recognition that has been indicated." | the really significant points of the subThe thoroughness and skill with which ject, enriched his exposition with proWells pursued his work, and the obvious found original remarks and reflections, independence of his character, rendered often summing up in a single pithy senhim long ago a favourite with me; and it tence an argument which a less compact gave me the liveliest pleasure to alight mind would have spread over pages. But upon this additional testimony to his there is one impression made by the penetration. Prof. Grant, Mr. Patrick book itself which no exposition of it, Matthew, Von Buch, the author of the however luminous, can convey; and that "Vestiges," D'Halloy, and others, by the is the impression of the vast amount of enunciation of views more or less clear labour, both of observation and of and correct, showed that the question thought, implied in its production. Let had been fermenting long prior to the us glance at its principles. year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace simultaneously but independently placed their closely concurrent views upon the subject before the Linnæan Society.

It is conceded on all hands that what are called varieties are continually produced. The rule is probably without exception. No chick and no child is in all respects and particulars the counterpart of its brother or sister; and in such differences we have "variety" incipient. No naturalist could tell how far this vari

mass of them held that never by any amount of internal or external change, nor by the mixture of both, could the offspring of the same progenitor so far deviate from each other as to constitute different species. The function of the experimental philosopher is to combine the conditions of nature and to produce her results; and this was the method of Darwin. He made himself acquainted with what could, without any matter of doubt, be done in the way of producing variation. He associated himself with

These papers were followed in 1859 by the publication of the first edition of "The Origin of Species." All great things come slowly to the birth. Coperation could be carried; but the great nicus, as I informed you, pondered his great work for thirty-three years. Newton for nearly twenty years kept the idea of Gravitation before his mind; for twenty years also he dwelt upon his discovery of Fluxions, and doubtless would have continued to make it the object of his private thought had he not found that Leibnitz was upon his track. Darwin for two-and-twenty years pondered the problem of the origin of species, and doubtless he would have continued to do so had he not found Wallace upon his track.† A concentrated but full and powerful epit-pigeon-fanciers - bought, begged, kept, ome of his labours was the consequence. The book was by no means an easy one; and probably not one in every score of those who then attacked it had read its pages through, or were competent to grasp their significance if they had. Iologist, and he were told that they were do not say this merely to discredit them; for there were in those days some really eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the heat of popular prejudice, willing to accept any conclusion that science had to offer, provided it was duly backed by fact and argument, and who entirely mistook Mr. Darwin's views. In fact still upon the particular appearance the work needed an expounder; and it which he wishes to exaggerate, he selects found one in Mr. Huxley. I know noth-it as it reappears in successive broods, ing more admirable in the way of scien- and thus adds increment to increment tific exposition than those early articles of his on the origin of species. He swept the curve of discussion through

*In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer ("Principles of Psychology, 2nd edit. vol. i. p. 455) expressed "the belief that life under all its forms has arisen by an unbroken evolution, and through the instrumentality of what are called natural causes."

†The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to this subject has been dignified in the highest degree.

and observed every breed that he could
obtain. Though derived from a common
stock, the diversities of these pigeons
were such that “a score of them might
be chosen which, if shown to an ornith-

wild birds, would certainly be ranked by
him as well-defined species." The sim-
ple principle which guides the pigeon-
fancier, as it does the cattle-breeder, is
the selection of some variety that strikes
his fancy, and the propagation of this
variety by inheritance.
With his eye

until an astonishing amount of divergence from the parent type is effected. Man in this case does not produce the elements of the variation. He simply ob

The first step only towards experimental demonstration has been taken. Experiments now begun might, a couple of centuries hence, furnish data of incalculable value, which ought to be supplied to the science of the future

serves them, and by selection adds them with imaginary, but with true causes; together until the required result has nor can we fail to discern what vast been obtained. "No man," says Mr. modifications may be produced by natDarwin, "would ever try to make a fan- ural selection in periods sufficiently long. tail till he saw a pigeon with a tail devel- Each individual increment may resemble oped in some slight degree in an unusual what mathematicians call a "differenmanner, or a pouter until he saw a pigeon tial" (a quantity indefinitely small); but with a crop of unusual size." Thus na- definite and great changes may obviously ture gives the hint, man acts upon it, and be produced by the integration of these by the law of inheritance exaggerates the infinitesimal quantities through practideviation. cally infinite time.

Having thus satisfied himself by indu- If Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the nobitable facts that the organism of an ani- tion of creative power acting after humal or of a plant (for precisely the same man fashion, it certainly is not because he treatment applies to plants) is to some is unacquainted with the numberless exextent plastic, he passes from variation quisite adaptations in which this notion of under domestication to variation under a supernatural artificer has founded. His nature. Hitherto we have dealt with the book is a repository of the most startling adding together of small changes by the facts of this description. Take the marconscious selection of man. Can Nature vellous observation which he cites from thus select? Mr. Darwin's answer is, Dr. Crüger, where a bucket with an aper"Assuredly she can." The number of ture, serving as a spout, is formed in an living things produced is far in excess of orchid. Bees visit the flower: in eager the number that can be supported; search of material for their combs, they hence at some period or other of their push each other into the bucket, the lives there must be a struggle for exist-drenched ones escaping from their inence; and what is the infallible result? voluntary bath by the spout. Here they If one organism were a perfect copy of rub their backs against the viscid stigthe other in regard to strength, skill, and ma of the flower and obtain glue; then agility, external conditions would decide. against the pollen-masses, which are thus But this is not the case. Here we have stuck to the back of the bee and carried the fact of variety offering itself to na-away. "When the bee, thus provided, ture, as in the former instance it offered flies to another flower, or to the same itself to man; and those varieties which flower a second time, and is pushed by are least competent to cope with sur- its comrades into the bucket, and then rounding conditions will infallibly give crawls out by the passage, the pollenway to those that are competent. To mass upon its back necessarily comes use a familiar proverb, the weakest comes first into contact with the viscid stigma," to the wall. But the triumphant fraction which takes up the pollen; and this is again breeds to over-production, trans- how that orchid is fertilized. Or take mitting the qualities which secured its this other case of the Catasetum. maintenance, but transmitting them in visit these flowers in order to gnaw the different degrees. The struggle for food labellum; on doing this they inevitably again supervenes, and those to whom touch a long, tapering, sensitive projecthe favourable quality has been trans- tion. This, when touched, transmits a mitted in excess will assuredly triumph. sensation or vibration to a certain memIt is easy to see that we have here the brane, which is instantly ruptured, setaddition of increments favourable to the ting free a spring, by which the pollenindividual still more rigorously carried mass is shot forth like an arrow in the out than in the case of domestication; right direction, and adheres by its viscid for not only are unfavourable specimens extremity to the back of the bee." In not selected by nature, but they are de- this way the fertilizing pollen is spread stroyed. This is what Mr. Darwin calls abroad." "natural selection," which "acts by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being." With this idea he interpenetrates and leavens the vast store of facts that he and others have collected. We cannot, without shutting our eyes through fear or prejudice, fail to see that Darwin is here dealing, not

"Bees

It is the mind thus stored with the choicest materials of the teleologist that rejects teleology, seeking to refer these wonders to natural causes. They illustrate, according to him, the method of nature, not the "technic" of a man-like artificer. The beauty of flowers is due to natural selection. Those that distinguish themselves by vividly contrasting

colours from the surrounding green leaves are most readily seen, most frequently visited by insects, most often fertilized, and hence most favoured by natural selection. Coloured berries also readily attract the attention of birds and beasts, which feed upon them, spread their manured seeds abroad, thus giving trees and shrubs possessing such berries a greater chance in the struggle for existence.

course would be of little avail were his object a temporary dialectic victory instead of the establishment of a truth which he means to be everlasting. But he takes no pains to disguise the weakness he has discerned; nay, he takes every pains to bring it into the strongest light. His vast resources enable him to cope with objections started by himself and others, so as to leave the final impression upon the reader's mind that if With profound analytic and synthetic they be not completely answered they skill, Mr. Darwin investigates the cell-certainly are not fatal. Their negative making instinct of the hive-bee. His force being thus destroyed, you are free method of dealing with it is representa- to be influenced by the vast positive mass tive. He falls back from the more per- of evidence he is able to bring before fectly to the less perfectly developed you. This largeness of knowledge and instinct from the hive-bee to the readiness of resource render Mr. Darwin humble-bee, which uses its own co- the most terrible of antagonists. Accomcoon as a comb, and to classes of bees plished naturalists have levelled heavy of intermediate skill, endeavouring to and sustained criticisms against him— show how the passage might be gradu- not always with the view of fairly weighally made from the lowest to the highest. ing his theory, but with the express inThe saving of wax is the most important tention of exposing its weak points only. point in the economy of bees. Twelve This does not irritate him. He treats to fifteen pounds of dry sugar are said to every objection with a soberness and be needed for the secretion of a single thoroughness which even Bishop Butler pound of wax. The quantities of nectar might be proud to imitate, surrounding necessary for the wax must therefore be each fact with its appropriate detail, vast; and every improvement of con- placing it in its proper relations, and structive instinct which results in the usually giving it a significance which, as saving of wax is a direct profit to the in- long as it was kept isolated, failed to apsect's life. The time that would otherwise pear. This is done without a trace of be devoted to the making of wax is now ill-temper. He moves over the subject devoted to the gathering and storing of with the passionless strength of a glahoney for winter food. He passes from cier; and the grinding of the rocks is the humble-bee with its rude cells, not always without a counterpart in the through the Melipona with its more ar- logical pulverization of the objector. But tistic cells, to the hive-bee with its as- though in handling this mighty theme all tonishing architecture. The bees place passion has been stilled, there is an emothemselves at equal distances apart upon tion of the intellect incident to the disthe wax, sweep and excavate equal cernment of new truth which often spheres round the selected points. The colours and warms the pages of Mr. Darspheres intersect, and the planes of inter- win. His success has been great; and section are built up with thin laminæ. this implies not only the solidity of his Hexagonal cells are thus formed. This work, but the preparedness of the public mode of treating such questions is, as I mind for such a revelation. On this have said, representative. He habitually head a remark of Agassiz impressed me retires from the more perfect and com- more than anything else. Sprung from plex, to the less perfect and simple, and a race of theologians, this celebrated man carries you with him through stages of combated to the last the theory of natuperfecting, adds increment to increment ral selection. One of the many times I of infinitesimal change, and in this way had the pleasure of meeting him in the gradually breaks down your reluctance to United States was at Mr. Winthrop's admit that the exquisite climax of the beautiful residence at Brookline, near whole could be a result of natural selec-Boston. Rising from luncheon, we all tion.

Mr. Darwin shirks no difficulty; and, saturated as the subject was with his own thought, he must have known, better than his critics, the weakness as well as the strength of his theory. This of

halted as if by a common impulse in front of a window, and continued there a discussion which had been started at table. The maple was in its autumn glory; and the exquisite beauty of the scene outside seemed, in my case, to interpenetrate

without disturbance the intellectual action. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz turned and said to the gentlemen standing round, "I confess that I was not prepared to see this theory received as it has been by the best intellects of our time. Its success is greater than I could have thought possible."

ued study, the wonderful and, at bottom, entirely mysterious controlling power which it exercises over the whole organism, physical and mental, being recognized more and more. Thought could not be kept back from a subject so profoundly suggestive. Besides the physical life dealt with by Mr. Darwin, there is a psychical life presenting similar gradations, and asking equally for a solution. How are the different grades and orders of mind to be accounted for? What is the principle of growth of that mysterious power which on our planet culminates in Reason? These are questions which, though not thrusting themselves so forcibly upon the attention of the general public, had not only occupied many reflecting minds, but had been formally broached by one of them before the "Origin of Species" appeared.

In our day great generalizations have been reached. The theory of the origin of species is but one of them. Another, of still wider grasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, the ultimate philosophical issues of which are as yet but dimly seen that doctrine which "binds nature fast in fate" to an extent not hitherto recognized, exacting from every antecedent its equivalent consequent, from every consequent its equivalent antecedent, and bringing vital as well as physical phenomena under the dominion of With the mass of materials furnished that law of causal connection which, as by the physicist and physiologist in his far as the human understanding has yet hands, Mr. Herbert Spencer, twenty pierced, asserts itself everywhere in na- years ago, sought to graft upon this ture. Long in advance of all definite ex-basis a system of psychology; and two periment upon the subject, the constancy years ago a second and greatly amplified and indestructibility of matter had been edition of his work appeared. Those affirmed; and all subsequent experience who have occupied themselves with the justified the affirmation. Later researches beautiful experiments of Plateau, will extended the attribute of indestructibility remember that when two spherules of to force. This idea, applied in the first olive-oil suspended in a mixture of alcoinstance to inorganic, rapidly embraced hol and water of the same density as the organic nature. The vegetable world, oil are brought together, they do not imthough drawing almost all its nutriment mediately unite. Something like a pelfrom invisible sources, was proved in- licle appears to be formed around the competent to generate anew either mat-drops, the rupture of which is immediter or force. Its matter is for the most ately followed by the coalescence of the part transmuted air; its force trans-globules into one. There are organisms formed sclar force. The animal world was proved to be equally uncreative, all its motive energies being referred to the combustion of its food. The activity of each animal as a whole was proved to be the transferred activities of its molecules. The muscles were shown to be stores of mechanical force, potential until unlocked by the nerves, and then resulting in muscular contractions. The speed at which messages fly to and fro along the nerves was determined, and found to be, not as had been previously supposed, equal to that of light or electricity, but less than the speed of a flying eagle.

This was the work of the physicist: then came the conquests of the comparative anatomist and physiologist, revealing the structure of every animal, and the function of every organ in the whole biological series, from the lowest zoophyte up The nervous system had been made the object of profound and continVOL. VII. 364

to man.

LIVING AGE.

whose vital actions are almost as purely physical as that of these drops of oil. They come into contact and fuse themselves thus together. From such organisms to others a shade higher, and from these to others a shade higher still, and on through an ever-ascending series, Mr. Spencer conducts his argument. There are two obvious factors to be here taken into account the creature and the medium in which it lives, or, as it is often expressed, the organism and its environment. Mr. Spencer's fundamental principle is, that between these two factors there is incessant interaction. The organism is played upon by the environment, and is modified to meet the requirements of the environment. Life he defines to be "a continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations."

In the lowest organisms we have a kind of tactual sense diffused over the entire body; then, through impressions

from without and their corresponding | animals, for a similar cause, are more saadjustment, special portions of the sur- gacious than hoofed animals — atoneface become more responsive to stimuli ment being to some extent made, in the than others. The senses are nascent, case of the horse, by the possession of the basis of all of them being that simple sensitive prehensile lips. In the Pritactual sense which the sage Democritus mates the evolution of intellect and the recognized 2,300 years ago as their com- evolution of tactual appendages go hand mon progenitor. The action of light, in in hand. In the most intelligent anthrothe first instance, appears to be a mere poid apes we find the tactual range and disturbance of the chemical processes in delicacy greatly augmented, new avenues the animal organism, similar to that which of knowledge being thus opened to the occurs in the leaves of plants. By de- animal. Man crowns the edifice here, grees the action becomes localized in a not only in virtue of his own manipulatory few pigment-cells, more sensitive to light power, but through the enormous extenthan the surrounding tissue. The eye is sion of his range of experience, by the here incipient. At first it is merely ca- invention of instruments of precision, pable of revealing differences of light which serve as supplemental senses and and shade produced by bodies close at supplemental limbs. The reciprocal achand. Followed as the interception of tion of these is finely described and ilthe light is in almost all cases by the con- lustrated. That chastened intellectual tact of the closely adjacent opaque body, emotion to which I have referred in consight in this condition becomes a kind of nection with Mr. Darwin is, I should say, "anticipatory touch." The adjustment not absent in Mr. Spencer. His illuscontinues; a slight bulging out of the trations possess at times exceeding vivepidermis over the pigment-granules su- idness and force, and from his style on pervenes. A lens is incipient, and, such occasions it is to be inferred that through the operation of infinite adjust the ganglia of this apostle of the underments, at length reaches the perfection standing are sometimes the seat of a that it displays in the hawk and the nascent poetic thrill. eagle. So of the other senses; they are It is a fact of supreme importance that special differentiations of a tissue which actions, the performance of which at first was originally vaguely sensitive all over. requires even painful effort and deliberWith the development of the senses ation, may by habit be rendered automatthe adjustments between the organism ic. Witness the slow learning of its letand its environment gradually extend in ters by a child, and the subsequent facilspace, a multiplication of experiences and ity of reading in a man, when each group a corresponding modification of conduct of letters which forms a word is instantly being the result. The adjustments also and without effort fused to a single perextend in time, covering continually ception. Instance the billiard-player, greater intervals. Along with this ex-whose muscles of hand and eye, when he tension in space and time, the adjust reaches the perfection of his art, are unments also increase in speciality and consciously co-ordinated. Instance the complexity, passing through the various musician, who by practice is enabled to grades of brute life and prolonging them-fuse a multitude of arrangements, audiselves into the domain of reason. Very tory, tactual, and muscular, into a process striking are Mr. Spencer's remarks re- of automatic manipulation. Combining garding the influence of the sense of such facts with the doctrine of hereditary touch upon the development of intelli- transmission, we reach a theory of ingence. This is, so to say, the mother- stinct. A chick, after coming out of the tongue of all the senses, into which they egg, balances itself correctly, runs about, must be translated to be of service to the picks up food, thus showing that it posorganism. Hence its importance. The sesses a power of directing its moveparrot is the most intelligent of birds, ments to definite ends. How did the and its tactual power is also greatest. chick learn this very complex co-ordinaFrom this sense it gets knowledge unat- tion of eye, muscles, and beak ? It has tainable by birds which cannot employ not been individually taught; its pertheir feet as hands. The elephant is the sonal experience is nil; but it has the most sagacious of quadrupeds its tac- benefit of ancestral experience. In its tual range and skill, and the consequent inherited organization are registered all multiplication of experiences, which it the powers which it displays at birth. So' owes to its wonderfully adaptable trunk, also as regards the instinct of the hivebeing the basis of its sagacity. Feline bee, already referred to. The distance