next made all sorts of grimaces, and put themselves in various attitudes before the mirror; they pressed and rubbed the surface; they placed their hands at different distances behind it; looked behind it; and finally seemed almost frightened, started a little, became cross, and refused to look any longer." So monkeys were tested with a dressed doll, a live turtle, and stuffed snakes, &c.

The mode and purpose of erection of the hair, feathers, and dermal appendages of animals were the subject of much careful inquiry. Chimpanzees, monkeys, baboons, and many other creatures, were tested in the Zoological Gardens. A stuffed snake taken into the monkey-house caused several species to bristle. When Darwin showed the same to a peccary, the hair rose in a wonderful manner along its back. A cassowary erected its feathers at sight of an ant-eater.

Every unexpected occurrence was pressed into service. Witness the following anecdote: "One day my horse was much frightened at a drilling machine, covered by a tarpaulin and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high that his neck became almost perpendicular; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness through the raising of the head; nor if any sound had proceeded from it could the sound have been more distinctly heard. His eyes and ears were directed intently forwards; and I could feel through the saddle the palpitations of his heart. With red, dilated nostrils, he snorted violently, and whirling round, would have dashed off at full speed had I not prevented him."

We see, too, in this book the results of Darwin's extensive reading. The novelists are laid considerably under contribution, their power of describing expressive signs of emotion being particularly appreciated. Dickens, Walter Scott, Mrs. Oliphant, and Mrs. Gaskell are among the novelists quoted; while the author of Job, Homer, Virgil, Seneca, Shakespeare, Lessing, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many other deceased writers, illustrate the subject. The living authorities—scientific men, travellers, doctors—referred to for facts are exceedingly numerous, including Sir James Paget, Professor Huxley, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir J. Crichton Browne, Sir Samuel Baker, Sir Joseph Lister, Professors Cope and Asa Gray, and many others.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book is that dealing with blushing. It is shown to depend on self-attention, excited almost exclusively by the opinion of others. "Every one feels blame more acutely than praise. Now, whenever we know, or suppose, that others are depreciating our personal appearance, our attention is strongly drawn towards ourselves, more especially to our faces." This excites the nerve centres receiving sensory nerve for the face, and in turn relaxes the blood capillaries, and fills them with blood. "We can understand why the young are much more affected than the old, and women more than men, and why the opposite sexes especially excite each others' blushes. It becomes obvious why personal remarks should be particularly liable to cause blushing, and why the most powerful of all the causes is shyness; for shyness relates to the presence and opinion of others, and the shy are always more or less self-conscious."

One great result made clear by Darwin is that the muscles of expression have not been created or developed for the sake of expression only, and that every true or inherited movement of expression had some natural or independent origin. All the chief expressions are proved to be essentially the same throughout the world, which is an additional argument for man being descended from one stock. We cannot refrain from admiring the tone of the pages which close the book, describing as they do the probable expressions of our early ancestors, their utility, the value of differences of physiognomy, and the desirability or otherwise of repressing signs of emotion. The subject, says the author, "deserves still further attention, especially from any able physiologist;" and so simply ends a volume of surpassing human interest, a text-book for novelists and students of human nature, a landmark in man's progress in obedience to the behest "Know thyself."

To fully measure the merit of one so far elevated above ordinary men is almost impossible; rather is it desirable to recognise the undeniable greatness of a great man, and learn all that is possible from him. An undoubted authority in mental science, however, has given a judgment on Darwin's services to that science, which it is right to quote: "To ourselves it almost seems one of the most wonderful of the many wonderful aspects of Mr. Darwin's varied work that by the sheer force of some exalted kind of common-sense, unassisted by any special acquaintance with psychological method, he should have been able to strike, as it were, straight down upon some of the most important truths which have ever been brought to light in the region of mental science."[12] These truths are specified as the influence of natural selection in the formation of instinct, in the "Origin of Species;" the evolution of mind and of morals, in the "Descent of Man," considered by the late Professor Clifford as containing the simplest and clearest and most profound philosophy that was ever written on the subject; and the evolution of expression in the book described in this chapter. Thus, says Mr. Romanes, in respect both of instincts and intelligence, the science of comparative psychology may be said to owe its foundation to Darwin.

FOOTNOTES:

[12: G. J. Romanes, in "Charles Darwin," memorial notices reprinted from Nature.]



CHAPTER IX.

In 1875 appeared another great work from the master's pen, "Insectivorous Plants," which was destined to place in a yet more striking light the many-sidedness and fertility of his mind. As usual Darwin tells us that this work dated from many years back. "During the summer of 1860," he says, "I was surprised by finding how large a number of insects were caught by the leaves of the common sun-dew (Drosera rotundifolia) on a heath in Sussex. I had heard that insects were thus caught, but knew nothing further on the subject. I gathered by chance a dozen plants, bearing fifty-six fully expanded leaves, and on thirty-one of these dead insects or remnants of them adhered." Here was the germ of something, the discoverer scarcely knew what. It was evident to him that the little sun-dew was excellently adapted for catching insects, and that the number of them thus slaughtered annually must be enormous. What bearing might this have upon the problem of the struggle for existence?

A masterly series of experiments was forthwith set on foot, with the result of proving that sun-dews and a number of other plants obtain the bulk of their nourishment by catching, killing, and digesting insects. They may be called truly carnivorous plants. What an unexpected reversal this was of the order of things hitherto believed to prevail universally. Animals live on other animals or on plants. Here were plants living on animals, and keeping down their number. Moreover, without a nervous system, the action of the parts of a sun-dew leaf was proved to be as apparently purposive as the combined action of the limbs of an animal. Without a stomach, the sun-dew poured forth a digestive fluid as effective in extracting and fitting the nutritious matter of the insect for its own purposes as that of an animal. Without sensory nerve-endings, there was a percipient power in the sun-dew which recognised instinctively and at once the non-nutritious nature of various objects, and which responded to the most delicate chemical stimuli and to the minutest weights.

We cannot describe the little sun-dew better than in Darwin's own words: "It bears from two or three to five or six leaves, generally extended more or less horizontally, but sometimes standing vertically upwards. The leaves are commonly a little broader than long. The whole upper surface is covered with gland-bearing filaments, or tentacles as I shall call them from their manner of acting. The glands were counted on thirty-one leaves, but many of these were of unusually large size, and the average number was 192; the greatest number being 260, and the least 130. The glands are each surrounded by large drops of extremely viscid secretion, which, glittering in the sun, have given rise to the plant's poetical name of the sun-dew."

This secretion, when excited by nutritious matter, becomes distinctly acid, and contains a digestive ferment allied to the pepsin of the human stomach. So excited, it is found capable of dissolving boiled white of egg, muscle, fibrin, cartilage, gelatine, curd of milk, and many other substances. Further, various substances that animal gastric juice is unable to digest are not acted upon by the secretion of the sun-dew. These include all horny matter, starch, fat, and oil. It is not however prejudiced in favour of animal matter. The sun-dew can absorb nutriment from living seeds of plants, injuring or killing them, of course, in the process, while pollen and fresh green leaves yield to its influence.

The action of salts of ammonia and other chemicals was even more wonderful. "It is an astonishing fact that so inconceivably minute a quantity as the one twenty-millionth of a grain of phosphate of ammonia should induce some change in a gland of Drosera sufficient to cause a motor impulse to be sent down the whole length of the tentacle; this impulse exciting movement often through an angle of above 180 deg.. I know not whether to be most astonished at this fact, or that the pressure of a minute bit of hair, weighing only 1/78700 of a grain, and largely supported by the dense secretion, should quickly cause conspicuous movement."

These are but specimens of a multitude of profoundly interesting facts brought out in this exhaustive investigation. If this single research were his only title to fame Darwin's name must rank high as an experimenter of rare ingenuity and success. But he concludes his summary of results by the utterly modest remark, "We see how little has been made out in comparison with what remains unexplained and unknown."

The facts relating to Venus' fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula) and other members of the order to which the sun-dew belongs were better known, but Darwin elicited new truths by his ingenious and varied experiments. The rapidity with which the two lobes of the leaf of dionaea close together when anything touches the tiny spikes which stand up vertically from the upper surface of the lobes, is astonishing, and any insect which causes the closure is almost certain to be caught. Digestion is accomplished in the case of the dionaea by a separate agency, consisting of a large number of minute reddish glands covering the surface of the lobes. These secrete a digestive fluid when stimulated by the contact of any nitrogenous matter, and of course this takes place when any insect is caught. In fact, essentially the same process of digestion and absorption takes place as in the sun-dew. The insect is held firmly for days, until its juices have been absorbed, and then the leaf slowly reopens, not being able to close again for many subsequent days.

It is interesting to note the extreme caution with which the great naturalist speculates upon the mode by which the varied members of the sun-dew order became modified from an ordinary plant-form to such a remarkable degree. The details are too special for quotation here. He suggests, but he does not in the slightest degree dogmatise. For many years to come Darwin's suggestions and comments must be the pregnant soil out of which fruitful research will spring, and his caution will remain the model, to depart from which will but sow hindrances in the path of scientific progress.

The order to which the butterwort and the bladderworts belong also afforded valuable results. The leaf of the butterwort bears glandular hairs, and its margins curve inwards when excited by contact of various bodies, especially living insects, and, at the same time, these are caught in the viscid secretion of the glands, and their juices absorbed by the plant. The bladderworts are even more remarkably constructed, for they have a portion of their leaves developed into subaqueous bladders, with a narrow entrance beneath, defended by a complex valve, which facilitates the entrance of water insects or crustaceans, but prevents their exit. The whole interior of the bladder is lined with transparent four-branched protoplasmic hairs, but nevertheless the bladderwort is unlike the preceding plants in having no power of digesting its prey, however long it may remain in captivity. Yet there is no doubt that the imprisoned creatures do decay in their watery cell, and that the hairs just described absorb the products of their decay.

Such is a brief account of Darwin's work on "Insectivorous Plants." With his characteristic expressions he acknowledges the valuable aid given him by Professor Burdon-Sanderson, and by his son, Mr. Francis Darwin. The former was enabled to give the first brief account of the process of digestion in these plants, as observed by Darwin, in a lecture before the Royal Institution, in June, 1874, and Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Hooker called general public notice to the subject of Carnivorous Plants in his lecture before the British Association at Belfast in the same year: so that a thoroughly awakened attention was given to this new work from Darwin's pen. The public and the scientific world learnt to appreciate yet more keenly his varied talent, his long patience, his reserve of power; and thence dated very definitely a general appreciation of the fundamental unity of the animal and plant kingdoms, seeing that the salient faculties of digestion, of purposive locomotion, of rapid communication and consentaneous action were no longer restricted to animals, but were possessed in a high degree by plants also. Eager followers soon brought forward further proofs of unity of functions in the two kingdoms, and of reciprocal combinations between them, and now no one in the slightest degree acquainted with modern biology doubts that life is at bottom one phenomenon, shared equally and manifested in essentially the same modes by the living substance of plant and animal alike.

Following "Insectivorous Plants" came "The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom," in 1876. Darwin had led the way in the study of this subject by his book on Orchids, and his lead had been excellently followed by Hildebrand, Hermann Mueller, Sir John Lubbock, and others. The path having been indicated, it had appeared comparatively easy for botanists to follow it up. But there yet remained a region of experimental inquiry which it required Darwin's patience and ingenuity to master and to expound conclusively. Although it might be practically granted that natural selection developed a process because advantage was gained by it, was it possible to demonstrate that flowers cross-fertilised bear more and larger seeds, which produce healthier offspring than those fertilised from their own pollen? This Darwin set himself exhaustively to do. For more than a dozen years after his book on orchids appeared, unwearied experiments on plants were progressing, and nature was being questioned acutely, untiringly. Competitive germination was carried on. The two classes of seeds were placed on damp sand in a warm room. As often as a pair germinated at the same time, they were planted on opposite sides of the same pot, with a partition between. Besides these pairs of competitors, others were planted in beds, so that the descendants of the crossed and self-fertilised flowers might compete. The resulting seeds were carefully compared, and their produce again compared. Species were selected from widely distinct families, inhabiting various countries. From a large number of plants, when insects were quite excluded by a thin net covering the plant, few or no seeds were produced. The extent of transport of pollen by insects was unveiled, and the relation between the structure, odour, and conspicuousness of flowers, the visits of insects, and the advantages of cross-fertilisation was shown. "We certainly," says Darwin, "owe the beauty and odour of our flowers, and the storage of a large supply of honey, to the existence of insects." The multitude of facts gathered about insects could only have been discovered and rightly appreciated by one who was a true entomologist as well as a botanist.

In the last chapter of the book the author discusses with remarkable power the causes of the phenomena he has discovered. He believes that the favourable effects of crossing are due to the parents having been subjected to diverse conditions; but what the precise benefit is, or how it can operate so as to render the offspring more healthy and vigorous, he cannot discern. "And so it is," he observes, "with many other facts, which are so obscure that we stand in awe before the mystery of life." So it is. The man who probably understood nature better than any man who has ever lived, who had not only asked her multitudinous questions, but to whom very many answers had been undoubtedly vouchsafed in response to his persevering, humble, diligent, acute questioning, acknowledges that he knows little; that much remains a mystery. But from all we know of him, from his books, his letters, his friends, his was the joy of a soul in sympathy with the master power of the universe. He marched continually on the confines of the unknown, and to him was granted the felicity of largely extending the boundaries of the known.

Again, in 1877, a new work proceeded from Darwin's pen, "The Different Forms of Flowers in Plants of the same Species," dedicated to Professor Asa Gray. It gathered up the contents of numerous papers read before the Linnean Society, with later additions, and showed conclusively how many plants possess distinctive forms of flowers in the same species, adapted to, and in some cases absolutely necessitating, reciprocal fertilisation through the visits of insects. It gave evidence of all the well-known Darwinian characteristics of long-continued labour, thought, and experiment.

In 1880 "The Power of Movement in Plants" was exemplified in a fresh volume, in which the veteran was materially assisted by his son, Mr. Francis Darwin. Its object was to describe and connect together several large classes of movements, common to almost all plants. The surprising fact was established, that all the parts or organs of plants, whilst they continue to grow, are continually revolving, or circumnutating as Darwin called it. This movement commences even before the young seedling has broken through the ground. The combination of this with the effects of gravity and light explains countless phenomena in the life of plants. The tip of the rootlet is thus enabled to penetrate the ground, and it is proved to be more sensitive than the most delicate tendril. Movement goes on through all stages of life. Every growing shoot of a great tree is continually describing small ellipses; the tip of every rootlet endeavours to do the same. The changes of position of leaves and of climbing plants, and the sleep of leaves are all brought under this great principle of circumnutation. It is impossible in reading the book not to be struck with the great resemblance between the movements of plants and many of the actions performed unconsciously by the lower animals. "With plants an astonishingly small stimulus suffices, and, even with allied plants, one may be highly sensitive to the slightest continued pressure, and another highly sensitive to a slight momentary touch. The habit of moving at certain periods is inherited both by plants and animals, and several other points of similitude have been specified. But the most striking resemblance is the localisation of their sensitiveness, and the transmission of an influence from the excited part to another which consequently moves. Yet plants do not of course possess nerves or a central nervous system; and we may infer that with animals such structures serve only for the more perfect transmission of impressions, and for the more complete intercommunication of the several parts."

Here we see how much light may be thrown on animal structures and functions by vegetable physiology. We learn to limit our ideas of the superiority of animals by discovering how much of what we consider peculiar to them is found in plants. We appreciate the unity of biology, indivisible without injury to our knowledge of its parts. No structure in plants appears more wonderful, as Darwin describes it, than the tip of the rootlet of a seedling. It is impressed by and transmits influences of pressure, injury, moisture, light, and gravity to other parts, and determines the course pursued by the rootlet in penetrating the ground. "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals;" and the brain of Charles Darwin, in working out this acquisition of knowledge for mankind, has added a new department to vegetable physiology and to biology.



CHAPTER X.

In his later years honours poured thick upon Darwin. In 1871 he received the Prussian order of knighthood "For Merit"; and was elected a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1877 Cambridge University, making an exception to its custom of not conferring honorary degrees on its members, gave him the LL.D. and an ovation, when the kindly eyes of the venerable naturalist beamed upon the monkey-figure dangled by undergraduates before him from the galleries, in addition to a solitary link of a huge chain, no doubt representing "the missing link." In 1878 the honour, long withheld, and certainly unsought, of being elected a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in the section of Zoology, was his; and that tardy body recognised late the man whose supremacy in science it had done nothing either to foster or to approve. In 1879 the Baly Medal of the London College of Physicians was awarded to him.

After the Cambridge celebration a subscription was raised to obtain a portrait of the veteran evolutionist, which was executed by Mr. W. B. Richmond, and now adorns the Philosophical Library of the New Museums at Cambridge. Later, yet another portrait—the finest in his own and many others' belief—was painted by Mr. John Collier, and presented to the Linnean Society, which will always be associated with the first announcement of Darwin's main theory, as well as with many others of his scientific discoveries.

Professor Haeckel has given the following charming description of Darwin and his home surroundings in his later years: "In Darwin's own carriage, which he had thoughtfully sent for my convenience to the railway station, I drove, one sunny morning in October, through the graceful, hilly landscape of Kent, that with the chequered foliage of its woods, with its stretches of purple heath, yellow broom, and evergreen oaks, was arrayed in its fairest autumnal dress. As the carriage drew up in front of Darwin's pleasant country house, clad in a vesture of ivy and embowered in elms, there stepped out to meet me from the shady porch, overgrown with creeping plants, the great naturalist himself, a tall and venerable figure, with the broad shoulders of an Atlas supporting a world of thought, his Jupiter-like forehead highly and broadly arched, as in the case of Goethe, and deeply furrowed with the plough of mental labour; his kindly, mild eyes looking forth under the shadow of prominent brows; his amiable mouth surrounded by a copious silver-white beard. The cordial, prepossessing expression of the whole face, the gentle, mild voice, the slow, deliberate utterance, the natural and naive train of ideas which marked his conversation, captivated my whole heart in the first hour of our meeting, just as his great work had formerly, on my first reading it, taken my whole understanding by storm, I fancied a lofty world-sage out of Hellenic antiquity—a Socrates or Aristotle—stood before me."

The well-known botanist, Alphonse de Candolle, thus describes a visit to Down:

"I longed to converse once more with Darwin, whom I had seen in 1839, and with whom I kept up a most interesting correspondence. It was on a fine autumn morning in 1880 that I arrived at Orpington station, where my illustrious friend's break met me. I will not here speak of the kind reception given to me at Down, and of the pleasure I felt in chatting familiarly with Mr. and Mrs. Darwin and their son Francis. I note only that Darwin at seventy was more animated and appeared happier than when I had seen him forty-one years before. His eye was bright and his expression cheerful, whilst his photographs show rather the shape of his head, like that of an ancient philosopher. His varied, frank, gracious conversation, entirely that of a gentleman, reminded me of that of Oxford and Cambridge savants. The general tone was like his books, as is the case with sincere men, devoid of every trace of charlatanism. He expressed himself in English easily understood by a foreigner, more like that of Bulwer or Macaulay, than that of Dickens or Carlyle. I asked him for news of the committee, of which he was a member, for reforming English spelling, and when I said that moderate changes would be best received by the public, he laughingly said, 'As for myself, of course, I am for the most radical changes.' We were more in accord on another point, that a man of science, even up to advanced age, ought to take an interest in new ideas, and to accept them, if he finds them true. 'That was very strongly the opinion of my friend Lyell,' he said; 'but he pushed it so far as sometimes to yield to the first objection, and I was then obliged to defend him against himself.' Darwin had more firmness in his opinions, whether from temperament, or because he had published nothing without prolonged reflection.

"Around the house no trace appeared to remain of the former labours of the owner. Darwin used simple means. He was not one who would have demanded to have palaces built in order to accommodate laboratories. I looked for the greenhouse in which such beautiful experiments on hybrid plants had been made. It contained only a vine. One thing struck me, although it is not rare in England, where animals are loved. A heifer and a colt were feeding close to us with the tranquillity which tells of good masters, and I heard the joyful barking of dogs. 'Truly,' I said to myself, 'the history of the variations of animals was written here, and observations must be going on, for Darwin is never idle.' I did not suspect that I was walking above the dwellings of those lowly beings called earthworms, the subject of his last work, in which Darwin showed once more how little causes in the long run produce great effects. He had been studying them for thirty years, but I did not know it.

"Returning to the house, Darwin showed me his library, a large room on the ground floor, very convenient for a studious man; many books on the shelves; windows on two sides; a writing-table and another for apparatus for his experiments. Those on the movements of stems and roots were still in progress. The hours passed like minutes. I had to leave. Precious memories of that visit remain."

Yet once more, in 1881, the famous publishing house of Murray issued a new work—his last—by the great illuminator of Nature. Its subject was one which no one save those who knew him could have expected. It dealt with "The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits," and in it the lowly earthworm was at last raised to its true rank as the genuine preparer and possessor of the soil. Both Gilbert White and Edward Jenner had been impressed with the work earthworms do in nature, but no one had written extensively on the subject till Darwin himself, in 1837, read a short paper on the "Formation of Mould" before the Geological Society of London (published in the fifth volume of the Society's Transactions), showing that small fragments of burnt marl, cinders, &c., which had been thickly strewed over the surface of several meadows, were found after a few years lying at the depth of some inches beneath the turf. It was suggested to him by his relative Mr. Wedgwood, of Maer Hall, in Staffordshire, that this was due to the quantity of fine earth continually brought up to the surface by worms in the form of castings. Observation and experiment were to settle the question in the usual Darwinian manner, and many a portion of soil was watched. One experiment lasted nearly thirty years, for a quantity of broken chalk and sifted coal cinders was spread on December 20, 1842, over distinct parts of a field near Down House, which had existed as pasture for a very long time. At the end of November, 1871, a trench was dug across this part of the field, and the nodules of chalk were found buried seven inches. A similar change took place in a field covered with flints, where in thirty years the turf was compact without any stones. A pathway formed of loose-set flagstones was similarly buried by worms, and became undistinguishable from the rest of the lawn. And these are but a few of the evidences of the wonderful action of worms, collected by the activity of Charles Darwin and his sons.

Earthworms were not only scrutinised in their out-of-door work, but were kept in confinement and studied. It appears they swallow earth both to make their burrows and to extract all nutriment it may contain; they will eat almost anything they can get their skin over. From careful calculation it was shown that worms on an average pass ten tons of the soil on an acre of ground through their bodies every year. It is, then, but a truism to say that every bit of soil on the surface of the globe must have passed through their bodies many times. They were discovered to work mainly by night, when hundreds may with care be discerned, with tails fixed in their burrows, prowling round in circles, rapidly retreating into holes, and strongly resisting efforts to extract them. It was found by careful study that they have no sense of hearing, but a most remarkable sensitiveness to vibrations of the earth or even to contact with air in motion. No book Darwin wrote was fuller of interesting and undoubtedly correct observations.

In concluding, the author enforces the claims of worms on the gratitude of archaeologists, as they protect and preserve for an indefinitely long period every object not liable to decay which is dropped on the surface of the land, by burying it beneath their castings. It is thus that many tesselated pavements and other ancient remains have been preserved; but, on the other hand, worms have undermined many old massive walls and caused them to subside, and no building is in this respect safe unless the foundations are at least six or seven feet beneath the surface, below which depth worms cannot work. Worms also prepare the ground in an excellent manner for plant life, periodically exposing the mould to the air, sifting it so that no stones larger than the particles they can swallow are left in it, mingling the whole intimately together, burying all decaying objects within reach of the roots of the plants, allowing air to penetrate deeply into the earth. "When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we should remember that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years through the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures."

After this last book Darwin felt much exhausted, and wrote: "I feel so worn out that I do not suppose I shall ever again give reviewers trouble." His brother Erasmus's death in the same year was the severance of a link with early days. Yet for some months he continued in a moderate degree of health, still working. For some weeks however in the following March and April he was slightly unwell, and the action of his heart became so weak that he was not allowed to mount the stairs. On Tuesday, April 18, he was in his study examining a plant which he had had brought to him, and he read the same evening before retiring. Till the day of his death he did not become seriously ill. On that day the heart, which had so long done its duty, failed, and about 4 p.m., on April 19, 1882, Charles Darwin breathed his last in peace, aged seventy-three years, two months, and seven days.



CHAPTER XI.

The death of Charles Darwin focussed, as it were, into one concentrated glow the feelings of admiration, and even reverence, which had been growing stronger and stronger in the years since the "Origin of Species" was published. It soon became evident that a public funeral in Westminster Abbey was very generally called for, and this being granted, a grave was chosen in the north aisle and north-east corner of the nave, north of and side by side with that of Sir John Herschel, and ten or twelve feet only from that of Sir Isaac Newton. On April 26, 1882, a great representative host of scientists, literary men, politicians, and theologians assembled for the final scene. The pallbearers were the Dukes of Devonshire and Argyll, the Earl of Derby, Mr. J. Russell Lowell (then American Minister in London), Mr. W. Spottiswoode (President of the Royal Society), Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, Professor Huxley, Sir John Lubbock, and Canon Farrar. The Bishop of Carlisle, preaching at the Abbey on the following Sunday, admitted that Darwin had produced a greater change in the current of thought than any other man, and had done it by perfectly legitimate means. He had observed Nature with a strength of purpose, pertinacity, honesty, and ingenuity never surpassed.

"The career of Charles Darwin," wrote The Times on the day of his funeral, "eludes the grasp of personal curiosity as much as of personal enmity. He thought, and his thoughts have passed into the substance of facts of the universe. A grass plot, a plant in bloom, a human gesture, the entire circle of the doings and tendencies of nature, builds his monument and records his exploits.... The Abbey has its orators and ministers who have convinced senates and swayed nations. Not one of them all has wielded a power over men and their intelligences more complete than that which for the last twenty-three years has emanated from a simple country house in Kent. Memories of poets breathe about the mighty church. Science invokes the aid of imagination no less than poetry. Darwin as he searched, imagined. Every microscopic fact his patient eyes unearthed, his fancy caught up and set in its proper niche in a fabric as stately and grand as ever the creative company of Poets' Corner wove from sunbeams and rainbows."

"Our century is Darwin's century," said the Allgemeine Zeitung. The New York Herald described his life as "that of Socrates except its close." The Neue Freie Presse said truly that his death caused lamentation as far as truth had penetrated, and wherever civilisation had made any impression.

A movement was at once set on foot for securing a worthy public memorial of Darwin. Subscriptions flowed in abundantly, and came from all countries of Europe, the United States, the British Colonies, and Brazil. Sweden sent the astonishing number of 2296 subscriptions; persons of all ranks contributed, from a bishop to a seamstress. Over L4,000 in all was subscribed, and it was resolved, in the first place, to procure the best possible statue. This work was entrusted to Mr. Boehm, R.A., with admirable results. Permission was obtained to place it in the great hall of the British Museum of Natural History, South Kensington, and here it was unveiled on June 9, 1885, by the Prince of Wales, who accepted the statue on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum from Professor Huxley as representing the subscribers. It is agreed that the statue is excellent, the attitude easy and dignified, the expression natural and characteristic. The only defect is that the hands are unlike Darwin's. The balance, about L2,200, remaining over from the fund, was given to the Royal Society to be invested for the promotion of biological studies and researches.

The conditions under which Darwin lived were just those in which, as The Saturday Review put it, his sweet and gentle nature could blossom into perfection. "Arrogance, irritability, and envy, the faults that ordinarily beset men of genius, were not so much conquered as non-existent in a singularly simple and generous mind. It never occurred to him that it would be to his gain to show that he and not some one else was the author of a discovery. If he was appealed to for help by a fellow-worker, the thought never passed into his mind that he had secrets to divulge which would lessen his importance. It was science, not the fame of science, that he loved, and he helped science by the temper in which he approached it. He had to say things which were distasteful to a large portion of the public, but he won the ear even of his most adverse critics by the manifest absence of a mere desire to shine, by his modesty, and by his courtesy. He told honestly what he thought to be the truth, but he told it without a wish to triumph or to wound. There is an arrogance of unorthodoxy as well as an arrogance of orthodoxy, and if ideas that a quarter of a century ago were regarded with dread are now accepted without a pang, the rapidity of the change of opinion, if not the change itself, is largely due to the fact that the leading exponent of these ideas was the least arrogant of men."

Geniality and genuine humour must be remembered as among the many delightful traits in Darwin's character. Mr. Edmund Yates, in his "Celebrities at Home" (second series), describes his as a laugh to remember, "a rich Homeric laugh, round and full, musical and jocund." "At a droll suggestion of Mr. Huxley's, or a humorous doubt insinuated in the musical tones of the President of the Royal Society (Sir Joseph Hooker), the eyes twinkle under the massive overhanging brows, the Socratic head, as Professor Tyndall loves to call it, is thrown back, and over the long white beard rolls out such a laugh as we have attempted to describe."

Exceptionally good-hearted and sympathetic as a man, Darwin discovered his life-work, and did it, in spite of a most powerful hindrance, in the best possible manner, with the least possible waste of force. But, more than doing his work, he set others to work, incited them, suggested to them, aided them, scattered among them seeds which, finding fertile soil, sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold. His greatness is as much in what be caused others to do as in what he did himself. Even in arousing antagonism, though by the gentlest means, he did a great work, for he secured examination and criticism in such bulk that the whole world was leavened by his doctrine; and in controversy no man has any disagreeable reminiscence of him. Many have cause to bless the day when they first came into communication with Darwin, to find him welcome them, encourage them, place his own vast stores of knowledge and thought at their disposal, and, best of all, make them love him naturally as a dear friend.

Darwin's was one of those open and frank minds which are entrenched behind no rampart of isolating prejudice, and elevated on no platform of conscious superiority. It was equally natural to him to ask and to give information. No one ever was more accessible to all who genuinely sought his aid in their inquiries or their projects; no one ever more truly sought information from all quarters whence truth was attainable. Hence the mass of his letters to all kinds of persons is enormous, and only a small proportion, probably, will ever be published. His letters are like his conversation, free, frank, without a trace of arriere pensee, praising others where possible—and no man ever found it more possible to praise others more genuinely—depreciating himself and his work most unduly. "You so overestimate the value of what I do," he writes on one occasion, "that you make me feel ashamed of myself, and wish to be worthy of such praise." Again, "You have indeed passed a most magnificent eulogium on me, and I wonder that you were not afraid of hearing 'oh, oh,' or some other sign of disapprobation. Many persons think that what I have done in science has been much overrated, and I very often think so myself, but my comfort is that I have never consciously done anything to gain applause." Here we see the scientific man occupying the highest possible moral standpoint as a seeker after truth. His election as one of the honorary members of the Physiological Society was to him a "wholly unexpected honour," and a "mark of sympathy" which pleased him in a very high degree.

"Work," he writes on another occasion, "is my sole pleasure in life." "It is so much more interesting to observe than to write." So long as he could devise experiments and mark the results he continued to do it, rather than prepare his voluminous notes on many subjects for publication. "Trollope, in one of his novels, gives as a maxim of constant use by a brickmaker, 'It is dogged as does it,' and I have often and often," wrote Darwin, "thought this is a motto for every scientific worker." How faithfully he adopted it himself those who read through any one of his experimental books can appreciate. He habitually read or heard some good novel as a recreation, and took a by no means restricted interest in general literature.

Considering how usual it is for leading thinkers to be drawn into controversy, even when most desirous of avoiding it, it is remarkable how little Darwin was mixed up with hotly-debated questions. "I hate controversy," he writes, "and it wastes much time, at least with a man who, like myself, can work for only a short time in a day." One of the few occasions on which he appeared as a champion of a cause was on the question of vivisection, in which a chivalrous feeling led him to intervene with the following letter to Professor Holmgren, of Upsala University, which was published in The Times of April 18, 1881. "I thought it fair," he wrote, "to bear my share of the abuse poured in so atrocious a manner on all physiologists."

"DEAR SIR,—In answer to your courteous letter of April 7, I have no objection to express my opinion with respect to the right of experimenting on living animals. I use this latter expression as more correct and comprehensive than that of vivisection. You are at liberty to make any use of this letter which you may think fit, but if published I should wish the whole to appear. I have all my life been a strong advocate for humanity to animals, and have done what I could in my writings to enforce this duty. Several years ago, when the agitation against physiologists commenced in England, it was asserted that inhumanity was here practised, and useless suffering caused to animals; and I was led to think that it might be advisable to have an Act of Parliament on the subject. I then took an active part in trying to get a Bill passed, such as would have removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time have left physiologists free to pursue their researches—a Bill very different from the Act which has since been passed. It is right to add that the investigation of the matter by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against our English physiologists were false. From all that I have heard, however, I fear that in some parts of Europe little regard is paid to the sufferings of animals, and if this be the case I should be glad to hear of legislation against inhumanity in any such country. On the other hand, I know that physiology cannot possibly progress except by means of experiments on living animals, and I feel the deepest conviction that he who retards the progress of physiology commits a crime against mankind. Any one who remembers, as I can, the state of this science half a century ago, must admit that it has made immense progress, and it is now progressing at an ever-increasing rate.

"What improvements in medical practice may be directly attributed to physiological research is a question which can be properly discussed only by those physiologists and medical practitioners who have studied the history of their subjects; but, as far as I can learn, the benefits are already great. However this may be, no one, unless he is grossly ignorant of what science has done for mankind, can entertain any doubt of the incalculable benefits which will hereafter be derived from physiology, not only by man, but by the lower animals. Look, for instance, at Pasteur's results of modifying the germs of the most malignant diseases, from which, as it so happens, animals will, in the first place, receive more relief than man. Let it be remembered how many lives, and what a fearful amount of suffering have been saved by the knowledge gained of parasitic worms through the experiments of Virchow and others on living animals. In the future every one will be astonished at the ingratitude shown, at least in England, to these benefactors of mankind. As for myself, permit me to assure you that I honour, and shall always honour, every one who advances the noble science of physiology.

"Dear sir, yours faithfully, "CHARLES DARWIN."

As an experimenter Darwin was by no means overconfident either in his methods or his power of obtaining results. He simply took the best means open to him, or that he could devise, applied them in the best way known to him, and calmly studied the result. "As far as my experience goes," he wrote, in reference to experimental work, "what one expects rarely happens." On another occasion, after working like a slave at a certain investigation, "with very poor success;" he remarks, "as usual, almost everything goes differently to what I had anticipated." How few investigators have the magnanimity which appears in this confession. But more than this, it is an indication of the rare patience with which he stuck at a subject till he knew all he could read or discover or develop in connection with it. It was "dogged" that did it; "awfully hard work" sometimes. In reference to an attempt of his to define intelligence, which he regarded as unsatisfactory, after remarking that he tried to observe what passed in his own mind when he did the work of a worm, he writes: "If I come across a professed metaphysician, I will ask him to give me a more technical definition with a few big words, about the abstract, the concrete, the absolute, and the infinite. But sincerely, I should be grateful for any suggestions; for it will hardly do to assume that every fool knows what 'intelligent' means."

Inasmuch as it must necessarily be of great interest to know the attitude which so great a thinker as Darwin adopted towards Christianity, revelation, and other matters of theology, we give unabridged two letters which were written without a view to publication, and were published after his death without the authorisation of his representatives. Having been widely published, however, it is right that they should be given here.

The first of these was sent in 1873 to N. D. Deedes, a Dutch gentleman, who wrote to ask Darwin his opinion on the existence of a God:

"It is impossible to answer your question briefly; I am not sure that I could do so even if I wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me our chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of the many able men who have fully believed in God; but here, again, I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect, but man can do his duty."

The second letter was addressed to Nicholas, Baron Mengden, a German University student, in whom the study of Darwin's books had raised religious doubts. It is dated June 5, 1879. The following is a re-translation of a German translation:

"I am very busy, and am an old man in delicate health, and have not time to answer your questions fully, even assuming that they are capable of being answered at all. Science and Christ have nothing to do with each other, except in so far as the habit of scientific investigation makes a man cautious about accepting any proofs. As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that any revelation has ever been made with regard to a future life; every one must draw his own conclusions from vague and contradictory probabilities."

It should be added that he was greatly averse to every form of militant anti-religious controversy, and always deprecated it. He would have been the last to desire that his words should be quoted as of scientific authority, or as being more than the results of his own thought on questions which were not the subject of his life study. Let those who think that his having expressed these views is a regrettable blow to orthodox Christianity, set against it the enormous service Darwin did to reasonable natural theology by giving an intelligible key to the explanation of the universe. And let all men remember that genuine honesty such as Darwin's cannot possibly hinder the interests or the spread of truth. His declaration that "man can do his duty," implies his conviction that man may know what his duty is; and very many noble spirits besides Darwin have not found it possible to advance with certainty beyond this point.

As to Darwin's place in literature, that is due supereminently to his thoughts. In his expression of them he had the saving quality of directness, and usually wrote with simplicity. Incisive he was not ordinarily; caution of his type harmonises ill with incisiveness. But what he lost thereby he gained in solidity and in permanence. Sometimes, as we have pointed out, his imagination carried him beyond his usual sober vein, and then he showed himself aglow with feeling or with sympathetic perception.

But when we speak of his imagination we pass at once to the other side of his mind—if indeed any such patient inquiry as his could have been maintained except for the imaginative side of him. This lit up his path, buoyed him in difficulties and failures, suggested new expedients, experiments, and combinations. The use of imagination in science has never been more aptly illustrated nor more beneficial than in his case. Darwin, more than any other man perhaps, showed the value, if not the essentiality, of "working hypotheses"; and if any man now wants to progress in biology, he will be foolish if he does not seek such and use them freely, and abandon them readily if disproved.

Darwin imagined grandly, and verified his imaginings as far as one man's life suffices; and no man can do more. And Darwin won, as far as a man can win, success during his lifetime. As Professor Huxley said, in lecturing on "The Coming of Age of 'The Origin of Species,'" "the foremost men of science in every country are either avowed champions of its leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from opposing them." His prescience has in less than a generation been justified by the discovery of intermediate fossil forms of animals too numerous to be here recounted. The break between vertebrate and invertebrate animals, between flowering and non-flowering plants, between animal and plant, is now bridged over by discoveries in the life histories of animals and plants which exist to-day. Embryo animals and plants are now known to go through stages which repeat and condense the upward ascent of life; and they give us information of the greatest value as to lost stages in the path. We can, as it were, see the actual track through which evolution may have proceeded. "Thus," says Professor Huxley, "if the doctrine of evolution had not existed, palaeontologists must have invented it, so irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of the remains of the Tertiary mammalia which have been brought to light since 1859;" and again, "so far as the animal world is concerned, evolution is no longer a speculation, but a statement of historical fact."

As to the limits of the truth of Darwin's theory, Professor Huxley, writing on "Evolution in Biology," in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica," says: "How far natural selection suffices for the production of species remains to be seen. Few can doubt that, if not the whole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation; and that it must play a great part in the sorting out of varieties into those which are transitory, and those which are permanent. But the causes and conditions of variation have yet to be thoroughly explored; and the importance of natural selection will not be impaired, even if further inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and is determined in certain directions rather than in others, by conditions inherent in that which varies."

We have not space to describe the importance of the work Darwin did in, or bearing on, entomology, changing its face and vastly elevating its importance. A volume might be compiled from his writings on this subject, as reference to Professor Riley's excellent summary (Darwin Memorial Meeting, Washington, 1882) will readily show. Nor can we recount his important work in other branches of biology further than has been already done in the foregoing pages. To do so would require much more than a volume of this size.

One special department may perhaps claim notice on the ground of its supposed non-scientific character. Dr. Masters (Gardeners' Chronicle, April 22, 1882) says of Darwin's service to horticulture: "Let any one who knows what was the state of botany in this country even so recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, compare the feeling between botanists and horticulturists at that time with what it is now. What sympathy had the one for the pursuits of the other? The botanist looked down on the varieties, the races, and strains, raised with so much pride by the patient skill of the florist as on things unworthy of his notice and study. The horticulturist, on his side, knowing how very imperfectly plants could be studied from the mummified specimens in herbaria, which then constituted in most cases all the material that the botanist of this country considered necessary for the study of plants, naturally looked on the botanist somewhat in the light of a laborious trifler.... Darwin altered all this. He made the dry bones live; he invested plants and animals with a history, a biography, a genealogy, which at once conferred an interest and a dignity on them. Before, they were as the stuffed skin of a beast in the glass case of a museum; now they are living beings, each in their degree affected by the same circumstances that affect ourselves, and swayed, mutatis mutandis, by like feelings and like passions. If he had done nothing more than this we might still have claimed Darwin as a horticulturist; but as we shall see, he has more direct claims on our gratitude. The apparently trifling variations, the variations which it was once the fashion for botanists to overlook, have become, as it were, the keystone of a great theory."

A valuable summary of Darwin's influence on general philosophic thought has been given by Mr. James Sully, in his article, "Evolution in Philosophy," in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica," 9th ed., vol. viii. He, like many other thinkers, considers that Darwin has done much to banish old ideas as to the evidence of purpose in nature. Mr. Sully's views are not entirely shared, however, by Professor Winchell, an able American evolutionist ("Encyclopaedia Americana," vol. ii.) who considers that the question of teleology, or of purpose in nature, is not really touched by the special principle of natural selection, nor by the general doctrine of evolution. The mechanical theorist may, consistently with these doctrines, maintain that every event takes place without a purpose; while the teleologist, or believer in purpose, may no less consistently maintain that the more orderly and uniform we find the succession of events, the more reason is there to presume that a purposeful intelligence is regulating them. It is certainly impossible to show that the whole system of evolution does not exist for a purpose. The ranks of the evolutionists, and even of the Darwinians, as a fact, embrace believers in the most diverse systems of philosophy, including many of those who accept Christ's teaching as an authoritative Divine revelation. May not this diversity among Darwinians itself teach hope? Darwinism is held with vital grip and will therefore not become a dead creed, a fossil formula. The belief that every generation is a step in progress to a higher and fuller life contains within it the promise of a glorious evolution which is no longer a faint hope, but a reasoned faith.

"Man's thought is like Antaeus, and must be Touched to the ground of Nature to regain Fresh force, new impulse, else it would remain Dead in the grip of strong Authority. But, once thereon reset, 'tis like a tree, Sap-swollen in spring-time: bonds may not restrain; Nor weight repress; its rootlets rend in twain Dead stones and walls and rocks resistlessly.

Thine then it was to touch dead thoughts to earth, Till of old dreams sprang new philosophies, From visions systems, and beneath thy spell Swiftly uprose, like magic palaces,— Thyself half-conscious only of thy worth— Calm priest of a tremendous oracle."[13]

Here let us leave Charles Darwin; a marvellously patient and successful revolutioniser of thought; a noble and beloved man.

FOOTNOTES:

[13: Round Table Series. "Charles Darwin" (1886), by J. T. Cunningham.]



THE END.



INDEX.

A.

Ainsworth, Mr. W. F., on Darwin at Edinburgh, 22 Allen, Mr. Grant, on Darwin, 25, 31, 95, 112 Ancestry of the Darwins, 11, 12, 14 Andes, 43, 45 Antiquity of man, 113 Ants, Observations on, 88, 89 Archaeology and earthworms, 151, 152 Athenaeum, The, 22, 94, 124

B.

Bahia, 32 Bahia Blanca, 38 Beagle, H.M.S., 27, 29, 34, 36, 40, 41, 44, 45, 48, 52-60, 65 Bees, Observations on, 88, 89 Bell, Sir C., "Anatomy of Expression," 126 Bentley, T., and Darwin's mother, 17 Blushing, 133 Bladderwort, The, 140 Botanical papers, 103 Botanical works, 103-108, 136-145 Brazil, 32-36 Breeds, Domestic, 80-82, 109-111 British Association, Darwin at, 60 Buenos Ayres, 39, 40 Burdon-Sanderson, Prof., 140 Butterwort, The, 140 Button, Jemmy, the Fuegian, 130

C.

Caldcleugh, Mr., 45 Cambridge University, 24-29, 146 Candolle, A. de, 148-150 Carlisle, Bishop of, on Darwin, 154, 155 Carlyle, Thomas and Mrs., and Erasmus Darwin, 19 Character of Darwin, 155-160, 162-165 Chili, 43-45 Chiloe, 43 Chonos Archipelago, 43 Christianity and Darwin, 115-117, 121, 163-166, 169 Cirripedia, Books on, 61-63 Classification, 91 "Climbing Plants," 107 Copley medal, 106 Coral reefs, Book on, 55-59; observations on, 48, 52, 55 Corfield, Mr. R., 43 Cross-fertilisation of plants, 141-143

D.

Dana, Prof. J. D., on Coral Reefs, 58 Darwin, Charles, and domestic animals, 71; and entomology, 25, 167; and Malthus, 72, 73; and novelists, 133; and Prof. Henslow, 24-30; and Sir C. Lyell, 31, 51, 52, 69, 70; and Sir J. Hooker, 54, 74, 75, 78; and slavery, 34, 35; and spelling reform, 148; as an experimenter, 162; at Cambridge, 24-29; at Edinburgh, 22-24; "Biographical Sketch of an Infant," 131; birth, 18; character of, 155-160, 162-165; "Climbing Plants," 107; contributions to mental science, 134, 135; death of, 153; "Descent of Man," 112-125; discovery of extinct mammals, 38, 39; elected F.G.S., 51; F.R.S., 52; experience of missionaries, 43, 47; experiments on children, 129, 131; "Expression of Emotions," 126-135; fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, 141-143; "Fertilisation of Orchids," 103-106; first scientific paper, 23; "Formation of Mould," 150-152; forms of flowers, 143; funeral of, 154; "Geology of the Beagle," 55-60; history of "Origin of Species," 64-78; honours bestowed on, 146; "Insectivorous Plants," 136-139; "Journal of Researches," 52; modesty of, 28, 66; on blushing, 133; on Cirripedia, 61-63; on religion, 115-117, 121, 163-169; on vivisection, 160-162; "Origin of Species," 41, 42, 46, 64-78, 79-99; physical appearance and habits of, 100-102, 147, 148; places named after, 48; portraits of, 146; power of movement in plants, 143-145; school-days of, 19-21; secretary of Geological Society, 51; sons of, 102; statue of, 156; voyage in Beagle, 29-50 Darwin, Mrs. C., 53 Darwin, Erasmus, of Lichfield and Derby, 12-14, 66-67 Darwin, Erasmus, of London, 19, 153 Darwin, Mr. Francis, 140-144 Darwin, Mrs. R. W. (Susannah Wedgwood), 17-19 Darwin, R. W., of Elston, 12 Darwin, R. W., father of Charles, 14-18 Darwin Sound, 48 Death of Charles Darwin, 153 "Descent of Man," 112-125 Digestion by plants, 137, 138 Discovery of extinct mammals, 39 Down House, 60, 101, 102, 147-150

E.

Earle, Erasmus, 12 Earthquake experience, 44 Earthworms, Darwin on, 150-152 Edinburgh Review, on "Descent of Man," 124; on Erasmus Darwin, 12, 13; on "Origin of Species," 94 Edinburgh University, 21-24 Ehrenberg, 31 Entomology, 25, 141-143 Evolution, History of, in Darwin's mind, 39, 40-42, 46, 47, 50, 64-78, 112 "Expression of Emotions," 126-135

F.

Falkland Islands, 43, 60 Fertilisation, Cross and Self-, in the Vegetable Kingdom, 141-143 "Fertilisation of Orchids," 103-106 Fitzroy, Capt., 27, 29, 31, 48, 49 "Forms of Flowers," 143 Fuegians, 42, 43, 112 Funeral of Charles Darwin, 154

G.

Galapagos Islands, 45-47 Gauchos, 38, 40, 116, 130 Geikie, Prof. A., on Darwin's "Coral Reefs," 58 Geographical distribution, 91 Geological observations by Darwin, 30, 38, 39 Geological papers by Darwin, 51, 52, 59, 60 Geological record, Imperfection of, 90, 91 Geological Society, 51, 52, 63 "Geology of the Beagle," 53, 55-60 Germination of plants, 142 Grant, Prof., 23, 69 Greville, Dr., 23

H.

Haeckel, Prof., 71, 72, 147 Hall, Capt. Basil, and Coral Reefs, 55 Henslow, Prof., 24-30 Herbert, Dean, 71 Holmgren, Prof., Letter to, 160-162 Honours conferred on Darwin, 146 Hooker, Sir J., 54, 74, 78, 140 Huxley, Prof., 65, 91, 94, 165-167

I.

Imagination, Definition of, 115 "Insectivorous Plants," 136-141 Insects, 88, 89, 102-106, 136-139 Instinct, 88-90, 114 Interdependence of species, 84

J.

Jameson, Prof., 23 "Journal of Researches," 31, 34, 36, 42, 46, 53

K.

Keeling Islands, 48, 56

L.

Lamarck and Darwin, 67, 68 Linnean Society, 75-78, 107, 143, 147 Literary position of Darwin, 165 Lubbock, Sir J., 141 Lyell, Sir C., 31, 51, 52, 69, 70, 74

M.

Magellan, Straits of, 43 Maldonado, 36, 37 Malthus on Population, 72, 73, 82 Mammals, Extinct, 38, 39, 54 Masters, Dr., on Darwin and Horticulture, 167 Matthew, Mr. P., and "Origin of Species," 97 Mental powers of man, 114-123 Mental science, Darwin and, 134, 135 Meteyard, Miss, on R. W. Darwin, 16; on Wedgwood, 18 Missionaries, 43, 47 Monkeys, 132 Monkeys and man, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 122 Monte Video, 36, 40 Montgomery, James, "Pelican Island," 55 Morphology, 64, 91, 92 "Mould, Formation of," 152 Mount Darwin, 49 Mount, The, Shrewsbury, 17-20, 80 "Movement, Power of, in Plants," 143-145 Murray, Mr. J., on Coral Reefs, 59 Mylodon Darwinii, 54

N.

"Naturalist's Voyage Round the World," 53 Natural Selection, 84, 85, 97-99, 108, 117 New Zealand, 47 Niata cattle, 40 Novelists, 133

O.

"Orchids, Fertilisation of," 103-106 "Origin of Species," 41, 42, 46, 64-78, 79-99 Owen, Sir R., 53, 64 Oxford, Bishop of, (Wilberforce), on "Origin of Species," 95

P.

Palaeontographical Society, 62 Pampas thistles, 40 Pangenesis, Hypothesis of, 111 Patagonia, 41 Peru, 45 Phillips, Prof. J., 52, 63 Physiological Selection, 87 Physiological Society, 159 Plinian Society, Edinburgh, 22, 23 Port Darwin, 48 Portraits of Darwin, 146 Punch, 123, 124

Q.

Quarterly Review on Darwin's "Journal," 53; on "Descent of Man," 124, 125; on "Origin of Species," 95

R.

Ray Society, 62 Religion, 115-117, 121 Religious views of Darwin, 163-166, 169 Reptiles of Galapagos, 46 Riley, Prof. C. V., on Darwin and Entomology, 25, 167 Rio Negro, 37, 40 Rio Plata, 41 Romanes, Mr., 87, 89, 115, 134, 135 Rosas, General, 38, 39 Royal medal, 62 Royal Society and Charles Darwin, 52, 62, 106 Rudimentary organs, 92

S.

Santiago, 43, 45 Saturday Review on Charles Darwin, 156, 157; on "Descent of Man," 125; on "Origin of Species," 95 Savage man described, 49, 122, 123 "Scientific Inquiry, Manual of," 61 Selection, Natural, 84, 85, 97-99 Selection, Physiological, 87 Semper, Prof., on Coral Reefs, 58 Shrewsbury, 15-20 Shrewsbury school, 20 Social qualities of man, 116 Social questions, 121 Sonnet on Darwin, 169 Spencer, Mr. Herbert, Views of, 73, 112 Statue of Darwin, 155-156 Stokes, Admiral, 33, 34 Structure of human body, 114 Struggle for existence, 72, 73, 82, 83 Sully, Mr. James, on Evolution and Design, 168 Sun-dew, 136-139 Sweden and Darwin, 156 Sydney, 48

T.

Tahiti, 47 Tasmania, 48 Tierra del Fuego, 42, 43 Times, The, on Charles Darwin, 155 Tree of Life, 85-87 Tres Montes, 44 Tucutuco, Blindness of, 68

U.

Unitarian Church, Shrewsbury, 17, 19

V.

Valdivia, 44 Valparaiso, 43, 45 "Variation of Animals and Plants," 108-112 Variations of Species, 79, 85-87, 108-112 Verde, Cape de, 31, 41 "Vestiges of Creation," 73 Vivisection, Darwin on, 160-162 Volcanic islands, 59

W.

Wallace, Mr. A. R., 75-78 Wedgwood, Josiah, 14 Wells, Dr., and Origin of Species, 96 Winchell, Prof., and evolution, 168-169 Wollaston medal, 63 Woman compared with man, 119, 120 Woodall, Mr. E., on Charles Darwin, 17, 101

Y.

Yates, Mr. E., on "Darwin at Home," 157

Z.

Zoological Gardens, 115, 128, 131, 132 "Zoology of the Beagle," 53



BIBLIOGRAPHY.

BY

JOHN P. ANDERSON

(British Museum).

* * * * *

I. WORKS.

II. MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

III. APPENDIX— Biography, Criticism, etc. Magazine Articles.

IV. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.

* * * * *



I. WORKS.

Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the Southern Shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. [With appendices and addenda.] 3 vols. London, 1839, 8vo.

Vol. iii. is the "Journal and Remarks, 1832-1836," by Charles Darwin. The appendix to vol. ii. has a distinct title-page and pagination. Some copies of this work were issued in 2 vols., the third being complete in itself, and sold separately with the title "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., from 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin, Esq.," etc.

Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the World, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N. Second edition, corrected, with additions. (Murray's Colonial and Home Library.) London, 1845, 8vo.

This has been reprinted with a new title-page reading, "A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World, etc."

The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain R. Fitzroy, during the years 1832-36. Edited and superintended by C. D. Part i., Fossil Mammalia, by R. Owen. (Part ii., Mammalia, described by G. R. Waterhouse, with a notice of their habits and ranges by C. D. Part iii., Birds, described by J. Gould, with a notice of their habits and ranges by C. D., with an anatomical appendix by T. C. Eyton. Part iv., Fish, described by L. Jenyns. Part v., Reptiles, described by T. Bell.) 5 parts. London, 1840-39-43, 4to.

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. Being the first part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, 1832 to 1836. London, 1842, 8vo.

Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices on the Geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, etc. London, 1844, 8vo.

Geological Observations on South America. Being the third part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, etc. London, 1846, 8vo.

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, by C. D. With three plates. Second edition, revised. London, 1874, 8vo.

Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and parts of South America, visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, by C. D. Second edition, with maps and illustrations. London, 1876, 8vo.

A Monograph on the Fossil Lepadidae or Pedunculated Cirripedes of Great Britain. (Palaeontographical Society.) London, 1851, 4to.

A Monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia, with figures of all the species. (Ray Society.) 2 vols. London, 1851-54, 8vo.

A Monograph of the Fossil Balanidae and Verrucidae of Great Britain. (Palaeontographical Society.) London, 1854, 4to.

On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By C. D. London, 1859, 8vo.

—— Fifth thousand. London, 1860, 8vo.

—— Third edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1861, 8vo.

—— Fourth edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1866, 8vo.

—— Fifth edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1869, 8vo.

—— Sixth edition, with additions and corrections. London, 1872, 8vo.

On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are fertilised by Insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1862, 8vo.

—— Second edition. With illustrations. London, 1877, 8vo.

The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By C. D. [From the Journal of the Linnean Society.] London, 1865, 8vo.

—— Second edition, revised. With illustrations. London, 1875, 8vo.

The Variation of Animals and Plants under domestication, by C. D. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1868, 8vo.

—— Second edition, revised. Fourth thousand. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1875, 8vo.

—— Second edition, revised. Fifth thousand. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1885, 8vo.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to Sex. By C. D. With illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1871, 8vo.

—— Second edition, revised and augmented. Tenth thousand. London, 1874, 8vo.

—— Second edition, revised and augmented. Seventeenth thousand. London, 1883, 8vo.

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. By C. D. With photographic and other illustrations. London, 1872, 8vo.

Insectivorous Plants. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1875, 8vo.

The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. By C. D. London, 1876, 8vo.

The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1877, 8vo.

The Power of Movement in Plants. By C. D., assisted by Francis Darwin. With illustrations. London, 1880, 8vo.

The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with observations on their habits. By C. D. With illustrations. London, 1881, 8vo.

—— Fifth thousand (corrected). London, 1881, 8vo.

—— Sixth thousand (corrected). London, 1882, 8vo.



II. MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

For private distribution. The following pages contain extracts from letters addressed to Professor Henslow by C. Darwin, Esq., printed for private distribution among the Members of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in consequence of the geological notices which they contain, etc. [Cambridge, 1835.] 8vo.

Note sur la decouverte de quelques Ossemens Fossiles dans l'Amerique du Sud.

Annal. Sci. Nat. 2nd Ser. (Zoology). Tom. vii., 1837, pp. 319, 320.

Notes upon the Rhea Americana.

Zool. Soc. Proc., vol. v., 1837, pp. 35, 36.

Remarks upon the Habits of the Genera Geospiza, Camarhynchus, Cactornis, and Certhidea of Gould.

Proc. Zool. Soc., 1837, p. 49.

Sur trois Especes du Genre Felis.

L'Institut. Tom. vi., 1838, No. 235, pp. 210, 211.

On the formation of Mould (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 574-576; Geol. Soc. Trans., vol. v., 1840, pp. 505-510; Froriep, Notizen. Bd. vi., 1838, col. 180-183.

Observations of proofs of recent elevation on the Coast of Chili, made during the survey of H.M.S. "Beagle," commanded by Capt. Fitzroy (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol ii., 1838, pp. 446-449.

A sketch of the deposits containing extinct Mammalia in the neighbourhood of the Plata (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 542-544; Ann. Sci. Nat. Tom. vii., (Zool.) 1837, pp. 319, 320.

On certain areas of elevation and subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as deduced from the study of coral formations (1837).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 552-554; Froriep, Notizen. Bd. iv., 1838, col. 100-103.

Geological Notes made during a survey of the East and West Coasts of South America in the years 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835; with an account of a transverse section of the Cordilleras of the Andes between Valparaiso and Mendoza.

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 210-212.

Origin of saliferous deposits. Salt Lakes of Patagonia and La Plata.

Geol. Soc. Jour., vol. ii. (pt. 2), 1838, pp. 127, 128.

On the connexion of certain volcanic phenomena, and on the formation of mountain chains, and the effects of continental elevations.

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. ii., 1838, pp. 654-660; Geol. Soc. Trans., vol. v., 1840, pp. 601-632; Poggendorff, Annal. Bd. lii., 1841, pp. 484-496.

Monographia Chalciditum, by Francis Walker. (Vol. ii., Species collected by C. Darwin.) London, 1839, 8vo.

Note on a rock seen on an iceberg in 16 deg. South Latitude.

Geog. Soc. Jour., vol. ix., 1839, pp. 528, 529.

Ueber die Luftschifferei der Spinnen.

Froriep, N. Not. Bd. lxxvii., No. 222, 1839, pp. 23, 24.

Observations on the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, and of other parts of Lochaber in Scotland, with an attempt to prove that they are of marine origin.

Phil. Trans., 1839, pp. 39-82; Edinb. New Phil. Jour., vol. xxvii., 1839, pp. 395-403.

On a remarkable bar of Sandstone off Pernambuco, on the coast of Brazil.

Phil. Mag., vol. xix., 1841, pp. 257-260.

Notes on the effects produced by the ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire, and on the Boulders transported by floating ice.

Edinb. New Phil. Jour., vol. xxxiii., 1842, pp. 352, 353.

On the distribution of the erratic boulders, and on the contemporaneous unstratified deposits of South America (1841).

Geol. Soc. Proc., vol. iii., 1842, pp. 425-430; Geol. Soc. Trans., vol. vi., 1842, pp. 415-432.

The structure and distribution of Coral Reefs.

Geog. Soc. Jour., vol. xii., 1842, pp. 115-119; Poggendorff, Annal. Bd. lxiv., 1845, pp. 563-613; Edinb. New Phil. Jour., vol. xxxiv., 1843, pp. 47-50.

Observations on the structure and propagation of the genus Sagitta.

Ann. Nat. Hist. Tom. xiii., 1844, pp. 1-6; Ann. Sc. Nat. (Zool.) Tom. i., 1844, pp. 360-365; Froriep, Notizen. Bd. xxx., 1844, col. 1-6.

Brief descriptions of several Terrestrial Planariae and of some remarkable Marine species, with an account of their habits.