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NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

549 & 551 BROADWAY.

1876.

Enteekd, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by

D. APPLETON & COMPANY,
In the OfDce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PEEFAOE.

These papers are now collected at the request of
friends and correspondents, who think that they may
be useful ; and two new essays are added. Most of
the articles were written as occasion called for them
within the past sixteen years, and contributed to
various periodicals, with little thought of their form-
ing a series, and none of ever bringing them together
into a volume, although one of them (the third) was
once reprinted in a pamphlet form. It is, therefore,
inevitable that there should be considerable iteration
in the argument, if not in the language. This could
not be eliminated except by recasting the whole,
which was neither practicable nor really desirable.
It is better that they should record, as they do, the
writer's freely-expressed thoughts upon the subject
at the time ; and to many readers there may be some
advantage in going more than once, in different
directions, over the same ground. If these essays
were to be written now, some things might be differ-
ently expressed or qualified, but probably not so as

158797

iv PREFACE.

to affect materiallj any important point. According-
ly, tliey are here reprinted unchanged, except by a
few merely verbal alterations made in proof-reading,
and tlie striking out of one or two superfluous or
immaterial passages. A very few additional notes or
references are appended.

To the last article but one a second part is now
added, and the more elaborate Article XIII. is wholly
new.

If it be objected that some of these pages are
written in a lightness of vein not quite congruous
with the gravity of the subject and the seriousness of
its issues, the excuse must be that they were written
with perfect freedom, most of them as anonymous
contributions to popular journals, and that an argu-
ment may not be the less sound or an exposition less
effective for being playful. Some of the essays,
however, dealing with points of speculative scientific
interest, may redress the balance, and be thought
suflB-ciently heavy if not solid.

To the objection likely to be made, that they cover
only a part of the ground, it can only be replied that
they dp not pretend to be systematic or complete.
They are all essays relating in some way or other to
the subject which has been, during these years, of
paramount interest to natm-alists, and not much less
so to most thinking people. The first appeared be-

PREFACE. . y

tween sixteen and seventeen years ago, immediately
after the publication of Darwin's " Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection," as a review of that
volume, wliicli, it was tben foreseen, was to initiate a
revolution in general scientific opinion. Long before
our last article was written, it could be affirmed that
the general doctrine of the derivation of species (to
put it comprehensively) has prevailed over that of
specific creation', at least to the extent of being the re-
ceived and presumably m some sense true conception.
Far from undertaking any general discussion of evo-
lution, several even of Mr. Darwin's writings have
not been noticed, and topics which have been much
discussed elsewhere are not here adverted to. This
applies especially to what may be called deductive
evolution — a subject which lay beyond the writer's
immediate scope, and to which neither the bent of
his mind nor the line of his studies has fitted him to
do justice. If these papers are useful at all, it will
be as showing how these new views of our day are
regarded by^ a practical naturalist, versed in one de-
partment only (viz.. Botany), most interested in their
bearings upon its special problems, one accustomed to
direct and close dealing with the facts in hand, and
disposed to rise from them only to the consideration
of those general questions upon which they throw
or from which they receive illustration. .

vi PREFACE.

Then as to the natural theological questions which
(owing to circumstances needless now to be recalled
or explained) are here throughout brought into w^hat
most naturalists, and some other readers, may deem
undue prominence, there are many who may be inter-
ested to know how these increasingly prevalent views
and their tendencies are regarded by one who is scien-
tifically, and in his own fashion, a Darwinian, philo-
sophically a convinced theist, and religiously an ac-
ceptor of the " creed commonly called the Kicene,"
as the exponent of the Christian faith.

" Truth emerges sooner from error than from con-
fusion," says Bacon ; and clearer views than com-
monly prevail upon the points at issue regarding
" religion and science " are still sufficiently needed to
justify these endeavors.

Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass., June, 1876.

C O IsT T E IsT T S .

*:(:* This Table of Contents, and the copious Index to the volume, were
obligingly prepared by the Eev. G. F. Weight, of Andover.

ARTICLE I.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION.

PAOJ5

Views and Definitions of Species. — How Darwin's differs from that
of Agassiz, and from the Common View. — Variation, its Causes
unknown. — Darwin's Genealogical Tree. — Darwin and Agassiz
agree in the Capital j'acts. — Embryology. — Physical Connec-
tion of Species compatible with Intellectual Connection. — How
to prove Transmutation. — Known Extent of Variation. — Cause
of Likeness unknown. — Artificial Selection. — Reversion. — In-
terbreeding.— Natural Selection. — Classification tentative. —
What Darwin assumes. — Argument stated. — How Natural Se-
lection works. — Where the Argument is weakest. — Objections.
— Morphology and Teleology harmonized. — Theory not athe-
istical.— Conceivable Modes of Relation of God to Nature , 9

ARTICLE II.

DESIGN versus NECESSITY—A DISCUSSION.

How Design in Nature can be shown. — Design not inconsistent

with Indirect Attainment ... . . . . .62

viii CONTENTS.

ARTICLE III.

NATURAL SELECTION NOT INCONSISTENT WITH NATURAL TUEOLOGY.

PAGE

Part I. — Premonitions of Darwinism. — A Proper Subject for
Speculation. — Summary of Facts and Ideas suggestive of Hy-
potlieses of Derivation . . . , . . . 87

Part II. — Limitations of Theory conceded by Darwin. — What Dar-
winism explains. — Geological Argument strong in the Tertiary
Period. — Correspondence between Rank and Geological Suc-
cession.— Difficulties in Classification. — Nature of Affinity. —
No Absolute Distinction between Vegetable and Animal King-
doms.— Individuality. — Gradation ..... 104

Part III. — Theories contrasted. — Early Arguments against Darwin-
ism.— Philosophical and Theological Objections. — Theory may
be thcistic. — Final Cause not excluded. — Cause of Variation
unknown. — Three Views of Efficient Cause compatible with
Theism. — Agassiz's Objections of a Philosophical Nature. —
Minor Objections.— Conclusion ..... 129 ■

ARTICLE IV.

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, AND SUCCESSION.

Alphonse De Candolle's Study of the Oak Genus. — Variability of
the Species. — Antiquity! — A Common Origin probable. — Dr.
Falconer on the Common Origin of Elephants. — Variation and
Natural Selection distinguished. — Saporta on the Gradation be-
tween the Vegetable Forms of the Cretaceous and the Tertiary.
— Hypothesis of Derivation more likely to be favored by Bot-
anists than by Zoologists. — Views of Agassiz respcctino; the
Origin, Dispersion, Variation, Characteristics, and Successive
Creation of Species contrasted with those of De Candolle and
others.— -Definition of Species. — "Whether its Essence is in the
Likeness or in the Genealogical Connection of the Individuals
composing a Species . . . . . . .178

CONTENTS. ix

ARTICLE V.

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY : THE RELATIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN TO NORTH-
EASTERN ASIAN AND TO TERTIARY VEGETATION.

PAGIT

Age and Size of Sequoia. — ^Isolation. — Decadence. — Related Ge-
nera.— Former Distribution.— S.imila»ity between the Flora of
Japan and that of the United States, especially on the Atlantic
Side. — Former Glaciation as explaining the Present Dispersion
of Species. — This confirmed by the Arctic Fossil Flora of the
Tertiary Ppriod. — Tertiary Flora derived from the Preceding
Cretaceous. — Order and Adaptation in Organic Nature likened
to a Flow. — Order implies an Ordainer . . . . 205

ARTICLE VL

THE ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS TOWARD DARWINISM.

General Tendency to Acceptance of the Derivative Hypothesis
noted. — Lyell, Owen, Alphonse De Candolle, Bentham, Flower,
Allman. — Dr. Dawson's " Story of the Earth and Man " exam-
ined.— Difference between Scientific Men and General Specu-
lators or Amateurs in the Use of Hypotheses, . . . 236

ARTICLE VIL

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY.

Writings of Henslow, Hodges, and Le Conte examined. — Evolu-
tion and Design compatible. — The Admission of a System of
Nature, with Fixed Laws, concedes in Principle all that the •
Doctrine of Evolution requires. — Hypotheses, Probabilities, •
and Surmises, not to be decried by Theologians, who use them,
perhaps, more freely and loosely than Naturalists. — Theolo-
gians risk too much in the Defense of Untenable Outposts . 252

ARTICLE VIII.

" WHAT IS DARWINISM ? "

Dr. Hodge's Book with this Title criticised. — He declares that Dar-
winism is Atheism, yet its Founder a Theist. — Darwinism

GONTENTS.

FAOB

fouudcd, however, upon Orthodox Conceptions, and opposed,
not to Theism, but only to Intervention in Nature, while the
Key-note of Dr. Hodge's System is Interference, — Views and
Writings of St. Clair, Winchell, and Kingsley adverted to . 266

ARTICLE IX.

CHARLES DARWIN : SKETCH ACCOMPANYING A PORTRAIT IN " NATURE."

Darwin's Characteristics and Work as a Naturalist compared with
those of Robert Brown. — His Illustration of the Principle that
" Nature abhors Close Fertihzation." — His Impression upon
Natural History exceeded only by Linnaeus. — His Service in
restoring Teleology to Natural History . . . . 283

ARTICLE X.

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS.

Classification marks Distinctions where Nature exhibits Grada-
tions.— Recovery of Forgotten Knowledge and History of
what was known of Dionaea, Drosera, a*nd Sarracenia . .289

ARTICLE XL

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS.

Review of Darwin's Two Works upon these Subjects. — No Absolute
Marks for distinguishing between Vegetables and Animals. —
New Observations upon the Sundews or Droseras. — Their Sen-
sitiveness, Movements, Discernment of the Presence and Ap-
propriation of Animal Matter. — Dionasa, and other Plants of
the same Order. — Utricularia and Pinguicula. — Sarracenia and
Nepenthes. — Clknbing Plants ; the Climbing effected through
Sensitiveness or Response to External Impfession and Auto-
matic Movement. — Capacities inherent in Plants generally,
and apparently of no Service to them, developed and utilized
by those which climb. — Natural Selection not a Complete Ex-
planation . ........ 308

CONTENTS. xi

ARTICLE XII.

DURATION AND ORIGINATION OF RACE AND SPECIES.

PAGE

Part I. — Do Varieties in Plants wear out, or tend to wear out ? —
The Question considered in the Light of Facts, and in that of
the Darwinian Theory. — Conclusion that Races sexually propa-
gated need not die of Old Age. — This Conclusion inferred
from the Provisions and Arrangements in Nature to secure
Cross-Fertilization of Individuals. — Reference to Mr. Darwin's
Development of this View . . . . . .388

Part II. — Do Species wear out, and, if not, why not ? — Implication
of the Darwinian Theory that Species are unlimited in Exist-
ence.— Examination of an Opposite Doctrine maintained by
Naudin. — Evidence that Species may die out from Inherent
Causes only indirect and inferential from Arrangements to
secure Wide Breeding. — Physiological Import of Sexes. —
Doubtful whether Sexual Reproduction with Wide Breeding
is a Preventive or only a Palliative of Decrepitude in Species.
— Darwinian Hypothesis must suppose the Former . . 347

ARTICLE XIIL

evolutionary teleology.

The Opposition between lijorphology and Teleology reconciled by
Darwinism, and the Latter reinstated. — Character of the New
Teleology. — Purpose and Design distinguished. — Man has no
Monopoly of the Latter. — Inference of Design from Adap-
tation and Utility legitimate ; also in Hume's Opinion irresisti-
ble.— The Principle of Design, taken with Specific Creation,
totally insufficient and largely inapplicable ; but, taken with
the Doctrine of the Evolution of Species in Nature, applicable,
pertinent, and, moreover, necessary. — ^Illustrations from Abor-
tive Organs, supposed Waste of Being, etc. — All Nature being
of a piece. Design must either pervade or be absent from the
Whole. — Its Absence not to be inferred because the Events
take place in Nature. — Illustration of the Nature and Prov-
ince of Natural Selection.— It picks out. but does not origi-

xii CONTENTS.

PAGE

natc Variations ; these not a Product of, but a Response to,
the Environment ; not physical, but physiological. — Adapta-
tions in Nature not explained by Natural Selection apart from
Design or Final Cause. — ^Absurdity of associating Design only
with Miracle. — "What is meant by Nature. — The Tradition of
the DiYiNE in Nature, testified to by Aristotle, comes down to
our Day with Undiminished Value 356

Index 391

DARWINIANA.

I.

the okigin of species by means of natural

selection/

(AmEEICAN JOtTKNAL OF SCIENCB AND AkTS, MaVCTl, 1S60.)

This book is already exciting mnch attention.
Two American editions are announced, through which
it will become familiar to many of our readers, before
these pages are issued. An abstract of the argument
— for " the whole volume is one long argument," as
the author states — is unnecessary in such a case ; and
it would be difficult to give by detached extracts.
For the volume itself is an abstract, a prodromus of a
detailed work upon which the author has been labor-
ing for twenty years, and which " will take two or three
more years to complete." It is exceedingly compact ;
and although useful summaries are appended to the
several chapters, and a general recapitulation con-

^ " On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life," by Charles
Darwin, M. A., Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnsean, etc., Societies,
Author of " Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage
round the World." London : John Murray. 1859. 502 pp., post 8vo.

D. H. HILL LIBRARY
North Carolina State Collega

10 LARWINIANA.

tains the essence of the whole, yet much of the aroma
escapes in the treble distillation, or is so concentrated
that the flavor is lost to the general or even to the
scientific reader. The volume itself — ^the proof -spirit
— ^is just condensed enough for. its purpose. It will
be far more widely read, and perhaps will make
deeper impression, than the elaborate work might
have done, with all its full details of the facts upon
which the author's sweeping conclusions have been
grounded. At least it is a more readable book : but
all the. facts that can be mustered in favor of the
theory are still likely to be needed.

Who, upon a single perusal, shall pass judgment
upon a work like this, to which twenty of the best
years of the life of a most able naturalist have been
devoted ? And who among those naturalists who
hold a position that entitles them to pronounce sum-
marily upon the subject, can be expected to divest
himself for the nonce of the influence of received and
favorite systems ? In fact, the controversy now opened
is not likely to be settled in an off-hand way, nor
is it desirable that it should be. A spirited conflict
among opinions of every grade must ensue, which —
to borrow an illustration from the doctrine of the book
before us — may be likened to the conflict in ISTature
among races in the struggle for life, which Mr. Dar-
win describes ; through which the views most favored
by facts will be developed and tested by " Natural
Selection," the weaker ones be destroyed in the pro-
cess, and the strongest in the long-run alone survive.

The duty of reviewing this volume in the Ameri-
can Journal of Science would naturally devolve upon

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. H

the principal editor, whose wide observation and pro-
found knowledge of various departments of natural
history, as well as of geology, particularly qualify him
for the task. But he has been obliged to lay aside
his pen, and to seek in distant lands the entire repose
from scientific labor so essential to the restoration of
his health— a consummation devoutly to be wished,
and confidently to be expected. Interested as Mr.
Dana would be in this volume, he could not be ex-
pected to accept its doctrine. Yiews so idealistic as
those upon which his " Thoughts upon Species " ^ are
grounded, will not harmonize readily with a doctrine
so thoroughly naturalistic as that of Mr. Darwin.
Though it is just possible that one who regards the
kinds of elementary matter, such as oxygen and hy-
drogen, and the definite compounds of these ele-
mentary matters, and their compounds again, in the
mineral kingdom, as constituting species, in the same
sense, fundamentally, as that of animal and vegetable
species, might admit an evolution of one species from
another in the latter as well as the former case.

Between the doctrines of this volume and those of
the other great naturalist whose name adorns the title-
page of this journal [Mr. Agassiz], the widest diver-
gence appears. It is interesting to contrast the two,
and, indeed, is necessary to our purpose ; for this con-
trast brings out most prominently, and sets in strongest
light and shade, the main features of the theory of the
origination of species by means of l^atural Selection.

The ordinary and generally-received view assumes
the independent, specific creation of each kind of plant

* Article in this Journal, vol. xxiv., p. 305.

12 DARWmiANA.

and animal in a primitive stock, wliicli reproduces its
like from generation to generation, and so continues
the species/ Taking the idea of species from tins
perennial succession of essentially similar individuals,
tke chain is logically traceable back to a local origin in
a single stock, a single pair, or a single individual,
from wliicb all the individuals composing the species
have proceeded by natural generation. Although the
similarity of progeny to parent is fundamental in the
conception of species, yet the likeness is by no means
absolute ; all species vary more or less, and some vary
remarkably — partly from the influence of altered cir-
cumstances, and j)artly (and more really) from un-
known constitutional causes which altered conditions
favor rather than originate. But these variations are
supposed to be mere oscillations from a normal state,
and in ^N^ature to be limited if not transitory ; so that
the primordial differences between species and species
at their beginning have not been effaced, nor largely
obscured, by blending through variation. Conse-
quently, whenever two reputed species are found to
blend in l^ature through a series of intermediate forms,
community of origin is inferred, and all the formes,
however diverse, are held to belong to one species.
Moreover, since bisexuality is the rule in Nature
(which is practically carried out, in the long-run, far
more generally than has been suspected), and the
heritable qualities of two distinct individuals are min-
gled in the offspring, it is supposed that the general

^ " Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio produxit Infini-
tum Ens ; quae formas, secundum generationis inditas leges, produxere
plures, at sibi semper similes," — Linn. Phil. Bot., 99, 157.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 13

sterility of hybrid progeny interposes an effectual
barrier against tlie blending of the original species
by crossing.

From this generally-accepted view the well-known
theory of Agassiz and the recent one of Darwin diverge
in exactly opposite directions.

That of Agassiz differs fundamentally from the
ordinary view only in this, that it discards the idea of
a common descent as the real bond of union among
the individuals of a species, and also the idea of a local
origin — supposing, instead, that each species origi-
nated simultaneously, generally speaking, over the
whole geographical area it now occupies or has occu-
pied, and in perhaps as many individuals as it num-
bered at any subsequent period.

Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, holds the orthodox
view of the descent of all the individuals of a species
not only from a local birthplace, but from a single
ancestor or pair ; and that each species has extended
and established itself, through natural agencies, wher-
ever it could ; so that the actual geographical distri-
bution of any species is by no means a primordial ar-
rangement, but a natural result. He goes farther,
and this volume is a protracted argmnent intended to
prove that the species we recognize have not been in-
dependently created, as such, but have descended, like
varieties, from other species. Yarieties, on this view,
are incipient or possible species : species are varieties
of a larger growth and a wider and earlier divergence
from the parent stock ; the difference is one of degree,
not of kind.

The ordinary view — rendering unto Caesar the

14 BARWINIANA.

things that are Cgesar's — looks to natural agencies for
the actual distribution and perpetuation of species, to
a supei-natural for their origin.

The theory of Agassiz regards the origin of species
and their present general distribution over the world
as equally primordial, equally supernatural; that of
Darwin, as equally derivative, equally natural.

The theory of Agassiz, referring as it does the
phenomena both of origin and distribution directly to
the .Divine will — thus removing the latter with the
former out of the domain of inductive science (m
which efficient cause is not the first, but the last word)
—may be said to be theistic to excess. The contrasted
theory is not open to this objection. Studying the
facts and phenomena in reference to proximate causes,
and endeavoring to trace back the series of cause and
effect as far as possible, Darwin's aim and processes
are strictly scientific, and his endeaV^r, whether suc-
cessful or futile, must be regarded as a legitimate at-
tempt to extend the domain of natural or physical
science. For, though it well may be that "organic
forms have no physical or secondary cause," yet this
can be proved only indirectly, by the failure of every
attempt to refer the phenomena in question to causal
laws. But, however originated-, and whatever -bo
thought of Mr. Darwin's arduous undertaking in this
respect, it is certain that plants and animals are sub-
ject from theij^ birth to physicaf influences, to which
they have to accommodate themselves as they can.
How "ritefallyTFey''are'^born to'Trouble," and how
incessant and severe the struggle for life generally is,
the present volume graphically describes. Few will

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. • 15

deny that sucli influences must liave gravely affected
the range and the association of individuals and species
on the earth's sui'face. Mr. Darwin thinks that, acting
upon an inherent predisposition to vary, they have suf-
ficed even to modify the species themselves and pro-
duce the present diversity. Mr. Agassiz believes that
they have not even affected the geographical range
and the actual association of species, still less their
forms ; but that every adaptation of species to climate,
and of species to species, is as aboriginal, and therefore
as inexplicable, as are the organic forms themselves.

Who shall decide between such extreme views so
ably maintained on either hand, and say how much of
truth there may be in each ? The present reviewer
has not the presumption to undertake such a task.
Having no prepossession in favor of naturalistic theo-
ries, but, struck with the eminent ability of Mr. Dar-
win's work, and charmed with its fairness, our hum-
bler duty will be performed if, laying aside prejudice
as much as we can, we shall succeed in giving a fair
account of its method and argument, offering by the
way a few suggestions, such as might occur to any
naturalist of an inquiring piind. An editorial charac-
ter for this article must in justice be disclaimed. The
plural pronoun is employed not to give editorial
weight, but to avoid even the appearance of egotism,
and also the circumlocution which attends a rigorous
adherence to the impersonal style.

We have contrasted these tw^o extremely divergent
theories, in their broad statements. It must not be
inferred that they have no points nor ultimate results
in common.

16 DARWINIANA.

In tlie first place, tliey practically agree in upset-
ting, each in its own way, the generally-received defi-
nition of species, and in sweeping away the ground of
their objective existence in ^Nature. The orthodox
conception of species is that of lineal descent : all the
descendants of a common parent, and no other, con-
stitute a species ; they have a certain identity because
of their descent, by which they are supposed to be
recognizable. So naturalists had a distinct idea of
what they meant by the term species, and a practical
rule, which was hardly the less useful because difficult
to apply in many cases, and because its application was
indirect : that is, the community of origin had to be
inferred from the likeness ; such degree of similarity,
and such only, being held to be conspecific as could
be shown or reasonably inferred to be compatible with
a common origin. And the usual concurrence of the
whole body of naturalists (having the same data be-
fore them) as to what forms are species attests the
value of the rule, and also indicates some real founda-
tion for it in Nature. But if species were created in
numberless individuals over broad spaces of territory,
these individuals are connected only in idea, and spe-
cies differ from varieties on the one hand, and from
genera, tribes, etc., on the other, only in degree ; and
no obvious natural reason remains for fixing upon this
or that degree as specific, at least no natural standard,
by which the opinions of different naturalists may be
correlated. Species upon this view are enduring, but
subjective and ideal. Any three or more of the hu-
man races, for example, are species or not species, ac-
cording to the bent of the naturalist's mind. Darwin's

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 17

theory brings us the otlier way to the same result. In
his view, not only all the individuals of a species are
descendants of a common parent, but of all the related
species also. Affinity, relationship, all the terms which
naturalists use figuratively to express an underived,
unexplained resemblance among species, have a literal
meaning upon Darwin's system, which they little sus-
pected, namely, that of inheritance. Varieties are the
latest offshoots of the genealogical tree in " an un-
lineal " order ; species, those of an earlier date, but of
no definite distinction ; genera, more ancient species,
and so on. The human races, upon this view^, like-
wise may or may not be species according to the
notions of each naturalist as to what differences are
specific ; but, if not species already, those races that
last long enough are sure to become so. It is only a
question of time.

How well the simile of a genealogical tree illus-
trates the main ideas of Darwin's theory the following
extract from the summary of the fourth chapter shows :

" It is a truly wonderful fact — the wonder of which we are
apt to overlook from familiarity— that all animals and all plants
throughout all time and space should bcrelated to each other
in group subordinate to group, in the manner which we every-
where behold — namely, varieties of the same species most
closely related together, species of the same genus less closely
and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera,
species of distinct genera much less closely related, "and genera
related in diiferent degrees, forming sub-families, families, or-
ders, sub-classes, and classes. The several subordinate groups
in any class cannot be ranked in a single file, but seem rather
to be clustered round points, and these round other points, and
so on in almost endless cycles. On the view that each species
has been independently created, I can see no explanation of this

18 DARWimANA.

great fact in the classification of all organic beings ; but, to the
best of my judgment, it is explained through inheritance and
the complex action of natural selection, entailing extinction
and divergence of character, as we have seen illustrated in the
diagram.

"The afiinities of all the beings of the same class have some-
times'been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile
largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may
represent existing species; and those produced during each
former year may represent the long succession of extinct spe-
cies. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have
tried to branch out on all sides, and overtop and kill the sur-
rounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species
and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in
the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches,
and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once,
when the tree was small, budding twigs ; and this connection
of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well
represent the classification of all extinct and living species in
groups subordinate to groups. Of the many^twigs which flour-
ished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now
grown into great branches, yet survive and bear all the other
branches ; so with the species which lived during long-past
geological periods, very few now have living and modified de-
scendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and
branch has decayed and dropped ofi"; and these lost branches
of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and
genera, which have now no living representatives, and which
are known to us only from having been found in a fossil state.
As we here and there see a thin, straggling branch springing
from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has
been favored and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally
see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren, which
in some small degree connects by its afiinities two large branches
of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal compe-
tition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give
rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, Ijranch out

THE ORIGIN OF SPEGIE8. 19

and overtop on all sides many a feebler brancli, so by genera-
tion I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills
with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and
covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifi-
cations."

It may also be noted that there is a significant cor-
respondence between the rival theories as to the main
facts employed. Apparently every capital fact in the
one view is a capital fact in the other. The difference
is in the interpretation. To run the parallel ready
made to our hands : ^

"The simultaneous existence of the most diversified types
under identical circumstances, .... the repetition of similar
types under the most diversified circumstances, .... the unity
of plan in otherwise highly-diversified types of animals, ....
the correspondence, now generally known as special homologies,
in the details of structure otherwise entirely disconnected, down
to the most minute peculiarities, .... the various degrees and
different kinds of relationship among animals which (apparently)
can have no genealogical connection, .... the simultaneous
existence in the earliest geological periods, . •. . . of representa-
tives of all the great types of the animal kingdom, .... the
gradation based upon complications of structure which may be
traced among animals built upon the same plan ; the distribu-
tion of some types over the most extensive range of surface of
the globe, while others are limited to particular geographical
areas, .... the identity of structures of these types, notwith-
standing their wide geographical distribution, .... the com-
munity of structure in certain respects of animals otherwise en-
tirely different, but living within the same geographical area,
.... the connection by series of special structures observed
in animals widely scattered over the surface of the globe,. . . .
the definite relations in which animals stand to the surrounding
world, .... the relations in which individuals of the same

^ Agassiz, " Essay on Classification ; Contributions to Natural His-
tory," p. 132, et seq.

20 DABWINIANA.

species stand to one another, .... the limitation of the range
of changes which animals undergo during their growth, ... *
the return to a definite norm of animals which multiply in vari-
ous ways, .... the order of succession of the different types
of animals and plants characteristic of the different geological
epochs, .... the localization of some types of animals upon
the same points of the surface of the globe during several suc-
cessive geological periods, .... the parallelism between the
order of succession of animals and plants in geological times,
and the gradation among their living representatives, .... the
parallelism between the order of succession of animals in geo-
logical times and the changes their living representatives under-
go during their embryological growth,^ t • • • t^^ combination
in many extinct types of characters which in later ages appear
disconnected, in different types^ .... the parallelism between
the gradation among animals and the changes they undergo
during their growth, .... the relations existing between these
different series and the geographical distribution of animals,
.... the connection of all the known features of Nature into
one system — "

In a word, the whole relations of animals, etc., to
surrounding Nature and to each other, are regarded
under the one view as ultimate facts, or in their ulti-
mate aspect, and interpreted theologically ; under the
other as complex facts, to be analyzed and interpreted

^ As to this, Darwin remarks that he can only hope to see the law
hereafter proved true (p. 449); and p. 338: "Agassiz insists that
ancient animals resemble to • a certain extent the embryos of recent
animals of the same classes ; or that the geological succession of ex-
tinct forms is in some degree parallel to the embryological development
of recent forms. I must follow Pictet and Huxley in thinking that the
truth of this doctrine is very far from proved. Yet I fully expect to
see it hereafter confirmed, at least in regard to subordinate groups,
which have branched off" from each other within comparatively recent
times. For this doctrine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of
natui-al selection."

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 21

scientifically. The one naturalist, perhaps too largely
assuming the scientifically unexplained to be inexpli-
cable, views the phenomena only in their supposed
relation to the Divine rnind. The other, naturally
expecting many of these phenomena to be resolvable
imder investigation, views them in their relations to
one another, and endeavors to explain them as far as
he can (and perhaps farther) through natural causes.

But does the one really exclude the other ? Does
the investigation of physical causes stand opposed to
the theological view and the study of the harmonies
between mind and [N'ature ? More than this, is it not
most presumable that an intellectual conception re-
alized in J^ature would be realized through natural
agencies ? Mr. Agassiz answers these questions afiarm-
atively when he declares that '^ the task of sciencejs
to investigate what has been done^"toTnc[uire if pos-
sible hoio it has teen done^ rather than to ask what is
possible for the Deity, since we can hiow that onlyhy
what actually exists / " and also when he exter ds the
argument for the intervention in l!Tature of a creative
mind to its legitimate application in the inorganic
world; w^hich, he remarks, "considered in the same
light, would not fail also to exhibit unexpected evi-
dence of thought, in the character of the laws regulat-
ing the chemical combinations, the action of physical
forces, etc., etc." ^ Mr. Agassiz, however, pronounces
that "the connection between the facts is only intel-
lectual " — an opinion which the analogy of the inor-

* Op: cit., p. 131. — One or two Bridgewater Treatises, and most;
modern works upon natural theology, should have rendered the evi-.
dences of thought in inorganic Nature not " unexpected."
2

22 DARWimANA.

ganic worlclj just referred to, does not confirm, for
there a material connection between the facts is justly
held to be consistent with an intellectual — and which
the most analogous cases we can think of in the or-
ganic world do not favor ; for there is a material con-
nection between the grub, the pupa, and the butterfly,
between the tadpole and the frog, or, still better, be-
tween those distinct animals which succeed each other
in alternate and very dissimilar generations. So that
mere analogy might rather suggest a natural connec-
tion than the contrary; and the contrary cannot be
demonstrated until the possibilities of Mature under
the Deity are fathomed.

But, the intellectual connection being undoubted,
Mr. Agassiz properly refers the whole to " the agency
of Intellect as its first cause." In doing so, however,
he is not supposed to be offering a scientific explana-
tion of the phenomena. Evidently he is considering
only the ultimate ivhy, not the proximate why or how.

ISTow the latter is just what Mr. Darwin is consid-
ering. He conceives of a physical connection between
allied species ; but we suppose he does not deny their
intellectual connection, as related to a supreme intelli-
gence. Certainly we see no reason why he should,
and many reasons why he should not. Indeed, as we
contemplate the actual direction of investigation and
speculation in the physical and natm'al sciences, we
dimly apprehend a probable synthesis of these diver-
gent theories, and in it the ground for a strong stand
against mere naturalism. Even if the doctrine of the
origin of species through natuml selection should pre-
vail in our day, we shall not despair ; being confident

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 23

that the genius of an Agassiz will be found equal to the
work of constructing, upon the mental and material
foundations combined, a theory of N^ature as theistic
and as scientific as that which he has so eloquently
expounded.

To conceive the possibility of '' the descent of
species from species by insensibly fine gradations"
during a long course of time, and to demonstrate its
compatibility with a strictly theistic view of the uni-
verse, is one thing ; to substantiate the theory itself
or show its likelihood is quite another thing. This
brings us to consider what Darwin's theory actually
isj and how he supports it.

That the existing kinds of animals and plants, or
many of them, may be derived from other and earlier
kinds, in the lapse of time, is by no means a novel
proposition. I^ot to speak of ancient speculations of
the sort, it is the well-known Lamar ckian theory.
The first difficulty which such theories meet with is
that in the present age, with all its own and its inher-
ited prejudgments, the whole burden of proof is nat-
urally, and indeed properly, laid upon the shoulders
of the propounders ; and thus far the burden has been
more than they could bear. From the very nature of
the case, substantive proof of specific creation is not
attainable ; but that of derivation or transmutation of
species may be. He who affirms the latter view is
bound to do one or both of two things : 1. Either to
assign real and adequate causes, the natural or neces-
sary result of which must be to produce the present
diversity of species and their actual relations ; or, 2.
To show the general conformity of the whole body of

24 DARWINIANA.

facts to sucli assumption, and also to adduce instances
explicable by it and inexplicable by the received view,
so perhaps winning om- assent to the doctrine, through
its competency to harmonize all the facts, even though
the cause of the assumed variation remain as occult as
that of the transformation of tadpoles into frogs, or
that of Coryne into Sarzia.

The first line of proof, successfully carried out,
would establish derivation as a true physical theory ;
the second, as a sufficient hypothesis.

Lamarck mainly undertook the first line, in a
theory which has been so assailed by ridicule that it
rarely receives the credit for ability to which in its day
it was entitled. But he assigned partly unreal, partly
insufficient causes ; and the attemj)t to account for a
^progressive change in species through the direct in-
fluence of physical agencies, and through the appe-
tencies and habits of animals reacting upon their
structure, thus causing the production and the succes-
sive modification of organs, is a conceded and total
failure. The shadowy author of the " Yestiges of the
Natural History of Creation " can hardly be said to
have undertaken either line, in a scientific way. He
would explain the whole progressive evolution of ISTa-
ture by virtue of an inherent tendency to develop-
ment, thus giving us an idea or a word in place of a
natural cause, a restatement of the proposition instead
of an explanation. Mr. Darwin attempts both lines
of proof, and in a strictly, scientific spirit ; but the
stress falls mainly upon the first, for, as he does assign
real causes, he is bound to prove their adequacy.

It should be kept in mind that, while all du-ect

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 25

proof of independent origination is attainable from
the nature of tlie case, the overthrow of particular
schemes of derivation has not established the opposite
proposition. The futility of ' each hypothesis thus far
proposed to account for derivation may be made
apparent, or unanswerable objections may be urged
against it ; and each victory of the kind may render
derivation more improbable, and therefore specific
creation more probable, without settling the question
either way. New facts, or new arguments and a new
mode of viewing the question, may some day change
the whole aspect of the case. It is with the latter
that Mr. Darwin now reopens the discussion.

Havino; conceived the idea that varieties are in-
cipient species, he is led to study variation in the field
where it shows itself most strikingly, and affords the
greatest facilities to investigation. Thoughtful natu-
ralists have had increasing grounds to suspect that
a reexamination of the question of species in zoology
and botany, commencing with those races which man
knows most about, viz., the domesticated and culti-
vated races, would be likely somewhat to modify the
received idea of the entire fixity of species. This
field, rich with various but unsystematized stores of
knowledge accumulated by cultivators and breeders,
has been generally neglected by naturalists, because
these races are not in a state of nature ; whereas they
deserve particular attention on this very account, as
experiments, or the materials for experiments, ready
to our hand. In domestication we vary some of the
natural conditions of a species, and thus learn experi-
mentally what changes are within the reach of vary

26 DARWINIANA.

ing conditions in Xatni'e. TVe sejDarate and protect a
favorite race against its foes or its competitors, and
tbns learn what it miglit become if Katm^e ever afford-
ed it equal opportunities. Even when, to subserve
human uses, we modify a domesticated race to the
detriment of its native vigor, or to the extent of prac-
tical monstrosity, although we secure forms which
would not be originated and could not be pei^etuated
in free ISTature, yet we attain wider and juster views
of the possible degree of variation. "We perceive that
some species are more variable than others, but that
no species subjected to the experiment persistently
refuses to vary ; and that, when it has once begun to
vary, its varieties are not the less but the more sub-
ject to variation. "ISTo case is on record of a variable
being ceasing to be variable under cultivation." It
is fair to conclude, from the observation of plants and
animals in a wild as well as domesticated state, that
the tendency to vary is general, and even universal.
Mr. Darwin does " not believe that vaiiability is an
inherent and necessary contingency, under all circum-
stances, with all organic beings, as some authors have
thought." 1^0 one supposes variation could occur
under all circumstances ; but the facts on the whole ^
imply a universal tendency, ready to be manifested
under favorable circumstances. In reply to the
assumption that man has chosen for domestication
animals and plants having an extraordinary inherent
tendency to vary, and likewise to withstand diverse
climates, it is asked :

" How could a savage possibly know, when he first tamed
an animal, whether it would vary in succeeding generations,

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 27

and whether it would endure other climates? Has the little
variability of the ass or Guinea-fowl, or the small power of en-
durance of warmth by the reindeer, or of cold by the common
camel, prevented their domestication? I cannot doubt that if
other animals and plants, equal in number to our domesticated
productions, and belonging to equally diverse classes and coun-
tries, were taken from a state of nature, and could be made to
breed for an equal number of generations under domestication,
they would vary on an average as largely as the parent species
of our existing domesticated productions have varied."

As to amount of variation, there is the common
remark of naturalists that the varieties of domesti-
cated plants or animals often differ more widely than
do the individuals of distinct species in a wild state :
and even in l^ature the individuals of some species are
known to vary to a degree sensibly wider than that
which separates related species. In' his instructive
section on the breeds of the domestic pigeon, our au-
thor remarks that " at least a score of pigeons might
be chosen which if shown to an ornithologist, and he
were told that they were wild birds, would certainly
be ranked by him as well-defined species. Moreover,
I do not believe that any ornithologist would place
the English carrier, the short-faced tumbler, the runt,
the barb, pouter, and fantail, in the same genus ; more
especially as in each of these breeds several truly-
inherited sub-breeds, or species, as he might have
called them, could be shown him." That this is not
a case like that of dogs, in which probably the blood of
more than one species is mingled, Mr. Darwin proceeds
to show, adducing cogent reasons for the common
opinion that all have descended from the wild rock-
pigeon. Then follow some suggestive remarks :

28 DARWINIANA.

" I have discussed the probable origin of domestic pigeons
■at some, yet quite insufficient,- length ; because when I first T^ept
pigeons and watched the several kinds, knowing well how true
they bred, I felt fully as much difficulty in believing that they
could ever have descended from a common parent as any natu-
ralist could in coming to a similar conclusion in regard to many
species of finches, or other large groups of birds, in Nature.
One circumstance has struck me much ; namely, that all the
breeders of the various domestic animals and the cultivators of
j)lants, with whom I have ever conversed,, or whose treatises I
have read, are firmly convinced that the several breeds to which
each has attended are descended from so many aboriginally dis-
tinct species. Ask, as I have asked, a celebrated raiser of Here-
ford cattle, whether his cattle might not have descended from
long-horns, and he will laugh you to scorn. I have never met a
pigeon, or poultry, or duck, or rabbit fancier, who was not fully
convinced that each main breed was descended from a dis-
tinct species. Yan Mons, in his treatise on pears and apples,
shows how utterly he disbelieves that the several sorts, for in-
stance a Eibston-pippin or Codlin-apple, could ever have pro-
ceeded from the seeds of the same tree. Innumerable other
examples could be given. The explanation, I think, is simple:
from long-continued study they are strongly impressed with the
difierences between the several races ; and though they well
know that each race varies slightly, for they win their prizes by
selecting such slight differences, yet they ignore all general
arguments, and refuse to sum up in their minds slight diff*er-
ences accumulated during many successive generations. May
not those naturalists who, knowing far less of the laws of in-
heritance than does the breeder, and knowing no more than he
does of the intermediate links in the long lines of descent, yet
admit that many of our domestic races have descended from the
same parents — may they not learn a lesson of caution, when
they deride the idea of species in a state of nature being lineal
descendants of other species ? "

The actual causes of variation are unknown. Mr.
Darwin favors the opinion of tlie late Mr. Kniglit, the

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 29

great pliilosoplier of liorticulture, that variability under
domestication is somehow connected with excess of
food. He regards the unknown cause as acting chiefly
upon the reproductive system of the parents, which
system, judging from the effect of confinement or cul-
tivation upon its functions, he concludes to be more
susceptible than any other to the action of changed con-
ditions of life. The tendency to vary certainly appears
to be much stronger under domestication than in free
J^ature. But we are not sure that the greater variable-
ness of cultivated races is not mainly owing to the
far greater opportunities for manifestation and accu-
mulation— a view seemingly all the more favorable to
Mr. Darwin's theory. The actual amount of certain
changes, such as size or abundance of fruit, size of
udder, stands of course in obvious relation to supply
of food.

Really, we no more know the reason why the pro-
geny occasionally deviates from the parent than we do
why it usually resembles it. Though the laws and
conditions governing variation are known to a cer-
tain extent, those governing inheritance are appar-
ently inscrutable. " Perhaps," Darwin remarks, '^ the
correct way of viewing the whole subject would be, to
look at the inheritance of every character whatever as
the rule, and non-inheritance as the anomaly." This,
from general and obvious considerations, we have long
been accustomed to do. ]lS^ow, as exceptional instances
are expected to be capable of explanation, while ulti-
mate laws are not, it is quite possible that variation
may be accounted for, while the great primary law of
inheritance remains a mysterious fact.

30 DARWimANA.

The common proposition is, that sjyecies Teproduce
their like I this is a sort of general inference,, only a
degree closer to fact than the statement that genera
reproduce their like. The true proposition, the fact in-
capable of further analysis, is, that individuals repro-
duce their like — that characteristics are inheritable.
So varieties, or deviations, once originated, are perpetu-
able, like species. Not so likely to be perpetuated, at
the outset; for the new form tends to resemble a
grandparent and a long line of sunilar ancestors, as
well as to resemble its immediate progenitors. Two
forces which coincide in the ordinary case, where the
offspring resembles its parent, act in different direc-
tions when it does not and it is uncertain which will
prevail. If the remoter but very potent ancestral in-
fluence predominates, the variation disappears with
the life of the individual. If that of the immediate
j)arent — ^feebler no doubt, but closer — the variety sur-
vives in the offspring ; whose progeny now has a re-
doubled tendency to produce its own like ; whose pro-
geny again is almost sure to produce its like, since it
is much the same whether it takes after its mother or
its grandmother. .

In this way races arise, which under favorable con-
ditions may be as hereditary as species. In following
these indications, watching opportunities, and breed-
ing only from those, individuals which vaiy most in a
desirable direction, man leads the course of variation
as he leads a streamlet — apparently at will, but never
against the force of gravitation — to a long distance
from its source, and makes it more subservient to his
use or fancy. He unconsciously strengthens those

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 31

variations wliicli lie prizes when lie plants tlie seed of
a favorite fruit, preserves a favorite domestic animal,
drowns tlie uglier kittens of a litter, and allows only
the handsomest or the best mousers to propagate. Still
more, by methodical selection, in recent times almost
marvelous results have been produced in new breeds
of cattle, sheep, and poultry, and new varieties of fruit
of greater and greater size or excellence.

It is said that all domestic varieties, if left to run
wild, would revert to their aboriginal stocks. Proba-
bly they would wherever various races of one species
were left to commingle. At least the abnormal or
exaggerated characteristics induced by high feeding, or
high cultivation and prolonged close breeding, would
promptly disappear; and the surviving stock would
soon blend into a homogeneous result (in a way pres-
ently explained), which would naturally be taken for
the original form ; but we could seldom know if it
were so. It is by no means certain that the result
would be the same if the races ran wild each in a sepa-
rate region. Dr. Hooker doubts if there is a true re-
version in the case of plants. Mr. Darwin's observa-
tions rather favor it in the animal kingdom. With
mingled races reversion seems well made out in the
case of pigeons. The common opinion apon this sub-
ject therefore probably has some foundation. But
even if we regard varieties as oscillations around a
primitive centre or type, still it appears from the
readiness with which such varieties originate that a
certain amount of disturbance would carry them be-
yond the influence of the primordial attraction, where
they may become new centres of variation.

32 DARWINIANA.

Some suppose that races cannot be perpetuated
indefinitely even by keeping up the conditions mider
wliicli they were fixed; but the high antiquity of
several, and the actual fixity of many of them, nega-
tive this assumption. " To assert that we could not
breed our cart and race horses, long and short homed
cattle, and poultry of various breeds, for almost an
infinite number of generations, would be opposed to
all experience."

Why varieties develop so readily and deviate so
widely under domestication, while they are apparently
so rare or so transient in free Nature, may easily be
shown. In K"ature, even with hermaphrodite plants,
there is a vast amount of cross-fertilization among
various individuals of the same species. The inevi-
table result of this (as was long ago explained in this
Journal ^) is to repress variation, to keep the mass of
a species comparatively homogeneous over any area
in which it abounds in individuals. Starting from a
suggestion of the late Mr. Knight, now so familiar,
that close interbreeding diminishes vigor and fertili-
ty ;^ and perceiving that bisexuality is ever aimed at
in Nature — being attained physiologically in numer-
ous cases where it is not structm^ally — Mr. Darwin
has worked out the subject in detail, and shown how
general is the concurrence, either habitual or occasional,
of two hermaphrodite individuals in the reproduction
of their kind ; and has drawn the philosophical inf er-

1 Yolume xvii. (2), 1854, p. 13.

^ AVe suspect that this is not an ultimate fact, but a natural conse-
quence of inheritance — the inheritance of disease or of tendency to dis-
ease, which close interbreeding perpetuates and accumulates, but wide
breeding may neutralize or eliminate.

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 33

encG tliat probably no organic being self -fertilizes in-
definitely ; but tbat a cross witli another individual is
occasionally — perhaps at very long intervals — indis-
pensable. AYe refer the reader to the section on the
intercrossing of individuals (pp. 96-101), and also to an
article in the Gardeners^ Chronicle a year and a half
ago, for the details of a very interesting contribution
to science, irrespective of theory.

In domestication, this intercrossing may be pre-
vented ; and in this prevention lies the art of pro-
ducing varieties. But " the art itseK islSTatm-e," since
the whole art consists in allowing the most universal
of all natural tendencies in organic things (inheritance)
to operate uncontrolled by other and obviously inci-
dental tendencies. No new power, no artificial force,
is brought into play either by separating the stock of
a desirable variety so as to prevent mixture, or by
selecting for breeders those individuals which most
largely partake of the pecularities for which the breed
is valued.^

We see everywhere around us the remarkable
results which ]N"ature may be said to have brought
about under artificial selection and separation. Could
she accomplish similar results when left to herself ?
Variations might begin, we know they do begin, in a
wild state. But would any of them be preserved and
carried to an equal degree of deviation ? Is there any-
thing in l^ature which in the long-run may answer to

^ The rules and processes of breeders of animals, and their results,
are so familiar that they need not be particularized. Less is popularly
known about the production of vegetable races. We refer our readers
back to this Journal, vol. xxvii., pp. 440-442 (May, 1859), for an ab-
stract of the papers of M. Vilmorin upon this subject.

34 DARWimANA.

artificial selection? Mr. Darwin thinks that there is;
and Naticral Selection is the key-note of his discourse.

As a preliminary, he has a short chapter to show
that there is variation in IN^atui'e, and therefore some-
thing for natural selection to act upon. He readily
shows that such mere variations as may be directly
referred to physical conditions (like the depauperation
of plants in a sterile soil, or their dwarfing as they
approach an Alpine summit, the thicker fur of an ani-
mal from far northward, etc.), and also those indi-
vidual differences which we everywhere recognize but
do not pretend to account for, are not separable by any
assignable line from more strongly-marked varieties ;
likewise that there is no clear demarkation between
the latter and sub-species, or varieties of the higest grade
(distinguished from species not by any known incon-
stancy, but by the supposed lower importance of their
characteristics) ; nor between these and recognized
species. " These differences blend into each other in
an insensible series, and the series impresses the mind
with an idea of an actual passage."

This gradation from species downward is well made
out. To carry it one. step farther upward, our author
presents in a strong light the differences which prevail
among naturalists as to what forms should be admit-
ted to the rank of species. Some genera (and these
in some^ countries) give rise to far more discrepancy
than others; and it is concluded that the large or
dominant genera are usually the most variable. In a
flora so small as the British, 182 plants, generally
reckoned as varieties, have been ranked by some bot-
anists as species. Selecting the British genera which

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 35

include the most polymorphous forms, it appears that
Babington's Flora gives them 251 species, Bentham's
only 112, a difference of 139 doubtful forms. These
are nearly the extreme views, but they are the views of
two most capable and most experienced judges, in re-
spect to one of the best-known floras of the world. The
fact is suggestive, that the best-known countries fm'-
.nish the greatest number of such doubtful cases. Illus-
trations of this kind may be multiplied to a great ex-
tent. They make it plain that, whether species in
l!Tature are aboriginal and definite or not, our practical
conclusions about them, as embodied in systematic
works, are not facts but judgments, and largely fal-
lible judgments.

How much of the actual coincidence of authorities
is owing to imperfect or restricted observation, and
to one naturalist's adopting the conclusions of another
without independent observation, this is not the place
to consider. It is our impression that species of ani-
mals are more definitely marked than those of plants ;
this may arise from our somewhat extended acquaint-
ance with the latter, and our ignorance of the former.
But we are constrained by our experience to admit
the strong likelihood, in botany, that varieties on the
one hand, and what are called closely-related species
on the other, do not differ except in degree. When-
ever this wider difference separating the latter can be
spanned by intermediate forms, as it sometimes is, no
botanist long resists the inevitable conclusion. When-
ever, therefore, this wider difference can be shown to
be compatible with community of origin, and explained
through natural selection or in any other way, we are

36 DAEWINIANA.

ready to adopt tlie probable conclusion ; and we see
beforehand liow strikingly tlie actual geograpliical
association of related species favors tlie broader view.
Whetber we sbould continue to regard the forms in
question as distinct species, depends upon wbat mean-
ing we sliall finally attach to that term ; and that de-
pends upon how far the doctrine of derivation can be
carried back and how well it can be supported.

In applying his principle of natural selection to
the work in liand, Mr. Darwin assumes, as we have
seen : 1. Some variabihty of animals and plants in
nature ; 2. The absence of any definite distinction be-
tween slight variations, and varieties of the highest
grade ; 3. The fact that naturalists do not practically
agree, and do not increasingly tend to agree, as to what
forms are species and what are strong varieties, thus
rendering it probable that there may be no essential
and original difference, or no possibility of ascertain-
ing it, at least in many cases ; also, 4. That the most
flourishing and dominant species of the larger genera
on an average vary most (a proposition which can be
substantiated only by extensive comparisons, the de-
tails of which are not given) ; and, 5. That in large
genera the species are apt to be closely but unecjually
allied together, forming little clusters round certain
species — ^just such clusters as would be formed if we
suppose their members once to have been satellites or
varieties of a central or parent species, but to have
attained at length a wider divergence and a specific
character. The fact of such association is undeniable ;
and the use w^hich Mr. Darwin makes of it seems fair
and natural.

TEE OBIGIN OF SPECIES. 37

The gist of Mr. Darwin's work is to sliow tliat
sucli varieties are gradually diverged into species
and genera tlirougli natural selection 1 tliat natm'al
selection is the inevitable result of the struggle for
existence which all living things are engaged in ; and
that this struggle is an unavoidable consequence of
several natural causes, but mainly of the high rate at
which all organic beings tend to increase.

Cui'iously enough, Mr. Darwin's theory is grounded
upon the doctrine of Malthus and the doctrine of
Hobbes. The elder DeCandolle had conceived the
idea of the struggle for existence, and, in a passage
which would have delighted the cynical philosopher
of Malmesbury, had declared that all ISTature is at war,
one organism with another or with external ISTature ;
and Lyell and Herbert had made considerable use of
it. But Hobbes in his theory of society, and Darwin
in his theory of natural history, alone have built their
systems upon it. However moralists and political
economists may regard these doctrines in their original
application to human society and the relation of popu-
lation to subsistence, their thorough applicability to
the great society of the organic world in general is
now undeniable. And to Mr. Darwin belon^'s the
credit of making this extended application, and of
working out the immensely diversified results with
rare sagacity and untiring patience. He has brought
to view real causes which have been largely operative
in the establishment of the actual association and geo-
graphical distribution of plants and animals. In this
he must be allowed to have made a very important
contribution to an interesting department of science,

38 DARWINIANA.

even if his theory fails in the endeavor to explain the
origin or diversity of species.

"Nothing is easier," says our author, "than to admit in
words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more diffi-
cult— at least I have found it so — than constantly to bear this
conclusion in mind. Yet, unless it be thoroughly ingrained in
the mind, I am convinced that the whole economy of Nature,
with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction,
and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. We
behold the face of Nature bright with gladness, we often see
superabundance of food ; we do not see, or we forget, that the
birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or
seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life; or we forget how
largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are de-
stroyed by birds and beasts of prey; we do not always bear in
mind that, though food may be now superabundant, it is not so
at all seasons of each recurring year." — (p. 62.)

"There is no exception to the rule tliat every organic being
naturally increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the
earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair.
Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and
at this rate, in a few thousand years, there would literally not
be standing-room for his progeny. Linnaeus has calculated that
if an annual plant produced only two seeds — and there is no
plant so unproductive as this — and their seedlings next year pro-
duced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a
million plants. The elephant is reckoned to be the slow^est
breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to
estimate its probable minimum rate of natural increase ; it will
be under the mark to assume that it breeds when thirty years
old, and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth
three pairs of young in this interval ; if this be so, at the end of
the fifth century there would be alive fifteen million elephants,
descended from the first pair.

" But we have better evidence on this subject than mere
theoretical calculations, namely, the numerous recorded cases of
the astonishingly rapid increase of various animals in a state of

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.. 39

nature, "when circumstances have been favorable to tbem dur-
ing two or three following seasons. Still more striking is the
evidence from our domestic animals of many kinds which have
run wild in several parts of the world ; if the statements of the
rate of increase of slow-breeding cattle and horses in South
America, and latterly in Australia, had not been well authenti-
cated, they would have been quite incredible. So it is with plants :
cases could be given of introduced plants which have become
common throughout whole islands in a period of less than ten
years. Several of the plants now most numerous over the wide
plains of La Plata, clothing square leagues of surface almost to
the exclusion of all other plants, have been introduced from
Europe ; and there are plants which now range in India, as I
hear from Dr. Falconer, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya,
which have been imported from America since its discovery.
In such cases, and endless instances could be given, no one sup-
poses that the fertility of these animals or plants has been sud-
denly and temporarily increased in any sensible degree. The
obvious explanation is, that the conditions of life have been very
favorable, and that there has consequently been less destruction
of the old and young, and that nearly all the young have been
enabled to breed. In such cases the geometrical ratio of in-
crease, the result of which never fails to be surprising, simply
explains the extraordinarily rapid increase and wide diffusion of
naturalized productions in their new homes." — (pp. 64, Go.)

"All plants and animals are tending to increase at a geo-
metrical ratio; all would most rapidly stock any station in
which they could anyhow exist ; the increase must be checked
by destruction at some period of life." — (p. 65.)

The difference between tlie most and the least pro-
lific species is of no account :

" The condor lays a couple of eggs, and the ostrich a score;
and yet in the same country the condor may be the more numer-
ous of the two. The Fulmar petrel lays but one Qgg^ yet it is
believed to be the most numerous bird in the world." — (p. 68.)

*' The amount of food gives the extreme limit to which each

40 DARWmiARA.

«

species can increase ; but very frequently it is not the obtaining
of food, but the serving as prey to other animals, which de-
termines the average numbers of species." — (p. 68.)

" Climate plays an important part in determining the average
numbers of a species, and periodical seasons of extreme cold or
drought I believe to be the most effective of all checks. I
estimated that the winter of 1854-'55 destroyed four-fifths of
the birds in my own grounds; and this is a tremendous destruc-
tion, when we remember that ten per cent, is an extraordinarily
severe mortality from epidemics with man. The action of
climate seems at first sight to be quite independent of the
struggle for existence ; but, in so far as climate chiefly acts in
reducing food, it brings on the most severe struggle between the
individuals, whether of the same or of distinct species, which
subsist on the same kind of food. Even when climate, for in-
stance extreme cold, acts directly, it will be the least vigorous,
or those which have got least food through the advancing winter,
which will suffer most. When we travel from south to north,
or from a damp region to a dry, we invariably see some species
gradually getting rarer and rarer, and finally disappearing ; and,
the change of climate being conspicuous, we are tempted to at-
tribute the whole effect to its direct action. But this is a very
false view ; we forget that each species, even where it most
abounds, is constantly suffering enormous destruction at some
period of its life, from enemies or from competitors for the same
place and food; and if these enemies or competitors be in the
least degree favored by any slight change of climate, they will
increase in numbers, and, as each area is already stocked with
inhabitants, the other species will decrease. "When we travel
southward and see a species decreasing in numbers, we may feel
sure that the cause lies quite as much in other species being
favored as in this one being hurt. So it is when we travel
northward, but in a somewhat lesser degree, for the number oi
species of all kinds, and therefore of competitors, decreases
northward; hence, in going northward, or in ascending a
mountain, we far oftener meet with stunted forms, due to the
directly injurious action of climate, than we do in proceeding

THE ORiam OF SPECIES. 41

southward or in descending a mountain. "When we reach the
arctic regions, or snow-capped summits, or absolute deserts, the
struggle for life is almost exclusively with the elements.

"That climate acts in main part indirectly by favoring other
species, we may clearly see in the prodigious number of plants
in our gardens which can perfectly well endure our climate, but
which never become naturalized, for they cannot compete with
our native plants, nor resist destruction by our native animals."
—(pp. 68, 69.)

After an instructive instance in wliich " cattle ab-
solutely determine the existence of tlie Scotch fir,"
we are referred to cases in which insects determine the
existence of cattle :

" Perhaps Paraguay offers the most curious instance of this;
for here neither cattle, nor horses, nor dogs, have ever run
wild, though they swarm southward and northward in. a feral
state; and Azara and Eengger have shown that this is caused
by the greater number in Paraguay of a certain fly, which lays
its eggs in the navels of these animals when first born. The in-
crease of these flies, numerous as they are, must be habitually
checked by some means, probably by birds. Hence, if certain
insectivorous birds (whose numbers are probably regulated by
hawks or beasts of prey) were to increase in Paraguay, the flies
would decrease — then cattle and horses would become feral,
and this would certainly greatly alter (as indeed I have observed
in parts of South America) the vegetation ; this, again, would,
largely affect the insects ; and this, as we have just seen in
Staffordshire, the insectivorous birds, and so onward in ever-
increasing circles of complexity. "We began this series by in-
sectivorous birds, and we had ended with them. ISTot that in
Nature the relations can ever be as simple as this. Battle within
battle must ever be recurring with varying success ; and yet in
the long-run the forces are so nicely balanced that the face of
Nature remains uniform for long periods of time, though as-
suredly the merest trifle would often give " the victory to one
organic being over another. Nevertheless, so profound is our

42 DARWINIANA.

ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when
we hear of the extinction of an organic being ; and as we do not
see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or
invent laws on the duration of the forms of life!"— (pp. 72, 73.)
" When we look at the plants and bushes clothing an en-
tangled bank, we are tempted to attribute their proportional
numbers and kinds to what we call chance. But how false a
view is this ! Every one has heard that when an American
forest is cut down, a very diiferent vegetation springs up ; but
it has been observed that the trees now growing on the ancient
Indian mounds, in the Southern United States, display the same
beautiful diversity and proportion of kinds as in the surround-
ing virgin forests. What a struggle between the several kinds
of trees must here have gone on during long centuries, each
annually scattering its seeds by the thousand; what war be-
tween insect and insect — between insects, snails, and other
animals, with birds and beasts of prey — all striving to increase,
and all feeding on each other or on the trees, or their seeds and
seedlings, or on the other plants which first clothed the ground
and thus checked the growth of the trees ! Throw up a hand-
ful of feathers, and all must fall to the ground according
to definite laws ; but how simple is this problem compared
to the action and reaction of the innumerable plants and ani-
mals which have determined, in the course of centuries, the
proportional numbers and kinds of trees now growing on the
old Indian ruins ! " — (pp. 74, 75.)

. For reasons obvious upon reflection, tlie competi-
tion is often, if not generally, most severe betwen
nearly related species when they are in contact, so
that one drives the other before it, as the Hanoverian
the old English rat, the small Asiatic cockroach in
Russia, its greater congener, etc. And this, when duly
considered, explains many curious results ; such, for
instance, as the considerable number of different gen-
era of plants and animals which are generally found
to inhabit any limited area.

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 43

"The truth of the principle that the greatest amount of life
can be supported by great diversification of structure is seen
under many natural circumstances. In an extremely small area,
especially if freely open to immigration, and where the contest
between individual and individual must be severe, we always
find great diversity in its inhabitants. For instance, I found
that a piece of turf, three feet by four in size, which had been
exposed for many years to exactly the same conditions, sup-
ported twenty species of plants, and these belonged to eighteen
genera, and to eight orders, which showed how much these
plants differed from each other. So it is with the plants and
insects on small and uniform islets ; and so in small ponds of
fresh water. Farmers find that they can raise most food by a
rotation of plants belonging to the most difi'erent orders ; Nature
follows what may be called a simultaneous rotation. Most of
the animals and plants which live close round any small piece of
ground could live on it (supposing it not to be in any way pe-
culiar in its nature), and may be said to be striving to the utmost
to live there ; but it is seen that, where they come into the
closest competition with each other, the advantages of diversi-
fication of structure, with the accompanying difierences of habit
and constitution, determine that the inhabitants, which thus
jostle each other most closely, shall, as a general rule, belong to
what we call different genera and orders." — (p. 114.)

The abundance of some forms, tlie rarity and final
extinction of many others, and the consequent diver-
gence of character or increase of difference among the
surviving representatives, are other consequences. As
favored forms increase, the less favored must dimin-
ish in number, for there is not room for all ; and the
slightest advantage, at first probably inappreciable to
human observation, must decide which shall prevail
and which must perish, or be driven to another and
for it more favorable locality.

We cannot do justice to the interesting chapter

44 DARWINIANA.

upon natural selection by separated extracts. The
following must serve to sliow how the principle is sup-
posed to work :

" If during the long course of ages, and under varying condi-
tions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of
their organization, and 1 think this cannot be disputed ; if there
be, owing to the high geometrical powers of increase of each
species, at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life,
and this certainly cannot be disputed : then, considering the
infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each
other and to their conditions of existence, causing an infinite di-
versity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous
to them, I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no
variation ever had occurred useful to each being's own welfare,
in the same way as so many variations have occurred useful to
man. But if variations useful to any organic being do occur,
assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best
chance of being preserved in the struggle for life ; and from the
strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce off-
spring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation
I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection." — (pp.
126, 127.)

" In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selec-
tion acts, I must beg permission to give one or two imaginary
illustrations. Let us take the case of a wolf, which preys on
various animals, securing some by craft, some by strength, and
some by fleetness ; and let us suppose that the fleetest prey, a
deer for instance, had from any change in the country increased
in numbers, or that other prey had decreased in numbers,
during that season of the year when the wolf is hardest pressed
for food. I can under such circumstances see no reason to
doubt that the swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the
best chance of surviving, and so be preserved or selected — pro-
vided always that they retained strength to master their prey
at this or at some other period of the year, when they might be
compelled to prey on other animals. I can see no more reason
to doubt this than that man can improve the fleetness of his

TEE OEIGm OF SPECIES. 45

greyhounds by careful and methodical selection, or by that un-
conscious selection which results from each man trying to keep
the best dogs without any thought of modifying the breed.

"Even without any change in the proportional numbers of
the animals on which our wolf preyed, a cub might be born
with an innate tendency to pursue certain kinds of prey. Nor
can this be thought very improbable; for we often observe
great differences in the natural tendencies of our domestic ani-
mals: one cat, for instance, taking to catching rats, another
mice ; one cat, according to llr. St. John, bringing home winged
game, another hares or rabbits, and another hunting on marshy
ground, and almost nightly catching woodcocks or snipes. The
tendency to catch rats rather than mice is known to be inher-
ited. Now, if any slight innate change of habit or of structure
benefited an individual wolf, it would have the best chance of
surviving and of leaving offspring. Some of its young would
probably inherit the same habits or structure, and by the repe-
tition of this process a new variety might be formed which-
would either supplant or coexist with the parent-form of wolf.
Or, again, the wolves inhabiting a mountainous district, and
those frequenting the lowlands, would naturally be forced to hunt
different prey ; and from a continued preservation of the indi-
viduals best fitted for the two sites, two varieties might slowly
be formed. These varieties would cross and blend where tliey
met; but to this subject of intercrossing we shall soon have to
return. I may add that, according to Mr. Pierce, there are two
varieties of the wolf inhabiting the Catskill Mountains in the
United States, one with a light greyhound-like form, which pur-
sues deer, and the other more bulky, with shorter legs, which
more frequently attacks the shepherd's flock." — (pp. 90, 91.)

We eke out tlie illustration here with a counterpart
instance, yiz., the remark of Dr. Bachman that " the
deer that reside permanently in the swamps of Caro-
lina are taller and longer-legged than those in the
higher grounds." ^

* " Quadrupeds of America," vol. ii., p. 239.
3

46 DARWINIAITA.

The limits allotted to this article are nearly reached,
jet only four of the fourteen chapters of the volume
have been touched. These, however, contain the
fundamental principles of the theory, and most of
those applications of it which are capable of something
like verij6.cation, relating as they do to the phenomena
now occurring. Some of our extracts also show how
these principles are thought to have operated through
the long lapse of the ages. * The chapters from the
sixth to the ninth inclusive are designed to obviate
difficulties and objections, " some of them so grave
that to tliis day," the author frankly says, he " can
never reflect on them without being staggered." We
do not wonder at it. After drawing what comfort
he can from " the imperfection of the geological rec-
ord " (Chapter IX.), which we suspect is scarcely exag-
gerated, the author considers the geological succession
of organic beings (Chapter X.), to see whether they bet-
ter accord with the common view of the immutability
of species, or with that of their slow and gradual
modification. Geologists must settle that question.
Then follow two most interesting and able chapters
on the geographical distribution of plants and animals,
the summary of which we should be glad to cite ; then
a fitting chapter upon classification, morphology, em-
bryology, etc., as viewed in the light of this theory,
closes the argument ; the fourteenth chapter being a
recapitulation.

The interest for the general reader heightens as the
author advances on his perilous way and grapples
manfully with the most formidable difficulties.

To account, upon these principles, for the gradual

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 47

elimiDation and segregation of nearly allied forms —
such as varieties, sub-species, and closely-related or rep-
resentative species — also in a general way for their geo-
graphical association and present range, is compara-
tively easy, is apparently within the bounds of possi-
bility. Could we stop here we should be fairly con-
tented. But, to complete the system, to carry out the
principles to their ultimate conclusion, and to explain
by them many facts in geographical distribution which
would still remain anomalous, Mr. Darwin is equally
bound to account for the formation of genera, families,
orders, and even classes, by natural selection. He
does " not doubt that the theory of descent with
modification embraces all the members of the same
class," and he concedes that analogy would press the
conclusion still further ; while he admits that " the
more distinct the forms are, the more the arguments
fall away in force." To command assent we natu-
rally require decreasing probability to be overbalanced
by an increased weight of evidence. An opponent
might plausibly, and perhaps quite fairly, urge that
the links in the chain of argument are weakest just
where the greatest stress falls upon them.

To which Mr. Darwin's answer is, that the best
parts of the testimony have been lost. He is confi-
dent that intermediate forms must have existed ; that
in the olden times when the genera, the families, and
the orders, diverged from their parent stocks, grada-
tions existed as fine as those which now connect close-
ly related species with varieties. But they have passed
and left no sign. The geological record, even if all
displayed to view, is a boot from which not only many

48 DARWmiAITA.

pages^ but even wliole alternate chapters, have been
lost out, or rather which were never j^rinted from the
autographs of ]S'ature. The record was actually made
in fossil lithography only at certain times and under
certain conditions (i. e., at periods of slow subsidence
and places of abundant sediment) ; and of these rec-
ords all but the last volume is out of print ; and of
its pages only local glimpses have been obtained.
Geologists, except Lyell, will object to this — some of
them moderately, others with vehemence. Mr. Dar-
win himself admits, with a candor rarely displayed on
such occasions, that he should have expected more
geological evidence of transition than he finds, and
that all the most eminent paleontologists maintain
the immutability of species.

The general fact, however, that the fossil fauna of
each period as a whole is nearly intermediate in charac-
ter between the preceding and the succeeding faunas,
is much relied on. "We are brought one step nearer to
the desired inference by the similar " fact^ insisted on
by all paleontologists, that fossils from two consecu-
tive formations are far more closely related to each
other than are the fossils of two remote formations.
Pictet gives a well-known instance — the general re-
semblance of the organic remains from the several
stages of the chalk formation, though the species are
distinct at each stage. This fact alone, from its gen-
erality, seems to have shaken Prof. Pictet in his
firm belief in the immutability of species " (p. 335).
What Mr. Darwin now particularly wants to complete
his inferential evidence is a proof that the same grada-
tion may be traced in later periods, say in the Tertiary,

THE ORIGm OF SPECIES. 40

and between that period and tlie present; also tliat
the later gradations are finer, so as to leave it doubt-
ful whether the succession is one of species — believed
on the one theory to be independent, on the other,
derivative — or of varieties, which are confessedly deriv-
ative. The proof of the finer gradation appears to
be forthcoming. Des Hayes and Lyell have concluded
that many of the middle Tertiary and a large pro-
portion of the later Tertiary mollusca are specifically
identical with living species; and this is still the
almost universally prevalent view. But Mr. Agassiz
states that, " in every instance where he had sufiicient
materials, he had found that the species of the two
epochs supposed to be identical by Des Hayes and
Lyell were in reality distinct, although closely allied
species." ^ Moreover, he is now satisfied, as we under-
stand, that the same gradation is traceable not merely
in each great division of the Tertiary, but in particular
deposits or successive beds, each answering to a great
number of years; where what have passed unques-
tioned as members of one species, upon closer examma-
tion of numerous specimens exhibit difi'erences which
in his opinion entitle them to be distinguished into
two, three, or more species. It is plain, therefore, that
whatever conclusions can be fairly drawn from the
present animal and vegetable kingdoms in favor of a
gradation of varieties into species, or into what may
be regarded as such, the same may be extended to the
Tertiary period. In both cases, what some call species
others call varieties ; and in the later Tertiary shells

* " Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,"
vol. iv., p. 178.

50 LAEWINIAITA.

this difference in judgment affects almost half of the
species !

"We pass to a second difficulty in the way of Mr.
Darwin's theory ; to a case where we are perhaps en-
titled to demand of him evidence of gradation like
that which connects the present with the Tertiary mol-
lusca. Wide, very wide is the gap, anatomically and
physiologically (we do not speak of the intellectual)
between the highest quadrumana and man ; and com-
paratively^ recent, if ever, must the line have bifur-
cated. But where is there the slightest evidence of a
common progenitor? Perhaps Mr. Darwin would
reply by another question: where are the fossil re-
mains of the men who made the flint knives and arrow-
heads of the Somme Yalley ?

We have a third objection, one, fortunately, which
has nothing to do with geology. "We can only state it
here in brief terms. The chapter on hybridism is
most ingenious, able, and instructive. If sterility of
crosses is a special original arrangement to prevent the
confusion of species by mingling, as is generally as-
sumed, then, since varieties cross readily and their
offspring is fertile inter se, there is a fundamental dis-
tinction between varieties and species. Mr. Darwin
therefore labors to show that it is not a special endow-
ment, but an incidental acquirement. He does show
that the sterility of crosses is of all degrees; upon
which we have only to say, Natura nonfacit saltiim,^
here any more than elsewhere. But, upon his theory
he is bound to show how sterility might be acquired,
through natural selection or through something else.
And the difficulty is, that, whereas individuals of the

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 51

very same blood tend to be sterile, and somewhat re-
moter unions diminisb this tendency, and when they
have diverged into two varieties the cross-breeds be-
tween the two are more fertile than cither pure stock
— yet when they have diverged only one degree more
the whole tendency is reversed, and the mongrel is ster-
ile, either absolutely or relatively. He who explains
the genesis of species through purely natural agencies
should assign a natural cause for this remarkable result ;
and this Mr. Darwin has not done. "Whether original or
derived, however, this arrangement to keep apart those
forms which have, or have acquired (as the case may
be), a certain moderate amount of difference, looks to
us as much designed for the purpose, as does a ratchet
to prevent reverse motion in a wheel. If species have
originated by divergence, this keeps them apart.

Here let us suggest a possibly attainable test of the
theory of derivation, a kind of instance which Mr.
Darwin may be fairly asked to produce — viz., an in-
stance of two varieties, or what may be assumed as-
such, which have diverged enough to reverse the move-
ment, to bring out some sterility in the crosses. The
best marked human races might offer the most likely
case. If mulattoes are sterile or tend to sterility, as
some naturalists confidently assert, they afford Mr.
Darwin a case in point. If, as others think, no such
tendency is made out, the required evidence is want-
ino*

A fourth and the most formidable difficulty is that
of the production and specialization of organs.

It is well said that all organic beings have been
formed on two great laws : unity of type, and adap-

52 DARWINIANA.

tation to the conditions of existence. ^ Tlie special
teleologists, sncli as Palej, occupy themselves with,
the latter only ; they refer particular facts to special
design, but leave ^an overwhehning array of the widest
facts inexjDlicable. The morphologists build on unity
of type, or that fundamental agreement in the struct-
ure of each great class of beings which is quite inde-
pendent of their habits or oonditions of life ; which
requires each individual '•' to go through a certain for-
mality," and to accept, at least for a time, certain or-
gans, whether they are of any use to him or not.
Philosophical minds form various conceptions for har-
monizing the two views theoretically. Mr. Darwin
harmonizes and explains them naturally. Adaptation
to the conditions of existence is the result of natural
selection ; unity of type, of unity of descent-. Accord-
ingly, as he puts his theory, he is bound to account for
the origination of new organs, and for their diversity
in each great type, for their specialization, and every
adaptation, of organ to function and of structure to
condition, through natural agencies. Whenever he
attempts this he reminds us of Lamarck, and shows
us how little light the science of a century devoted to
structural investigation has thrown upon the mystery
of organization. Here purely natural explanations
fail. The organs being given, natural selection may
account for some improvement ; if given of a variety
of sorts or grades, natural selection might determine
which should survive and where it should prevail.
On all this ground the only line for the theory to

^ Owen adds a third, viz., vegetative repetition ; but this, in the
vegetable kingdom, is simply unity of type.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. no

Ou

take is to make the most of gradation and adlierence
to type as suggestive of derivation, and nnaccountable
upon any other scientific ^dew — deferring all attempts
to explain how suck a metamorphosis was effected,
until naturalists have explained how the tadpole is
metamorphosed into a frog, or one sort of polyp into
another. As to why it is so, the philosophy of effi-
cient cause, and even the whole argument from design,
"would stand, upon the admission of such a theory of
derivation, precisely where they stand without it. At
least there is, or need be, no ground of difference here
between Darwin and Agassiz. The latter will admit,
with Owen and every moi3)hologist, that hopeless is
the attempt to explain the similarity of pattern in
members of the same class by utility or the doctrine
of final causes. " On the ordinary view of the inde-
pendent creation of each being, we can only say that
so it is, that it has so pleased the Creator to construct
each animal and plant." Mr. Darwin, in proposing a
theory which suggests a how that harmonizes these facts
into a system, we trust implies that all was done wise-
ly, in the largest sense designedly, and by an intelli-
gent first cause. The contemplation of the subject on
the intellectual side, the amplest exposition of the
unity of plan in creation, considered irrespective of
natural agencies, leads to no other conclusion.

We are thus, at last, brought to the question. What
would happen if the derivation of species were to be
substantiated, either as a true physical theory, or as a
sufficient hypothesis ? What would come of it ? The
inquiry is a pertinent one, just now. For, of those who
agr^ with us in thinking that Darwin has not estab-

54 DARWimANA.

lislied his tlieoiy of derivation many will admit with
ns that he has rendered a theory of derivation much
less improbable than before ; that such a theory chimes
in with the established doctrines of physical science,
and is not unlikely to be largely accepted long before
it can be proved. Moreover, the various notions that
prevail — equally among the most and the least religious
— as to the relations between natural agencies or phe-
nomena and efficient cause, are seemingly more crude,
obscure, and discordant, than they need be.

It is not surprising that the doctrine of the book
should be denounced as atheistical. "What does sur-
prise and concern us is, that it should be so denounced
by a scientific man, on the broad assumption that a
material connection between the members of a series
of organized beings is inconsistent with the idea of
their being intellectually connected with one another
through the Deity, i. e., as products of one mind, as
indicating and realizing a preconceived plan. An as-
sumption the rebound of which is somewhat fearful to
contemplate, but fortunately one which every natural
birth protests against.

It would be more correct to say that the theory in
itself is perfectly compatible with an atheistic view of
the imiverse. That is true ; but it is equally true of
physical theories generally. Indeed, it is more true
of the theory of gravitation, and of the nebular hy-
pothesis, than of the h}q)othesis in qviestion. The latter
merely takes up a particidar, proxhnate cause, or set
of such causes, from which, it is argued, the present
diversity of species has or may have contingently re-
sulted. The author does not say necessa/inly resulted ;

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 55

tliat the actual results in mode and measure, and none
other, must have taken place. On the other hand, the
theory of gravitation and its extension in the nebular
hypothesis assume a universal and %iltimate physical
cause, from which the effects in JSTatm-e must necessa-
rily have resulted, l^ow, it is not thought, at least at
the present day, that the establishment of the E'ew-
tonian theory was a step toward atheism or pantheism.
Yet the great achievement of Newton consisted in
proving that certain forces (blind forces, so far as the
theory is concerned), acting upon matter in certain
directions, must necessarily produce planetary orbits
of the exact measure and form in which observation
shows them to exist — a view which is just as consistent
with eternal necessity, either in the atheistic or the
pantheistic form, as it is with theism.

IN'or is the theory of derivation particularly exj)osed
to the charge of the atheism of fortuity ; since it mi-
dertakes to assign real causes for harmonious and sys-
tematic results. But, of this, a word at the close.

The value of such objections to the tlieory of deri-
vation may be tested by one or two analogous cases.
The common scientific as well as popular belief is that
of the original, independent creation of oxygen and
hydrogen, iron, gold, and the like. Is the speculative
opinion now increasingly held, that some or all of the
supposed elementary bodies are derivative or com-
pound, developed from some preceding forms of mat-
ter, irreligious 1 Were the old alchemists atheists as
well as dreamers in their attempts to transmute earth
into gold ? Or, to take an instance from force (power)
— which stands one step nearer to efficient cause .than

56 DARWIN'IAAU.^

form — was tlie attempt to prove that heat, light, elec-
tricity, magnetism, and even mechanical power, are
variations or transmutations of one force, atheistical
in its tendency ? The supj^osed establishment of this
view is reckoned as one of the greatest scientific tri-
Tunphs of this centmy.

Perhaps, however, the objection is brought, not so
much against the speculation itself, as against the
attempt to show how derivation might have been
brought about. Then the same objection applies to a
recent ingenious h}^3othesis made to account for. the
genesis of the chemical elements out of the ethereal
medium,^ and to explain their several atomic weights
and some other characteristics by their successive com-
plexity— hydrogen consisting of so many atoms of ethe-
real substance united in a particular order, and so on.
The speculation interested the philosophers of the Brit-
ish Association, and was thought innocent, but unsup-
ported by facts. Sm-ely Mr. Darwin's theory is none
the worse, morally, for having some foundation in fact.

In our opinion, then, it is far easier to vindicate
a theistic character for the derivative theory, than to
establish the theory itself upon adequate scientific evi-
dence. Perhaps scarcely any philosophical objection
can be urged against the former to which the nebular
hypothesis is not equally exposed. Yet the nebular
hypothesis fi.nds general scientific acceptance, and is
adopted as the basis of an extended and recondite illus-
tration in Mr. Agassiz's great work.^

How the author of this book harmonizes his scien-
tific theory with his philosophy and theology, he has

^ " Contributions to Natural History of America," vol. i., pp. 127-131.

THE ORIGIN- OF SPECIE^. 57

not informed us. Paley in his celebrated analogy witli
the watch, insists that if the timepiece were so con-
structed as to produce other similar watches, after a
manner of generation in animals, the argument from
design ^would be all the stronger. What is to hinder
Mr. Darwin from giving Paley's argument a further
a-fortiori extension to the supposed case of a watch
which sometimes produces better watches, and contriv-
ances adapted to successive conditions, and so at length
turns out a chronometer, a town clock, or a series of
organisms of the same type ? From certain incidental
expressions at the close of the volume, taken in con-
nection with the motto adopted from "Whewell, we
judge it probable that our author regards the whole
sj^stem of Nature as one which had received at its first
formation the impress of the will of its Author, fore-
seeing the varied yet necessary laws of its action
throughout the whole of its existence, ordaining when
and how each particular of the stupendous plan should
be realized in effect, and — with Him to whom to will
is to do — in ordaining doing it. Whether profoundly
philosophical or not, a view maintained by eminent
philosophical physicists and theologians, such as Bab-
bage on the one hand and Jowett on the other, will
hardly be denounced as atheism. Perhaps Mr. Dar-
win would prefer to express his idea in a more general
way, by adopting . the thoughtful words of one of the
most eminent naturalists of this or any age, substitut-
ing the word action for "thought," since it is the
former (from which alone i:he latter can be inferred)
that he has been considering, " Taking IsTature as ex-
hibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me that

58 DARWimANA,

while limnan tlionglit is consecutive. Divine thought
is simultaneous, embracing at the same time and for-
ever, in the past, the present and the future, the most
diversified relations among hundred's of thousands of
organized beings, each of which may present compli-
cations again, which to study and understand even
imperfectly — as for instance man himself — mankind
has already spent thousands of years." ^ In thus con-
ceiving of the Divine Power in act as coetaneous with
Divine Thought, and of both as far as may be apart
from the human element of time, our author may re-
gard the intervention of the Creator either as, humanly
speaking, done from all time, or else as doing through
all time. In the ultimate analysis we suppose that
every philosophical theist must adopt one or the other
conception.

A perversion of the first view leads toward athe-
ism, the notion of an eternal sequence of cause and
eff'ect, for which there is no first cause — a view w^hich
few sane persons can long rest in. The danger which
may threaten the second view is pantheism. We feel
safe from either error, in our profound conviction
that there is order in the universe ; that order pre-
supposes mind ; design, will ; and mind or will, per-
sonality. Thus guarded, we much prefer the second
of the two conceptions of causation, as the more phil-
osophical as well as Christian view — a view which
leaves us w^ith the same difiiculties and the same mys-
teries in ^Nature as in Providence, and no other. ITat-
ural law, upon this view, is the human conception of
continued and orderly Divine action.

» Op, cit, p. 130.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 59

We do not suppose that less power, or otlier power,
is required to sustain tlie universe and carry on its
operations, than to bring it into being. So, while
conceiying no improbability of " interventions of Cre-
ative mind in ISTature," if by such is meant the bring-
ing to pass of new and fitting events at fitting times,
we leave it for profounder minds to establish, if thej
can, a rational distinction in kind between his work-
ing in K^ature carrying on operations, and in initiating
those operations.

We wished, mider the light of such views, to ex-
amine more critically the doctrine of this book, espe-
cially of some questionable parts; for instance, its
explanation of the natural development of organs,
and its implication of a " necessary acquirement of
mental power" in the ascending scale of gradation.
But there is room only for the general declaration
that we cannot think the Cosmos a series which began
with chaos and ends with mind, or of which mind is
a result : that, if, by the successive origination of spe-
cies and organs through natural agencies, the author
means a series of events which succeed each other
irrespective of a continued directing intelligence —
events which mind does not order and shape to des-
tined ends — then he has not established that doctrine,
nor advanced toward its establishment, but has accu-
mulated improbabilities beyond all belief. Take the
formation and the origination of the successive degrees
of complexity of eyes as a specimen. The treatment
of this subject (pp. 188, 189), upon one interpretation,
is open to all the objections referred to ; but, if, on
the other hand, we may rightly compare the eye " to

60 DARWINIANA.

a telescope, perfected by tlie long-continued efforts of
the highest human intellects," we could carry out the
analogy, and draw satisfactory illustrations and infer-
ences from it. The essential, the directly intellectual
thing is the making of the improvements in the tele-
scope or the steam-engine. "Whether the successive
improvements, being small at each step, and consist-
ent with the general type of the instrument, are ap-
phed to some of the individual machines, or entire
new machines are constructed for each, is a minor
matter. Though, if machines could engender, the
adaptive method would be most economical ; and
economy is said to be a paramount law in Xature.
The origination of the improvements, and the suc-
cessive adaptations to meet new conditions or subserve
other ends, are what answer to the supernatural, and
therefore remain inexplicable. As to bringing them
into use, though wisdom foresees the result, the cir-
cumstances and the natural competition will take care
of that, in the long-run. The old ones will go out of
use fast enough, except where an old and simple ma-
chine remains still best adapted to a particular pur-
pose or condition — as, for instance, the old Newcomen
engine for pumping out coal-pits. If there's a Divin-
ity that shapes these . ends, the whole is intelligible
and reasonable ; otherwise, not.

We regret that the necessity of discussing philo-
sophical questions has prevented a fuller examination
of the theory itseK, and of the interesting scientific
points which are brought to bear in its favor. One
of its neatest points, certainly a very strong one for
the local origination of species, and their gradual diffu-

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Gl

sion under natural agencies, we must reserve for some
other convenient opportunity.

The work is a scientific one, rigidly restricted to
its direct object ; and by its science it must stand or
fall. Its aim is, probably, not to deny creative inter-
vention in Xature — for the admission of the inde-
pendent origination of certain types does away 'with
all antecedent improbability of as much intervention
as may be required — but to maintain that I^atural
Selection, in explaining the facts, explains also many
classes of facts which thousand-fold repeated inde-
pendent acts of creation do not explain, but leave
more mysterious than ever. How far the author has
succeeded, the scientific world will in due time be able
to pronounce.

As these sheets are passing through the press, a
copy of the second edition has reached us. "We no-
tice with pleasure the insertion of an additional motto
on the reverse of the title-page, directly claiming the
theistic view which we have vindicated for the doc-
trine. Indeed, these pertinent words of the eminently
wise Bishop Butler comprise, in their simplest ex-
.pression, the whole substance of our later pages :

" The only distinct meaning of the word ' natural ' is stated^
Jixed^ or settled ; since what is natural as much requires and
presupposes an intelligent mind to render it so, i. e., to effect it
continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or mi-
raculous does to effect it for once."

11.

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. — DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO
READERS OF DARWIn's TREATISE ON THE ORIGIN OF
SPECIES, UPON ITS NATURAL THEOLOGY.

(Ameeican Jotjrnal of Science and Aets, September, 1S60.)

D. T. — Is Darwin's theory atheistic or pantheistic?
or, does it tend to atheism or pantheism ? Eefore at-
tempting any solution of this question, permit me to
say a few words tending to obtain a definite concep-
tion of necessity and design^ as the sources from which
events may originate, each independent of the other ;
and we shall, perhaps, best attain a clear understand-
ing of each, by the illustration of an example in which
simple human designers act upon the physical powers
of common matter.

Suppose, then, a square billiard-table to be placed
with its corners directed to the four cardinal points.
Suppose a player, standing at the north corner, to
strike a red ball directly to the south, his design being
to lodge the ball in the south pocket ; which design, if
not interfered with, must, of course be accomplished.
Then suj)pose another player, standing at the east
corner, to direct a white ball to the west comer. This
design also, if not interfered with, must be accom-
plished. Next suppose both players to strike their

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 63

balls at the same instant, with, like forces, in the direc-
tions before given. In this case the balls would not
pass as before, namely, the red ball to the south, and
the white ball to the west, but they must both meet
and strike each other in the centre of the table, and,
being perfectly elastic, the red ball must pass to the
west pocket, and the white ball to the south pocket.
"We may suppose that the players acted wholly with-
out concert with each other, indeed, they may be
ignorant of each other's design, or even of each
other's existence ; still we know that the events must
happen as herein described. Now, the iirst half of
the course of these two balls is from an impulse, or
proceeds from a power, acting from design. Each
player has the design of driving his ball across the
table in a diagonal line to accomplish its lodgment at
the opposite corner of the table. Neither designed
that his ball should be deflected from that course and
pass to another corner of the table. The direction of
this second part of the motion must be referred en-
tirely to necessity^ which directly interferes with the
pui'pose of him who designed the rectilinear direction.
We are not, in this case, to go back to find design in
the creation of the powers or laws of inertia and
elasticity, after the order of which the deflection, at
the instant of collision, necessarily takes place. We
know that these powers were inherent in the balls,
and were not created to answer this special deflection.
We are required, by the hypothesis, to confine atten-
tion in point of time, from the instant preceding the
impact of the balls, to the time of their arrival at the
opposite corners of the table. The cues are moved

64: DARWINIANA.

by design. The impacts are acts from design. The
first half of the motion of each ball is under the
direction of design. AYe mean by this the particular
design of each player. But, at the instant of the col-
lision of the balls upon each other, direction from
design ceases, and the balls no longer obey the par-
ticular designs of the j^layers, the ends or purposes
intended by them are not accomplished, but frustrated,
by necessity, or by the necessary action of the powers
of inertia and elasticity, which are inherent in matter,
and are not made by any design of a Creator for this
special action, or to serve this special purpose, but
would have existed in the materials of which the balls
were made, although the players had never been
born.

I have thus stated, by a simple example in physi-
cal action, what is meant by design and what by ne-
cessity ; and that the latter may exist without any
dependence upon the former. If I have given the
statem.ent with what may be thought, by some, un-
necessary prolixity, I have only to say that I have
found many minds to have a great difficulty in con-
ceiving of necessity as acting altogether independent
of design.

Let me now trace these principles as sources of
action in Darwin's work or theory. Let us see how
much there is of design acting to produce a foreseen
end, and thus proving a reasoning and self-conscious
Creator ; and how much of mere blind power acting
without rational design, or without a specific purpose
or conscious foresight. Mr. Darwin has specified in a
most clear and unmistakable manner the operation of

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. C5

his three great powers, or rather, the three great laws
by which the organic power of life acts in the forma-
tion of an eye. {See p. 169.) Following the method
he has pointed out, we will take a miihber of animals
of the same species, in which the eye is not developed.
They may have all the other senses, with the organs
of nutrition, circulation, respiration, and locomotion.
They all have a brain and nerves, and some of these
nerves may be sensitive to light; but have no com-
bination of retina, membranes, humors, etc., by which
the distinct image of an object may be formed and
conveyed by the optic nerve to the cognizance of the
internal perception, or the mind. The animal in this
case would be merely sensible of the difference be-
tween light and darkness. He would have no power
of discriminating form, size, shape, or color, the dif-
ference of objects, and to gain from these a knowledge
of their being useful or hurtful, friends or enemies.
Up to this point there is no appearance of necessity
upon the scene. The billiard-balls have not yet
struck together, and we will suppose that none of
the arguments that may be used to prove, from this
organism, thus existing, that it could not have come
into form and being without a creator acting to this
end with intelligence and design, are opposed by any-
thing that can be found in Darwin's theory ; for, so
far, Darwin's laws are supposed not to have come
into operation. Give the animals, thus organized,
food and room, and they may go on, from genera-
tion to generation, upon the same organic level.
Those individuals that, from natural variation, are
born with ligTit-nerves a little more sensitive to light

60 DARWmiANA.

tlian tlieir parents, will cross or interbreed witli those
who have the same organs a little less sensitive, and
thus the mean standard will be kept up without any
advancement. If our billiard-table were sufficiently
extensive, i. e., infinite, the balls rolled from the cor-
ners would never meet, and the necessity v^hioh^Q
have supposed to deflect them would never act.

The moment, however, that the want of space or
food commences natural selection begins. Here the
balls meet, and all future action is governed by neces-
sity. The best forms, or those nerves most sensitive
to light, connected with incipient membranes and hu-
mors for corneas and lenses, are picked out and pre-
served by natural selection, of necessity. All cannot
live and propagate, and it is a necessity, obvious to all,
that the weaker must perish, if the theory be true.
Working on, in this way, through countless genera-
tions, the eye is at last formed in all its beauty and
excellence. It must (always assuming that this the-
ory is true) result from this combined action of
natural variation, the struggle for life, and natural
selection, with as much certainty as the balls, after
collision, must pass to corners of the table different
from those to which they were directed, and so far
forth as the eye is formed by these laws, acting up-
ward from the nerve merely sensitive to light, we can
no more infer design, and from design a designer,
than we can infer design in the direction of the bil-
liard-balls after the collision. Both are sufficiently
accounted for by blind powers acting under a blind
necessity. Take away the struggle for life from the
one, and the collision of the balls from the other — and

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. G7

neither of tliese was designed — and tlie animal would
have gone on without eyes. The balls would have
found the corners of the table to which they were first
directed.

AYhilCj therefore, it seems to, me clear that one who
can find no proof of the existence of an intelligent
Creator except through the evidence of design in the
organic world, can find no evidence of such design in
the construction of the eye, if it were constructed un-
der the operation of Darwin's laws, I shall not for
one moment contend that these laws are InGOTYipatiMe
with design and a seK-conscious, intelligent Creator.
Such design might, indeed, have coexisted with the
necessity or natural selection ; and so the billiard-play-
ers might have designed the collision of their balls ;
but neither the formation of the eye, nor the path of
the balls after collision, furnishes any sufficient proof
of such design in either case.

One, indeed, who believes, from revelation or any
other cause, in the existence of such a Creator, the foun-
tain and source of all things in heaven above and in the
earth beneath, will see in natural variation, the strug-
gle for life, and natural selection, only the order or
mode in which this Creator, in his own perfect wis-
dom, sees fit to act. Happy is he who can thus see
and adore. But how many are there who have no
such belief from intuition, or faith in revelation ; but
who have by careful and elaborate search in the phys-*
ical, and more especially in the organic world, in-
ferred, by induction, the existence of God from what
has seemed to them the wonderful adaptation of the
different organs and parts of the animal body to its,

G8 DARWINIAN-A.

apparently, designed ends ! Imagine a mind of this
skeptical character, in all honesty and under its best
reason, after finding itself obliged to reject the evi-
dence of revelation, to commence a search after the
Creator, in the light of natural theology. He goes
through the proof for final cause and design, as given
in a summary though clear, plain, and convincing form,
in the pages of Paley and the " Bridgewater Treatises."
The eye and the hand, those perfect instruments of
optical and mechanical contrivance and adaptation,
without the least waste or surj)lusage — these, say
Paley and Bell, certainly prove a designing maker as
much as the palace or the watch proves an architect or
a watchmaker. Let this mind, in this state, cross Dar-
win's work, and find that, after a sensitive nerve or a
rudimentary hoof or claw, no design is to be found.
From this j)oint upward the development is the mere
necessary result of natural selection ; and let him re-
ceive this law of natural selection as true, and where
does he find himself ? Before, he could refer the exist-
ence of the eye, for example, only to design, or chance.
There was no other alternative. He rejected chance,
as impossible. It must then be a design. But Dar-
win brings up another power, namely, natural selec-
tion, in place of this impossible chance. This not
only may, but, according to Darwin, must of necessity
produce an eye. It may indeed coexist with design,
but it must exist and act and produce its results, even
without design. Will such a mind, under such circum-
stances, infer the existence of the designer — God-
when he can, at the same time, satisfactorily account for
the thing produced, by the operation of this natural se-

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. G9

lection ? It seems to me, therefore, perfectly evident
that the substitution of natural selection, by necessity,
for design in the formation of the' organic world, is a
step decidedly atheistical. It is in vain to say that
Darwin takes the creation of organic life, in its sim-
plest forms, to have been the work of the Deity. In
giving up design in these highest and most complex
forms of organization, which have always been relied
upon as the crowning proof of the existence of an in-
telligent Creator, without whose intellectual power
they could not have been brought into being, he takes
a most decided step to banish a belief in the intelligent
action of God from the organic world. The lower or-
ganisms will go next.

The atheist will sav, Wait a little. Some future
Darwin will show how the simple forms came neces-
sarily from inorganic matter. This is but another
step by which, according to Laplace, " the discoveries
of science throw final causes further back."

A. G. — It is conceded that, if the two players in
the supposed case were ignorant of each other's pres-
ence, the designs of both were frustrated, and from
necessity. Thus far it is not needful to inquire w^heth-
er this necessary consequence is an unconditional or a
conditioned necessity, nor to require a more definite
statement of the meaning attached to the word neces-
sity as a supposed third alternative.

But, if the players knew of each other's presence,

we could not infer from the result that the design of

both or of either was frustrated. One of them may

have intended to frustrate the other's design, and to
4

70 DARWINIANA.

effect his own. Or both may have been equally con-
versant with the properties of the matter and the
relation of the forces concerned (whatever the cause,
origin, or nature, of these forces and properties), and
the result may have been according to the designs of
both.

As you admit that they might or might not have
designed the collision of their balls and its conse-
quences, the question arises whether there is any way
of ascertaining which of the two conceptions we may
form about it is the true one. ]^ow, let it be re-
marked that design can never be demonstrated, Wit-
nessing the act does not make known the design, as we
have seen in the case assumed for the basis of the argu-
ment. The word of the actor is not proof; and that
source of evidence is excluded from the cases in ques-
tion. The only way left, and the only possible way in
cases where testimony is out of the question, is to infer
th§ design from the result, or from arrangements which
strike us as ada])ted or intended to produce a certain
result, which affords a presumption of design. The
strength of this presumption may be zero, or an even
chance, as perhaps it is in the assumed case ; but the
probability of design will increase with the particu-
larity of the act, the specialty of the arrangement or
machinery, and with the number of identical or yet
more of similar and analogous instances, until it rises
to a moral certainty — i. e., to a conviction which prac-
tically we are as unable to resist as we are to deny the
cogency of a mathematical demonstration. A single
instance, or set of instances, of a comparatively simple
arrangement -might suffice. For instance, we should

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 71

not doubt that a pump was designed to raise water "by
the moving of the handle. Of course, the conviction
is the stronger, or at least the sooner arrived at, where
we can imitate the arrangement, and ourselves produce
the result at will, as we could with a pump, and also
with the billiard-balls.

And here I would suggest that your billiard-table,
with the case of collision, answers well to a machine.
In both a result is produced by indirection — by apply-
ing a force out of line of the ultimate direction. And,
as I should feel as confident that a man intended to
raise water who was working a pump-handle, as if he
were bringing it up in pailfuls from below by means
of a ladder, so, after due examination of the billiard-
table and its appurtenances, I should probably think
it likely that the effect of the rebound was expected
and intended no less than that of the immediate im-
pulse. And a similar inspection of arrangements and
results in E^ature would raise at least an equal pre-
sumption of design.

You allow that the rebound might have been in-
tended, but you require proof that it was. ' We agree
that a single such instance affords no evidence either
way. But how would it be if you saw the men doing
the same thing over and over ? and if they varied it
by other arrangements of the balls or of the blow, and
these were followed by analogous results? How if
you at length discovered a profitable end of the opera-
tion, say the winning of a wager ? So in the coun-
terpart case of natural selection : must we not infer
intention from the arrangements and the results?
But I will take another case of the xerj same sort.

72 • DARWINIANA.

tliongli simpler, and better adapted to illustrate natural
selection ; because the change of direction — ^jour ne-
cessity— acts gradually or successively, instead of ab-
ruptly.

Suppose I bit a man standing obliquely in my rear,
by throwing forward a crooked stick, called a boome-
rang. How could he know whether the blow was in-
tentional or not ? But suppose I had been known to
throw boomerangs before ; suppose that, on different
occasions, I had before wounded persons by the same,
or other indirect and apparently aimless actions ; and
suppose that an object appeared to be gained in the
result — that definite ends were attained — would it
not at length be inferred that my assault, though indi-
rect, or apparently indirect, was designed ?

To make the case more nearly parallel with those
it is brought to illustrate, you have only to suppose
that, although the boomerang thrown by me went for-
ward to a definite place, and at least appeared to sub-
serve a purpose, and the bystanders, after a while,
could get traces of the mode or the empirical law of its
flight, yet they could not themselves do anything with
it. It was quite beyond their power to use it. Would
they doubt, or deny ^ny intention, on that account ?
Ko : they would insist that design on my part must
be presumed from the nature of the results; that,
though design may have been wanting in any one case,
yet the repetition of the result, and from different
positions and under varied circumstances, showed that
there must have been design.

Moreover, in the way your case is stated, it seems
to concede the most important half of the question.

DESIGN VERSUS HEGESSITY, 73

and so affords a presumption for tlie rest, on tlie side
of design. For you seem to assume an actor, a design-
er, accomplishing his design in the first instance. You
— a bystander — infer that the player effected his de-
sign in sending the first ball to the pocket before him.
You infer this from observation alone. Must you not
from a continuance of the same observation equally
infer a common design of the two players in the com-
plex result, or a design of one of them to frustrate the
design of the other ? . If you grant a designing actor,
the presumption of design is as strong, or upon con-
tinued observation of instances soon becomes as strong,
in regard to the deflection of the balls, or variation of
the species, as it was for the result of the first impulse
or for the production of the original animal, etc.
■ But, in the case to be illustrated, we do not see the
player. We see only the movement of the balls.
]^ow, if the contrivances and adaptations referred to
(p. 229) really do " prove a designer as much as the
palace or the watch proves an architect or a watch-
maker " — as Paley and Bell argue, and as your skeptic
admits, while the alternative is between design and
chance — then they prove it with all the proof the case
is susceptible of, and with complete conviction. For
we cannot doubt that the watch had a watchmaker.
And if they prove it on the supposition that the unseen
operator acted immediately — i. e., that the player di-
rectly impelled the balls in the directions we see them
moving, I insist that this proof is not impaired by our
ascertaining that he acted medlatehj — i. e., that the
present state or form of the plants or animals, like
the present position of the billiard-balls, resulted from

74: DARWIFIANA.

the collision of the iDdividuals with one another, or
with the surroundings. The original impulse, which
we once supposed was in the line of the observed moYe-
ment, only proves to have been in a different direc-
tion ; but the series of movements took place with a
series of results, each and all of them none the less
determined, none the less designed.

"Wherefore, when, at the close, you quote Laplace,
that " the discoveries of science throw final causes far-
ther back," the most you can mean is, that they con-
strain us to look farther back for the impulse. They
do not at all throw the argument for design farther
back, in the sense of furnishing evidence or presump-
tion that only the primary impulse was designed, and
that all the rest followed from chance or necessity.

Evidence of design, I think you will allow, every-
where is drawn from the observation of adaptations
and of results, and has really nothing to do with any-
thing else, except where you can take the wo7xl for the
will. And in that case you have not argument for
design^ but testimony. In ISTature we have no testi-
mony ; but the argument is overwhelming.

Ilow, note that the argument of the olden time — that
of Paley, etc., which your skeptic found so convincing —
was always the argument for design in the movement
of the balls after deflection. For it was drawn from
animals produced by generation, not by creation, and
through a long succession of generations or deflections.
Wherefore, if the argument for design is perfect in the
case of an animal derived from a long succession of
individuals as nearly alike as offspring is generally like
parents and grandparents, and if this argument is not

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 75

weakened when a variation, or series or variations, has
occurred in the course, as great as any variations we
know of among domestic cattle, how then is it weak-
ened by the supposition, or by the likelihood, that the
variations have been twice or thrice as great as we for-
merly supposed, or because the variations have been
" picked out," and a few of them preserved as breeders
of still other variations, by natural selection ?

Finally let it be noted that your element of neoessity
has to do, so far as we know, only with the picking out
and preserving of certain changing forms, i. e., with the
natural selection. This selection, you may say, must
happen under the circumstances. This is a necessary
result of the collision of the balls ; and these results can
be predicted. If the balls strike so and so, they will
be deflected so and so. But the variation itself is of
the nature of an origination. It answers well to the
original impulse of the balls, or to a series of such
impulses. We cannot predict what particular new
variation will occur from any observation of the past.
Just as the first impulse was given to the balls at a
point out of sight, so the inpulse which resulted in the
variety or new form was given at a point beyond ob-
servation, and is equally mysterious or unaccountable,
except on the supposition of an ordaining will. The
parent had not the peculiarity of the variety, the pro-
geny has. Between the two is the dim or obscure region
of the formation of a new individual, in some unknown
part of which, and in some w^holly unknown w^ay, the
difference is intercalated. To introduce necessity here
is gratuitous and unscientific ; but here you must have
it to make your argument valid.

76 DARWINIANA.

I agree that, judging from tlie past, it is not im-
probable that variation itself may be hereafter shown
to resnlt from physical causes. When it is so shown,
yon may extend your necessity into this region, but
not till then. Bnt the whole course of scientific dis-
covery goes to assure us that the discovery of the
cause of variation will be only a resolution of varia-
tion into two factors : one, the immediate secondary
cause of the changes, which so far explains them ; the
other, an unresolved or unexplained phenomenon,
which will then stand just where the product, varia-
tion, stands now, only that it will be one step nearer
to the efficient cause.

This line of argument appears to me so convincing,
that I am bound to suppose that it does not meet your
case. Although you introduced players to illustrate
what design is, it is probable that you did not intend,
and would not accept, the parallel which your supposed
case suggested. When you declare that the proof
of design in the eye and the hand, as given by Paley
and Bell, was convincing, you meaUj of coui'se, that
it was convincing, so long as the question was between
design and chance, but that now another alternative is
offered, one which obviates the force of those argu-
ments, and may account for the actual results without
design. I -do not clearly apprehend this third alter-
native.

Will you be so good, then, as to state the grounds
upon which you conclude tliat the supposed proof of
design from the eye, or the hand, as it stood before
Darwin's theory was promulgated, would be invali-
dated by the admission of this new theory ?

DESIGN VEItSUS NECESSITY. 77

D. T. — As I have ever found you, in controversy,
meeting the array of yonr opponent fairly and directly
without any attempt to strike the body of his argument
through an unguarded joint in the phraseology, I was
somewhat surprised at the course taken in your answer
to my statement on Darwin's theory. You there seem
to suppose that I instanced the action of the billiard
balls and players as a parallel, throughout, to the for-
mation of the organic world. Had it occurred to me
that such an application might be supposed to follow
legitimately from my introduction of this action, I
should certainly have stated that I did not intend, and
should by no means accede to, that construction. My
purpose in bringing the billiard-table upon the scene
was to illustrate, by example, design and necessity^ as
different and independent sources from which results,
it might indeed be identical results, may be derived.
All the conclusions, therefore, that you have arrived
at through this misconception or misapplication of my
illustration, I cannot take as an answer to the matter
stated or intended to be stated by me. Again, follow-
ing this misconception, you suppose the skeptic (in-
stanced by me as revealing through the evidence of
design, exhibited in the structure of the eye, for its
designer, God) as bringing to the examination a belief
in the existence of design in the construction of the
animals as they existed up to the moment when the
eye was, according to my supposition, added to the
heart, stomach, brain, etc. By skeptic I, of course,
intended one who doubted the existence of design in
every organic structure, or at least required proof of
such design. Kow, as the watch may be instanced as a

78 DARWINIANA.

more complete exliibition of design than a flint knife
or an hom'-glass, I selected, after the example of Paley,
the eye, as exhibiting by its complex but harmonious
arrangements a higher evidence of design and a de-
signer than is to be f oimd in a nerve sensitive to light,
or any mere rudimentary part or organ. I could not
mean by skeptic one who believed in design so far as
a claw, or a nerve sensitive to light, was concerned, but
doubted all above. For one who believes in design at
all will not fail to recognize it in a hand or an eye.
But I need not extend these remarks, as you acknowl-
edge in the sequel to your argument that you may not
have suited it to the case as I had stated it.

You now request me to " state the grounds upon
which I conclude that the supposed proof of design
from the eye and the hand, as it stood before Darwin's
theory was promulgated, is invalidated by the admis-
sion of that theory." It seems to me that a sufficient
answer to this question has already been made in the
last part of my former paper ; but, as you request it,
I will go over the leading points as there given, with
more minuteness of detail.

Let us, then, suppose a skeptic, one who is yet con-
sidering and doubting of the existence of God, having
already concluded that the testimony from any and all
revelation is insufficient, and having rejected what is
called the a priori arguments brought forward in nat-
ural theology, and pertinaciously insisted uj)on by Dr.
Clark and others, turning as a last resource to the argu-
ment from design in the organic world. Yoltaire tells
him that a palace could not exist without an architect to
design it. Dr. Paley tells him that a watch proves the

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY, 79

design of a watclimaker. He thinks this very reason-
able, and, although he sees a difference between the
works of ]^ature and those of mere human art, yet if he
can find in any organic body, or part of a body, the
same adaptation to its use that he finds in a watch, this
truth will go very far toward proving, if it is not en-
tirely conclusive, that, in making it, the powers of life by
wdiich it grew were directed by an intelligent, reason-
ing master. Under the guidance of Paley he takes an
eye, which, although an optical, and not a mechanical
instrument like the watch, is as well adapted to testify
to design. He sees, first, that the eye is transparent
when every other part of the body is opaque. Was
this the result of a mere Epicurean or Lucretian " for-
tuitous concourse " of living " atoms ? " He is not yet
certain it might not be so. Next he sees that it is
spherical, and that this convex form alone is capable
of changing the direction of the light which proceeds
from a distant bodv, and of collectinoj it so as to form
a distinct image within its globe. ^^Text he sees at the
exact place where this image must be formed a curtain
of nerve-work, ready to receive and convey it, or excite
from it, in its own mysterious way, an idea of it in the
mind. Last of all, he comes to the crystalline lens.
Now, he has before learned that without this lens an
eye would by the aqueous and vitreous humors alone
form an image upon the retina, but this image would
be indistinct from the light not being sufiiciently
refracted, and likewise from having a colored fringe
round its edges. This last eSect is attributable to the
refrangibility of hght, that is, to some of the colors
being more refracted than others. He likewise knows

80 DARWmiANA.

that more tlien a hundred years ago Mr. DoUond hav-
ing found out, after many experiments, that some kinds
of glass have the power of dispersing light, for each de-
gree of its refraction, much more than other kinds, and
that on the discovery of this fact he contrived to make
telescopes in which he passed the light through two
object-glasses successively, one of which he made of
crown and one of flint glass, so ground and adapted to
each other that the greater dispersion produced by the
substance of one should be corrected by the smaller dis-
persion of the other. This contrivance corrected entire-
ly the colored images which had rendered all previous
telescopes very imperfect. He finds in this invention
all the elements of design, as it appeared in the thought
and action of a human designer. First, conjecture of
certain laws or facts in optics. Then, experiment
proving these laws or facts. Then, the contrivance
and formation of an instrument by which those laws or
facts must produce a certain sought result.

Thus enlightened, our skeptic tm^ns to his crystal-
line lens to see if he can discover the work of a
DoUond in this. Here he finds that an eye, having a
crystalline lens placed between the humors, not only
refracts the lio;ht more than it would be refracted bv
the humors alone, but that, in this combination of
humors and lens, the colors are as completely corrected
as in the combination of Dollond's telescope. Can it
be that there was no design, no designer, directing the
powers of life in the formation of this wonderful
organ ? Our skeptic is aware that, in the arts of man,
great aid has been, sometimes, given by chance, that
is, by the artist or workman observing some fortuitous

DESiaiT VERSUS NECESSITY. 81

combination, form, or action, around liim. lie has
heard it said that the chance arrangement of two pairs
of spectacles, in the shop of a Dutch optician, gave the
direction for constructing the first telescope. Possibly,
in time, say a few geological ages, it might in some
optician's shop have brought about a combination of
flint and crown glass which, together, should have been
achromatic. But the space between the humors of the
eye is not an optician's shop where object-glasses of all
kinds, shapes, and sizes, are placed by chance, in all
manner of relations and positions. On the hypothesis
under which our skeptic is making his examination —
the eye having been completed in all but the formation
of the lens — the place which the lens occupies when
completed was filled with parts of the humors and
plane membrane, homogeneous in texture and surface,
presenting, therefore, neither the variety of the mate-
rials nor forms which are contained in the optician's
shop for chance to make its combinations with. How,
then, could it be cast of a combination not before used,
and fashioned to a shape different from that before
known, and placed in exact combination wdth all the
parts before enumerated, with many others not even
mentioned ? He sees no parallelism of condition, then,
by which chance could act in forming a crystalline
lens, which answers to the condition of an optician's
shop, where it might be possible in many ages for
chance to combine existino: forms into an achromatic
object-glass.

Considering, therefore, the eje, thus completed and
placed in its bony case and provided with its muscles,
its lids, its tear-ducts, and all its other elaborate and

82 DARWINIANA.

curious appendages, and, a tliousand times more won-
derful still, without being encumbered with a single
superfluous or useless part, can tie say that this could
be the work of chance ? The miprobabilitj of this is
so great, and consequently the evidence of design is so
strong, that he is about to seal his verdict in favor of
design, when he opens Mr. Darwin's book.

There he finds that an eye is no more than a vital
aggregation or growth, directed, not by design nor
chance, but moulded by natural variation and natural
selection, through which it must, necessarily, have been
developed and formed. Particles or atoms being ag-
gregated by the blind powers of life, must become
under the given conditions, by natural variation and
natural selection, eyes, without design, as certainly as
the red billiard-ball went to the west pocket, by the
powers of inertia and elasticity, without the design of
the hand that put it in motion. [See Darwin, p. 169.)

Let us lay before our skeptic the way in which we
may suppose that Darwin would trace the operation
of life, or the vital force conforming to these laws.
In doing this we need not go through with the forma-
tion of the several membranes, humors, etc., but take
the crystalline lens as the most curious and nicely ar-
ranged and adapted of all the parts, and as giving,
moreover, a close parallel, in the end produced, to that
produced by design, by a human designer, Dollond,
in forming his achromatic object-glass.' If it can be
shown that natural variation and natural selection
were capable of forming the crystalline lens, it will
not be denied that they were- capable of forming the
iris, the sclerotica, the aqueous humors, or any and all

LESION VERSUS NECESSITY. 83

the otlier parts. Suppose, tlieii, that we have a num-
ber of animalsj with eyes yet wanting the crystalline.
In this state the animals can see, but dimly and im-
perfectly, as a man sees after having been couched.
Some of the offspring of these animals have, by nat-
ural variation^ merely a portion of the membrane
which separates the aqueous from the vitreous humor
a little thickened in its middle part, a little swelled
out. This refracts the light a little more than it would
be refracted by a membrane in which no such swell-
ing existed, and not only so, but, in combination with
the humors, it corrects the errors of dispersion and
makes the image somewhat more colorless. All the
young animals that have this swelled membrane see
more distinctly than their parents or brethren. They,
therefore, have an advantage over them in the struggle
for life. They can obtain food more easily ; can find
their prey, and escape from their enemies with great-
er facility than their kindred. This thickening and
rounding of the membrane goes on from generation
to generation by natural variation; natural selection
all the while "picking out with unerring skill all the
improvements, through countless generations," until,
at length it is found that the membrane has become a
perfect crystalline lens. ISTow, where is the design in
all this ? The membrane was not thickened and round-
ed to the end that the image should be more distinct
and colorless ; but, being thickened and rounded by
the operation of natural variation, inherent in genera-
tion, natural selection of necessity produced the result
that we have seen. The same result was thus pro-
duced of necessity.) in the eye, that Dollond came at,

84: DARWmiANA.

in the telescope, with design, through painful guessing,
reasoning, exj)erimenting, and forming.

Suppose our skeptic to believe in all this power of
natural selection ; will he now seal up his verdict for
design, with the same confidence that he would be-
fore he heard of Darwin ? If not, then " the supposed
proof from design is invalidated bv Darwin's theory."

A. G. — ^Waiving incidental points and looking only
to the gist of the question, I remark that the argu-
ment for design as against chance, in the formation of
the eye, is most convincingly stated in your argument.
Upon this and uj)on numerous similar arguments the
whole question we are discussing turns. So, if the
skeptic was about to seal his verdict in favor of design,,
and a designer, when Darwin's book apj^eared, why
should his verdict now be changed or withheld ? All
the facts about the eye, which convinced him that the
organ was designed, remain just as they were. His
conviction was not produced through testimony or eye-
witness, but design was irresistibly inferred from the
evidence of contrivance in the eye itself.

ITow, if the eye as it is,' or has become, so convin-
cingly argued design, why not each particular step or
part of this result ? If the -production af a perfect
crystalline lens in the eye — you know not how — as
much indicated design as did the production of a Dol-
•lond achromatic lens — you understand how — then why
does not " the swelling out " of a particular portion of
the membrane behind the iris — caused you know not
how — which, by '^ correcting the errors of dispersion
and making the image somewhat more colorless,"

DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. -85

enabled the "young animals to see more distinctly
than their parents or brethren," equally indicate design
— if not as much as a perfect crystalline, or a Dollond
compound lens, yet as much as a common spectacle-
glass ?

Darwin only assures you that what you may have
thought was done directly and at once was done in-
directly and successively. But you freely admit that
indirection and succession do not invalidate design,
and also that Paley and all the natural theologians
drew the arguments which convinced your skeptic
wholly from eyes indirectly or naturally produced.

Recall a woman of a past generation and show her
a web of cloth ; ask her how it was made, and she will
say that the wool or cotton was carded, spun, and
woven by hand. When you tell her it was not made
by manual labor, that probably no hand has touched
the materials throughout the process, it is possible
that she might at first regard your statement as tan-
tamount to the assertion that the cloth was made
without design. If she did, she would not credit
your statement. If you patiently explained to her
the theory of carding -machines, spinning - jennies,
and power-looms, would her reception of your ex-
planation weaken her conviction that the cloth was
the result of design ? It is certain that she would
believe in design as firmly as before, and that this
belief would be attended by a higher conception and
reverent admiration of a wisdom, skill, and power •
greatly beyond anything she had previously conceived
possible.

Wherefore, we may insist that, for all that yet

86 LAEWINIANA.

ap|)earSj the argument for design, as presented by tlie
natural theologians, is just as good now^ if we accept
Darwin's theory, as it was before that theory was pro-
mulgated ; and that the skeptical juryman, who was
about to join the other eleven in a unanimous ver-
dict in favor of design, finds no good excuse for keep-
ing the court longer waiting/

\} To parry an adversary's thrust at a vulnerable part, or to show
that it need not be fatal, is an incomplete defense. If the discussion
had gone on, it might, perhaps, have been made to appear that the
Darwinian hypothesis, so far from involving the idea of necessity
(except in the sense that everything is of necessity), was based upon the
opposite idea, that of contingency.]

III.

NATURAL SELECTION NOT INCONSISTENT WITH NATCEAL

THEOLOGY.

Atlantic Monthly fob July^ August, and October, 1860, eepkinted in 1861.

I.

!N"ovELTiES are enticing to most people; to ns tliey
are simply annoying. We cling to a long-accepted
theory, just as we cling to an old suit of clothes. A
new theory, like a new pair of breeches (the Atlantio
still affects the older type of nether garment), is sure
to have hard-fitting places ; or, even when no particu-
lar fault can be found with the article, it oppresses
with a sense of general discomfort, l^ew notions and
new styles worry us, till we get well used to them,
which is. only by slow degrees.

Wherefore, in Galileo's time, we might have
helped to proscribe, or to burn — had he been stub-
born enough to warrant cremation — even the great
pioneer of inductive research; although, when we
had fairly recovered our composure, and had leisurely
excogitated the matter, we might have come to con-
clude that the new doctrine was better than the old
one, after all, at least for those who had notliing to
unlearn.

Such being our habitual state of mind, it may well

88 DARWIJSflANA.

be believed that the perusal of tlie new book '' On the
Origin of Species by Means of JSTatural Selection"
left an uncomfortable impression, in spite of its plau-
sible and winning ways. We were not wholly unpre-
pared for it, as many of our contemporaries seem to
have been. The scientific reading: in which we induls'e
as a relaxation from severer studies had raised dim
forebodings. Investigations about the succession of
species in time, and their actual geographical distribu-
tion over the earth's sui'f ace, were leading up from all
sides and in various ways to the question of their
origin. ]^ow and then we encoimtered a sentence,
like Prof. Owen's " axiom of the continuous operation
of the ordained becoming of living things," which
haunted us like an apparition. For, dim as our con-
ce]3tion must needs be as to what such oracular and
grandiloquent phrases might really mean, we felt con-
fident that they presaged no good to old beliefs.
Foreseeing, yet deprecating, the coming time of
trouble, we still hoped that, with some repairs and
makeshifts, the old views might last out our days.
Ai^res nous le deluge. Still, not to lag behind the
rest of the world, we read the book in which the new
theory is promulgated. "We took it up, like our
neighbors, and, as was natural, in a somewhat captious
frame of mind.

Well, we found no cause of quarrel with the first
chapter. Here the author takes us directly to the
barn-yard and the kitchen-garden. Like an honorable
rural member of our General Court, who sat silent
mitil, near the close of a long session, a bill requiring
all swine at large to wear pokes was introduced, when

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 89

he claimed the privilege of addressing the house, on
the proper ground that he had been "brought up
among the pigs, and knew all about them '^ — so we
were brought up among cows and cabbages ; and the
lowing of cattle, the cackle of hens, and the cooing of
pigeons, were sounds native and pleasant to our ears.
So " Yariation under Domestication " dealt with fa-
miliar subjects in a natural way, and gently intro-
duced " Yariation under JSTature," which seemed likely
enough. Then follows " Struggle for Existence " — a
principle which we experimentally know to be true
and cogent — bringing the comfortable assurance, that
man, even upon Leviathan Hobbes's theory of society,
is no worse than the rest of creation, since all JSTature
is at war, one species with another, and the nearer
kindred the more internecine — bringing in thousand-
fold confirmation and extension of the Malthusian
doctrine that population tends far to outrun means of
subsistence throughout the animal and vegetable world,
and has to be kept down by sharp preventive checks ;
so that not more than one of a hundred or a thousand
of the individuals whose existence is so wonderfully
and so sedulously provided for ever comes to anything,
under ordinary circumstances ; so the lucky and the
strong must prevail, and the weaker and ill-favored must
perish ; and then follows, as naturally as one sheep
follows another, the chapter on " l^atural Selection,"
Darwin's cheval de hataille, which is very much the
l^apoleonic doctrine that Providence favors the sti'ong-
est battalions — that, since manv more individuals are
born than can possibly survive, those individuals and
those variations which possess any advantage, however

90 DARWimANA.

sliglit, over the rest, are in the long-run sure to sur-
vive, to propagate, and to occupy the limited field, to
the exclusion or destruction of the weaker brethren.
All this we pondered, and could not much object to.
In fact, we began to contract a liking for a system
which at the outset illustrates the advantages of good
breeding, and which makes the most " of every creat-
ure's best."

Could we " let by-gones be by-gones," and, begin-
ning now, go on improving and diversifying for the
future by natural selection, could we even take up the
theory at the introduction of the actually existing
species, we should be well content ; and so, perhaps,
would most naturalists be. It is by no means difficult
to believe that varieties are incipient or possible spe-
cies, when we see what trouble naturalists, especially
botanists, have to distinguish between them — one re-
garding as a true species what another regards as a
variety ; when the progress of knowledge continually
increases, rather than diminishes, the number of
doubtful instances ; and when there is less agreement
than ever among naturalists as to what, is the basis in
^Nature upon which our idea of species reposes, or how
the word is to be defined. Indeed, when we consider
the endless disputes of naturalists and ethnologists
over the human races, as to whether they belong to
one species or to more, and, if to more, whether to
three, or five, or fifty, we can hardly help fancying
that both may be right — or rather, that the uni-humani-
tarians would have been right many thousand years
ago, and the multi-humanitarians will be several thou-
sand years later ; while at present the safe thing to

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 91

say is, that probably tliere is some truth on both
sides.

" ISTatural selection," Darwin remarks, " leads to
divergence of character ; for the more living beings can
be supported on the same area, the more they diverge
in structm-e, habits, and constitution" (a principle
which, by-the-way, is paralleled and illustrated by the
diversification of human labor) ; and also leads to much
extinction of intermediate or unimproved forms. !Now,
though this divergence may " steadily tend to increase,"
yet this is evidently a slow process in ]N"ature, and
liable to much counteraction wherever man does not
interpose, and so not likely to work much harm for
the future. And if natural selection, with artificial to
help it, will produce better animals and better men
than the present, and fit them better " to the condi-
tions of existence," why, let it work, say we, to the
top of its bent. There is still room enough for im-
provement. Only let us hope that it always works
for good : if not, the divergent lines on Darwin's litho-
graphic diagram of " Transmutation made Easy," omi-
nously show what small deviations from the straight
path may come to in the end.

The prospect of the future, accordingly, is on the
whole pleasant and encouraging. It is only the back-
ward glance, the gaze up the long vista of the past,
that reveals anything alarming. Here the lines con-
verge as they recede into the geological ages, and point
to conclusions which, upon the theory, are inevitable,
but hardly welcome. The very first step backward
makes the negro and the Hottentot our blood-rela-
tions— not that reason or Scripture objects to that,

92 DARWINIANA.

tliougli pride may. The next suggests a closer asso-
ciation of oui' ancestors of the olden time with " our
poor relations " of the quadrumanous family than we
like to acknowledge. Fortunately, however — even if
we must account for him scientifically — man with his
two feet stands upon a foundation of his own. Inter-
mediate links between the Bimana and the Quadru-
mana are lacking altogether ; so that, put the gene-
alogy of the brutes upon what footing you will, the
four-handed races will not serve for our forerunners
— at least, not until some monkey, live or fossil, is
producible with great-toes, instead of thumbs, upon
his nether extremities ; or until some lucky geologist
turns up the bones of his ancestor and prototype in
France or England, who was so busy "napping the
chuckie-stanes" and chipping out flint knives and
arrow-heads in the time of the drift, very many ages
ago — before the British Channel existed, says Lyell ^
— and until these men of the olden time are shown to
have worn their great-toes in the divergent and thumb-
like fashion. That would be evidence indeed: but,
until some testimony of the sort is produced, we must
needs believe in the separate and special creation of
man, however it may have been with the lower ani-
mals and with plants.

]^o doubt, the full development and symmetry of
Darwin's hypothesis strongly suggest the evolution of

* Vide " Proceedings of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science," 1859, and London Aihenceicm, passim. It appears
to be conceded that these " celts " or stone knives are artificial pro-
ductions, and apparently of the age of the mammoth, the fossil rhi-
noceros, etc.

NATURAL SELECTIOJS-, ETC. 93

the human no less than the lower animal races out of
some simple primordial animal — that all are equally
" lineal descendants of some few beings which lived
long before the first bed of the Silurian system w^as
deposited." But, as the author speaks disrespectfully
of spontaneous generation, and accepts a supernatural
beginning of life on earth, in some form or forms of
being which included potentially all that have since
existed and are yet to be, he is thereby not warranted
to extend his inferences beyond the evidence, or the
fair probability. There seems as great likelihood that
one special origination should be followed by another
upon fitting occasion (such as the introduction of man),
as that one form should be transmuted into another
upon fitting occasion, as, for instance, in the succession
of species which differ from each, other only in some
details. To compare small things with great in a
homely illustration : man alters from time to time his
instruments or machines, as new circumstances or con-
ditions may require and his wit suggest. Minor altera-
tions and improvements he adds to the machine he
possesses ; he adapts a new rig or a new rudder to an
old boat : this answers to Yay^iation. " Like begets
like," being the great rule in l^ature, if boats could
engender, the variations would doubtless be propa-
gated, like those of domestic cattle. In course of
time the old ones would be worn out or wrecked ; the
best sorts would be chosen for each particular use, and
further improved upon ; and so the primordial boat
be developed into the scow, the skiff, the sloop, and
other species of water-craft — the very diversification,
as well as the successive improvements, entailing the

94 DARWINIANA.

disappearance of intermediate forms, less adapted to
any one jDarticular purpose ; wherefore these go slowly
out of use, and become extinct species : this is Natu-
ral Selection. I^ow, let a great and important advance
be made, like that of steam navigation : here, though
the engine might be added to the old vessel, yet the
wiser and therefore the actual way is to make a new
vessel on a modified plan : this may answer to SpecijiG
Creation. Anyhow, the one does not necessarily ex-
clude the other. Yariation and natural selection may
play their part, and so may specific creation also.
Why not ?

This leads us to ask for the reasons which call for
this new theory of transmutation. The beginning of
things must needs lie in obscurity, beyond the bounds
of proof, though within those of conjecture or of ana-
logical inference. Why not hold fast to the customary
view, that all species were directly, instead of indi-
rectly, created after their respective kinds, as we now
behold them — and that in a manner which, passing
our comprehension, we intuitively refer to the super-
natural ? Why this continual striving after " the un-
attained and dim % " why these anxious endeavors,
especially of late years, by naturalists and philosophers
of various schools and different tendencies, to pene-
trate what one of them calls " that mystery of mys-
teries," the origin of species ?

To this, in general, sufficient answer maybe found
in the activity of the human intellect, " the delirious
yet divine desire to know," stimulated as it has been
by its own success in unveiling the laws and process-
es of inorganic l^ature ; in the fact that the principal

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 95

triumplis of onr age in physical science have consisted
in tracing connections where none were known before,
in reducing heterogeneous phenomena to a common
cause or origin, in a manner quite analogous to that
of the reduction of supposed independently originated
species to a common ultimate origin — thus, and in
various other ways, largely and legitimately extending
the domain of secondary causes. Surely the scientific
mind of an age which contemplates the solar system
as evolved from a common revolving fluid mass —
which, through experimental research, has come to re-
gard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical aflin-
ity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative
and convertible forms of one force, instead of inde-
pendent species — which has brought the so-called ele-
mentally kinds of matter, such as the metals, into
kindred groups, and pertinently raised the question,
whether the members of each group may not be mere
varieties of one species — and which speculates steadily
in the direction of the ultimate unity of matter, of a
sort of prototype or simple element which may be to
the ordinary species of matter what the Protozoa or
what the component cells of an organism are to the
higher sorts of animals and plants — the mind of such
an age cannot be expected to let the old belief about
species pass unquestioned. It will raise the question,
how the diverse sorts of plants and animals came to
be as they are and where they are, and will allow that
the whole inquiry transcends its powers only when
all endeavors have failed. Granting the origin to be
supernatural, or miraculous even, will not arrest the
inquiry. All real origination, the philosophers will

96 DARWINIANA.

saj, is supernatural ; their very question is, whether
we have yet gone back to the origin, and can affirm
that the present forms of plants and animals are the
primordial, the miraculously created ones. And, even
if they admit that, they will still inquire into the
order of the phenomena, into the form of the miracle.
You might as well expect the child to grow up content
with what it is told about the advent of its infant
brother. Indeed, to learn that the new-comer is the
gift of God, far from lulling inquiry, only stimulates
speculation as to how the precious gift was bestowed.
That questioning child is father to the man — is phi-
losopher in short-clothes.

Since, then, questions about the origin of species
will be raised, and have been raised — and since the
theorizings, however different in particulars, all pro-
ceed upon the notion that one species of plant or
animal is somehow derived from another, that the dif-
ferent sorts which now flourish are lineal (or unlineal)
descendants of other and earlier sorts — it now con-
cerns us to ask. What are the grounds in ISTature, the
admitted facts, which suggest hjqDotheses of derivation
in some shape or other ? Reasons there must be, and
plausible ones, for the persistent recurrence of theories
upon this genetic basis. A study of Darwin's book,
and a general glance at the present state of the natm^al
sciences, enable us to gather the following as among
the most suggestive and influential. We can only
enumerate them here, without much indication of
their particular bearing. There is —

1. The general fact of variability, and the general
tendency of the variety to propagate its like — ^the

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC, 97

patent facts tliat all species vary more or less ; tliat
domesticated plants and animals, being in conditions
favorable to the production and preservation of varie-
ties, are apt to vary widely ; and that, by interbreed-
ing, any variety may be fixed into a race, that is, into
a variety which comes trne from seed. Many such
races, it is allowed, differ from each other in structure
and appearance as wfdely as do many admitted species ;
and it is practically very difficult, even impossible, to
draw a clear line between races and species. Witness
the human races, for instance. Wild species also vary,
perhaps about as widely as those of domestication,
though in different ways. Some of them apparently
vary little, others moderately, others immodei-ately, to
the great bewilderment of systematic botanists and
zoologists, and increasing disagreement as to whether
various forms shall be held to be original species or
strong varieties. Moreover, the degree to which the
descendants of the same stock, varying in different di-
rections, may at length diverge, is unknown. All we
know is, that varieties are themselves variable, and that
very diverse forms have been educed from one stock.
2. Species of the same genus are not distinguished
from each other by equal amounts of difference.
There is diversity in this respect analogous to that of
the varieties of a polymorphous species, some of them
slight, others extreme. And in large genera the un-
equal resemblance shows itself in the clustering of
the species around several types or central species,
like- satellites around their respective planets. Ob-
viously suggestive this of the hypothesis that they
were satellites, not thrown off by revolution, like the

98 DARWimANA.

moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and onr own solitary moon,
but gradually and peacefully detached by divergent
variation. That such, closely-related species may be
only varieties of higher grade, earlier origin, or more
favored evolution, is not a very violent supposition.
Anyhow, it was a supposition sure to be made.

3. The actual geographical distribution of species
upon the earth's surface tends to suggest the same
notion. For, as a general thing, all or most of the
species of a peculiar genus or other type are grouped
in the same country, or occupy continuous, proximate,
or accessible areas. So well does this rule hold, so
general is the implication that kindred species are or
were associated geographically, that most trustworthy
naturalists, quite free from hypotheses of transmuta-
tion, are constantly inferring former geographical
continuity between parts of the world now widely
disjoined, in order to account thereby for certain
generic similarities among their inhabitants; just as
philologists infer former connection of races, and a
parent language, to account for generic similarities
among existing languages. Yet no scientific explana-
tion has been offei'ed to account for the geographical
association of kindred species, except the hypothesis
of a common origin.

4. Here the fact of the antiquity of creation, and
in particular of the present kinds of the earth's inhab-
itants, or of a large part of them, comes in to rebut
the objection that there has not been time enough
for any marked diversification of living things through
divergent variation — not time enough for varieties to
have diverged into what we call species.

NATURAL SELECTION, ETG. 99

So long as tlie existing species of plants and ani-
mals were tlioiight to have originated a few thousand
years ago, and without predecessors, there was no
room for a theory of derivation of one sort from an-
other, nor time enough even to account for the estab-
lishment of the races which are generally believed to
have diverged from a common stock. Not so much
that ^YQ or six thousand years was a short allowance
for this ; but because some of our familiar domesti-
cated varieties of grain, of fowls, and of other animals,
were pictured and mummified by the old Egyptians
more than half that number of years ago, if not ear-
lier. Indeed, perhaps the strongest argument for the
original plurality of human species was drawn from
the identification of some of the present races of men
upon these early historical monuments and records.

But this very extension of the current chronology,
if we may rely upon the archaeologists, removes the
difliculty by opening up a longer vista. So does the
discovery in Europe of remains and implements of
prehistoric races of men, to whom the use of metals
was unknown — men of the stone age, as the Scandina-
vian archseologists designate them. And now, " axes
and knives of flint, evidently wrought by human skill,
are found in beds of the drift at Amiens (also in
other places, both in France and England), associated
with the bones of extinct species of animals." These
implements, indeed, were noticed twenty years ago;
at a place in Suffolk they have been exhumed from
time to time for more than a century; but the fnll
confirmation, the recognition of the age of the deposit
in which the implements occur, their abundance, and

100 DARWINIANA.

the appreciation of tlieir bearings upon most interest-
ing questions, belong to tbe present time. To complete
the connection of these primitive people with the
fossil ages, the French geologists, we are told, have
now " found these axes in Picardj associated with re-
mains of .Elejyhas jp7nmigenius^ Rhinoceros tichoj'hi-
nuSy EqiiiLS fossilis^ and an extinct species of Bos^ ^
In plain language, these workers in flint lived in the
time of the mammoth, of a rhinoceros now extinct, and
along with horses and cattle unlike any now existing
— specifically different, as naturalists say, from those
with which man is now associated. Their connection
with existing human races may perhaps be traced
through the intervening people of the stone age, who
were succeeded by the people of the bronze age, and
these by workers in iron.'' I^ow, various evidence
carries back the existence of many of the present low-
er species of animals, and probably of a larger nimiber
of plants, to the same drift period. All agree that
this was very many thousand years ago. Agassiz tells
us that the same species of polyps which are now
building coral walls around the present peninsula of
Florida actually made that peninsula, and have been
building there for many thousand centuries.

5. The overlapping of existing and extinct species,
and the seemingly gradual transition of the life of the
drift period into that of the present, may be turned to

1 See " Correspondence of M. Nickles," in American Journal of Sci-
ence and Arts, for March, 1860.

2 See Morlot, " Some General Views on Archaeology," in American
Journal of Science and Arts, for January, 1860, translated from " Bul-
letin de la Society Vaudoise," 1859.

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 101

tlie same account. Mammoths, mastodons, and Irish
elks, now extinct, must have lived down to human, if
not almost to historic times. Perhaps the last dodo
did not long outlive his huge ISTew Zealand kindred.
The auroch, once the companion of mammoths, still
smwives, but owes his present and precarious existence
to man's care. J^ow, nothing that we know of forbids
the hypothesis that some new species have been inde-
pendently and supernaturally created within the period
which other species have survived. Some may even
believe that man was created in the days of the mam-
moth, became extinct, and was recreated at a later date.
But why not say the same of the auroch, contempo-
rary both of the old man and of the new ? Still it is
more natural, if not inevitable, to infer that, if the
aurochs of that olden time were the ancestors of the
aurochs of the Lithuanian forests, so likewise were the
men of that age the ancestors of the present human
races. Then, whoever concludes that these primitive
makers of rude flint axes and knives were the ancestors
of the better workmen of the succeeding stone age,
and these again of the succeeding artificers in brass and
iron, will also be likely to sujDpose that the Eqxtus and
Bos of that time, different though they be, were the
remote progenitors of our own horses and cattle. In
all candor we must at least concede that sucn consid-
erations suggest a genetic descent from the drift period
down to the present, and allow time enough — if time is
of any account — for variation and natural selection to
work out some appreciable results in the way of diver-
gence into races, or even into so-called species. What-
ever might have been thought, when geological time

102 DARWINIANA.

was supposed to be separated from the present era by
a clear line, it is now certain that a gradual replace-
ment of old forms by new ones is' strongly suggestive
of some mode of origination which may still be opera-
tive. When species, like individuals, were found to
die out one by one, and apparently to come in one by
one, a theory for what Owen sonorously calls "the
continuous operation of the ordained becoming of liv-
ing things " could not be far off.

That all such theories should take the form of a
derivation of the new from the old seems to be inevi-
table, perhaps from our inability to conceive of any
other line of secondary causes in this connection.
Owen himself is apparently in travail with some trans-
mutation theory of his own conceiving, which may
yet see the light, although Darwin's came first to the
birth. Different as the two theories will probably
be, they cannot fail to exhibit that fundamental re-
semblance in this respect which betokens a commu-
nity of origin, a common foundation on the general
facts and the obvious suggestions of modern science.
Indeed — to turn the point of a pungent simile directed
against Darwin — the difference between the Darwin-
ian and the Owenian hypotheses may, after all, be
only that between homoeopathic and heroic doses of
• the same drug.

If theories of derivation could only stop here, con-
tent with explaining the diversification and succession
of species between the tertiary period and the present
tune, through natural agencies or secondary causes
still in operation, we fancy they would not be generally
or violently objected to by the savants of the present

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 103

day. But it is liard, if not impossible, to find a stop-
ping-place. Some of tlie facts or accepted conclusions
already referred to, and several others, of a more gen-
eral cliaracter, wliicli must be taken into tlie account,
impel the theory onward with accumulated force.
Viy^es (not to say vii'us) acquirit eundo. The theory
hitches on wonderfully well to Lyell's uniformitarian
theory in geology — that the thing that has been is the
thing that is and shall be — that the natural operations
now going on will account for all geological changes in
a quiet and easy way, only give them time enough, so
connecting the present and the proximate with the
farthest past by almost imperceptible gradations — a
view which finds large and increasing, if not general,
acceptance in physical geology, and of which Darwin's
theory is the natural complement.

So the Darwinian theory, once getting a foothold,
marches boldly on, follows the supposed near ances-
tors of our present species farther and yet farther back
into the dim past, and ends with aij analogical infer-
ence which " makes the whole world kin." As we said
at the beginning, this upshot discomposes us. Several
features of the theory have an uncanny look. They
may prove to be innocent : but their first aspect is suspi-
cious, and high authorities pronounce the whole thing
to be positively mischievous. In this dilemma we are
going to take advice. Following the bent of our preju-
dices, and hoping to fortify these by new and strong
arguments, we are going now to read the principal
reviews which undertake to demolish the theory —
with what result our readers shall be duly informed.

104 DARWINIANA.

II.

" I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study
and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the
view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly
entertained, namely, that each species has been independently
created, is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are
not immutable ; but that those belonging to what are called the
same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally
extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varie-
ties of any one species are the descendants of that species.
Furthermore, I am convinced that itfatural Selection has been
the main, but not exclusive, means of modification."

This is the kernel of the new theory, the Dar-
winian creed, as recited at the close of the introduc-
tion to the remarkable book under consideration.
The questions, " What will he do with it ? " and
" How far will he carry it ? " the author answers at
the close of the volume :

" I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modifica-
tion embraces all the.merabers of the same class." Furthermore,
"I believe that all animals have descended from at most only
four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser
number."

Seeing that analogy as strongly suggests a further
step in the same direction, while he protests that
" analogy may be a deceitful guide," yet he follows
its inexorable leading to the inference that —

"Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on
this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into
which life was first breathed." * •

* Page 484, English edition. In the new American edition {vide
Supplement, pp. 431, 432) the principal analogies which suggest the

NATURAL SELEGTIOF, ETC. 105

In tlie first extract we liave the tliin end of tlie
wedge driven' a little way ; in the last, the wedge
driven home.

We have already sketched some of the reasons
suggestive of such a theory of derivation of species,
reasons which gave it plausibility, and even no small
probability, as applied to our actual world and to
changes occui'ring since the latest tertiary period.
We are well pleased at this moment to find that the
conclusions we were arriving at in this respect are
sustained by the very high authority and impartial
judgment of Pictet, the Swiss paleontologist. In his
review of Darwin's book * — the fairest and most ad-
mirable opposing one that has appeared — he freely
accepts that ensenible of natural operations which
Darwin impersonates under the now familiar name
of l^atural Selection, allows that the eiq^osition
throughout the first chapters seems " a la fois jyt'u-
dent et fort^'' and is disposed to accept the whole
argument in its foundations, that is, so far as it re-
lates to what is now going on, or has taken place in
the present geological period — which period he car-
ries i)ack through the diluvial epoch to the borders
of the tertiary.^ Pictet accordingly admits that the

extreme view are referred to, and the remark is appended : "But this
inference is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether
or not it be accepted. The case is different with the members of each
great class, as the Vertebrata or Articulata ; for here we have in the
laws of homology, embryology, etc, some distinct evidence that all
have descended from a single primordial parent."

^ In Biblioiheque Universelle de Geneve^ March, 1860.

^ This we learn from his very interesting article, " De la Question

106 DARWIFIANA.

tlieoiy will very well account for the origination by
divergence of nearly-related species, whether within
the present period or in remoter geological times ; a
very natural view for him to take, since he appears
to have reached and published, several years ago, the
pregnant conclusion that there most probably was
some material connection between the closely-related
species of two successive faunas, and that the numer-
ous close species, whose limits are so difficult to de-
termine, were not all created distinct and indepen-
dent. But while thus accepting, or ready to accept,
the basis of Darwin's theory, and all its legitimate
direct inferences, he rejects the ultimate conclusions,
brings some weighty arguments to bear against them,
and is evidently convinced that he can draw ii clear
line between the sound inferences, which he favors,
and the unsound or unwarranted theoretical deduc-
tions, which he rejects. We hope he can.

This raises the question, Why does Darwin press
his theory to these extreme conclusions ? Why do
all hypotheses of derivation converge so inevitably to
one ultimate point ? Having already considered some
of the reasons w^hich suggest or support the theory at
its outset — which may carry it as far as such sound
and experienced naturalists as Pictet allow that it may
be true — perhaps as far as Darwin himself unfolds it
in the introductory proposition cited at the begin-
ning of this article — we may now inquire after the

de I'Homme Fossile," in the same (March) number of the Bihliotheque
Universeile. {See, also, the same author's " Note sur la Periode Qua-
ternaire ou Diluvienne, consideree dans ses Kapports avec I'Epoque
Actuelle," in the number for August, 1860, of the same periodical.)

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 107

motives which impel the theorist so much farther.
Here proofs, in the proper sense of the word, are not
to be had. "We are beyond the region of demonstra-
tion, and have only probabilities to consider. What
are these probabilities? What work will this hy-
pothesis do to establish a claim to be adopted in its
completeness % Why should a theory which may
plausibly enough ' account for the diversification of
the species of each special type or genus be expanded
into a general system for the origination or successive
diversification of all species, and all special types or
forms, from four or five remote primordial forms, or
perhaps from one \ We accept the theory of gravi-
tation because it explains all the facts we know, and
bears all the tests that we can put it to. We inchne
to accept the nebular hypothesis, for similar reasons ;
not because it is proved — thus far it is incapable of
;proof — but because it is a natural theoretical deduction
from accepted physical laws, is thoroughly congruous
with the facts, and because its assumption serves to
connect and harmonize these into one probable and
consistent whole. Can the derivative hypothesis be
maintained and carried out into a system on similar
grounds ? If so, however unproved, it would appear
to be a tenable hypothesis, which is all that its author
ought now to claim. Such hypotheses as, from the
conditions of the case, can neither be proved nor dis-
proved by direct evidence or experiment, are to be
tested only indirectly, and therefore imperfectly, by
trying their power to harmonize the known facts, and
to account for what is otherwise unaccountable. So
the question comes to this : AVhat will an hypothesis

108 DARWmiANA.

of tlie derivation of species explain which tlie opjDos-
ing view leaves nnexplainecl ?

Questions these which ought to be entertained
before we take up the arguments which have been
advanced against this theory. "We can barely glance
at some of the considerations which Darwin adduces,.
or will be sure to adduce in the future and fuller
exposition which is promised. To display them in such
wise as to indoctrinate the unscientific reader would
require a volume. Merely to refer to them in the-
most general terms would sufiice for those familiar
with scientific matters, but would scarcely enlighten
those who are not. Wherefore let these trust the im-
partial Pictet, who freely admits that, "in the absence
of sufficient direct proofs to justify the possibility of
his hypothesis, Mr. Darwin relies upon indirect proofs,
the bearing of which is real and incontestable ; " who
concedes that " his theory accords very well with the
great facts of comparative anatomy and zoology —
comes in admirably to explain unity of composition of
organisms, also to explain rudimentary and representa-
tive organs, and the natui'al series of genera and species
— equally corresponds with many paleontological data
— agrees well with the specific resemblances which exist
between two successive faunas, with the parallelism
which is sometimes observed between the series of
paleontological succession and of embryonal develop-
ment," etc. ; and finally, although he does not accept
the theory in these results, he allows that " it appears
to offer the best means of explaining the manner in
which organized beings were produced in epochs an-
terior to our own."

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 109

What more than this could be said for such an
hypothesis? Here, probably, is its charm, and its
strong hold upon the speculative mind. Unproven
though it be, and Q^m^o^xo^^ jyi'ima facie with cumula-
tive improbabilities as it proceeds, yet it singularly
accords with great classes of facts otherwise insulated
and enigmatic, and explains many things which are
thus far utterly inexplicable upon any other scientific
assumption.

We have said that Darwin's hypothesis is the natu-
ral complement to Lyell's uniformitarian theory in
physical geology. It is for the organic world what that
is for the inorganic ; and the accepters of the latter
stand in a position from which to regard the former in
the most favorable light. Wherefore the rumor that
the cautions Lyell himself has adopted the Darwinian
hypothesis need not surprise us. The two views are
made for each other, and, like the two counterpart pic-
tm-es for the stereoscope, when brought together, com-
bine into one apparently solid whole.

If we allow, with Pictet, that Darwin's theory
will very well serve for all that concerns the present
epoch of the world's history — an epoch in which
this renowned paleontologist includes the diluvial or
quaternary period — then Darwin's first and foremost
need in his onward course is a practicable road from
this into and through the tertiary period, the interven-
ing region between the comparatively near and the
far remote past. Here Lyell's doctrine paves the way,
by showing that in the physical geology there is no
general or absolute break between the two, probably
no greater between the latest tertiary and the quater-

110 DARWmiANA.

naiy period than between tlie latter and the present
time. So far, the Lyellian view is, we suppose, gen-
erally concurred in. It is largely admitted that nu-
merous tertiary species have continued down into the
quaternary, and many of them to the present time. A
goodly percentage of the earlier and nearly half of the
later tertiary moUusca, according to Des Hayes, Lyell,
and, if we mistake not, Bronn, still live. This identifi-
cation, however, is now^ questioned by a naturalist of
the very highest authority. But, in its bearings on the
new theory, the point here turns not upon absolute
identity so much as upon close resemblance. For those
who, with Agassiz, doubt the specific identity in any
of these cases, and those who say, with Pictet, that
"the later tertiary deposits contain in general the
debris of species i^ery nearly related to those which
still exist, belonging to the same genera, but specifically
different," may also agree with Pictet, that the nearly-
related species of successive faunas must or may have
had " a material connection." But the only material
connection that we have an idea of in such a case is a
genealogical one. And the supposition of a genealogi-
cal connection is surely not unnatural in such cases —
is demonstrably the natural one as respects all those
tertiary species which experienced naturalists have
pronounced to be identical with existing ones, but
which others now deem distinct. For to identify the
two is the same thing as to conclude the one to be the
ancestor of the other. No doubt there are differences
between the tertiary and the present individuals, differ-
ences equally noticed by both classes of naturalists, but
differently estimated. By the one these are deemed

NATURAL SELECTION-, ETC. \l\

quite compatible, b j the other incompatible, with, com-
munity of origin. But who can tell us what amount
of difference is com.jMtihle with community of origin f
This is the very question at issue, and one to be settled
by observation alone. Who would have thought that
the peach and the nectarine came from one stock?
But, this being j)roved, is it now very improbable that
both were derived from the almond, or from some
common amygdaline progenitor? "Who would have
thought that the cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale,
and kohlrabi, are derivatives of one species, and rape
or colza, turnip, and probably ruta-baga, of another
species ? And who that is convinced of this can long
undoubtingly hold the original distinctness of turnips
from cabbages as an article of faith? On scientific
grounds may not a primordial cabbage or rape be as-
sumed as the ancestor of all the cabbage races, on much
the same ground that we assume a common ancestry
for the diversified human races ? If all our breeds of
cattle came from one stock, why not this stock from
the auroch, which has had all the time between the
diluvial and the historic periods in which to, set off a
variation perhaps no greater than the difference be-
tween some sorts of domestic cattle ?

That considerable differences are often discernible
between tertiary individuals and their supposed de-
scendants of the present day affords no argument
against Darwin's theory, as has been rashly thought,
but is decidedly in its favor. If the identification
were so perfect that no more differences were ob-
servable between the tertiary and the recent shells
than between various individuals of either, then Dar-

112 DARWimAI^A.

win's opponents, who argue the immutability of species
from the ibises and cats preserved by the ancient
Eg}^3tians being just like those of the present day,
could triumphantly add a few hundred thousand years
more to the length of the experiment and to the
force of their argument.

As the facts stand, it appears that, while some ter-
tiary forms are essentially undistinguishable from ex-
isting ones, others are the same with a difference,
which is judged not to be specific or aboriginal ; and
yet others show somewhat greater differences, such as
are scientifically expressed by calling them marked
varieties, or else doubtful species; while others, dif-
fering a little more, are confidently termed distinct,
but nearly-related species. Now, is not all this a
question of degree, of mere gradation of difference?
And is it at all likely that these several gradations
came to be established in two totally different ways —
some of them (though naturalists can't agree which)
through natural variation, or other secondary cause,
and some by original creation, without secondary
cause ? We have seen that the judicious Pictet an-
swers such questions as Darwin would have him do,
in affirming that, in all probability, the nearly-related
species of two successive faunas were materially con-
nected, and that contemporaneous species, similarly
resembling each other, were not all created so, but
have become so. This is equivalent to saying that
species (using the term as all naturalists do, and must
continue to employ the word) have only a relative,
not an absolute fixity ; that differences fully equiva-
lent to what are held to be specific may arise in the

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. II3

course of time, so tliat one species may at length, be
naturally replaced by another species a good deal like
it, or may be diversified into two, three, or more
species, or forms as different as species. This con-
cedes all that Darwin has a right to ask, all that he
can directly infer from evidence. We must add that
it affords a locus standi^ more or less tenable, for in-
f ening more.

Here another geological consideration comes in to
help on this inference. The species of the later ter-
• tiary period for the most part not only resembled
those of our days — many of them so closely as to sug-
gest an absolute continuity — but also occupied in gen-
eral the same regions that their relatives occupy now.
The same may be said, though less specially, of the
earlier tertiary and of the later secondary; but there
is less and less localization of forms as we recede, yet
some localization even in palgeozoic times. While in
the secondary period one is struck with the similarity
of forms and the identity of many of the species
which flourished apparently at the same time in all or
in the most widely-separated parts of the world, in
the tertiary epoch, on the contrary, along with the
increasing specialization of climates and their approxi-
mation to the present state, we find abundant evi-
dence of increasing localization of orders, genera, and
species ; and this localization strikingly accords with
the present geographical distribution of the same
groups of species. Where the imputed forefathers
lived, their relatives and supposed descendants now
flourish. All the actual classes of the animal and
vegetable kingdoms were represented in the tertiary

114 BARWmiANA.

faunas and floras, and in nearly the same propoi-tions
and the same diversities as at present. The faunas of
what is now Europe, Asia, America, and Australia,
differed from each other much as they now differ : in
fact — according to Adolphe Brongniart, whose state-
ments we here condense^ — the inhabitants of these
different regions appear for the most part to have ac-
quired, before the close of the tertiary period, the
characters which essentially distinguish their existing
faunas. The Eastern Continent had then, as now, its
great pachyderms, elephants, rhinoceros, hippopota-
mus; South America, its armadillos, sloths, and ant-
eaters ; Australia, a crowd of marsupials ; and the very
strange birds of New Zealand had predecessors of simi-
lar strangeness. Everywhere the same geographical
distribution as now, with a difference in the particular
area, as respects the northern portion of the continents,
answering to a warmer climate then than ours, such
as allowed species of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and
elephant, to range even to the regions now inhabited
by the reindeer and the musk-ox, and with the seri-
ous disturbing intervention of the glacial period with-
in a comparatively recent time. Let it be noted also
that those tertiary species which have continued with
little change down to our days are the marine animals
of the lower grades, especially moUusca. Their low
organization, moderate sensibility, and the simple con-
ditions of an existence in a medium like the ocean,
not subject to great variation and incapable of sudden
change, may well account for their continuance;
while, on the other hand, the more intense, however

^ In Compfes Rendus, Academie des Sciences, February 2, 1857.

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. II5

gradual, climatic vicissitudes on land, which have
driven all tropical and subtropical forms out of the
higher latitudes and assigned to them their actual
limits, would be almost sure to extinguish such huge
and unwieldy animals as mastodons, mammoths, and
the like, whose power of enduring altered circum-
stances must have been small.

This general replacement of the tertiary species
of a country by others so much like them is a note-
worthy fact. The hypothesis of the independent
creation of all species, irrespective of their antece-
dents, leaves this fact just as mysterious as is creation
itself ; that of derivation undertakes to account for it.
Whether it satisfactorily does so or not, it must be
allowed that the facts well accord with that hypothe-
sis. The same may be said of another conclusion,
namely, that the geological succession of animals and
plants appears to correspond in a general way with
their relative standing or rank in a natural system of
classification. It seems clear that, though no one of
the grand tijjpes of the animal kingdom can be traced
back farther than the rest, yet the lower classes long
preceded the higher; that there has been on the
whole a steady progression within each class and
order ; and that the highest plants and animals have
appeared only in relatively modern times. It is only,
however, in a broad sense that this generalization is
now thought to hold good. It encounters many ap-
parent exceptions, and sundry real ones. So far as
the rule holds, all is as it should be upon an hypothe-
sis of derivation.

The rule has its exceptions. But, curiously enough,

IIG DAEWINIANA. ■

tlie most striking class of exceptions, if sncli tliey be,
seems to ns even more favorable to tlie doctrine of
derivation than is the general rule of a pm-e and sim-
ple ascending gradation. We refer to what Agassiz
calls proplietic and sjnitlietic types; for whicli the
former name may suffice, as the difference between
the two is evanescent.

"It has been noticed," writes our great zoologist, " that cer-
tain types, which are frequently prominent among the repre-
sentatives of past ages, combine in their structure peculiarities
which at later periods are only observed separately in different,
distinct types. Sauroid fishes before reptiles, Pterodactyles be-
fore birds, Ichthyosauri before dolphins, etc. There are entire
families, of nearly every class of animals, which in the state
of their perfect development exemplify such prophetic rela-
tions. . . . The sauroid fisbes of the past geological ages are an
example of this kind. These fishes, which preceded the ap-
pearance of reptiles, present a combination of ichthyic and
reptilian characters not to be found in the true members of this
class, which form its bulk at present. The Pterodactyles, which
preceded the class of birds, and the Ichthyosauri, which pre-
ceded the Cetacea, are other examples of such prophetic
types." — (Agassiz, " Contributions, Essay on Classification,"
p. 117.)

Now, these reptile-like fishes, of which gar-pikes
are the living representatives, thongh of earlier ap-
pearance, are admittedly of higher rank than common
fishes. They dominated nntil reptiles appeared, when
they mostly gave place to (or, as the derivationists
will insist, were resolved by divergent variation and
natural selection into) common fishes, destitute of rep-
tilian characters, and saurian reptiles — the intermedi-
ate grades, which, according to a familiar piscine say-

NATURAL SELECTION, ETG. I17

ing, are "neither fisli, flesh, nor good red-herring,"
being eliminated and extinguished by natural conse-
quence of the struggle for existence which Darwin so
aptly portrays. And so, perhaps, of the other pro-
phetic types. Here type and antitype correspond.
If these are true prophecies, we need not wonder that
some who read them in Agassiz's book will read their
fulfillment in Darwin's.

^ote also, in this connection, that along with a
wonderful persistence of type, with change of species,
genera, orders, etc., from formation to formation, no
species and no higher group which has once unequivo-
cally died out ever afterward reappears. Why is this,
but that the link of generation has been sundered ?
Why, on the hypothesis of independent originations,
w^ere not failing species recreated, either identically or
with a difference, in regions eminently adapted to
their well-being ? To take a striking case. That no
part of the world now offers more suitable conditions
for wild horses and cattle than the pg^iipas and other
plains of South America, is shown by the facility with
which they have there run wild and enormously mul-
tiplied, since introduced from the Old World not long
ago. There was no wild American stock. Yet in
the times of the mastodon and megatherium, at the
dawn of the present period, wild-horses — certainly
very much like the existing horse — roamed over those
plains in abundance. On the principle of original and
'direct created adaptation of species to climate and
other conditions, why were they not reproduced, when,
after the colder intervening era, those regions became
again eminently adapted to such animals ? Why, but
6

118 DARWmiAFA.

because, by tlieir complete extinction in Soiitli Amer-
ica, the line of descent was there utterly broken ?
Upon the ordinary hypothesis, there is no scientific
explanation possible of this series of facts, and of
many others like them. Upon the new hypothesis,
" the succession of the same tj^Des of structure within
the same areas during the later geological periods
ceases to be mysterious, and is simply explained by
inheritance." Their cessation is failure of issue.

Along with these considerations the fact (alluded
to on page 98) should be remembered that, as a general
thing, related species of the present age are geographi-
cally associated. The larger part of the plants, and
still more of the animals, of each separate country are
peculiar to it ; and, as most species now flourish over
the graves of their by-gone relatives of former ages,
80 they now dwell among or accessibly near their
kindred species.

Here also comes in that general " p>arallelism be-
tween the order of succession of animals and plants
in geological times, and the gradation among their
living representatives " from low to highly organized,
from simple and general to complex and specialized
forms ; also " the parallelism between the order of
succession of animals in geological times and the
changes their living representatives undergo during
their embryological growth," as if the world were one
prolonged gestation. Modern science has much in-
sisted on this parallelism, and to a certain extent is'
allowed to have made it out. All these things, which
conspire to prove that the ancient and the recent forms
of life " are somehow intimately connected together

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 119

in one grand system," equally conspire to suggest tliat
the connection is one similar or analogons to gen-
eration. Surely no naturalist can be blamed for
entering somewhat confidently upon a field of specula-
tive inquiry wliicli here opens so invitingly ; nor need
former premature endeavors and failures utterly
dishearten him.

All these things, it may naturally be said, go to
explain the order, not the mode, of the incoming of
species. But they all do tend to bring out the gen-
eralization expressed by Mr. Wallace in the formula
that "every species has come into existence coincident
both in time and space with preexisting closely-allied
species." ISTot, however, that this is proved even of
existing species as a matter of general fact. It is ob-
viously impossible to prove anything of the kind. But
we must concede that the known facts strongly suggest
such an inference. And — since species are only con-
geries of individuals, since every individual came into
existence in consequence of preexisting individuals of
the same sort, so leading up to the individuals with
which the species began, and since the only material
sequence we know of among plants and animals is that
from parent to progeny — the presumption becomes
exceedingly strong that the connection of the incoming
with the preexisting species is a genealogical one.

Here, however, all depends upon the probability
that Mr. Wallace's inference is really true. Certainly
it is not yet generally accepted ; but a strong current
is setting toward its acceptance.

So long as universal cataclysms were in vogue, and
all life upon the earth was thought to have been

120 DABWimAN'A.

suddenly destroyed and renewed many times in suc-
cession, such a view could not be thought of. So the
equivalent view maintained by Agassiz, and formerly,
we believe, by D'Orbigny, that irrespectively of general
and sudden catastrophes, or any known adequate phys-
ical cause, there has been a total depopulation at the
close of each geological period or formation, say forty
or fifty times or more, followed by as many indepen-
dent great acts of creation, at which alone have species
been originated, and at each of which a vegetable and
an animal kingdom were produced entire and com-
plete, full-fiedged, as flourishing, as wide-spread, and
populous, as varied and mutually adapted from the
beginning as ever afterward — such a view, of course,
supersedes all material connection between succes-
sive species, and removes even the association and geo-
graphical range of species entirely out of the domain of
physical causes and of natural science. This is the ex-
treme opposite of Wallace's and Darwin's view, and is
quite as hypothetical. The nearly universal opinion, if
we rightly gather it, manifestly is, that the replacement
of the species of successive formations was not com-
plete and simultaneous, but partial and successive ; and
that along the course of each epoch some species prob-
ably were introduced, and some, doubtless, became ex-
tinct. If all since the tertiary belongs to our present
epoch, this is certainly true of it : if to two or more
epochs, then the hypothesis of a total change is not
true of them.

Geology makes huge demands upon time ; and we
regret to find that it has exhausted om's — that what we
meant for the briefest and most general sketch of some

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 121

geological considerations in favor of Darwin's hy-
pothesis has so extended as to leave no room for con-
sidering " the great facts of comparative anatomy and
zoology" with which Darwin's theory "very well
accords," nor for indicating how " it admirably serves
for explaining the unity of composition of all or-
ganisms, the existence of representative and rudimen-
tary organs, and the natural series which genera and
species compose." Suffice it to say that these are the
real strongholds of the new system on its theoretical
side; that it goes far toward explaining both the
physiological and the structural gradations and rela-
tions between the two kingdoms, and the arrangement
of all their forms in groups subordinate to groups, all
within a few great types ; that it reads the riddle of
abortive organs and of morphological conformity, of
which no other theory has ever offered a scientific
explanation, and supplies a ground for harmonizing
the two fundamental ideas which naturalists and phi-
losophers conceive to have ruled the organic world,
though they could not reconcile them ; namely, Adap-
tation to Purpose and Conditions of Existence, and
Unity of Type. To reconcile these two undeniable
principles is the capital problem in the philosophy
of natural history ; and the hypothesis which consist-
ently does so thereby secures a great advantage.

We all know that the arm and hand of a monkey,
the foreleg and foot of a dog and of a horse, the wing
of a bat, and the fin of a porpoise, are fundamentally
identical; that the long neck of the giraffe has the
same and no more bones than the short one of the ele-
phant ; that the eggs of Surinam frogs hatch into tad-

122 DAEWINIANA.

poles with as good tails for swimming as any of their
kindred, although as tadpoles they never enter the wa-
ter ; that the Guinea-pig is furnished with incisor teeth
which it never uses, as it sheds them before birth;
that embryos of mammals and bkds have branchial
slits and arteries running in loops, in imitation or remi-
niscence of the arrangement which is permanent in
fishes ; and that thousands of animals and plants have
rudimentary organs which, at least in numerous cases,
are wholly useless to their possessors, etc., etc. Upon
a derivative theory this morphological conformity is
explained by community of descent ; and it has not
been explained in any other way.

I^aturalists are constantly speaking of "related
species," of the " affinity " of a genus or other group,
and of " famil}^ resemblance " — vaguely conscious that
these terms of kinship are something more than mere
metaphors, but unaware of the grounds of their apt-
ness. Mr. Darwin assures them that they have been
talking derivative doctrine all their lives — as M. Jour-
dain talked prose — without knowing it.

If it is difficult and in many cases practically im-
possible to fix the' limits of species, it is. still more so
to fix those of genera ; and those of tribes and families
are still less susceptible of exact natural circumscrip-
tion. Intennediate forms occur, connecting one group
with another in a manner sadly perplexing to sys-
tematists, except to those who have ceased to expect
absolute limitations in Isature. All this blending
could hardly fail to suggest a former material connec-
tion among allied fonns, such as that which the
hypothesis of derivation demands.

NATURAL selection; ETC 123

Here it would not be amiss to coDsider tlie general
principle of gradation throngliout organic Nature — a
principle wliich answers in a general way to the Law of
Continuity in the inorganic world, or rather is so anal-
ogous to it that both may fairly be expressed by the
Leibnitzian axiom, Natura non agit saltaihn. As an
axiom or philosophical principle, used to test modal
laws or hj^otheses, this in strictness belongs only to
physics. In the investigation of E"ature at large, at
least in the organic world, nobody would undertake to
apply this principle as a test of the validity of any
theory or supposed law. But naturalists of enlarged
views will not fail to infer the principle from the phe-
nomena they investigate — to perceive that the rule
holds, under due qualifications and altered forms,
throughout the realm of ITature ; although we do not
suppose that E'ature in the organic world makes no
distinct steps, but only short and serial steps — not in-
finitely fine gradations, but no long leaps, or few of
them.

To glance at a few illustrations out of many that
present themselves. It would be thought that the dis-
tinction between the two organic kingdoms was broad
and absolute. Plants and animals belong to two very
different categories, fulfill opposite offices, and, as to
the mass of them, are so unlike that the difficulty of
the ordinary observer would be to find points of com-
parison. "Without entering into details, which would
fill an article, we may safely say that the difficulty with
the naturalist is all the other way — that all these
broad differences vanish one by one as we approach the
lower confines of the two kingdoms, and that no ahso-

124 DAEWINIANA.

lute distinction whatever is now known between tliem.
It is quite possible that the same organism may be
both vegetable and animal, or may be first the one and
then the other. If some organisms may be said to be
at first vegetables and then animals, others, like the
spores and other reproductive bodies of many of the
lower Algge, may equally claim to have first a charac-
teristically animal, and then an unequivocally vegeta-
ble existence. !Nor is the gradation restricted to these
simple organisms. It appears in general functions, as
in that.of reproduction, which is reducible to the same
formula in both kingdoms, while it exhibits close ap-
proximations in the lower forms ; also in a common or
similar ground of sensibility in the lowest forms of
both, a common faculty of effecting movements tend-
ing to a determinate end, traces of which pervade the
vegetable kingdom — while, on the other hand, this in-
definable principle, this vegetable

" Animula vagula, blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis,"

graduates into the higher sensitiveness of the lower
class of animals. Nor need we hesitate to recognize
the fine gradations from simple sensitiveness and
volition to the higher instinctive and to the other
psychical manifestations of the higher brute ani-
mals. The gradation is undoubted, however we may
explain it.

Again, propagation is of one mode in the higher
animals, of two in all plants ; but vegetative propaga-
tion, by budding or offshoots, extends through the
lower grades of animals. In both kingdoms there

NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 125

may be separation of the offshoots, or indifference in
this respect, or continued and organic union with the
parent stock ; and this eitlier with essential indepen-
dence of the offshoots, or witli a subordination of these
to a common whole ; or finally with such subordination
and amalgamation, along with specialization of func-
tion, that the same parts, which in other cases can be
regarded only as progeny, in these become only mem-
bers of an individual.

This leads to the question of individuality, a sub-
ject quite too large" and too recondite for present dis-
cussion. The conclusion of the whole matter, how-
ever, is, that indi\dduality — that very ground of l)eing
as distinguished from thing — is not attained in IS^ature
at one leap. If anywhere truly exemplified in j)]ants,
it is only in the lowest and simplest, where the being
is a structural unit, a single cell, memberless and or-
ganless, though organic — the same thing as those cells
of which all the more complex plants are built up, and
with which every plant and (structurally) every animal
began its development. In the ascending gradation
of the vegetable kingdom individuality is, so to say,
striven after, but never attained; in the lower ani-
mals it is striven after with greater though incom-
plete success ; it is realized only in animals of so high
a rank that vegetative multiplication or offshoots are
out of the question, where all parts are strictly mem-
bers and nothing else, and all subordinated to a com-
mon nervous centre — is fully realized only in a con-
scious person.

So, also, the broad distinction between reproduc-
tion by seeds or ova and propagation by buds, though

126 DARWINIANA.

perfect in some of tlie lowest forms of life, becomes
evanescent in others ; and even the most absolute law
we know in the physiology of genuine reproduction —
that of sexual cooperation — ^has its exceptions in both
kingdoms in parthenogenesis, to which in the vege-
table kingdom a most curious and intimate series of
gradations leads. In plants, likewise, a long and fine-
ly-graduated series of traiisitions leads from bisexual
to unisexual blossoms ; and so in various other respects.
Everywhere we may perceive that Nature secures her
ends, and makes her distinctions on the whole mani-
fest and real, but everywhere without abrupt breaks.
"We need not wonder, therefore, that gradations be-
tween species and varieties should occur ; the more so,
since genera, tribes, and other groups into which the
naturalist collocates species, are far from being always
absolutely limited in Nature, though they are neces-
sarily represented to be so in systems. From the ne-
cessity of the case, the classifications of the naturalist
abruptly define where Nature more or less blends.
Our systems are nothing, if not definite. They ex-
press differences, and some of the coarser gradations.
But this evinces not their perfection, but their im-
perfection. Even the best of them are to the system
of Nature what consecutive patches of the seven col-
ors are to the rainbow.

Now the principle of gradation throughout organic
Nature may, of course, be interpreted upon other as-
sumptions than those of Darwin's hypothesis^cer-
tainly upon quite other than those of a materialistic
philosophy, with which we ourselves have no sym-
pathy. Still we conceive it not only possible, but

NATURAL SELECTION', ETC. 127

probable, tliat this gradation, as it has its natural
ground, may yet have its scientific explanation. In
any case, there is no need to deny that the general
facts correspond well with an hypothesis like Dar-
win's, which is built npon fine gradations.

We have contemplated quite long enough the gen-
eral presumptions in favor of an hypothesis of the
derivation of species. AYe cannot forget, however,
while for the moment we overlook, the formidable diffi-
culties which all hypotheses of this class have to en-
counter, and the serious implications which they seem
to involve. We feel, moreover, that Darwin's par-
ticular hypothesis is exposed to some special objections.
It requires no small streiigth of nerve steadily to con-
ceive, not only of the diversification, but of the forma-
tion of the organs of an animal through cumulative
variation and natural selection. Think of such an
organ as the eye, that most perfect of optical instru-
ments, as so produced in the lower animals and per-
fected in the higher ! A friend of ours, who accepts
the new doctrine, confesses that for a long while a
cold chill came over him whenever he thought of the
eye. He has at length got over that stage of the
complaint, and is now in the fever of belief, perchance
to be succeeded by the sweating stage, during which
sundry peccant humors may be eliminated from the
system. For ourselves, we dread the chill, and have
some misgiving about the consequences of the reac-
tion. We find ourselves in the " singular position " ac-
knowledged by Pictet — that is, confronted with a the-
ory which, although it can really ex}3lain much, seems
inadequate to the heavy task it so boldly assumes, but

128 DARWINIANA.

which, nevertheless, appears better fitted than any other
that has been broached to explain, if it be possible to
explain, somewhat of the manner in which organized
beings may have arisen and succeeded each other. In
this dilemma we might take advantage of Mr. Dar-
win's candid admission, that he by no means expects to
convince old and experienced people, whose minds are
stocked with a multitude of facts all regarded during
a long couj^se of years from the old point of view. This
is nearly our case. So, owning no call to a larger faith
than is expected of us, but not prej^ared to pronounce
the whole hypothesis untenable, under such construc-
tion as we should put upon it, we naturally sought
to attain a settled conviction through a perusal of
several proffered refutations of the theory. At least,
this course seemed to offer the readiest way of bringing
to a head the various objections to which the theory
is exposed. On several accounts some of these opposed
reviews especially invite examination. "We propose,
accordingly, to conclude our task with an article upon
" Darwin and his Keviewers."

III.

The origin of species, like all origination, like tlie
institution of any otlier natural state or ord^r, is be-
yond our immediate ken. We see or may learn how
things go on; we can only frame hypotheses as to how
they began.

Two hypotheses divide the scientific world, very
unequally, upon the origin of the existing diversity
of the plants and animals which surround us. One
assumes that the actual kinds are primordial ; the other,
that they are derivative. One, that all kinds origi-
nated supernaturally and directly as such, and have
'continued unchanged in the order of ITature ; the
other, that the present kinds appeared in some sort of
genealogical connection with other and earlier kinds,
that they became what they now are in the course of
time and in the order of Mature.

Or, bringing in the word species, which is well
defined as " the perennial succession of individuals,"
commonly of very like individuals^as a close corpora-
tion of individuals perpetuated by generation, instead
of election — and reducing the question to mathemati-
cal simplicity of statement : species are lines of individ-
uals coming down from the past and running on to
the future ; lines receding, therefore, from our view in
either direction. Within our limited observation they

130 DARWINIAKA.

appear to be parallel lines, as a general thing neither
approaching to nor diverging from each other.

The first hypothesis assumes that they were parallel
from the unknown beginning and will be to the un-
known end. The second hypothesis assumes that the
apparent parallelism is not real and complete, at least
aboriginally, but approximate or temporary ; that we
should find the lines convergent in the past, if we could
trace them far enough ; that some of them, if produced
back, would fall into certain fragments of lines, which
have left traces in the past, lying not exactly in the
same direction, and these farther back into others to
which they are equally unparallel. It will also claim
that the present lines, whether on the whole really or
only approximately parallel, sometimes fork or send off
branches on one side or the other, producing new
lines (varieties), which run for a while, and for aught
we know indefinitely when not interfered with, near
and approximately parallel to the parent line. This
claim it can establish ; and it may also show that these
close subsidiary lines may branch or vary again, and
that those branches or varieties which are best adapted
to the existing conditions may be continued, while
others stop or die out. And so we may have the basis
of a real theory of the diversificatiorh of species ; and
here, indeed, there is a real, though a narrow, estab-
lished ground to build upon. But, as systems of
organic E^ature, both doctrines are equally hypotheses^
are suj^positions of what there is no proof of from
experience, assumed in order to account for the ob-
served phenomena, and supported by such indirect
evidence as can be had.

DABWIiV A^s'-D HIS REVIEWERS. 131

. EYen when the upholders of the former and more
popuL^r system mix np revelation with scientific dis-
cussion— which we decline to do — thej by no means
thereby render their view other than hypothetical.
Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by
Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural
order and what we call secondary causes. The record
of the fiat — " Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed," etc., " and it was so ; " " let the earth
bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and
creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind,
and it was so " — seems even to imply them. Agi-eeing
that they were formed of " the dust of the ground,"
and of thin air, onlv leads to the conclusion that the
pristine individuals were coi'poreally constituted like
existing individuals, produced through natural agen-
cies. To agree that they were created " after their
kinds" determines nothing as to what were the origi-
nal kinds, nor in what mode, during what time, and
in what connections it pleased the Almighty to intro-
duce the first individuals of each sort upon the earth.
Scientifically considered, the two opposing doctrines
are equally hypothetical.

The two views very unequally divide the scientific
world; so that believers in "the divine right of
majorities " need not hesitate which side to take, at
least for the present. Up to a time quite within the
memory of a generation still on the stage, two hypoth-
eses about the nature of light very unequally divided
the scientific world. But the small minority has al-
ready prevailed : the emission theory has gone out ;
the undulatory or wave theory, after some fluctuation,

132 DARWINIANA.

has reached high tide, and is now the pervading, the
fully-established system. There was an intervening
time during which most physicists held their opinions
in suspense.

The adoj)tion of the undulatory theory of light
called for the extension of the same theory to heat,
and this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a
correlation, material connection, and transmutability
of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc. ; which hy-
pothesis the physicists held in absolute suspense until
very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not
already established as a system, it promises soon to
become so. At least, it is generally received as a
tenable and probably true hypothesis.

Parallel to this, however less cogent the reasons,
Darwin and others, having shown it likely that some
varieties of plants or animals have diverged in time
into cognate species, or into forms as different as spe-
cies, are led to infer that all species of a genus may
have thus diverged from a common stock, and thence
to suppose a higher community of origin in ages still
farther back, and so on. Following the safe example
of the physicists, and acknowledging the fact of the
diversification of a once homogeneous species into
varieties, we may receive the theory of the evolution
of these into species, even while for the present we
hold the hypothesis of a further evolution in cool
susj)ense or in grave suspicion. In respect to very
many questions a wise man's mind rests long in a state
neither of belief nor of unbelief. But your intellect-
ually short-sighted people are apt to be preternaturally
clear-sighted, and to find their way very plain to posi-

DARWm AND EIS REVIEWERS. 133

tive conclusions upon one side or tlie otlier of every
mooted question.

In fact, most people, and some philosophers, refuse
to hold questions in abeyance, however incompetent
they may be to decide them. And, curiously enough,
the more difficult, recondite, and perplexing, the
questions or hypotheses are — such, for instance, as
those about organic Nature — the more impatient they
are of suspense. Sometimes, and evidently in the
present case, this impatience grows out of a fear that
a new hypothesis may endanger cherished and most
important beliefs. Impatience under such circum-
stances is not unnatural, though perhaps needless, and,
if so, unwise.

To us the present revival of the derivative hy-
pothesis, in a more winning shape than it ever before
had, was not unexpected. We wonder that any
thoughtful observer of the course of investigation and
of speculation in science should not have foreseen it,
and have learned at length to take its inevitable com-
ing patiently ; the more so, as in Dar^\dn's treatise it
comes in a purely scientific form, addressed only to
scientific men. The notoriety and wide popular pe-
rusal of this treatise appear to have astonished the
author even more than the book itself has astonished
the reading w^orld. Coming, as the new presentation
does, from a naturalist of acknowledged character and
ability, and marked by a conscientiousness and candor
which have not always been reciprocated, we have
thought it simply right to set forth the doctrine as
fairly and as favorably as we could. There are plenty
to decry it, and the whole theory is widely exposed

134 . DARWINIANA.

to attack. For tlie arguments on the other side we
may look to the numerous adverse pnblications which
Darwin's volnme has ah'eady called out, and especially
to those reviews which propose directly to refute it.
Taking various lines, and reflecting very diverse modes
of thought, these hostile critics may be expected to
concentrate and enforce the principal objections which
can be brought to bear against the derivative hypothe-
sis in general, and Darwin's new exposition of it in
particular.

Upon the opposing side of the question we have
read with attention — 1. An article in the North Amieri-
can Review for April last ; 2. One in the Christian
Examiner^ Boston, for May ; 3. M. Pictet's article in
the BiHliotheqxie Universelle, which we have already
made considerable use of, which seems throughout
most able and correct, and which in tone and fairness
is admirably in contrast with — 4. The article in the
Edinburgh Review for May, attributed — although
against a large amount of interaal presumptive evi-
dence— to the most distinguised British comparative
anatomist ; 5. An article in the North British Review
for May; 6. Prof. Agassiz has afforded an early
opportunity to peruse the criticisms he makes in the
forthcoming third volume of his great work, by a
publication of them in advance in the American
Journal of Sc'ence for July.

In our survey of the lively discussion which has
been raised, it matters little how our own particular
opinions may incline. But we may confess to an im-
pression, thus far, that the doctrine of the permanent
and complete immutability of species has not been

DAEWm AI^^'D HIS REVIEWERS. 135

establislied, and may fairly be doubted. We believe
that species vary, and that " JSTatural Selection "
works ; bnt we suspect that its operation, like every
analogous natural operation, may be limited by some-
thing else. Just as every species by its natural rate of
reproduction would soon completely fill any country
it could live in, but does not, being checked by some
other species or some other condition — so it may
be surmised that variation and natural selection
have their struggle and consequent check, or are
limited by something inherent in the constitution of
organic beings.

We are disposed to rank the derivative hypothe-
sis in its fullness with the nebular hypothesis, and to
regard both as allowable, as not unlikely to prove ten-
able in spite of some strong objections, but as not
therefore demonstrably true. Those, if any there be,
who regard the derivative hj^othesis as satisfactorily
proved, must have loose notions as to what proof is.
Those who imagine it can be easily refuted and cast
aside, must, we think, have imperfect or very pre-
judiced conceptions of the facts concerned and of
the questions at issue. '

We are not disposed nor prepared to take sides for
or against the new hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occu-
py a good position from which to watch the discus-
sion and criticise those objections which are seemingly
inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by
those who have undertaken to demolish the theory,
we have been most impressed with a sense of their
great inequality. Some strike us as excellent and
perhaps unanswerable ; some, as incongruous with

136 DARWIRIANA.

other views of tlie same writers ; otliers, when carried
out, as incoraj^atible with general experience or general
beliefs, and therefore as proving too much ; still
others, as proving nothing at all ; so that, on the
whole, the effect is rather confusing and disappoint-
ing. We certainly expected a stronger adverse case
than any which the thoroughgoing opposers of Dar-
win appear to have made out. Wherefore, if it be
found that the new hypothesis has grown upon our
favor as we proceeded, this must be attributed not
so much to the force of the arguments of the book
itself as to the want of force of several of those by
which it has been assailed. Darwin's arguments we
might resist or adjourn ; but some of the refutations
of it give us more concern than the book itself did.

These remarks apply mainly to the philosophical
and theological objections which have been elaborately
urged, almost exclusively by the American reviewers.
The North Bi^itisJi reviewer, indeed, roundly de-
nounces the book as atheistical, but evidently deems
the case too clear for argument. The Edhibicrgh re-
viewer, on the contrary, scouts all such objections
— as well he may, since he records his belief in " a
continuous creative operation," a constantly operating
secondary creation al law," through which species are
successively produced ;• and he emits faint, but not
indistinct, glimmerings of a transmutation theory of
his own;^ so that he is equally exposed to all the

^ Whatever it may be, it is not " the homoeopathic form of the trans-
mutative hypothesis," as Darwin's is said to be (p. 252, American re-
print), so happily that the prescription is repeated in the second (p. 259)
and third (p. 271) dilutions, no doubt, on Hahnemann's famous princi-

DARWIN AND ELS REVIEWERS. 137

philosophical objections advanced by Agassiz, and to
most of those urged by the other American critics,
against Darwin himself.

Proposing now to criticise the critics, so far as to
see what their most general and comprehensive objec-
tions amount to, we must needs begin with the Amer-
ican reviewers, and wdth their arguments adduced to
prove that a derivative hypothesis ought not to he true,
or is not possible, philosophical, or theistic.

It must not be forgotten that on former occasions
very confident judgments have been pronounced by
very competent persons, which have not been finally
ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth
century, I^ewton and Leibnitz, both profoundly relig-
ious as well as philosophical, one produced the theory
of gravitation, the other objected to that theory that it
was subversive of natural religion. The nebular hy-
pothesis— a natural consequence of the theory of grav-
itation and of the subsequent progress of physical and
astronomical discovery — has been denounced as athe-
istical even down to our own day. But it is now^ large-
ly adopted by the most theistical natural philosophers
as a tenable and perhaps sufiicient hypothesis, and
where not accepted is no longer objected to, so far as
we know, on philosophical or religious grounds.

The gist of the philosophical objections urged by

pie, of an increase of potency at each dilution. Probably the supposed
transmutation is per saltus. " Homoeopathic doses of transmutation,"
indeed ! Well, if we really must swallow transmutation in some form
or other, as this reviewer intimates, we might prefer the mild homoeo-
pathic doses of Darwin's formula to the allopathic bolus which the
Edinburgh general practitioner appears to be compounding.

138 DARWINIANA.

the two Boston reviewers against an hypothesis of the
derivation of species — or at least against Darwin's
particular hypothesis— is, that it is incompatible with
the idea of any manifestation of design in the uni-
verse, that it denies final causes. A serious objection
this, and one that demands very serious attention.

The proposition, that things and events in E^ature
were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is
doubtless tantamount to atheism. Yet most people
believe that some were designed and others were not,
although they fall into a hopeless maze whenever they
undertake to define their position. So we should not
like to stigmatize as atheistically disposed a person
who regards certain things and events as being what
they are through designed laws (whatever that expres-
sion means), but as not themselves specially ordained,
or who, in another connection, believes in general, but
not in particular Providence. We could sadly puzzle
him with questions ; but in return he might equally
puzzle us. Then, to deny that anything was specially
designed to be what it is, is one proposition ; while to
deny that the Designer supernaturally or immediately
made it so, is another : though the reviewers appear
not to recognize the distinction.

Also, "scornfully to repudiate" or to "sneer at
the idea of any manifestation of design in the mate-
rial universe," ^ is one thing ; while to consider, and
perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which attend the
■ practical application of the doctrine of final causes to

^ Vide North Anerican Eevieio, for April, 1860, p. 475, and Chris-
tian Examiner, for May, p. 457.

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 139

certain instances, is quite anotlier tiling : yet the Bos-
ton reviewers, we regret to say, have not been duly
regardful of the difference. Whatever be thought of
Darwin's doctrine, we are surprised that he should be
charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of
others, upon such a subject. Perhaps Darwin's view
is incompatible with final causes — we will consider
that question presently — bnt as to the Examiner's
charge, that he " sneers at the idea of any manifesta-
tion of design in the material universe," though we
are confident that no misrepresentation was intended,
we are equally confident that it is not at all warranted
by the two passages cited in support of it. Here are
the passages :

"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not
know tlxat there were many black and pied kinds, I dare say
that we should have thought that the green color was a beau-
tiful adaptation to hide this tree -frequenting bird from its
enemies."

"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multi-
tude of inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells
us, though we may easily err on both sides, that some contriv-
ances are less perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp
or of the bee as perfect, which, when used against many attack-
ing animals, cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward
serratures, and so inevitably causes the death of the insect by
tearing out its viscera ? "

If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the
detached extracts (one of them wanting the end of the
sentence), it is, if possible, more imperceptible when
read with the context. Moreover, this perusal inclines
us to think that the Examiner has misapprehended
the particular argument or object, as well as the spirit,

140 DARWINIANA.

of the author in these passages. The whole reads
more naturallj as a caution against the inconsiderate
use of final causes in science, and an illustration of
some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their
hasty assumption is apt to involve — considerations
probably equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon
to liken final causes to " vestal virgins." So, if any
one, it is here Bacon that ^' sitteth in the seat of the
scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which
the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary
question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty,
but, we suppose, is wholly unconscious of denying
'' any manifestation of design in the material universe."
He concludes the first sentence :

— " and consequently that it was a character of importance,
and might have been acquired through natural selection ; as it is,
I have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct
cause, probably to sexual selection."

After an illustration from the vegetable creation,
Darwin adds :

" The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked
at as a direct adaptation for wallovring in putridity ; and so it
may de, or it may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid
matter ; but we should be very cautious in drawing any such
inference, when we see that the skin on the head of the clean-
feeding male turkey is likewise naked. The sutures in the
skulls of young mammals have been advanced as a beautiful
adaptation for aiding parturition, and no doubt they facilitate or
may be indispensable for this act ; but as sutures occur in the
skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have only to escape
from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure has arisen
from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage of in
the parturition of the higher animals."

DARWIN AND HIS EEVIEWERS: 141

All this, simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the
attempt to explain scientifically how any designed
result is accomplished savors of impropriety.

In the other place, Darwin is contemplating the
patent fact that ^' perfection here below " is relative, not
absolute — and illustrating this by the circumstance
that European animals, and especially plants, are now
proving to be better adapted for ISTew Zealand than
many of the indigenous ones — that " the correction for
the aberration of light is said, on high authority, not
to be quite perfect even in that most perfect organ, the
eye." And then follows the second extract of the
reviewer. But what is the position of the reviewer
upon his own interpretation of these passages ? If he
insists that green woodpeckers were specifically created
so in order that they might be less liable to capture,
must he not equally hold that the black and pied ones
were specifically made of these colors in order that
they might be more liable to be caught ? And would
an explanation of the mode in which those wood-
peckers came to be green, however complete, convince
him that the color was undesigned ?

As to the other illustration, is the reviewer so com-
plete an optimist as to insist that the arrangement
and the weapon are wholly perfect {quoad the insect)
the normal use of which often causes the annual fatally
to injure or to disembowel itself ? Either way it seems
to us that the argument here, as well as the insect,
performs hari-hari. The Examiner adds :

"We should in like manner object to the vs^ovil favorable^ as
implying that some species are placed by the Creator under un-
favorable circumstances, at least under such as might be ad-
vantageously rao.dified."

7

142 BARWmiANA.

But are not many individuals and some races of
men placed by the Creator " under unfavorable circum-
stances, at least under such, as might be advantageously
modified ? " Surelv these reviewers must be livino^ in
an ideal world, surrounded by '' the faultless monsters
which 0117' world ne'er saw," in some elysium where
imperfection and distress were never heard of ! Such
arguments resemble some which we often hear against
the Eible, holding that book responsible as if it origi-
nated certain facts on the shady side of human nature
or the apparently darker lines of Providential dealing,
thouo^h the facts are facts of common observation and
have to be confronted upon any theory.

The North American reviewer also has a v/orld
of his own — just such a one as an idealizing philoso-
pher would be apt to devise — that is, full of sharp and
absolute distinctions : such, for instance, as the " abso-
lute invariableness of instinct ; " an absolute want of
intelligence in any brute animal ; and a complete
monopoly of instinct by the brute animals, so that
this " instinct is a great matter " for them only, since
it shai-ply and perfectly distinguishes this portion of
organic ISTature from the vegetable kingdom on the one
hand and from man on the other : most convenient
views for argumentative purposes, but we suppose not
borne out in fact.

In their scientific objections the two reviewers take
somewhat different lines ; but their philosophical and
theological arguments strikingly coincide. They agree
in emphatically asserting that Darwin's hypothesis of
the origination of species through variation and natu-
ral selection " repudiates the whole doctrine of final

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 143

causes," and " all indication of design or purpose in the
organic world. ... is neither more nor less than a
formal denial of any agency beyond that of a blind
chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or
instincts of created beings. ... It is in vain that the
apologists of this hypothesis might say that it merely
attributes a different mode and time to the Divine
agency — that all the qualities subsequently appearing
in their descendan-ts must have been implanted, and
have remained latent in the original pair." Such
a view, the Examiner declares, "is nowhere stated
in this book, and would be, we are sure, disclaimed
by the author."

We should like to be informed of the grounds of
this sureness. The marked rejection of spontaneous
generation — the statement of a belief that all animals
have descended from four or five progenitors, and plants
from an equal or lesser number, or, perhaps, if con-
strained to it by analogy, " from some one primordial
form into which life was first breathed " — coupled with
the expression, " To my mind it accords better with
w^hat we know of the laws impressed on matter by the
Creator, that the production and extinction of the past
and present inhabitants of the world should have been
due to secondary causes," than " that each species has
been independently created " — these and similar ex-
pressions lead us to suppose that the author probably
does accept the kind of view w^hich the Examiner
is sure he would disclaim. At least, we charitably
see nothing in his scientific theory to hinder his adop-
tion of Lord Bacon's " Confession of Faith " in this
regard —

144 LARWINIANA.

"That, notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from
creating [in the sense of supernatural origination], yet, never-.
theless, he doth accomphsh and fulfill his divine will in all
things, great and small, singular and general, as fully and ex-
actly by providence as he could by miracle and new creation,
though his working be not immediate and direct, but by com-
pass ; not violating IsTature, which is his own law upon tlie
creature." • ^

However that may be, it is uiideiiiable that Mr.
Darwin has pui-posely been silent upon the philosophi-
cal and theological applications of his theory. This
reticence, nnder the circumstances, argues design, and
raises inquiry as to the final cause or reason -why.
Here, as in higher instances, confident as we are that
there is a final cause, we must not be over-confident
that we can infer the particular or true one. Perhaps
the author is more familiar with natural-historical than
with philosophical inquiries, and, not having decided
which particular theory about efficient cause is best
founded, he meanwhile argues the scientific questions
concerned — all that relates to secondary causes — upon
purely scientific grounds, as he must do in any case.
Perhaps, confident, as he evidently is, that his view will
finally be adopted, he may enjoy a sort of satisfaction
in hearing it denounced as sheer atheism by the incon-
. siderate, and afterward, when it takes its place with
the nebular hypothesis and the like, see this judgment
reversed, as we suppose it would be in such event.

Whatever Mr. Darwin's philosophy may be, or
w^hether he has any, is a matter of no consequence at
all, compared with the important questions, whether
a theory to account for the origination and divereifi-

DARWIN AND EIS REVIEWERS. 145

cation of animal and vegetable forms through the op-
eration of secondary causes does or does not exclude
design ; and whether the establishment by adequate
evidence of Darwin's particular theory of diversifica-
tion through variation and natural selection would es-
sentially alter the present scientific and philosophical
grounds for theistic views of IsTature. The unqualified
affirmative judgment rendered by the two Boston re-
viewers, evidently able and practised reasoners, " must
give us pause." We hesitate to advance our conclu-
sions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and seri-
ous consideration, we are constrained to say that, in
our opinion, the adoption of a derivative hypothesis,
and of Darwin's particular hypothesis, if we under-
stand it, would leave the doctrines of final causes,
utility, and special design, just where they were before.
We do not pretend that the subject is not environed
with difficidties. Every view is so environed; and
every shifting of the view is likely, if it removes some
difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we
cannot perceive that Darwin's theory brings in any
new kind of scientific difficulty, that is, any with which
philosophical naturalists were not already familiar.

Since natural science deals only with secondary or
natural causes, the scientific terms of a theory of deri-
vation of species — no less than of a theory of dynam-
ics— must needs be the same to the theist as to the
atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry
is carried up to the question of primary cause — a ques-
tion which belongs to p>hilosophy. Wherefore, Dar-
win's reticence about efficient cause does not disturb
us. He considers only the scientific questions. As

146 DARWINIANA.

already stated, we tliink tliat a theistic view of JSTature
is implied in his book, and we must charitably refrain
from suggesting the contrary until the contrary is logi-
cally deduced from his premises. If, however, he any-
where maintains that the natural causes throuo^h which
species are diversified operate without an ordaining
and directing intelligence, and that the orderly arrange-
ments and admirable adaptations we see all around us
are fortuitous or blind, undesigned results — that the
eye, though it came to see, was not designed for see-
ing, nor the hand for handling — then, we suppose, he
is justly chargeable with denying, and very needlessly
denying, all design in organic IN^ature ; otherwise, we
suppose not. Why, if Darwin's well-known passage
about the eye ^ — equivocal though some of the language
be — does not imply ordaining and directing intelli-
gence, then he refutes his own theory as effectually as
any of his opponents are Hkely to do. He asks :

'' May we not believe that [under variation pro-
ceeding long enough, generation multiplying the bet-
ter variations times enough, and natural selection se-
curing the improvements] a living optical instrument
might be thus formed as superior to one of glass as the
works of the Creator are to those of man 1 "

This must mean one of two things : either that the
living instrument was made and perfected under (which
is the same thing as by) an intelligent First Cause, or
that it was not. If it was, then theism is asserted ;
and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and
why must we believe, that, fitting precedent forms
being in existence, a living instrument (so different

* Page 188, EDgUsh edition.

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. WJ

from a lifeless manufacture) would be originated and
perfected in any other way, or that this is not the fit-
ting way 1 If it means that it was not, if he so misuses
words that by the Creator he intends an unintelligent
power, undirected force, or necessity, then he has put
his case so as to invite disbelief in it. For then blind
forces have produced not only manifest adaptations
of means to specific ends — which is absurd enough —
but better adjusted and more perfect instruments or
machines than intellect (that is, human intellect) can
contrive and human skill execute — which no sane per-
son will believe.

On the other hand, if Darwin even admits — we
will not say adopts — the theistic view, he may save
himself much needless trouble in the endeavor to ac-
count for the absence of every sort of intemiediate
form. Those in the line between one species and an-
other supposed to be derived from it he may be bound
to provide ; but as to " an infinite number of other
varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and purposeless,
the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause,"
born only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has
imposed upon his theory — rightly enough upon the
atheistic alternative — the theistic view rids him at once
Kjl this " scum of creation." For, as species do not
now vary at all times and places and in all directions,
nor produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms,
there is no reason for supposing that they ever did.
Good-for-nothing monstrosities, failures of purpose
rather than purposeless, indeed, sometimes occur ; but
these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Dar-
win's theory as upon any other. For his particular

148 BARWINIANA.

theory IS based, and even over-strictly insists, upon
the most universal of physiological laws, namely, that
successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at
all, from their parents ; and this effectively excludes
ciTide and impotent forms. Wherefore, if we believe
that the species were designed, and that natural prop-
agation was designed, how can^we say that the actual
varieties of the species were not equally designed?
Have we not similar grounds for inferring design in
the supposed varieties of species, that we have in the
case of the supposed species of a genus ? When a nat-
uralist comes to regard as three closely-related species
what he before took to be so many varieties of one spe-
cies, how has he thereby strengthened our conviction
that the three forms are designed to have the differences
which they actually exhibit ? Wherefore, so long as
gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue
design, and at least while the physical cause of varia-
tion is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should
advise Mr. Darwin to assume, in the philosophy of his
hypothesis, that variation has been led along certain
beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a sloping plain
by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural selec-
tion) may have worn their actual channels as they
flowed; yet their particular courses may have been
assigned ; and where we see them forming definite
and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner unac-
countable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics,
we should believe that the distribution was designed.
To insist, therefore, that the new hj^othesis of the
derivative origin of the actual species is incompatible
with final causes and design, is to take a position which

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 149

we must consider pliilosoptiically untenable. "We must
also regard it as highly unwise and dangerous, in the
present state and present prospects of physical and
physiological science. We should expect the philo-
sophical atheist or skeptic to take this ground ; also,
until better informed, the unlearned and unphilosoph-
ical believer ; but we should think that the thought-
ful theistic philosopher would take the other side.
JSTot to do so seems to concede that only supernatural
events can be shown to be designed, which no theist
can admit — seems also to misconceive the scope and
meaning of all ordinary arguments for design in Na-
ture. This misconception is shared both by the re-
viewers and the reviewed. At least, Mr. Darwin uses
expressions which imply that the natural forms which
surround us, because they have a history or natural
sequence, could have been only generally, but not par-
ticularly designed — a view at once superficial and con-
tradictory ; whereas his true line should be, that his
hypothesis concerns the ordei' and not the cause^ the
how and not the why of the phenomena, and so leaves
the question of design just where it was before.

To illustrate this from the theist's point of view :
Transfer the question for a moment from the origina-
tiuii of species to the origination of individuals, which
occurs, as we say, naturally. Because natural, that is,
" stated, fixed, or settled," is it any the less designed
on that account 1 We acknowledge that God is our
maker — not merely the originator of the race, but our
maker as individuals — and none the less so because it
pleased him to make us in the way of ordinary gener-
ation. If any of us were born unlike our parents and

150 DARWIFIANA.

grandparents, in a sliglit degree, or in whatever de-
gree, would tlie case be altered in this regard ?

The whole argument in natural theology proceeds
upon the ground that the inference for a final cause of
the structui'e of the hand and of the valves in the veins
is just as vaHd now, in individuals produced through
natural generation, as it would have been in the case of
the first man, supernaturally created. Why not, then,
just as good even on the supposition of the descent of
men from chimpanzees and gorillas, since those ani-
mals possess these same contrivances ? Or, to take a
more supposable case : If the argument from structure
to design is convincing when drawn from a particular
animal, say a ITewf oundland dog, and is not weakened
by the knowledge that this dog came from similar par-
ents, would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his
genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote
descendant of the mastiff or some other breed, or that
both these and other breeds came (as is suspected) from
some wolf? If not, how is the argument for design in
the structure of om' particular dog affected by the sup-
position that his wolfish progenitor came from a post-
tertiary wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than
the dog in question is to some other of the numerous
existing races of dogs, and that this post-tertiary came
from an equally or more different tertiary wolf ? And
if the argument from structure to design is not invali-
dated by our present knowledge that our individual
dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is
it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous
natural descent, through a long line of connected forms,

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 151

from such a cell, or from some simple animal, existing
ages before there were any dogs ?

Again, suppose we have two well-known and ap-
parently most decidedly different animals or plants, A
and D, both presenting, in their structure and in their
adaptations to the conditions of existence, as valid and
clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever
presented : suppose we have now discovered two inter-
mediate species, B and C, which make up a series with
equable differences from A to D. Is the proof of
design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amount-
ed to, at all weakened by the discovery of the inter-
mediate' forms ? Kather does not the proof extend to
the intermediate species, and go to show that all four
were equally designed ? Suppose, now, the number
of intermediate forms to be much increased, and there-
fore the gradations to be closer yet — as close as those
between the various sorts of dogs, or races of men, or
of horned cattle : would the evidence of design, as
shown in the structure of any of the members of the
series, be any weaker than it was in the case of A and
D ? Whoever contends that it would be, shoidd like-
wise maintain that the origination of individuals by
generation is incompatible with design, or an impos-
sibility in Nature. We might all have confidently
thought the latter, antecedently to experience of the
fact of reproduction. Let our experience teach us
wisdom.

These illustrations make it clear that the evidence
of design from structure and adaptation is furnished
corwplete by the individual animal or plant itself, and
that our knowledge or our ignorance of the history of

152 DAE WimANA.

its formation or mode of production adds nothing to
it and takes nothing away. "We infer design from
certain arrangements and results ; and we have no oth-
er way of ascertaining it. Testimony, unless infallible,
cannot prove it, and is out of the question here.
Testimony is not the ajyjyrojyriate proof of design:
adaj)tatio7i to jpurjyose is. Some arrangements in
JSTature appear to be contrivances, but may leave us in
doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand
are notable examples, compel belief with a force not
appreciably short of demonstration. Clearly to settle
that such as these must have been designed goes far
toward proving that other organs and other seemingly
less explicit adaptations in ]!!^ature must also have been
designed, and chnches our belief, from manifold con-
siderations, that all Nature is a preconcerted arrange-
ment, a manifested design. A strange contradiction
would it be to insist that the shape and markings of
certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift-de-
posits, prove design, but that nicer and thousand-fold
more complex adaptations to use in animals and vege-
tables do not a fortiori argue design.

"We could not affirm that the arguments for design
in ^Nature are conclusive to all minds. But we may
insist, upon grounds already intimated, that, whatever
they were good for before Darwin's book appeared,
they are good for now. To our minds the argument
from design always appeared conclusive of - the being
and continued operation of .an intelligent First Cause,
the Ordainer of JSTature ; and we do not see that the
grounds of such belief would be disturbed or shifted
])y the adoption of Darwin's hypothesis. We are not

DARWm AND HIS EEYIEWERS, 153

blind to the philosophical difficulties which the thor-
oughgoing implication of design in ]^ature has to
encounter, nor is it our vocation to obviate them. It
suffices us to know that they are not new nor peculiar
difficulties — that, as Darwin's theorv and our reason-
ings upon it did not raise these perturbing spirits, they
are not bound to lay them. Meanwhile, that the doc-
trine of design encounters the very same difficulties
in the material that it does in the moral world is just
what ought to be expected.

So the issue between the skeptic and the theist is
only the old one, long ago argued out — ^namely, wheth-
er organic Mature is a result of design or of chance.
Variation and natural selection open no third alterna-
tive ; they concern only the question how the results,
whether fortuitous or designed, may have been brought
about. Organic ISTature abounds with unmistakable
and irresistible indications of design, and, being a con-
nected and consistent system, this evidence carries the
implication of design throughout the whole. On the
other hand, chance carries no probabilities with it, can
never be developed into a consistent system, but, when
applied to the explanation of orderly or beneficial
results, heaps up improbabilities at every step beyond
all computation. To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply
inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos.

It is very easy to assume that, because events in
Nature are in one sense accidental, and the operative
forces which bring them to pass are themselves blind
and unintelligent (physically considered, all forces
are), therefore they are undirected, or that he who
describes these events as the results of such forces

154 DARWimANA.

thereby assumes that they are undirected. This is the
assumption of the Boston reviewers, and of Mr. Agas-
siz, who insists that the only alternative to the doc-
trine, that all organized beings were supernaturally
created just as they are, is, that they have arisen sj^on-
taneously through the omnijpotence of matter.^

As to all this, nothing is easier than to bring out
in the conclusion what you introduce in the premises.
If you import atheism into your conception of vari-
ation and natural selection, you can readily exhibit it
in the result. If you do not put it in, perhaps there
need be none to come out. While the mechanician is
considering a steamboat or locomotive-engine as a mar
terial organism, and contemplating the fuel, water, and
steam, the source of. the mechanical forces, and how
they operate, he may not have occasion to mention
the engineer. But, the orderly and special results ac-
complished, the why the movements are in this or that
particular direction, etc., is inexplicable without him.
If Mr. Dar^^dn believes that the events which he sup-
poses to have occurred and the results we behold were
undirected and undesigned, or if the physicist be-
lieves that the natural forces to which he refers phe-
nomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is
needed to show that such belief is atheism. But the
admission of the phenomena and of these natural pro-
cesses and forces does not necessitate any such belief,
nor even render it one whit less improbable than
before.

Surely, too, the accidental element may play its
part in I^ature without negativing design in the the-

' In American Journal of Science, July, 1860, pp. 147-149.

DARWIN AND HIS EEVIEWERS. I55

ist's view. He believes that the earth's surface has
been very gradually prepared for man and the existing
animal races, that vegetable matter has through a long
series of generations imparted fertility to the soil in
order that it may support its present occupants, that
even beds of coal have been stored up for man's bene-
fit. Yet what is more accidental, and more simply the
consequence of physical agencies, than the accumula-
tion of vegetable matter in a peat-bog, and its trans-
formation into coal ? Is^o scientific person at this day
doubts that our solar system is a progressive develop-
ment, whether in his conception he begins with molten
masses, or aeriform or nebulous masses, or with a fluid
revolving mass of vast extent, from which the specific
existing worlds have been developed one by one.
What theist doubts that the actual results of the de-
velopment in the inorganic worlds are not merely
compatible with design, but are in the truest sense
designed results? Not Mr. Agassiz, certainly, who
adopts a remarkable illustration of design directly
founded on the nebular hypothesis, drawing from the
position and times of the revolution of the world, so
originated, "direct evidence that the physical world
has been ordained in conformity with laws which ob-
tam also among living beings." But the reader of the
interesting exposition^ will notice that the designed
result has been brought to pass through what, speak-
ing after the manner of men, might be called a chapter
of accidents.

A natural corollary of this demonstration would

» In " Contributions to the Natural History of the United States, "
vol. i., pp. 128, 129.

156 DARWINIANA.

seem to be, tliat a material connection between a series
of created tilings — sucli as the development of onaof
tbem from another, or of all from b, common stock — is
highly compatible with their intellectual connection,
namely, with their being designed and directed by
one mind. Tet upon some gronnd which is not ex-
plained, and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr.
Agassiz concludes to the contrary in the organic king-
doms, and insists that, because the members of such a
series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot
be the result of a material differentiation of the ob-
jects themselves," ^ that is, they cannot have had a
genealogical connection. But is there not as much
intellectual connection between the successive genera-
tions of any species as there is between the several
species of a genus, or the several genera of an order ?
As the intellectual connection here is realized through
the material connection, why may it not be so in the
case of species and genera? On all sides, therefore,
the implication seems to be quite the other way.

Hetm-ning to the accidental element, it is evident
that the strongest point against the compatibility of
Darwin's hyj)othesis w^ith design in JSTature is made
when natural selection is referred to as picking out
those variations which are improvements from a vast
number which are not improvements, but perhaps the
contrary, and therefore useless or purposeless, and
born to perish. But even here the difficulty is not
peculiar ; for Mature abounds with analogous instances.
Some of our race are useless, or worse, as regards

^ " Contributions to the Natural History of the United States," yol.
i., p. 130 ; and American Journal of Science^ July, 1860, p. 143.

JDARWm AND HIS REVIEWERS. 157

tKe improvement of mankind ; yet tlie race may be
designed to improve, and may be actually improving.
Or, to avoid the complication with free agency — tlie
whole animate life of a country depends absolutely
upon the vegetation, the vegetation upon the rain.
The moisture is furnished by the ocean, is raised by
the sun's heat from the ocean's surface, and is wafted
inland by the winds. But what multitudes of rain-
drops fall back into the ocean — are as much without a
final cause as the incipient varieties which come to
nothing! Does it therefore follow that the rains
which are bestowed upon the soil with such rule and
average regularity wei'e not designed to support vege-
table and animal life ? Consider, likewise, the vast
proportion of seeds and pollen, of ova and young — a
thousand or more to one — which come to nothing,
and are therefore purposeless in the same sense, and
only in the same sense, as are Darwin's unimproved
and unused slight variations. The world is full of
such cases ; and these must answer the argument — for
we cannot, except by thus showing that it proves too
much.

Finally, it is worth noticing that, though natural
selection is scientifically explicable, variation is not.
Thus far the cause of variation, or the reason why the
ottspring is sometimes unlike the parents, is just as
mysterious as the reason why it is generally like the
parents. It is now as inexplicable as any other origi-
nation ; and, if ever explained, the explanation will
only carry up the sequence of secondary causes one step
farther, and bring us in face of a somewhat different
problem, but which will have the same element of

158 DARWINIANA.

mystery tliat the problem of variation lias now. Cir-
cmnstances may preserve or may destroy the variations ;
man may nse or direct them ; but selection, whether
artificial or natnral, no more originates them than
man originates the power which turns a wheel, when
he dams a stream and lets the water fall upon it. The
origination of this power is a question about efficient
cause. The tendency of science in respect to this ob-
viously is not toward the omnipotence of matter, as
some suppose, but toward the omnipotence of spirit.

So the real question we come to is as to the way in
which we are to conceive intelligent and efiicient cause
to be exerted, and upon what exerted. Are we bomid
to suppose efiiicient cause in all cases exerted upon
nothing to evoke something into existence — and this
thousands of times repeated, when a slight change in
the details would make all the difference between suc-
cessive species? "Why may not the new species, or
some of them, be designed diversifications of the old?

There are, perhaps, only three views of efficient
cause which may claim to be both philosophical and
theistic :

1. The view of its exertion at the beginning of
time, endowing matter and created things with forces
which do the work and produce the phenomena.

2. This same view, with the theory of insulated
interpositions, or occasional direct action, engrafted
upon it — the view that events and operations in gen-
eral go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at
the first, but that now and then, and only now and
then, the Deity puts his hand directly to the work.

3. The theory of the immediate, orderly, and con-

DAEWm AND HIS REVIEWERS. 159

stant, however infinitely diversified, action of the in-
telligent efficient Cause.

It must be allowed that, while the third is preemi-
nently the Christian view, all three are philosophi-
cally compatible with design in JSTature. The second
is probably the popular conception. Perhaps most
thoughtful people oscillate from the middle view tow-
ard the first or the third — adopting the first on some
occasions, the third on others. Those philosophers
who like and expect to settle all mooted questions
will take one or the other extreme. The Examiner
inclines toward, the North American reviewer fully
adopts, the third view, to the logical extent of main-
taining that " the origin of an individual^ as well as
the origin of a species or a genus, can be explained
only by the direct action of an intelligent creative
cause." To silence his critics, this is the line for Mr.
Darwin to take ; for it at once and completely relieves
his scientific theory from every theological objection
which his reviewers have urged against it.

At present we suspect that our author prefers the
first conception, though he might contend that his hy-
pothesis is compatible with either of the three. That
it is also compatible with an atheistic or pantheistic
conception of the universe, is an objection which,
being shared by all physical, and some ethical or
moral science, cannot specially be urged against Dar-
win's system. As he rejects spontaneous generation,
and admits of intervention at the beginning of organic
life, and probably in more than one instance, he is
not wholly excluded from adopting the middle view,
although the interventions he would allow are few and

160 DARWINIANA.

far back. Yet one interposition admits the principle
as well as more. Interposition presupposes particular
necessity or reason for it, and raises the question, when
and how often it may have been necessary. It might
be the natural su]3position, if we had only one set of
species to account for, or if the successive mhabitants
of the earth had no other connections or resemblances
than those which adaptation to similar conditions,
which final causes in the narrower sense, might ex-
plain. But if this explanation of organic I^ature re-
quires one to "believe that, at innumerable periods
in the earth's history, certain elemental atoms have
been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues,"
and this when the results are seen to be strictly con-
nected and systematic, we cannot wonder that such
interventions should at length be considered, not as
interpositions or interferences, but rather — ^to use the
reviewer's own language — as " exertions so frequent
and beneficent that we come to regard them as the or-
dinary action of Him who laid the foundation of the
earth, and without whom not a sparrow falleth to the
ground." ^

What does the difference between Mr. Darwin and
his reviewer now amount to ? If we say that accord-
ing to one view the origination of species is natural^
according to the other tniraculous^ Mr. Darwin agrees
that "what is natural as much requires and presup-
poses an intelligent mind to render it so — that is, to
eifect it continually or at stated times — as what is su-
pernatural does to effect it for once." "^ He merely

' North Americayi Review for April, 1S60, p, 506.
2 Vide motto from Butler, prefixed to the second edition of Darwin's
work.

DABWm AND HIS REVIEWERS. Id

inquires into the form of the miracle, may remind us
that all recorded miracles (except the primal creation
of matter) were transformations or actions in and up-
on natural things, and will ask how many times and
how frequently may the origination of successive spe-
cies be repeated before the supernatural merges in the
natural.

In short, Darwin maintains that the origination of
a species, no less than that of an individual, is natural ;
the reviewer, that the natural origination of an indi-
vidual, no less than the origination of a species, re-
quires and presupposes Divine power. A fortiori,
then, the origination of a variety requires and j)resup-
poses Divine power. And so between the scientific
hypothesis of the one and the philosophical concep-
tion of the other no contrariety remains. And so,
concludes the Worth American reviewer, '' a proper
view of the nature of causation .... places the
vital doctrine of the being and the providence of a
God on ground that can never be shaken." ^ A wor-
thy conclusion, and a sufficient answer to the denun-
ciations and arguments of the rest of the article, so far
as philosophy and natural theology are concerned. If
a writer must needs use his own favorite dogma as a
weapon with which to give coup de grace to a perni-
cluus theory, he should be careful to seize his edge-
tool by the handle, and not by the blade.

We can barely glance at a subsidiary philosophical
objection of the North American reviewer, which the
Examiner also raises, though less explicitly. Like
all geologists, Mr. Darwin draws upon time in the

* North American Review^ loc. cit., p. 504.

162 DARWINIANA.

most unlimited manner. He is not peculiar in tliis
regard. Mr. Agassiz tells us that the con\dction
is "now universal, among well-informed naturalists,
that this globe has been in existence for innumerable
ages, and that the length of time elapsed since it first
became inhabited cannot be counted in years ; " Pic-
tet, that the imagination refuses to calculate the im-
mense number of years and of ages during which th-e
fauTias of thirty or more epochs have succeeded one
another, and developed their long succession of gen-
erations. I^ow, the reviewer declares that such indefi-
nite succession of ages is " virtually infinite," "lacks
no characteristic of eternity except its name," at least,
that " the difference between such a conception and
that of the strictly infinite, if any, is not appreciable."
But infinity belongs to metaphysics. Therefore, he
concludes, Darwin supports his theory, not by scien-
tific but by metaphysical evidence ; his theory is " es-
sentially and completely metaphysical in character, rest-
ing altogether upon that idea of ' the infinite ' which
the human mind can neither put aside nor compre-
hend." " And so a theory which will be generally
regarded as much too physical is transferred* by a
single syllogism to metaphysics.

Well, physical geology must go with it : for, even
on the soberest view, it demands an indefinitely long
time antecedent to the introduction of organic life'
upon om' earth. A fortiori is physical astronomy a
branch of metaphysics, demanding, as it does, still
larger "instalments of infinity," as the reviewer calls
them, both as to time and number. Moreover, far the

^ North American Review^ loc. cit., p. 48Y, et passim.

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 163

greater part of physical inquiries now relate to mo-
lecular actions, wliich, a distinguished natural philoso-
pher informs us, " we have to regard as the results of
an infinite number of infinitely small material parti-
cles, acting on each other at infinitely small distances "
— a triad of infinities — and so jphysics becomes the
most metajyhysical of sciences. Yerilj, if this style of
reasoning is to prevail —

" Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And naught is everything, and everything is naught."

The leading objection of Mr. Agassiz is likewise of
a philosophical character. It is, that species exist only
" as categories of thought " — that, having no material
existence, they can have had no material variation, and
no material community of origin. Here the predica-
tion is of species in the subjective sense, the inference
in the objective sense. Keduced to plain terms, the
argument seems to be : Species are ideas ; therefore
the objects from which the idea is derived cannot vary
or blend, and cannot have had a genealogical connec-
tion.

The common view of species is, that, although they
are generalizations, yet they have a direct objective
ground in ITature, which genera, orders, etc., have not.
According to the succinct definition of Jussieu — and
that of Linnaeus is identical in meaning — a species is
the perennial succession of similar individuals in con-
tinued generations. The species is the chain of which
the individuals are the links. The sum of the genea-
logically-connected similar individuals constitutes the
species, which thus has an actuality and ground of dis-

164 LARWINIANA.

tinction not shared bj genera and other groups which
were not supposed to be genealogically connected.
How a derivative hypothesis would modify this view,
in assigning to species only a temporary fixity, is ob-
vious. Yet, if naturalists adopt that hypothesis, they
will still retain Jussieu's definition, which leaves un-
touched the question as to how and when the " peren-
nial successions " were established. The practical ques-
tion will only be. How much difference between two
sets of individuals entitles them to rank under distinct
species? and that is the practical question now, on
whatever theory. The theoretical question is — as
stated at the beginning of this article — whether these
specific lines were always as distinct as now.

Mr. Agassiz has " lost no opportunity of urging
the idea that, while species have no material existence,
they yet exist as categories of thought in the same way
[and only in the same way] as genera, families, orders,
classes," etc. He

"has taken the ground that all the natural divisions in the ani-
mal kingdom are primarily distinct, founded upon different
categories of characters, and that all exist in the same way,
that is, as categories of thought, embodied in individual living
forms. I have attempted to show that branches in the animal
kingdom are founded upon different plans of structure, and for
that very reason have embraced from the beginning representa-
tives between which there could be no community of origin ;
that classes are founded upon different modes of execution of
these plans, and therefore they also embrace representatives
which could have no community of origin ; that orders repre-
sent the different degrees of complication in the mode of execu-
tion of each class, and therefore embrace representatives which"
could not have a community of origin any more than the mem-
bers of different classes or branches ; that families are founded

DARWIN AND EI8 REVIEWERS. 105

upon different patterns of form, and embrace representatives
equally independent in their origin ; that genera are founded
upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, embracing representa-
tives wbicb, from tbe very nature of their peculiarities, could
have no community of origin ; and that, finally, species are
based upon relations and proportions that exclude, as much as
all the preceding distinctions, the idea of a common descent.

" As the community of characters among the beings belong-
ing to these different categories arises from the intellectual con-
nection which shows them to be categories of thought, they
cannot be the result of a gradual material differentiation of the
objects themselves. The argument on which these views are
founded may be summed up in the following few words :
Species, genera, families, etc., exist as thoughts, individuals as
facts." »

An ingenious dilemma caps the argmnent :

"It seems to me that there is much confusio^n of ideas in
the general statement of the variability of species so often re-
peated lately. If species do not exist at all, as the supporters
of the transmutation theory maintain, how can they vary ? and
if individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be
observed among them prove the variability of species? "

JSTow, we imagine tliat Mr. Darwin need not be
dangerously gored by either born of tliis curious di-
lemma. Although we ourselves cherish old-fashioned
prejudices in favor of the probable permanence, and
therefore of a more stable objective ground of species,
yet we agree — and Mr. Darwin will agree fully with
Mr. Agassiz — that species, and he will add varieties,
" exist as categories of thought," that is, as cognizable
distinctions — which is all that we can make of the
phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian
metaphysics. Admitting that species are only cate-

* la American Journal of Science^ July, 1860, p. 143.
8

166 • DARWmiANA,

gories of thoiiglit, and not facts or things, liow does
tMs prevent the individuals, which are. material things,
from having varied in the course of time, so as to
exemplify the present almost innumerable categories
of thought, or embodiments of Divine thought in ma-
terial forms, or — viewed on the human side — in forms
marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances
and differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of
species, genera, orders, etc., and to our reason the in-
ference of a Divine Original ? We have no clear idea
how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in
saying that branches are founded upon diif erent plans
of structure, classes upon different mode of execution
of these plans, orders on different degrees of compli-
cation in the mode of execution, families upon diflerent
patterns of form, genera upon ultimate peculiarities
of structure, and species upon relations and propor-
tions. That is, we do not perceive how these several
" categories of thought " exclude the possibility or the
probability that the individuals which manifest or
suggest the thoughts had an ultimate community of

origm.

Moreover, Mr. Darwin might insinuate that the
particular pliilosophy of classification upon which this
whole argument reposes is as purely hypothetical and
as little accepted as is his own doctrine. If both are
pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to ex-
tinguish the one by the other. If there is no real con-
tradiction between them, nothing is gained by the
attempt.

As to the dilemma propounded, suppose we try it
upon that category of thought which we call chair.

DARWIN AND HIS EEVIEWEES. 1G7

Tliis is a genus, comprising a common chair {Sella vul-
garis), arm or easy cliair {S. cathedra), tlie rocking-cliair
(S. oscillans) — widely distributed in the United States
— and some others, each of which has sported, as the
gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the
genus and the species have no material existence, how
can they vary ? If only individual chairs exist, how can
the differences which may be observed among them
prove the variability of the species % To which we re-
ply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the
category of thought, or the individual embodiment?
If the former, then we would remark that our cate-
gories of thought vary from time to time in the readi-
est manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are
eternal, yet they are manifested to us in time and suc-
cession, and by their manifestation only can we know
them, how imperfectly ! Allowing that what has no
material existence can have had no material connection
or variation, we should yet infer that what has intel-
lectual existence and connection might have intellectual
variation ; and, turning to the individuals, which repre-
sent the species, we do not see how all this shows that
they may not vary. Observation shows us that they
do. "Wherefore, taught by fact that successive indi-
viduals do vary, we safely infer that the idea must
have varied, and that this variation of the individual
representatives proves the variability of the species,
whether objectively or subjectively regarded.

Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has
its varieties, and one species shades off by gradations
into another. And — note it well — these numerous
and successively slight variations and gradations, far

168 DARWimANA.

from suggesting an accidental origin to chairs and to
theii' forms, are very proofs of design.

Again, edifice is a generic category of thought.
Egyptian, Grecian, Byzantine, and Gothic buildings are
well-marked species, of which each individual building
of the sort is a material embodiment. !Kow, the ques-
tion is, whether these categories or ideas may not have
been evolved, one from another in succession, or from
some primal, less specialized, edificial category. What
better e\ddence for such hypothesis could we have than
the variations and grades which connect these species
with each other ? We might extend the parallel, and
get some good illustrations of natural selection from
the history of architecture, and the origin of the dif-
ferent styles under different climates and conditions.
Two considerations may qualify or limit the compari-
son. One, that houses do not propagate, so as to pro-
duce continuing lines of each sort and variety ; but this
is of small moment on Agassiz's view, he holding that
genealogical connection is not of the essence of a
species at all. The other, that the formation and
development of the ideas upon which human works
proceed are gradual ; or, as the same great naturalist
well states it, "while human thought is consecutive,
Divine thought is simultaneous." But we have no
right to affirm this of Divine action.

We must close here. We meant to review some
of the more general scientific objections which we
thought not altogether tenable, But, after all, we are
not so anxious just now to know whether the new
theory is well founded on facts, as whether it would

DARWIN AND HIS EEVIEWERS. 169

be harmless if it were. Besides, we feel quite unable
to answer some of these objections, and it is pleasanter
to take up those which one thinks he can.

Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest
of the objections, is that of the absence, in geological
deposits, of vestiges of the intermediate forms which
the theory requires to have existed. Here all that
Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme im-
perfection of the geological record and the uncertainty
of negative evidence. But, withal, he allows the force
of the objection almost as much as his opponents urge
it — so much so, indeed, that two of his English critics
turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge
him with actually basing his hypothesis upon these
and similar difficulties^ — as if he held it because of the
difficulties, and not in spite of them ; a handsome re-
turn for his candor !

As to this imperfection of the geological record,
perhaps we should get a fair and intelligible illustra-
tion of it by imagining the existmg animals and plants
of IsTew England, with all their remains and products
since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated ;
and that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new
colony, dropped by the !New Zealand fleet on its way
to explore the ruins of London, undertake, after fifty
years of examination, to reconstruct in a catalogue the
flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close
of the glacial period to the present time. With all
the advantages of a sm-face exploration, what a beg-
garly account it would be ! How many of the land
animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massa-
chusetts official reports would it be likely to contain ?

170 BAEWINIANA.

Another unanswerable question asked by the Bos-
ton reviewers is, Why, when structure and instinct or
habit vary — as they must have varied, on Darwin's
hypothesis — they vary together and harmoniously, in-
stead of vaguely ? We cannot tell, because we can-
not tell why either varies at all. Tet, as they both
do vary in successive generations — as is seen under
domestication — and are correlated, we can only ad-
duce the fact. Darwin may be precluded from our
answer, but we may say that they vary together be-
cause designed to do so. * A reviewer says that the
chance of their varying together is inconceivably
small ; yet, if they do not, the variant individuals must
all perish. Then it is well that it is not left to chance.
To refer to a parallel case : before vre were born,
nourishment and the equivalent to respiration took
place in a certain way. But the moment we were
ushered into this breathing world, our actions promptly
conformed, both as to respiration and nom'ishment,
to the before unused structure and to the new sur-
roundings.

" Now," says the Examiner^ " suppose, for instance,
the gills of an aquatic animal converted into lungs,
while instinct still compelled a continuance under
water, would not drowning ensue ? " No doubt. But
— simply contemplating the facts, instead of theoriz-
ing— we notice that young frogs do not keep their
heads under water after ceasing to be tadpoles. The
instinct promptly changes with the structure, with-
out supernatui'al interposition — ^just as Darwin would
have it, if the development of a variety or incipient

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 171

species, tliougli rare, were as natural as a metamor-
phosis.

" Or if a quadruped, not yet furnislied witli wings,
were suddenly inspired with the instinct of a bird,
and precipitated itself from a cliff, would not the de-
scent be hazardously rapid ? " Doubtless the animal
would be no better supported than the objection.
But Darwin makes very little indeed of voluntary ef-
forts as a cause of change, and even poor Lamarck
need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an
elephant would take such a notion into his wise head,
or that a squirrel would begin with other than short
and easy leaps ; yet might not the length of the leap
be increased by practice ?

The North American reviewer's position, that
the higher brute animals have comparatively little in-
stinct and no intelligence, is a heavy blow and great
discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and mon-
keys. Thus stripped of their all, and left to shift for
themselves as they may in this hard world, their
pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under
such peculiar difficulties are interesting to contemplate.
However, we are not so sure as is the critic that in-
stinct regularly increases downward and decreases up-
ward in the scale of being. Now that the case of the
bee is reduced to moderate proportions,* we know of
nothing in instinct surpassing that of an animal so
high as a bird, the talegal, the male of which plumes
himself upon making a hot-bed in which to hatch his
partner's eggs — which he tends and regulates the heat

* Vide article by Mr. 0. "Wright, in the Mathematical Monthly for
May last.

172 BARWrniANA.

of about as carefully and skilKiilly as the unplumed
biped does an eccaleobion/

As to the real intelligence of the higher brutes, it
has been ably defended by a far more competent ob-
server, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we yield a
general assent, although we cannot quite place the best
of dogs " in that respect upon a level with a consider-
able proportion of poor humanity," nor indulge the
hope, or indeed the desire, of a renewed acquaintance
with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.^

The assertion that acquired habitudes or instincts,
and acquired structures, are not heritable, any breeder
or good observer can refute.^

That "the human mind has become what it is out
of a developed instinct,"* is a statement which Mr,
Darwin nowhere makes, and, we presume, would not
accept/ That he would have us believe that individ-

^ Vide EdbiburgJi Review for January, 1860, article on "Acclima-
tization," etc.

^ " Contributions, Essay on Classification," etc., vol. i., pp. 60-66.

^ Still stronger assertions have recently been hazarded — even that
heritability is of species only, not of individual characteristics —
strangely overlooking the fundamental peculiarity of plants and ani-
mals, which is that they reproduce^ and that the species is continued as
such only because individuals reproduce their Uke.

• • • • • • « •.

It has also been urged that variation is never cumulative. If this
means that varieties are not capable of further variation, it is not borne
out by observation. For cultivators and breeders well know that the
main difficulty is to initiate a variation, and that new varieties are par-
ticularly prone to vary more.

^ North American Review, April, 1860, p. 475.

^ No doubt he would equally distinguish in kind between iiistinct
(which physiologically is best conceived of as congenital habit, so that
habits when inherited become instincts, just as varieties become fixed

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 173

ual animals acquire their instincts gradually/ is a
statement wliicli must have been penned in inadver-
tence both of the very definition of instinct, and of
everything we know of in Mr. Darwin's book.

It has been attempted to destroy the very founda-
tion of Darwin's hypothesis by denying that there are
any wild varieties, to speak of, for natural selection to
operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to prove
that wild varieties abound. We. should think it just
as necessary to prove that snow falls in winter. That
variation among plants cannot be largely due to hy-

into races) and intelligence ; but would maintain that both are endow-
ments of the higher brutes and of man, however vastly and unequal
their degree, and with whatever superaddition to simple intelligence in
the latter.

[Prof. Joseph Le Conte, in Popular Science Monthly, September,
1875, refers to his definition of instinct as "inherited experience,"
pubUshed in April, 1811, as having been anticipated by that of Hering,
as " inherited memory," in February of the same year. . Doubtless the
idea has been expressed by others long before us.]

To allow that " brutes have certain mental endowments in common
with men," .... desires, affections, memory, simple imagination or
the power of reproducing the sensible past in mental pictures, and even
judgment of the simple or intuitive kind" — that " they compare and
judge" ("Memoirs of American Academy," vol. viii., p. 118) — is to
concede that the intellect of brutes really acts, so far as we know, like
human intellect, as far it goes ; for the philosophical logicians tell U3
all reasoning is reducible to a series of simple judgments. And Aris-
totle declares that even reminiscence — which is, we suppose, " repro-
ducing the sensible past in mental pictures " — is a sort of reasoning
(rb avafjufivfjaKcoOal iffriv otou (TvKXoyia^6s ris).

On the other hand, Mr. Darwin's expectation that " psychology will
be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each
mental power and capacity by gradation," seems to come from a school
of philosophy with which we have -no sympathy.

^American Journal of Science^ July, 1860, p. 146.

174 DARWINIANA.

bridism, and that their variation in ISTature is not es-
sentially different from mucli that occurs in domesti-
cation, and, in the long-run, probably hardly less in
amount, we could show if our space permitted.

As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be
insisted upon as absolutely true, nor be practically
used as a test between species and varieties, unless we
allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. That
such sterility, whether total or partial, subserves a pur-
pose in keeping species apart, and was so designed, we
do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that
this sterility proves nothing whatever against the de-
rivative origin of the actual species ; for it may as
well have been intended to keep separate those forms
which have reached a certain amount of divergence, as
those which were alwavs thus distinct.

The argument for the permanence of species, drawn
from the identity with those now living of cats, birds,
and other animals preserved in Egyptian . catacombs,
was good enough as used by Cuvier against St.-Hi-
laire, that is, against the supposition that time brings
about a gradual alteration of whole species; but it
goes for little against Darwin, unless it be proved that
species never vary, or that the perpetuation of a vari-
ety necessitates -the extinction of the parent breed.
For Darwin clearly maintains — what the facts warrant
—that the mass .of a species remains fixed so long as
it exists at all, though it may set off a variety now and
then. The variety may finally supersede the parent
form, or it may coexist with it ; yet it does not in the
least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true
to the breed, unless it crosses with it. The common

DARWIN AND 'HIS REVIEWERS. 175

law of iiilieritance may be expected to keep both the
original and the variety mainly true as long as they
last, and none the less so because they have given rise
to occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the
curtailed fox in the fable, have not induced the nor-
mal breeds to dispense with their tails, nor have the
Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the per-
manence of the common sort of fowl.

As to the objection that the lower forms of life
ought, on Darwin's theory, to have been long ago im-
proved out of existence, and replaced by higher forms,
the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave
below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple
organization is best adapted, and where an advance
would be no improvement, but the contrary. To accu-
mulate the greatest amount of being upon a given space,
and to provide' as much enjoyment of life as can be
under the conditions, is what l^ature seems to aim at ;
and this is effected by diversification.

Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwin's or
any other derivative theory as true. The time has not
come for that, and perhaps never will. We also ad-
\nse against a simular credulity on the other side, in a
blind faith that species — that the manifold sorts and
forms of existing animals and vegetables — "have no
secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlike-
ly, and we- suppose will hereafter become more and
more probable. But we are confident that, if a de-
rivative h}rpothesis ever is established, it will be so on
Si solid theistic ground.

Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis
is on trial — an hypothesis thus far not imtenable — a

176 DARWINIANA.

trial just now very useful to science, and, we conclude,
not harmful to religion, unless injudicious assailants
temporarily make it so.

One good effect is already manifest ; its enabling
the advocates of the hypothesis of a multiplicity of
human species to perceive the double insecurity of their
ground. When the races of men are admitted to be of
one species^ the corollary, that they are of one origin,
may be expected to follow. Those who allow them to
be of one species must admit an actual diversification
into strongly-marked and persistent varieties, and so
admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian
hypothesis is built ; while those, on the other hand,
who recognize several or numerous human species, will
hardly be able to maintain that such species were pri-
mordial and supernatural in the ordinary sense of
the word.

The English mind is prone to positivism and kin-
dred forms of materialistic philosophy, and we must
expect the derivative theory to be taken up in that in-
terest. "We have no predilection for that school, but
the contrary. If we had, we might have looked com-
placently upon a line of criticism which would indi-
rectly, but effectively, j)lay into the hands of positivists
and materialistic atheists generally. The wiser and
stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothe-
sis leaves the argument for design, and therefore for a
designer, as valid as it ever was ; that to do any work
by an instrument must require, and therefore presup-
pose, the exertion rather of more than of less power
than to do it directly ; that whoever would be a con-
sistent theist should believe that Design in the natural

DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 177

world is coextensive with Providence, and hold as firm-
ly to the one as he does to the other, in spite of the
wholly similar and apparently insuperable difficulties
which the mind encounters whenever it endeavors to
develop the idea into a system, either in the material
and organic, or in the moral world. It is enough, in
the way of obviating objections, to show that the phil-
osophical difficulties of the one are the same, and only
the same, as of the other.

ly.

SPECIES AS TO VAEIATION, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTEIBUTION,

AOT) SUCCESSION.

(Amekican Jotjenal of Scienck akd Aets, May, 1863.)

Etude siir VEsjpece^ a V Occasion d'une Eevision de
laFamille des Cuj^iiliferes^jpar M. Alphonse De Can-
DOLLE. — This is tlie title of a paper by M. Alj)]i.
De Candolle, gTowing out of his study of the oaks. It
was published in the E^ovember number of the Bih-
liotheque TJniverselle^ and separately issued as a pam-
phlet. A less inspiring task could hardly be assigned
to a botanist than the systematic elaboration of the
genus Qiiercus and its allies. The vast materials as-
sembled under De Candolle' s hands, while disheart-
ening for their bulk, offered small hope of novelty.
The subject was both extremely trite and extremely
difficult. Happily it occurred to De Candolle that an
interest might be imparted to an onerous undertaking,
and a w^ork of necessity be turned to good account for
science, by studying the oaks in view of the question
of species.

What this term sjyecies means, or should mean, in
natural history, what the limits of species, inter se or
chronologically, or in geographical distribution, their
modifications, actual or probable, their origin, and

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, ETC. 170

tlieir destiny — these are questions wliicli surge up
from time to time ; and now and tlien in the progress
of science they come to assmne a new and hopeful in-
terest. Botany and zoology, geology, and what our
author, feeling the want of a new term, proposes to
name ejpiontology ^ all lead up to and converge into
this class of questions, while recent theories shape and
point the discussion. So we look with eager interest
to see what light the study of oaks by a very careful,
experienced, and conservative botanist, particularly
conversant with the geographical relations of plants,
may throw upon the subject.

The course of investigation in this instance does
not differ from that ordinarily pursued by working
botanists ; nor, indeed, are the theoretical conclusions
other than those to which a similar study, of other or-
ders might not have equally led. The oaks afford a
very good occasion for the discussion of questions
which press upon our attention, and perhaps they offer
peculiarly good materials on account of the number
of fossil species.

Preconceived notions about species being laid
aside, the specimens in hand were distributed, accord-

^ A name which, at the close of his article, De Candolle proposes for
the study of the succession of organized beings, to comprehend, therefore,
palaeontology and all included under what is called geographical botany
and zoology — the whole forming a science parallel to geology — the lat-
ter devoted to the history of unorganized bodies, the former, to that of
organized beings, as respects origin, distribution, and succession. We
are not satisfied with the word, notwithstanding the precedent of pahv-
ontology ; since ontology , the science of being, has an established mean-
mg as referring to mental existence — i. e., is a synonym or a department
of metaphysics.

180 DARWINIANA.

ing to their obvious resemblanceSj into groups of ap-
parently identical or nearly identical forms, wliich
were severally examined and compared. Where speci-
mens were few, as from countries httle explored, the
work was easy, but the conclusions, as will be seen, of
small value. The fewer the materials, the smaller the
likelihood of forms intermediate between any two,
and — what does not appear being treated upon the old
law-maxim as non-existent — species are readily enough
defined. Where, however, specimens abound, as in
the case of the oaks of Europe, of the Orient, and of
the United States, of which the specimens amounted
to hundreds, collected at different ages, in varied local-
ities, by botanists of all sorts of views and predilec-
tions— here alone were data fit to draw useful conclu-
sions from. Here, as De Candolle remarks, he had
every advantage, being furnished with materials more
complete than any one person could have procm*ed
from his own herborizations, more varied than if he
had observed a hundred times over the same forms in
the same district, and more impartial than if they had
all been amassed by one person with his own ideas or
predispositions. So that vast herbaria, into which con-
tributions from every source have flowed for years,
furnish the best possible data — at least are far better
than any practicable amount of personal herborization
— for the comparative study of related forms occur-
ring over wide tracts of temtory. But as the materials
increase, so do the difficulties. Forms, which appeared
totally distinct, approach or blend through interme-
diate gradations ; characters, stable in a limited num-
ber of instances or in a limited district, prove unstable

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, ETC. 181

occasionally, or when observed over a wider area ; and
the practical question is forced upon the investigator,
What here is probably fixed and specific, and what is
variant, pertaining to individual, variety, or race ?

In the examination of these rich materials, certain
characters were found to vary upon the same branch,
or upon the same tree, sometimes according to age or
development, sometimes irrespective of such relations
or of any assignable reasons. Such characters, of
course, are not specific, although many of them are
such as would have been expected to be constant in
the same species, and are such as generally enter into
specific definitions. Yariations of this sort, De Can-
dolle, with his usual j^ain staking, classifies and tabu-
lates, and even expresses numerically their frequency
in certain species. The results are brought well to
view in a systematic enumeration :

1. Of characters which frequently ^'ary upon the
same branch : over a dozen such are mentioned.

2. Of those which sometimes vary upon the same
branch : a smaller number of these are mentioned.

3. Those so rare that they might be called mon-
strosities.

Then he enumerates characters, ten in number,
which he has never found to vary on the same branch,
and which, therefore, may better claim to be employed
as specific. But, as among them he includes the dura-
tion of the leaves, the size of the cupule, and the form
and size of its scales, which are by no means quite uni-
form in different trees of the same species, even these
characters must be taken with allowance. In fact, hav-
ing first brought together, as groups of the lowest

182 DARWINIANA.

order, tliose forms which varied upon the same stock,
he next had to combine similarly various forms which,
though not found associated upon the same branch,
were thoroughly blended by intermediate degTees ;

"The lower groups (varieties or races) "being thus consti-
tuted, I have given the rank of species to the groups next above
these, whicli differ in other respects, i. e., either in characters
which were not found united upon certain individuals, or in
those which do not show transitions from one individual to an-
other. For the oaks of regions sufficientlj known, the species
thus formed rest upon satisfactory bases, of which the proof can
be furnished. It is quite otherwise with those which are repre-
sented in our herbaria by single or few specimens. These are
provisional species — species which may hereafter fall to the rank
of simple varieties. I have not been inclined to prejudge such
questions ; indeed, in this regard, I am not disposed to follow
those authors whose tendency is, as they say, to reunite species.
I never reunite them without proof in each particular case ;
while the botanists to whom I refer do so on the ground of
analogous variations or transitions occurring in the same genus
or in the same family. For example resting on the fact that
Querciis Ilex^ Q. coccifera^ Q. acutifolia^ etc., have the leaves
sometimes entire and sometimes toothed upon the same branch,
or present transitions from one tree to another, I might readily
have united my Q. Tlapuxahuensis to Q. Sartorii of Liebmann,
since these two differ only in their entire or their toothed leaves.
From the fact that the length of the peduncle varies in Q. Ro-
"bur and many other oaks, I might have combined Q. Seemannii
Liebm. with Q. salicifolia ISTee. I have not admitted these in-
ductions, but have demanded visible proof in each particular
case. Many species are thus left as provisional ; but, in proceed-
ing thus, the progress of the science will be more regular, and
the synonymy less dependent upon the caprice or the theoretical
opinions of each author."

This is safe and to a certain degree judicious, no
doubt, as respects published species. Once admitted,

SPECIES AS TO variation; ETC. 183

they may stand nntll they are put down by evidence,
direct or circumstantial. Doubtless a species may
rightfully be condemned on good circumstantial evi-
dence. But vrhat course does De Candolle pursue in
the case — of every-day occmTence to most working
botanists, having to elaborate collections from coun-
tries not so well explored as Hurope — when the forms
in question, or one of the two, are as yet unnamed ?
Does he introduce as a new species every form which
he cannot connect by ocular proof with a near relative,
from Vvhich it differs only in particulars which he sees
are inconstant in better known species of the same
group ? We suppose not. But, if he does, little im-
provement for the future upon the state of things
revealed in the following quotation can be expected :

"In the actual state of our knowledge, after having seen
nearly all the original specimens, and in some species as many
as two hundred representatives from different localities, I esti-
mate that, out of the three hundred species of CupulifercB
which will be enumerated in the Prodromus, two-thirds at least
are provisional species. In general, when we consider what a
multitude of species were described from a single specimen, or
from the forms of a single locality, of a single country, or are
badly described, it is difficult to believe that above one-third of
the actual species in botanical works will remain unchanged."

Such being the results of the want of adequate
knowledge, how is it likely to be when our knowledge
is largely increased ? The judgment of so practised a
botanist as De Candolle is important in this regard,
and it accords w^ith that of other botanists of equal
experience.

" They are mistaken," he pointedly asserts, " who
repeat that the greater part of our species are clearly

1 8-i DAR WINIANA.

limited, and that the doubtful species are iii a feeble
minority. This seemed to be true, so long as a genus
was imperfectly known, and its species were founded
upon few sj)ecimens, that is to say, were provisional.
Just as we come to know them better, intermediate
forms flow in, and doubts as to specific limits aug-
ment."

De Candolle insists, indeed, in this connection, that
the higher the rank of the groups, the more definite
their limitation, or, in other terms, the fewer the am-
biguous or doubtful forms; that genera are more
strictly limited than species, tribes than genera, orders
than tribes, etc. We are not convinced of this. Often
where it has appeared to* be so, advancing discovery
has brc>ught intermediate forms to light, perplexing to
the systematist. " They are mistaken," we think more
than one systematic botanist will say," who repeat that
the greater part of our natural orders and tribes are
absolutely limited," however we may agree that we
will limit them. Provisional genera we suppose are
proportionally hardly less common than provisional
species; and hundreds of genera are kept up on con-
siderations of general propriety or general conven-
ience, although well known to shade off into adjacent
ones by complete gradations. Somewhat of this greater
fixity of higher groups, therefore, is rather apparent
than real. On the other hand, that varieties should
be less definite than species, follows from the very
terms employed. They are ranked as varieties, rather
than species, just because of their less definiteness.

Singular as it may appear, we have heard it denied
that spontaneous varieties occur. De Candolle makes

SPECIES AS TO YARIATIOX, ETC. 185

the important announcement tliat, in tlie oak genus,
the best known species are just those which present the
greatest number of spontaneous varieties and sub-vari-
eties. The maximum is found in Q. Hobiir, with
twenty-eight varieties, all spontaneous. Of Q. Lusi-
tanica eleven varieties are enumerated, of Q. Calli-
prinos ten, of Q. coccifera eight, etc. And he sig-
nificantly adds that "these very species which offer
such numerous modifications are themselves ordinarily
surrounded by other forms, provisionally called spe-
cies, because of the absence of known transitions or
variations, but to which some of these will probably
have to be joined hereafter. " The inference is natu-
ral, if not inevitable, that the difference between such
species and such varieties is only one of degree, either
as to amount of divergence, or of hereditary fixity, or
as to the frequency or rarity at the present time of
intermediate forms.

This brings us to the second section of De Can-
dolle's article, in which he passes on, from the obser-
vation of the present forms and affinities of cupulifer-
ous plants, to the consideration of their probable his-
tory and origin. Suffice it to say, that he frankly ac-
cepts the inferences derived from the whole course
of observation, and contemplates a probable historical
connection between congeneric species. He accepts
and, by various considerations drawn from the geo-
graphical distribution of European Ciipuliferce^ forti-
fies the conclusion — long ago arrived at by Edward
Forbes — that the present species, and even some of
their varieties, date back to about the close of the Ter-
tiary epoch, since which time they have been subject

186 DARWINIANA.

to frequent and great changes of habitation or limita-
tion, but without appreciable change of specific form
or character ; that is, without prof ounder changes than
those within which a species at the present time is
kno^vn to vary. Moreover, he is careful to state that
he is far from concluding that the time of the appear-
ance of a species in Em-ope at all indicates the time of
its origin. Looking back still further into the Tertiary
epoch, of which the vegetable remains indicate many
analogous, but few, if any, identical forms, he con-
cludes, with Heer and others, that specific changes of
form, as well as changes of station, are to be presumed ;
and, finally, that " the theory of a succession of forms
through the deviation of anterior forms is the most
natural hypothesis, and the most accordant with the
known facts in palaeontology, geographical botany and
zoology, of anatomical structure and classification:
but dhect proof of it is wanting, and moreover, it
true, it must have taken place very slowly ; so slowly,
indeed, that its effects are discernible only after a lapse
of time far longer than our historic epoch. "

In contemplating the present state of the species
of CupulifercB in Europe, De Candolle comes to the
conclusion that, while the beech is increasing, and ex-
tending its limits southward and westward (at the ex-
pense of ConifercB and birches), the common oak, to
some extent, and the Turkey oak decidedly, are di-
minishing and retreating, and this wholly irrespective
of man's agency. This is inferred of the Turkey oak
from the great gaps found in its present geographical
area, which are otherwise inexplicable, and which he
regards as plain indications of a partial extinction.

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, ETC. 187

Community of descent of all the individuals of species
is of course implied in these and all similar reasonings.
An obvious result of such partial extinction is
clearly enough brought to view. The European oaks
(like the American species) greatly tend to vary ;
that is, they manifest an active disposition to produce
new forms. Every form tends to become hereditary,
and so to pass from the state of mere variation to that
of race ; and of these competing incipient races some
only will survive. Querciis Hohur offers a familiar
illustration of the manner in which one form may in
the course of time become separated into two or more
distinct ones.
■ To Linnaeus this common oak of Europe was all of
one species. But of late years the greater number
of European botanists have regarded it as including
three species, Q. jpedunculata, Q. sessiliflora^ and Q.
jpiihescens, De Candolle looks with satisfaction to the
independent conclusion which he reached from a long
and patient study of the forms (and which Webb, Gay,
Bentham, and others, had equally reached), that the
view of Linnseus was correct, inasmuch as it goes to
show that the idea and the practical application of the
term speciesh.2iYe, remained unchanged during the cen-
tury which has elapsed since the publication of the " Spe-
cies Plantarum. " But, the idea remaining unchanged,
the facts might appear under a different aspect, and the
conclusion be different, under a slight and very sup-
posable change of circumstances. Of the twenty-eight
spontaneous varieties of Q. Robur, which De Candolle
recognizes, all but six, he remarks, fall naturally under
the three sub-species, peduncidata^ sessiliflora^ and

188 DARWINIANA.

pubescens, and are tlierefore forms grouped aroiind
these as centres ; and, moreover, the few connecting
forms are by no means the most common. Were?
these to die out, it is clear that the three forms which
have already been so frequently taken for species
would be what the group of four or five provisionally
admitted species which closely surround Q. JRobur
now are. The best example of such a case, as having
in all probability occurred through geographical segre-
gation and partial extinction, is that of the cedar, thus
separated into the Deodar, the Lebanon, and the At-
lantic cedars — a case admirably worked out by Dr.
Hooker two or three years ago.^

A special advantage of tlie GiqyuUferoe for deter-
mining the probable antiquity of existing species in
Europe, De Candolle finds in the size and character of
their fruits. However it may be with other plants
(and he comes to the conclusion generally that marine
currents and all other means of distant transport have
played only a very small part in the actual dispersion
of species), the transport of acorns and chestnuts by
natural causes across an arm of the sea in a condition
to germinate, and much more the spontaneous estab-
lishment of a forest of oaks or chestnuts in this way,
De Candolle conceives to be fairly impossible in itself,
and contrary to all experience. From such considera-
tions, i. e., from the actual dispersion of the existing
species (with occasional aid from post-tertiary deposits),
it is thought to be shown that the principal Cupuli-
fercB of the Old World attained their actual extension

' Natural History Rcvieii\ January, 18G2.

SPECIES AS TO VAEIATIOK, ETC. 189

before the present separation of Sicily, Sardinia and
Corsica, and of Britain, from the European Continent.

This view once adopted, and this course once
entered upon, has to be pursued farther. Quercus
HobuT of Europe with its bevy of admitted deriva-
tives, and its attending species only provisionally ad-
mitted to that rank, is very closely related to certain
species of Eastern Asia, and of Oregon and California
— so closely that " a view of the specimens by no
means forbids the idea that they have all originated
from Q. Robur^ or have originated, with the latter,
from one or more preceding forms so like the present
ones that a naturalist could hardly know whether to
call them species or varieties." Moreover, there are
fossil leaves from diluvian deposits in Italy, figured by
Gaudin, which are hardly distinguishable from those
of Q. JRobur on the one hand, and from those of Q.
Douglasii^ etc., of California, on the other. Xo such
leaves are found in any tertiary deposit in Europe;
but such are found of that age, it appears, in North-
west America, where their remote descendants still
flourish. So that the probable genealogy of Q. Bobitr,
traceable in Europe up to the commencement of the
present epoch, looks eastward and far into the past on
far-distant shores.

Quercus llex^ the evergreen oak of Southern Europe
and Northern Africa, reveals a similar archaeoloo'v ;
but its presence in Algeria leads De CandoUe to regard
it as a much more ancient denizen of Europe than Q,
Bobur ; and a Tertiary oak, Q. ilicoides, from a very
old Miocene bed in Switzerland, is thought to be one
of its ancestral forms. This high antiquity once
9

190 DARWmiANA.

establislied, it follows almost of course that tlie very
nearly-related species in Central Asia, in Japan, in
California, and even our own live-oak with its Mexican
relatives, may probably enough be regarded as early
offshoots from the same stock with Q. Ilex.

In brief — not to continue these abstracts and re-
marks, and without reference to Darwin's particular
theory (which De Candolle at the close very fairly con-
siders)— if existing species, or many of them, are as
ancient as they are now generally thought to be, and
were subject to the physical and geographical changes
(among them the coming and the going of the glacial
epoch) which this antiquity implies ; if in former
times they were as liable to variation as they now are ;
and if the individuals of the same species may claim a
common local origin, then we cannot wonder that " the
theory of a succession of forms by deviations of ante-
rior forms " should be regarded as " the most natural
hypothesis," nor at the general advance made toward
its acceptance.

The question being, not, how plants and animals
originated, but, how came the existing animals and
plants to be just where they are and what they are,
it is plain that naturalists interested in such inquiries
are mostly looking for the answer in one direction.
The general drift of opinion, or at least of expectation,
is exemplified by this essay of De Candolle ; and the
set and force of the current are seen by noticing how
it carries along naturalists of widely different views
and prepossessions — some faster and farther than oth-
ers— but all in one way. The tendency is, we may say,
to extend the law of continuity, or something analo-

SPECIES AS TO variation; ETC'. 191

goiis to it, from inorganic to organic Xature, and in
the latter to connect the present with the past in some
sort of material connection. The generahzation may
indeed be expressed so as not to assert that the con-
nection is genetic, as in Mr. Wallace's formula : " Ev-
ery species has come into existence coincident both in
time and space with preexisting closely-allied species."
Edward Forbes, who may be called the originator of
this w^hole line of inquiry, long ago expressed a simi-
lar view. But the only material sequence we know,
or can clearly conceive, in plants and animals, is that
from parent to progeny ; and, as De Candolle implies,
the origin of species and that of races can hardly be
much unlike, nor governed by other than the same
laws, whatever these may be. .

The progress of opinion npon this subject in one
generation is not badly represented by that of De Can-
dolle himself, who is by no means prone to adopt new
views without much consideration. In an elementary
treatise published in the year 1835, he adopted and, if
we rightly remember, vigorously maintained, Schouw's
idea of the double or multiple origin of species, at
least of some species — a \dew which has been carried
out to its ultimate development only perhaps by Agas-
siz, in the denial of any necessary genetic connection
among the indi\dduals of the same species, or of any
original localization more restricted than the area now
occupied by the species. But in 1855, in his " Geogra-
phic Botanique," the multiple hjqDothesis, although in
principle not abandoned, loses its point, in view of the
probable high antiquity of existing species. The act-
ual vegetation of the world being now regarded as a

192 BARWimANA.

continuation, through numerous geological, geograplii-
cal, and more recently historical changes, of anterior
vegetations, the actual distribution of plants is seen to
be a consequence of preceding conditions ; and geologi-
cal considerations, and these alone, may be expected
to explain all the facts — many of them so curious and
extraordinary — of the actual geographical distribution
of the species. In the present essay, not' only the dis-
tribution but the origin of congeneric species is re-
garded as something derivative ; whether derived by
slow and very gradual changes in the course of ages,
according to Darwin, or by a sudden, inexplicable
change of their tertiary ancestors, as conceived by
Heer, De CandoUe hazards no opinion. It may, how-
ever, be inferred that he looks upon " natural selection "
as a real, but insufficient cause ; while some curious
remarks upon the number of monstrosities annually
produced, and the possibility of their enduring, may
be regarded as favorable to Heer's view.

As an index to the progress of opinion in? the di-
rection referred to, it will be interesting to compare
Sir Charles Ly ell's well-known chapters of twenty or
thirty years - ago, in which the permanence of species
was ably maintained, with his treatment of the same
subject in a work just issued in England, which, how-
ever, has not yet reached us,

A belief of the derivation of species may be main-
tained along with a conviction of great persistence of
specific characters. This is the idea of the excellent
Swiss vegetable palseontologist, Heer, who imagines
a sudden change of specific type at certain periods,
and perhaps is that of Pictet. Falconer adheres to

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION-, ETC. I93

somewliat similar views in his elaborate paper on
elephants, living and fossil, in the Natural Jlistory
Review for January last. JSToting that " there is clear
evidence of the true mammoth having existed in
America long after the period of the northern drift,
when the surface of the country had settled down
into its present foi*m, and also in Europe so late as to
have been a contemporary of the Irish elk, and on the
other hand that it existed in England so far back as
before the deposition of the bowlder clay ; also that four
well-defined species of fossil elephant are known to
have existed in Europe ; that " a vast number of the
remains of three of these species have been exhumed
over a large area in Europe ; and, even in the geo-
logical sense, an enormous interval of time has elapsed
between the formation of the most ancient and the
most recent of these deposits, quite sufficient to test
the persistence of specific characters in an elephant,"
he presents the question, " Do, then, the successive
elephants occurring in these strata show any signs
of a passage from the older form into the newer ? "

To which the reply is ; " If there is one fact which
is impressed on the conviction of the observer with
more force than any other, it is the persistence and
uniformity of the characters of the molar teeth in the
earliest known mammoth and his most modern suc-
cessor. . . . Assuming the observation to be correct,
what strong proof does it not aiford of the persistence
and constancy, throughout vast intervals of time, of
the distinctive characters of those organs which are
most concerned in the existence and habits of the
species ? If we cast a glance back on the long vista

1 9i DAR WimANA.

of physical changes which, our j)lanet has undergone
since the IvTeozoic epoch, we can nowhere detect signs
of a revolution more sudden and pronounced, or more
important in its results, than the intercalation and
sudden disappearance of the glacial period. Yet the
^dicjclotherian' mammoth lived before it, and passed
through the ordeal of all the hard extremities it in-
volved, bearing his organs of locomotion and digestion
all but unchanged. Taking the group of four Em'o-
pean fossil species above enumerated, do thej show
any signs in the successive deposits of a transition
from the one form into the other ? Here again the
result of my observation, in so far as it has extended
over the European area, is, that the specific characters
of the molars are constant in each, within a moderate
range of variation, and that we nowhere meet with
intermediate forms." .... Dr. Falconer continues
(page 80) :

" The inferences whicTi I draw from these facts are not
opposed to one of the leading propositions of Darwin's theory.
With him, I have no faith in the opinion that the mammoth
and other extinct elephants made their appearance suddenly,
after the type in which their fossil remains are presented to us.
The most rational view seems to be, that they are in some shape
the modified descendants of earlier progenitors. But if the
asserted facts be correct, they seem clearly to indicate that the
older elephants of Europe, such as E. meridionalis and E. anti-
quus, were not the stocks from which the later species, E. primi-
genius and E. Africanus sprung, and that we must look else-
where for their origin. The nearest affinity, and that a very
close one, of the European E. meridionalis is with the Miocene
E. planifrons of India ; and of E. primigenius^ with the exist-
ing India species.

"Another reflection is equally strong in my mind — that the

SPECIES AS TO VARIATIOX, ETC. 105

means wliich have been adduced to explain the origin of the
species by 'natural selection,' or a process of variation from
external influences, are inadequate to account for the phenom-
ena. The law of phyllotaxis, which governs the evolution of
leaves around the axis of a plant, is as nearly constant in its
manifestation as any of the physical laws connected with the
material world. Each instance, however ditferent from an-
other, can be shown to be a term of some series of continued
fractions. When this is coupled with the geometrical law gov-
erning the evolution of form, so manifest in some departments
of the animal kingdom, e. g., the spiral shells of the Mollusca,
it is difficult to believe that there is not, in Nature, a deeper-
seated and innate principle, to the operation of which natural
selection is merely an adjunct. The whole range of the Mam-
malia, fossil and recent, cannot furnish a species which has had
a wider geographical distribution, and passed through a longer
term of time, and through more extreme changes of climatal
conditions, than the mammoth. If species are so unstable, and
so susceptible of mutation through such influences, why does
that extinct form stand out so signally a monument of stability?
By his admirable researches and earnest writings, Darwin has,
beyond all his contemporaries, given an impulse to the philo-
sophical investigation of the most backward and obscure branch
of the biological sciences of his day ; he has laid the founda-
tions of a great edifice ; but he need not be surprised if, in the
progress of erection, the superstructure is altered by his success-
ors, like the Duomo of Milan from the Roman to a diflerent
style of architecture."

Entertaining ourselves the opinion that something
more than natural selection is requisite to account for
the orderly production and succession of species, we
offer two incidental remarks upon the above extract.

1. We find in it — in the phrase *' natural selec-
tion, or a process of variation from external intiu-
ences "^an example of the very common confusion
of two distinct things, viz., variation and natural

196 BARWimANA.

selection. The former has never yet been shown . to
have its cause in ^' external influences, '^ nor to occur
at random. As we have elsewhere insisted, if not
inexplicable, it has never been explained ; all we can
yet say is, that plants and animals are prone to vary, .
and that some conditions favor variation. Perhaps in
this Dr. Falconer may yet find what he seeks : for
" it is difficult to believe that there is not in [its] na-
ture a deeper-seated and innate principle, to the opera-
tion of which natural selection is merely an adjunct."
The latter, which is the ensemUe of the external in-
fluences, including the competition of the individuals
themselves, picks out certain variations as they arise,
but in no proper sense can be said to originate them.

2. Although we are not quite sure how Dr.
Falconer intends to apply the law of phyllotaxis to
illustrate his idea, we fancy that a pertinent illustra-
tion may be drawn from it, in this way. There are
two sjyecies of phyllotaxis, perfectly distinct, and, we
suppose, not mathematically reducible the one to the
other, viz. : (1.) That of alternate leaves, with its varie-
ties ; and (2.) That of verticillate leaves, of which op-
posite leaves present the simplest case. That, although
generally constant, a change from one variety of alter-
nate phyllotaxis to another should occur on the same
axis, or on successive axes, is not surprising, the dif-
ferent sorts being terms of a regular series — although,
indeed, we have not the least idea as to how the change
from the one to the other comes to pass. But it is
interesting, and in this connection perhaps instructive,
to remark that, while some dicotyledonous plants hold
to the verticillate, i. e., opposite-leaved phyllotaxis

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, ETG. 1<J7

throughout, a larger number — through the operation
of some deep-seated and innate principle, which we
cannot fathom — change abruptly into the other species
at the second or third node, and change back again in
the flower, or else effect a synthesis of the two species
in a manner which is puzzling to uuderstand. Here
is a change from one fixed law to another, as unac-
countable, if not as great, as from one specific form
to another.

An elaborate paper on the vegetation of the Ter-
tiary period in the southeast of France, by Count Gas-
ton de Saporta, published in the Annates des Sciences
Naturelles in 1862, vol. xvi., pp. 309-344: — which we
have not space to analyze — is worthy of attention from
the general inquirer, on account of its analysis of the
Tertiary flora into its separate types. Cretaceous, Aus-
tral, Tropical, and Boreal, each of which has its separate
and different history — and for the announcement that
" the hiatus, which, in the idea of most geologists,
intervened between the close of the Cretaceous and
the beginning of the Tertiary, appears to have had no
existence, so far as concerns the vegetation ; that in
general it was not by means of a total overthrow, fol-
lowed by a complete new emission of species, that the
flora has been renewed at each successive period ; and
that while the plants of Southern Europe inherited
from the Cretaceous period more or less rapidly dis-
'appeared, as also the austral forms, and later the trop-
ical tj^es (except the laurel, the myrtle, and the
Chafnoerops hu7nilis\ the boreal types, coming later,
survived all the others, and now compose, either in
Europe, or in the north of Asia, or in I^orth America,

198 BARWimAXA.

the basis of the actual arborescent vegetation. Espe-
cially " a very considerable number of forms nearly
identical with tertiary forms now exist in America,
where they have found, more easily than in our [Eu-
ropean] soil — less vast and less extended southward —
refuD:e from ulterior revolutions." The extinction of
species is attributed to two kinds of causes; the one
material or physical, whether slow or rapid ; the other
inherent in the natm^e of organic beings, incessant,
but slow, in a manner latent, but somehow assigning
to the species, as to the individuals, a limited j)eriod
of existence, and, in some equally mysterious but
wholly natural way, connected with the development
of organic types: ^'^j type meaning a collection of
vegetable forms constructed upon the same plan of
organization, of which they reproduce the essential
lineaments with certain secondary modifications, and
which appear to run back to a common point of de-
parture."

In this community of types, no less than in the
community of certain existing species, Saporta recog-
nizes a prolonged material union between I^orth Amer-
ica and Europe in former times. Most naturalists and
geologists reason in the same way — some more cau-
tiously than others — yet perhaps most of them seem
not to perceive how far such inferences imply the doc-
trine of the common origin of related species.

For obvious reasons such doctrines are likely to
find more favor with botanists than with zoologists.
But with both the advance in this direction is seen to
have been rapid and great ; yet to us not unexpected.
We note, also, an evident disposition, notwithstanding

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION-, ETC. 199

some endeavors to the contrary, to allow derivative
hypotheses to stand or fall upon their own merits — to
have indeed upon philosophical grounds certain pre-
sumptions in their favor — and to be, perhaps, quite as
capable of being turned to good account as to bad ac-
count in natural theology/

Among the leading naturalists, indeed, such views
— taken in the widest sense — have one and, so far as
we are now aware, only one thoroughgoing and thor-
oughly consistent opponent, viz., Mr. Agassiz.

Most naturalists take into their very conception
of a species, explicitly or by implication, the notion of
a material connection resulting from the descent of
the individuals composing it from a common stock, of
local origin. Agassiz wholly eliminates community
of descent from his idea of species, and even conceives
a species to have been as numerous in individuals and
as wide-spread over space, or as segregated in discon-
tinuous spaces, from the first as at the later period.

The station which it inhabits, therefore, is with

' What the Rev. Principal Tulloch remarlcs in respect to the phi-
losophy of miracles has a pertinent application here. We quote at
second hand :

" The stoutest advocates of interference can mean nothing more
than that the Supreme Will has so moved the hidden springs of Nature
that a new issue arises on given circumstances. The ordinary issue is
supplanted by a higher issue. The essential facts before us are a cer-
tain set of phenomena, and a Higher Will moving them. How moving
them ? is a question for human definition ; the answer to which does
not and cannot affect the divine meaning of the change. Yet when
we reflect that this Higher Will is everywhere reason and wisdom, it
seems a juster as well as a more comprehensive view to regard it as
operating by subordination and evolution, rather than by interference
or violation."

200 LARWIFIANA.

otlier naturalists in no wise essential to the species,
and may not have been the region of its origin. In
Agassiz's view the habitat is supposed to mark the
origin, and to be a part of the character of the species.
The habitat is not merely the place where it is, but a
part of what it is.

Most naturalists recognize varieties of species;
and many, like De Candolle, have come to conclude
that varieties of the highest grade, or races, so far
partake of the characteristics of species, and are so far
governed by the same laws, that it is often very diffi-
cult to draw a clear and certain distinction between
the two. Agassiz will not allow that varieties or races
exist in IsTature, apart from man's agency.

Most natm'alists believe that the origin of species is
supernatural, their dispersion or particular geographi-
cal area, natural, and their extinction, when they dis-
appear, also the result of physical causes. In the view
of Agassiz, if rightly understood, all three are equally
independent of physical cause and effect, are equally
supernatural.

In comparing preceding periods with the present
and with each other, most naturalists and palaeontolo-
gists now appear to recognize a certain number of
species as having survived from one epoch to the next,
or even through more than one formation, especially
from the Tertiary into the post-Tertiary period, and
from that to the present age. Agassiz is understood
to believe in total extinctions and total new creations
at each successive epoch, and even to recognize no ex-
isting species as ever contemporary with extinct ones,
except in the case of recent exterminations.

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, ETC. 201

These peculiar views, if sustained, vnW effectually
dispose of every form of derivative hypothesis.

Keturning for a moment to De Candolle's article,
we are disposed to notice his criticism of Linnceus's
" definition " of the term sjyecies {Philosophia Botani-
ca^ E'o. 15Y) : " Species tot numeramus qiiot diver sas,
form(jB in principio sunt creatce^'' — which he declares
illogical, inapplicable, and the worst that has been pro-
pounded. " So, to determine if a form is specific, it
is necessary to go back to its origin, which is impos-
sible. A definition by a character which can never
be verified is no definition at all."

Now, as Linnaeus practically applied the idea of
species with a sagacity which has never been surpassed,
and rarely equaled, and indeed may be said to have
fixed its received meaning in natural history, it may
well be inferred that in the phrase above cited he did
not so much undertake to frame a logical definition,
as to set forth the idea which, in his opinion, lay at
the foundation of species ; on which basis A. L.
Jussieu did construct a logical definition — " Xunc
rectius definitur perennis individuorum similium suc-
cessio continuata generatione renascentiun." The fun-
damental idea of species, we would still maintain, is
that of a chain of wdiich genetically-connected individ-
uals are the links. That, in the practical recognition
of species, the essential characteristic has to be inferred,
is no great objection — the general fact that like engen-
ders like being an induction from a vast number of
instances, and the only assumption being that of the
uniformity of ISTature. The idea of gravitation, that
of the atomic constitution of matter, and the like,

202 DARWINIANA.

equally have to be verified inferentiallj. If we still
hold to the idea of Linnceus, and of Agassiz, that ex-
isting species were created independently and essen-
tially all at once at the beginning of the present era,
we could not better the propositions of Linnaeus and
of Jussieu. If, on the other hand, the time has come
in which we may accept, with De Candolle, then' suc-
cessive origination, at the commencement of the pres-
ent era or before, and even by derivation from other
forms, then the " in princijpio^^ of Linnseus will refer
to that time, whenever it was, and his proposition be
as sound and wise as ever.

In his " Geographic Botanique " (ii., 1068-lO^Y) De
Candolle discusses this subject at length, and in the
same interest. Kemarking that of the two great facts
of species, viz., likeness among the individuals^ and
genealogical connection, zoologists have generally pre-
ferred the latter,^ while botanists have been divided in
opinion, he pronounces for the former as the essen-
tial thing, in the following argumentative statement :

" Quant a moi, j'ai ^t6 conduit, dans ma definition del'espece,
a mettre decidement la ressemblance au-dessus de caracteres de
succession. Ce n'est pas seulement a cause des circonstances
propres au regne vegetal, dont je m'occupe exclusivement ; ce
n'est pas non plus afin de sortir ma definition des theories et de
la rendre le plus possible utile aux naturalistes descripteurs et
nomenclateurs, c'est aussi par un motif philosophique. Entoute
chose il f aut aUer au fond des questions, quand on le peut. Or,
pourquoi la reproduction est-elle possible, habituelle, feconde
indefiniment, entre des ^tres organises que nous dirons de la

* Particularly citing Flourens : "La ressemblance n'est qu'une con-
dition secondaire ; la condition essentielle est la descendance : ce n'est
pas la ressemblance, c'est la succession des individus, qui fait I'espece."

SPECIES AS TO variation; ETC. 203

m^me espece ? Parce qu'ils se resserablent et uniquemcrit a
cause de cela. Lorsque deux esp^ces ne peuvent, ou, s'il s'agit
d'animaux superieurs, ne peuvent et ne veulent se croiser, c'est
qu'elles sont tres differentes. Si Ton obtient des croisements,
c'est que les individus sont analogues ; si ces croisements don-
nent des produits feconds, c'est que les individus etaient plus
analogues ; si ces produits eux-memes sont feconds, c'est que la
ressemblance etait plus grande ;^ s'ils sont f econd habituellement
et indeflniment, c'est que la ressemblance interieure et exterieure
etait tres grande. Ainsi le degr6 de ressemblance est le fond ;
la reproduction en est seulement la manifestation et la mesure,
et il est logique de placer la cause au-dessus de I'effet."

"We are not yet convinced. "We still hold that
genealogical connection, rather than mutual resem-
blance, is the fundamental thing — first on the ground
of fact, and then from the philosophy of the case.
Practically, no botanist can say what amount of dis-
similarity is compatible with unity of species ; in wild
plants it is sometimes very great, in cultivated races
often enormous. De Candolle liimself informs us that
the different variations which the same oak-tree ex-
hibits are significant indications of a disposition to set
up separate varieties, which becoming hereditary may
constitute a race ; he evidently looks upon the extreme
forms, say of Quercus Robur^ as having thus origi-
nated ; and on this ground, inferred from transitional
forms, and not from their mutual resemblance, he
includes them in that species. This will be more
apparent should the discovery of transitions, which
he leads us to expect, hereafter cause the four provi-
sional species which attend Q, Hobur to be merged
in that species. It may rightly be replied that this
conclusion would be arrived at from the likeness step

204 DABWINIANA.

by step in the series of forms ; but the cause of the
likeness here is obvious. And this brings in our
" motif ])Mlo80])hiqiieP

Not to insist that the likeness is after all the vari-
able, not the constant, element — to learn which is the
essential thing, resemblance among indi^dduals or their
genetic connection — we have only to ask which can be
the cause of the other.

In hermaphrodite plants (the normal case), and even
as the question is ingeniously put by De Candolle in
the above extract, the former sm-ely cannot be the cause
of the latter, though it may, in case of crossing, offer
occasion. But, on the ground of the most funda-
mental of all things in the constitution of plants and
animals — the fact incapable of further analysis, that
individuals reproduce their like, that characteristics
are inheritable — the likeness is a direct natural con-
sequence of the genetic succession ; " and it is logical
to place the cause above the effect."

AYe are equally disposed to combat a proposition
of De Candolle's about genera, elaborately argued in
the "Geographie Botanique," and incidentally reaf-
fii'med in his present article, viz., that genera are more
natural than species, and more correctly distmguished
by people in general, as is shown by vernacular names.
But we have no space left in which to present some
evidence to the contrary.

Y.

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY; THE RELATIONS OF NORTH
AMERICAN TO NORTHEAST ASIAN AND TO TERTIARY
VEGETATION.

(A Pkesipe^ttial Address to the Ameeican Association foe the Advance-
ment OF Science, at DuBrQUE, August, 1S72.)

The session being now happily inaiignratecl, your
presiding officer of the last year has only one duty to
perform before he surrenders the chair to his success-
or. If allowed to borrow a simile from the language
of my own profession, I might liken the President of
this Association to a biennial plant. He flourishes for
the year in which he comes into existence, and per-
forms his appropriate functions as presiding officer.
When the second year comes round, he is expected to
blossom out in an address and disappear. Each presi-
dent, as he retires, is naturally expected to contribute
something from his own investigations or his own
line of study, usually to discuss some particular scien-
tific topic.

l^ow, although I have cultivated the field of Xorth
American botany, with some assiduity, for more than
forty years, have reviewed our vegetable hosts, and
assigned to no small number of them their names and
their place in the ranks, yet, so far as our own wide
country is concerned, I have been to a great extent a

206 DARWINIANA.

closet botanist. Until this summer I had not seen the
Mississippi, nor set foot upon a prairie.

To gratify a natural interest, and to gain some
title for addressing a body of practical natm-alists and
explorers, I have made a pilgrimage across the conti-
nent. I have sought and viewed in their native
haimts many a plant and flower which for me had
long bloomed unseen, or only in the hortus siccus. I
have been able to see for myself what species and
what forms constitute the main features of the vege-
tation of each successive region, and record — as the
vegetation unerringly does — the permanent character--
istics of its climate.

Passing on from the eastern district, marked by
its equably distributed rainfall, and therefore natural-
ly forest-clad, I have seen the trees diminish in num-
ber, give place to wide prairies, restrict their growth
to the borders of streams, and then disappear from the
boundless drier plains ; have seen grassy plains change
into a brown and sere desert — desert in the. common
sense, but hardly anywhere botanically so — have seen
a fair growth of coniferous trees adorning the more
favored slopes of a mountain-range high enough to
compel summer showers ; have traversed that broad
and bare elevated region shut off on both sides by
high mountains from the moisture supplied by either
ocean, and longitudinally intersected by sierras which
seemingly remain as naked as they were born ; and
have reached at length the westward slopes of that
high mountain-barrier which, refreshed by the Pacific,
bears the noble forests of the Sierra I^evada and the
Coast Ranges, and among them trees which are the

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 207

wonder of the world. As I stood in their shade, in
the groves of Mariposa and Calaveras, and again
under the canopy of the commoner redwood, raised
on columns of such majestic height and ample girth,
it occurred to me that I could not do better than to
share with you, upon this occasion, some of the
thoughts which possessed my mind. In their devel-
opment they may, perhaps, lead us up to questions of
considerable scientiiic interest.

I shall not detain you with any remarks — which
would now be trite — upon the size or longevity of
these far-famed Seqnoia-trees, or of the sugar-pines,
incense-cedar, and firs associated with them, of which
even the prodigious bulk of the dominating Sequoia
does not sensibly diminish the grandeur. Although
no account and no photographic representation of
either species of the far-famed Sequoia-trees gives any
adequate impression of their singular majesty — still
less of their beauty — yet my interest in them did not
culminate merely or mainly in considerations of their
size and age. Other trees, in other parts of the world,
may claim to be older. Certain Australian gum-
trees (Eucalypti) are said to be taller. Some, we are
told, rise so high that they might even cast a flicker of
shadow upon the summit of the Pyramid of Cheops.
Yet the oldest of them doubtless grew from seed
w^hich was shed long after the names of the pyramid-
builders had been forgotten. So far as we can judge
from the actual counting of the layers of several trees,
no Sequoia now alive sensibly antedates the Christian
era.

Nor was I much impressed with an attraction of

208 DAEWINIANA.

man's adding. Tliat the more remarkable of these
trees should bear distinguishing appellations seems
proper enough ; but the tablets of personal names
which are affixed to many of them in the most visited
groves — as if the memory of more or less notable
people of our day might be made enduring by the
juxtaposition — do suggest some incongruity. When
we consider that a hand's breadth at the circumfer-
ence of any one of the venerable trunks so placarded
has recorded in annual lines the lifetime of the indi-
vidual thus associated with it, one may question
whether the next hand's breadth may not measure the
fame of some of the names thus ticketed for adventi-
tious immortality. Whether it be the man or the tree
that is honored in the connection, probably either
would live as long, in fact and in memory, without it.

One notable thing about the Sequoia-trees is their
isolation. Most of the trees associated with them are
of peculiar species, and some of them are nearly as
local. Yet every pine, fii', and cypress of California
is in some sort familiar, because it has near relatives
in other parts of the world. But the redwoods have
none. The redwood — including in that name the two
species of " big-trees" — belongs to the general Cypress
family, but is sui generis. Thus isolated systematical-
ly, and extremely isolated geographically, and so won-
derful in size and port, they more than other trees
suggest questions.

Were they created thus local and lonely, denizens
of California only ; one in limited numbers in a few
choice spots on the Sierra Nevada, the other along the
Coast Kange from the Bay of Monterey to the fron-

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 209

tiers of Oregon ? Are they veritable Melcliizedeks,
without pedigree or early relationship, and possibly
fated to be without descent ?

Or are they now coming upon the stage — or rather
were they coming but for man's interference — to play
a part in the future ?

Or are they remnants, sole and scanty smwivors of
a race that has played a grander part in the past, but
is now verging to extinction ? Have they had a
career, and can that career be ascertained or surmised,
so that we may at least guess whence they came, and
how, and when ?

Time was, and not long ago, when such questions
as these were regarded as useless and vain — when stu-
dents of natural history, unmindful of what the name
denotes, were content with a knowledge of things as
they now are, but gave little heed as to how they came
to be so. IS'ow such questions are held to be legiti-
mate, and perhaps not wholly unanswerable. It can-
not now be said that these trees inhabit their present
restricted areas simply because they are there placed
in the climate and soil of all the world most congenial
to them. These must indeed be congenial, or they
would not survive. But when we see how the Aus-
tralian Eucalyptus-trees thrive upon the Californian
coast, and how these very redwoods flourish upon
another continent ; how the so-called wild-oat (A vena
sterilis of the Old World) has taken full possession of
California ; how that cattle and horses, introduced by
the Spaniard, have spread as widely and made them-
selves as much at home on the plains of La Plata as
on those of Tartary; and that the cardoon-thistle-

210 DARWINIAKA.

seeds, and others tliej brouglit witli them, have mul-
tiplied there into numbers probably much exceeding
those extant in their native lands ; indeed, when we con-
template our own race, and our particular stock, taking
such recent but dominating possession of this Xew
World ; when we consider how the indigenous flora
of islands generally succumbs to the foreigners which
come in the train of man ; and that most weeds (i. e.,
the prepotent plants in open soil) of all temperate
climates are not " to the manner born," but are self-
invited intruders — we must needs abandon the notion
of any primordial and absolute adaptation of plants
and animals to their habitats, which may stand in lieu
of explanation, and so preclude our inquiring any
further. The harmony of ^Kature and its admirable
perfection need not be regarded- as inflexible and
changeless. ^N^or need Nature be likened to a statue,
or a cast in rigid bronze, but rather to an organism,
with play and adaptability of parts, and life and even
soul informing the whole. Under the former view
l^ature would be "the faultless monster which the
world ne'er saw," but inscrutable as the Sphinx, whom
it were vain, or worse, to question of the whence and
whither. Under the other, the perfection of ^Nature,
if relative, is multifarious and ever renewed; and
much that is enigmatical now may find explanation in
some record of the past.

That the two species of redwood we are contem-
plating originated as they are and where they are, and
for the part they are now playing, is, to say the least,
not a scientific supposition, nor in any sense a probable
one. ISTor is it more likely that they are destined to

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 211

play a conspicuous part in tlie future, or that tliey
would have done so, even if tlie Indian's fires and the
white man's axe had spared them. The redwood of
the coast {Sequoia sempervii^ens) had the stronger hold
upon existence, forming as it did large forests through-
out a narrow belt about three hundred miles in length,
and being so tenacious of life that every large stump
sprouts into a copse. But it does not pass the bay
of Monterey, nor cross the line of Oregon, although
so grandly developed not far below it. The more re-
markable Sequoia gigantea of the Sierra exists in num-
bers so limited that the separate groves may be reck-
oned upon the fingers, and the trees of most of them
have been counted, except near their southern limit,
where they are said to be more copious. A species
limited in individuals holds its existence by a precari-
ous tenure ; and this has a foothold only in a few shel-
tered spots, of a happy mean in temperature, and
locally favored with moisture in summer. Even there,
for some reason or other, the pines with which they
are associated (Pinus Lambertiana and P. ponderosa),
the firs (Abies grandis and A. amabilis), and even the
incense-cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), possess a great
advantage, and, though they strive in vain to emulate
their size, wholly overpower the Sequoias in numbers.
"To him that hath shall be given." The force of
numbers eventually wins. At least in the commonly-
visited groves Sequoia gigantea is invested in its last
stronghold, can neither advance into more exposed
positions above, nor fall back into drier and barer
ground below, nor hold its own in the long-run where
it is, under present conditions ; and a little further

212 DARWimAITA.

drying of tlie climate, wliieli must once have been
mncli moister than now, would precipitate its doom.
Whatever the individual longe\dty, certain if not speedy
is the decline of a race in which a high death-rate af-
flicts the young. Seedlings of the big trees occur not
rarely, indeed, but in meagre proportion to those of
associated trees ; and small indeed is the chance that
any of these will attain to " the days of the years of
their fathers." "Few and evil" are the days of all
the forest likely to be, while man, both barbarian and
civilized, torments them with fires, fatal at once to
seedlings, and at length to the aged also. The forests
of California, proud as the State may be of them, are
already too scanty and insufficient for her uses. Two
lines, such as may be drawn with one sweep of a brush
over the map, would cover them all. The coast red-
wood— the most important tree in California, although
a million times more numerous than its relative of the
Sierra — is too good to live long. Such is its value for
lumber and its accessibility, that, judging the future
by the past, it is not likely, in its primeval growth, to
outlast its rarer fellow-species.

Happily man preserves and disseminates as well as
destroys. The species will doubtless be preserved to
science, and for ornamental and other uses, in its own
and other lands ; and the more remarkable individuals
of the present day are likely to be sedulously cared
for, all the more so as they become scarce.

Our third question remains to be answered : Have
these famous Sequoias played in former times and up-
on a larger stage a more imposing part, of which the
present is but the epilogue ? We cannot gaze high up

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 213

the huge and venerable trunks, which one crosses the
continent to behold, without wishing that these patri-
archs of the grove were able, like the long-lived ante-
diluvians of Scripture, to hand down to us, through a
few generations, the traditions of centuries, and so tell
us somewhat of the history of their race. Fifteen
hundi'ed annual layers have been counted, or satisfac-
torily made out, upon one or two fallen trunks. It is
probable that close to the heart of some of the living
trees may be found the circle that records the year of
our Saviour's nativity. A few generations of such
trees might carry the history a long way back. But
the ground they stand upon, and the marks of very
recent geological change and vicissitude in the region
around, testify that not very many such generations
can have flourished just there, at least in an unbroken
series. When their site was covered by glaciers, these
Sequoias must have occupied other stations, if, as there
is reason to believe, they then existed in the land.

I have said that the redwoods have no near rela-
tives in the country of their abode, and none of their
genus anywhere else. Perhaps something may be
learned of their genealogy by inquiring of such rela-
tives as they have. There are only two of any partic-
ular nearness of kin ; and they are far away. One is
the bald cypress, our Southern cypress, Taxodium^
inhabiting the swamps of the Atlantic coast from
Maryland to Texas, thence extending — with, probably,
a specific difference — into Mexico. It is well known as
one of the largest trees of our Atlantic forest-district,
and, although it never — except perhaps in Mexico, and
in rare instances — attains the portliness of its Western
10

214 LARWimANA.

relatives, yet it may equal them in longevity. Tlie
otlier relative is Glyptostrobus^ a sort of modified Tax-
odium, being about as much like our bald cypress as
one species of redwood is like the other.

!N'ow, species of the same type, especially when
few, and the type peculiar, are, in a general way, asso-
ciated geographically, i. e., inhabit the same country,
or (in a large sense) the same region. Where it is not
so, where near relatives are separated, there is usually
something to be explained. Here is an instance.
These four trees, sole representatives of their tribe,
dwell almost in three separate quarters of the world :
the two redwoods in California, the bald cypress in
Atlantic ITorth America, its near relative, Glyptostro-
bus, in China.

It was not always so. In the Tertiary period, the
geological botanists assm'e us, our otvtl very Taxodium
or bald cypress, and a Glyptostrobus, exceedingly like
the present Chinese tree, and more than one Sequoia,
coexisted in a fourth quarter of the globe, viz., in
Europe ! This brings up the question. Is it possible
to bridge over these four wide intervals of space and
the much vaster interval of time, so as to bring these
extraordinarily separated relatives into connection ?
The evidence which may be brought to bear upon this
question is various and widely scattered. I bespeak
your patience while I endeavor to bring together, in
an abstract, the most important points of it.

Some interesting facts may come out by comparing
generally the botany of the three remote regions, each
of which is the sole home of one of these genera, i. e.,
Sequoia in California, Taxodium in the Atlantic United

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 215

States/ and Glyptostrobus in China, wliicli compose
the whole of the peculiar tribe under consideration.
• J^ote then, first, that there is another set of three
or four peculiar trees, in this case of the yew family,
which has just the same peculiar distribution, and
which therefore may have the same explanation, what-
ever that explanation be. The genus Torreya, which
commemorates our botanical ]^estor and a former
president of this Association, Dr. Torrey, was founded
upon a tree rather lately discovered (that is, about
thirty-five years ago) in Northern Florida. It is a
noble, yew-like tree, and very local, being, so far as
known, nearly confined to a few miles along the shores
of a single river. It seems as if it had somehow been
crowded down out of the Alleghanies into its present
limited southern quarters ; for in cultivation it evinces
a northern hardiness. Now, another species of Torreya
is a characteristic tree of Japan ; and one very like it,
if not the same, inhabits the mountains of l^orthern
China — belongs, therefore, to the Eastern Asiatic tem-
perate region, of which ^N^orthern China is a part, and
Japan, as we shall see, the portion most interesting to
us. There is only one more species of Torreya, and
that is a companion of the redwoods in California. It
is the tree locally known under the name of the Cali-
fornia nutmeg. Here are three or four near brethren,
species of the same genus, known nowhere else than in
these three habitats.

* The phrase " Atlantic United States " is here used throughout in
contradistinction to Pacific United States : to the former of course be-
long, botanically and geographically, the valley of the Mississippi and
its tributaries up to the eastern border of the great woodless plains,
which constitute an intermediate region.

216 DARWINIANA.

Moreover, the Torreja of Florida is associated with
a yew ; and the trees of this grove are the only yew-
trees of Eastern E'orth America ; for the yew of our
^Northern woods is a decumbent shrub. A yew-tree,
perhaps the same, is found with Taxodium in the
temperate parts of Mexico. The only other yews in
America grow with the redwoods and the other Tor-
reya in California, and extend northward into Ore-
gon. Tews are also associated with Torreya in Japan ;
and they extend westward through Mantchooria and
the Himalayas to Western Europe, and even to the
Azores Islands, where occurs the common yew of the
Old World.

So we have three groups of coniferous trees which
agree in this peculiar geographical distribution, with,
however, a notable extension of range in the case of
the yew : 1. The redwoods, and their relatives. Tax-
odium and Glyptostrobus, which differ so as to consti-
tute a genus for each of the three regions ; 2. The Tor-
reyas, more nearly akin, merely a different .species in
each region ; 3. The yews, still more closely related
while more widely disseminated, of which it is yet
uncertain whether they constitute seven, five, three, or
only one species. Opinions differ, and can hardly be
brought to any decisive test. However it be deter-
mined, it may still be said that the extreme differences
among the yews do not surpass those of the recognized
variations of the European yew, the cultivated races
included.

It appears to me that these several instances all
raise the very same question, only with different de-

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 217

grees of empliasis, and, if to be explained at all, will
liave the same kind of explanation.

Continning the comparison between the three re-
gions with w^hich we are concerned, we note that each
has its own species of j)ines, firs, larches, etc., and of
a few deciduous-leaved trees, such as oaks and maples ;
all of which have no peculiar significance for the pres-
ent purpose, because they are of genera which are
common all round the northern hemisphere. Leaving
these out of view, the noticeable point is that the vege-
tation of California is most strikingly unlike that of
the Atlantic United States. They possess some plants,
and some peculiarly American plants, in common —
enough to show, as I imagine, that the difficulty was
not in the getting from the one district to the other,
or into both from a common source, but in abiding
there. The primordially unbroken forest of Atlan-
tic N^orth America, nourished by rainfall distributed
throughout the year, is widely separated from the west-
ern region of sparse and discontinuous tree-belts of the
same latitude on the western side of the continent
(where summer rain is wanting, or nearly so), by im-
mense treeless plains and plateaux of more or less
aridity, traversed by longitudinal mountain-ranges of
a similar character. Their nearest approach is at the
north, in the latitude of Lake Superior, where, on a
more rainy line, trees of the Atlantic forest and that
of Oregon may be said to intermix. The change of
species and of the aspect of vegetation in crossing, say
on the forty-seventh parallel, is slight in comparison
with that on the thirty-seventh or near it. Confining
our attention to the lower latitude, and under the

218 DARWINIANA.

exceptions already specially noted, we may say that
almost every characteristic form in the vegetation of
the Atlantic States is wanting in Calif omia, and the
characteristic plants and trees of California are want-
ing here.

California has no magnolia nor tulip trees, nor star-
anise tree ; no so-called papaw (Asimina) ; no barberry
of the common single-leaved sort ; no Podophyllum or
other of the peculiar associated genera ; no nelumbo
nor white water-lily ; no prickly ash nor sumach ; no
loblolly-bay nor Stuartia ; no basswood nor linden-
trees ; neither locust, honey-locust, coifee-trees (Cym-
nocladus) nor yellow-wood (Cladrastis) ; nothing an-
swering to Hydrangea or witch-hazel, to gum-trees
(^yssa and Liquidambar), Yiburnum or Diervilla ; it
has few asters and golden-rods ; no lobelias ; no huckle-
berries and hardly any blueberries ; no Epiggea, chami
of our earliest Eastern spring, tempering an icy April
wind with a delicious wild fragrance ; no Kalmia nor
Clethra, nor holly, nor persimmon ; no catalpa-tree, nor
trumpet-creeper (Tecoma) ; nothing answering to sas-
safras, nor to benzoin-tree, nor to hickory; neither
mulberiy nor elm ; no beech, true chestnut, hornbeam,
nor ironwood, nor a proper birch-tree ; and the enu-
meration might be continued very much fm'ther by
naming herbaceous plants and others familiar only to
botanists.

In their place California is filled with plants of
other t}^es — trees, shrubs, and herbs, of which I will
only remark that they are, with one or two exceptions,
as different from the plants of the Eastern Asiatic
region with which we are concerned (Japan, China, and

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 219

Mantcliooi'ia), as they are from those of Atlantic Xorth
America. Their near relatives, when they have any
in other lands, are mostly southward, on the Mexican
plateau, or many as far south as Chili. The same may
be said of the plants of the intervening great Plains,
except that northward in the subsaline vegetation there
are some close alliances w^th the flora of the steppes
of Siberia. And along the crests of high mountain-
ranges the Arctic- Alpine flora has sent southward more
or less numerous representatives thi'ough the whole
length of the country.

If we now compare, as to their flora generally, the
Atlantic United States with Japan, Mantchooria, and
JSTorthern China — i. e.. Eastern ]N'orth America with
Eastern ]S^orth Asia, haK the earth's circumference
apart — we find an astonishing similarity. The larger
part of the genera of our own region, which I have
enumerated as wanting in California, are present in
Japan or Mantchooria, along with many other peculiar
plants, divided between the two. There are plants
enough of the one region which have no representa-
tives in the other. There are types which appear to
have reached the Atlantic States from the south ; and
there is a larger infusion of subtropical Asiatic types
into temperate China and Japan ; among these there
is no relationship between the two countries to speak
of. There are also, as I have already said, no small
number of genera and some species which, being com-
mon all round or partly round the northern temperate
zone, have no special significance because of their
occurrence in these two antipodal floras, although they
have testimony to bear upon the general question of

220 LARWIFIAN-A.

geographical distribution. Tlie point to be remarked
is, that many, or even most, of the genera and species
which are pecuhar to I^orth America as compared with
Europe, and largely peculiar to Atlantic ISTorth Amer-
ica as compared with the Calif ornian region, are also
represented in Japan and Mantchooria, either by iden-
tical or by closely-similar forms ! The same rule holds
on a more northward line, although not so strikingly.
If we compare the plants, say of !N^ew England and
Pennsylvania (latitude 45°-47°), with those of Oregon,
and then with those of ^Northeastern Asia, we shall find
many of onr own cnrioiisly repeated in the latter,
while only a small number of them can be traced along
the route even so far as the western slope of the Eocky
Mountains. And these repetitions of East American
types in Japan and neighboring districts are in all de-
grees of likeness. Sometimes the one is undistinguish-
able from the other ; sometimes there is a difference of
aspect, but hardly of tangible character; sometimes
the two would be termed marked varieties if they grew
naturally in the same forest or in the same region ;
sometimes they are what the botanist calls representa-
tive species, the one answering closely to the other^
but with some differences regarded as specific ; some-
times the two are merely of the same genus, or not
quite that, but of a single or very few species in each
country ; in which case the point which interests us
is, that this peculiar limited type should occur in two
antipodal places, and nowhere else.

It would be tedious, and, except to botanists, ab-
struse, to enumerate instances ; yet the whole strength
of the case depends upon the number of such in-

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 221

stances. I propose therefore, if tlie Association does
me the honor to print this discourse, to append in a
note a list of the more remarkable ones/ But I would
here mention certain cases as specimens.

Our Rhus Toxicodendron, or poison-ivj, is very
exactly repeated in Japan, but is found in no other
part of the world, although a species much like it
abounds in California. Our other poisonous Rhus (R..
venenata), commonly called poison-dogwood, is in no
way represented in Western America, but has so close
an analogue in Japan that the two were taken for the
same by Thunberg and Linngeus, who called them both
R. vernix.

Our northern fox-grape, Yitis Labrusca, is wholly
confined to the Atlantic States, except that it reap-
pears in Japan and that region.

The original Wistaria is a woody leguminous
climber with showy blossoms, native to the middle
Atlantic States ; the other species, which we so much
prize in cultivation, W. Sinensis, is from China, as its
name denotes, or perhaps only from Japan, where it is
certainly indigenous.

Our yellow-wood (Cladrastis) inhabits a very lim-
ited district on the western slope of the Alleghanies.
Its only and very near relative, Maackia, is confined
to Mantchooria.

The Hydrangeas have some species in our Alle-
ghany region : all the rest belong to the Chino- Japan-
ese region and its continuation westward. The same
may be said of Philadelphus, except that there are one

* The tabulated list referred to was printed as an appendix to the
oflficial edition of this discourse, but is here omitted.

222 DARWINIANA.

or two mostly very similar species in California and
Oregon.

Our May-flower (Epigsea) and onr creeping snow-
berry, otherwise peculiar to Atlantic Nortli America,
recur in Japan.

Our blue cohosb (Caulopliyllum) is confined to the
woods of the Atlantic States, but has lately been dis-
covered in Japan. A peculiar relative of it, Diphyl-
leia, confined to the higher Alleghanies, is also repeated
in Japan, with a slight difference, so that it may barely
be distinguished as another species. Another relative
is our twin-leaf (Jeffersonia) of the Alleghany region
alone : a second species has lately turned np in Man-
tchooria. A relative of this is Podophyllmn, our man-
drake, a common inhabitant of the Atlantic United
States, but found nowhere else. There is one other
species of it, and that is in the Himalayas. Here are
four most peculiar genera of one family, each of a
single species in the Atlantic United States, which are
duplicated on the other side of the world, either in
identical or almost identical species, or in an analogous
species, while nothing else of the kind is known in any
other part of the world.

I ought not to omit ginseng, the root so prized by
the Chinese, which they obtained from their northern
provinces and Mantchooria, and which is now known
to inhabit Corea and J^brthern Japan. The Jesuit
Fathers identified the plant in Canada and the Atlan-
tic States, brought over the Chinese name by which we
know it, and established the trade in it, which was for
many years most profitable. The exportation of gin-
seng to China probably has not yet entirely' ceased.

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 223

Whether the Asiatic and the Atlantic American gin-
sengs are to be regarded as of the same species or not
is somewhat uncertain, but thej are hardly, if at all,
distinguishabl e.

There is a shrub, Elliottia, which is so rare and local
that it is known only at two stations on the Savannah
Kiver in Georgia. It is of peculiar structure, and was
without near relative until one was lately discovered
in Japan (Tripetaleia), so like it as hardly to be dis-
tinguishable except by having the parts of the blossom
in threes instead of fours — a difference not uncommon
in the same genus, or even in the same species.

Suppose Elliottia had happened to be collected only
once, a good while ago, and all knowledge of the lim-
ited and obscure locality were lost; and meanwhile
the Japanese form came to be known. Such a case
would be parallel with an actual one. A specimen of
a peculiar plant (Shortia galacifolia) was detected in
the herbarium of the elder Michaux, who collected it
(as his autograph ticket shows) somewhere in the high
Alleghany Mountains, more than eighty years ago.
1^0 one has seen the living plant since or knows
where to find it, if haply it still flourishes in some
secluded spot. At length it is found in Japan ; and
I had the satisfaction of making the identification.*
A relative is also known in Japan ; and a less near one
has just been detected in Thibet.

Whether the Japanese and the Alleghanian plants
are exactly the same or not, it needs complete speci-
mens of the two to settle. So far as we know, they

^American Journal of Science, 1867, p. 402; "Proceedings of
American Academy," vol. viii., p. 244.

224: DARWINIANA.

are just alike ; and, even if some difference were dis-
cerned between them, it would not appreciably alter
the question as to how such a result came to pass.
Each and every one of the analogous cases I have been
detailing — and very many more could be mentioned —
raises the same question, and would be satisfied with
the same answer.

These singular relations attracted my curiosity
early in the course of mj botanical studies, when com-
paratively few of them were known, and my serious
attention in later years, when I had numerous and new
Japanese plants to study in the collections made, by
Messrs. Williams and Morrow, during Commodore
Perry's visit in 1853, and especially, by Mr. Charles
Wright, of Commodore Kodgers's expedition in 1855.
I then discussed this subject somewhat fully, and tabu-
lated the facts within my reach.^

This was before Heer had developed the rich fossil
botany of the arctic zone, before the immense antiquity
of existing species of plants was recognized, and before
the publication of Darwin's now famous volume on
the " Origin of Species " had introduced and familiar-
ized the scientific world with those now current ideas
respecting the history and vicissitudes of species with
which I attempted to deal in a moderate and feeble
way.

My speculation was based upon the former glacia-
tion of the northern temperate zone, and the inference
of a warmer period preceding and perhaps following.
I considered that our own present vegetation, or its
proximate ancestry, must have occupied the arctic and

^ " Memoirs of American Academy," vol. vi., pp. 377-458 (1859).

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 225

subarctic regions in pliocene times, and that it had
been gradually pushed southward as the temperature
lowered and the glaciation advanced, even beyond its
present habitation ; that plants of the same stock and
kindred, probably ranging round the arctic zone as the
present arctic species do, made their forced migration
southward upon widely different longitudes, and re-
ceded more or less as the climate grew warmer ; that
the general difference of climate which marks the east-
ern and the western sides of the continents — the one
extreme, the other mean — was doubtless even then
established, so that the same species and the same sorts
of species would be likely to secure and retain foothold
in the similar climates of Japan and the Atlantic
United States, but not in intermediate regions of
different distribution of heat and moisture ; so that
different species of the same genus, as in Torreya, or
different genera of the same group, as redwood, Taxo-
dium, and Glyptostrobus, or different associations of.
forest-trees, might establish themselves each in the
region best suited to the particular requirements,
while they would fail to do so in any other. These
views implied that the sources of our actual vegetation
and the explanation of these peculiarities were to be
sought in, and presupposed, an ancestry in pliocene or
earlier times, occupying the higher northern regions.
And it was thought that the occurrence of peculiar
IN^orth American genera in Europe in the Tertiary
period (such as Taxodium, Carya, Liquidambar, sassa-
fras, ISTegundo, etc.) might be best explained on the as-
sumption of early interchange and diffusion through
J^orth Asia, rather than by that of the fabled Atlantis.

226 DARWmiAN-A.

Tlie hypothesis supposed a gradual modification of
species in different directions under altering conditions,
at least to the extent of producing varieties, sub-spe-
cies, and representative species, as they may be various-
ly regarded ; likewise the single and local origination
of each type, which is now almost universally taken for
granted.

The remarkable facts in regard to the Eastern
American and Asiatic floras which these speculations
were to explain have since increased in number, espe-
cially through the admirable collections of Dr. Maxi-
mowicz in Japan and adjacent countries, and the criti-
cal comparisons he has made and is still engaged upon.

I am bound to state that, in a recent general work ^
by a distinguished European botanist. Prof. Grisebach,
of Gottingen, these facts have been emptied of all
special significance, and the relations between the
Japanese and the Atlantic United States flora declared
to be no more intimate than might be expected from
the situation, climate, and present opportunity of in-
terchange. This extraordinary conclusion is reached
by regarding as distinct species all the plants common
to both countries between which any differences have
been discerned, although such differences would proba-
bly count for little if the two inhabited the same coun-
.try, thus transferring many of my list of identical to
that of representative species; and then by simply
eliminating from consideration the whole array of rep-
resentative species, i. e., all cases in which the Jap-
anese and the American plant are not exactly alike.

^ " Die Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer klimatischen Anordnung,"
1871.

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 227

As if, \)j pronouncing tlie cabalistic word sjyecies, the
question were settled, or ratlier the greater part of it
remanded out of the domain of science ; as if, while
complete identity of forms implied community of ori-
gin, anything short of it carried no presumption of
the kind ; so leaving all these singular duplicates to
be wondered at, indeed, but wholly beyond the reach
of inquiry.

ITow, the only known cause of such likeness is
inheritance; and as all transmission of likeness is
with some difference in individuals, and as changed
conditions have resulted, as is well known, in very
considerable differences, it seems to me that, if the
high antiquity of our actual vegetation could be ren-
dered probable, not to say certain, and the former habi-
tation of any of our species or of very near relatives
of them in high northern regions could be ascertained,
my whole case would be made out. The needful facts,
of which I was ignorant when my essay was pub-
lished, have now been for some years made known —
thanks, mainly, to the researches of Heer upon ample
collections of arctic fossil plants. These are con-
firmed and extended by new investigations, by Heer
and Lesquereux, the results of which have been indi-
cated to me by the latter.^

The Taxodium, which everywhere abounds in the

^ Reference should also be made to the extensive researches of Xew-
berry upon the tertiary and cretaceous floras of the Western United
States. See especially Prof. Newberry's paper in the Boston Jour-
nal of Natural History^ vol. vii., No. 4, describing fossil plants of Yan-
couver's Island, etc. ; his '^ Notes on the Later Extinct Floras of
North America," etc., in "Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History,"
vol. ix., April, 1868; "Report on the Cretaceous and Tertiary Plants

228 DARWINIANA.

miocene formations in Enrope, lias been specifically
identified, first by Goeppert, then by Heer, with onr
common cypress of the Southern States. It has been
found fossil in Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Alaska —
in the latter country alono^ with the remains of anoth-
er form, distinguishable, but very like the common

' species ; and this has been identified by Lesquereux
in the miocene of the Eocky Mountains. So there
is one species of tree which has come down essentially
unchanged from the Tertiary period, which for a long
while inhabited both Europe and IN^orth America, and
also, at some part of the period, the region which geo-
graphically connects the two (once doubtless much
more closely than now), but which has survived only
in the Atlantic United States and Mexico.

The same Sequoia which abounds in the same mio -

■ cene formations in ITorthern Europe has been abun-
dantly found in those of Iceland, Spitzbergen, Green-
land, Mackenzie Eiver, and Alaska. It is named S.
Langsdorfii^ but is pronounced to be veiy much like
8. semj^ervirens^ our living redwood of the Calif ornian
coast, and to be the ancient representative of it. Fossil
specimens of a similar, if not the same, species have
recently been detected in the Rocky Mountains by
Hayden, and determined by our eminent palasontologi-
cal botanist, Lesquereux ; and he assures me that he has

collected in Raynolds and Hayden's Yellowstone and Missouri Explor-
ing Expedition, 1859-1860," published in 1869; and an interesting
article entitled "The Ancient Lakes of Western America, their De-
posits and Drainage," published in The American Naturalist^ January,
1871.

The only document I was able to consult was Lesquereux's " Re-
port on the Fossil Plants," in Hayden's report of 1872.

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 229

the common redwood itself from Oregon in a depos-
it of tertiary age. Anotlier Sequoia {S. Sternbergii)^
discovered in miocene deposits in Greenland, is pro-
nounced to be the representative of S. gigantea, the
big tree of the Californian Sierra. If the Taxodium
of the tertiary time in Europe and throughout the
arctic regions is the ancestor of our present bald cy-
press— which is assumed in regarding them as specifi-
cally identical — then I think we may, with our present
light, fairly assume that the two redwoods of Califor-
nia are the direct or collateral descendants of the two
ancient species which so closely resemble them.

The forests of the arctic zone in tertiary times
contained at least three other species of Sequoia, as
determined by their remains, one of which, from
Spitzbergen, also much resembles the common red-
wood of California. Another, " which appears to
have been the commonest coniferous tree on Disco,"
was common in England and some other parts of Eu-
rope. So the Sequoias, now remarkable for their re-
stricted station and numbers, as w^ell as for their ex-
traordinary size, are of an ancient stock ; their ances-
tors and kindred formed a large part of the forests
which flourished throughout the polar regions, now
desolate and ice-clad, and which extended into low
latitudes in. Europe. On this continent one species,
at least, had reached to the vicinity of its present
habitat before the glaciation of the region. Among
the fossil specimens already found in California, but
which our trustworthy pal^eontological botanist has
not yet had time to examine, we may expect to find
evidence of the early arrival of these two redwoods

230 DARWINIANA.

upon tlie ground whicli tliey now, after mncli vicissi-
tude, scantily occupy.

Differences of climate, or circumstances of migra-
tion, or both, must have determined the survival of
Sequoia uj)on the Pacific, and of Taxodium upon the
Atlantic coast. And still the redwoods will not stand
in the east, nor could our Taxodium find a congenial
station in California. Both have probably had their
opportunity in the olden time, and failed.

As to the remaining near relative of Sequoia, the
Chinese Glyptostrobus, a species of it, and its verita-
ble representative, was contemporaneous with Sequoia
and Taxodium, not only in temperate Europe, but
throuo-hout the arctic reo^ions from Greenland to
Alaska. According to Newberry, it was abundantly
represented in the miocene flora of the temperate zone
of our own continent, from I^ebraska to the Pacific.

Yery similar would seem to have been the fate of
a more familiar gymnospermous tree, the Gingko or
Salisburia. It is now indigenous to Japan only. Its
ancestor, as we may fairly call it — since, according to
Heer, " it corresponds so entirely with the living spe-
cies that it can scarcely be separated from it " — once
inhabited ]N"orthern Europe and the whole arctic re-
gion round to Alaska, and had even a representative
farther south, in our Rocky Mountain district. For
some reason, this and Glyptostrobus survive only on
the shores of Eastern Asia.

Libocedrus, on the other hand, appears to have
cast in its lot with the Sequoias. Two species, ac-
cording to Heer, were with them in Spitzbergen. Z.
decurrenSy the incense cedar, is one of the noblest

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY, 231

associates of tlie present redwoods. But all the rest
are in the southern hemisphere, two at the southern
extremity of the Andes, two in the South-Sea Islands.
It is only by bold and far-reaching suppositions that
they can be geographically associated.

The genealogy of the Torreyas is still wholly ob-
scure ; yet it is not unlikely that the yew-like trees,
named Taxites, which flourished with the Sequoias in
the tertiary arctic forests, are the remote ancestors of
the three species of Torreya, now severally in Florida,
in California, and in Japan.

As to the pines and firs, these were more numer-
ously associated with the ancient Sequoias of the
polar forests than with their present representatives,
but in different species, apparently more like those
of Eastern than of Western Xorth Amenca. They
must have encircled the polar zone then, as they en-
circle the present temperate zone now.

I must refrain from all enumeration of the angio-
spermous or ordinary deciduous trees and shrubs,
w^hich are now known, by their fossil remains, to
have flourished throughout the polar regions when
Greenland better deserved its name and enjoyed the
present climate of New England and l!^ew Jersey.
Then Greenland and the rest of the north abounded
with oaks, representing the several groups of species
w^hich now inhabit both onr Eastern and Western for-
est districts ; several poplars, one very like om* balsam
poplar or balm-of-Gilead tree ; more beeches than
there are now, a hornbeam, and a hop-hornbeam,
some birches, a persimmon, and a planer-tree, near
representatives of those of the Old World, at least of

232 DAEWINIANA.

Asia, as well as of Atlantic ITortli America, but all
wanting in California ; one Jnglans like the walnut
of the Old World, and another Ifke our black walnut ;
two or three grapevines, one near our Southern fox
graj)e or muscadine, another near our ^N'orthern frost-
grape ; a Tilia, very like ourbasswood of the Atlan-
tic States only ; a Liquidambar ; a magnolia, which
recalls our M. gi'andiiiora ; a Liriodendron, sole repre-
sentative of our tulip-tree ; and a sassafras, very like
the living tree.

Most of these, it will be noticed, have their near-
est or their only living representatives in the Atlantic
States, and when elsewhere, mainly in Eastern Asia.
Several of them, or of species like them, have been
detected in our tertiary deposits, west of the Missis-
sippi, by dewberry and Lesquereux. Herbaceous
plants, as it happens, are rarely preserved in a fossil
state, else they would probably supply additional tes-
timony to the antiquity of our existing vegetation, its
wide diffusion over the northern and now frigid zone,
and its. enforced migration under changes of climate.^

Concluding, then, as we must, that our existing
vegetation is a continuation of that of the tertiary

^ There is, at least, one instance so opportune to the present argu-
ment that it should not pass unnoticed, although I had overlooked the
record until now. Onoclea sensibilis is a fern peculiar to the Atlantic
United States (where it is common and wide-spread) and to Japan.
Prof. Newberry identified it several years ago in a collection, obtained
by Dr. Hayden, of miocene fossil plants of Dakota Territory, which is
far beyond it present habitat. He moreover regards it as probably
identical with a fossil specimen " described by the late Prof E. Forbes,
under the name of Filicites Jlcbridicus, and obtained by the Duke of
Argyll from the island of Mull."

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 233

period, may we suppose that it absolutely originated
then? Evidently not. The preceding Cretaceous pe-
riod has furnished to Carruthers in Europe a fossil
f riiit like that of the Sequoia gigantea of the famous
groves, associated with pines of the same character as
those that accompany the present tree ; has furnished
to Heer, from Greenland, two more Sequoias, one of
them identical with a tertiary species, and one nearly
allied to Sequoia Langsdorfii^ which in turn is a prob-
able ancestor of the common Californian redwood ;
has furnished to ITewberry and Lesquereux in IS^orth
America the remains of another ancient Sequoia, . a
Glyptostrobus, a Liquidambar which well represents our
sweet-gum-tree, oaks analogous to living ones, leaves
of a plane-tree, which are also in the Tertiary, and are
scarcely distinguishable from our own Platanus occi-
dentalism of a magnolia and a tulip-tree, and "of a sas-
safras undistinguishable from our living species." I
need not continue the enumeration. Suffice it to say
that the facts justifiy the conclusion which Lesquereux
— a scrupulous investigator — has already announced :
that " the essential tj^es of om* actual flora are marked
in the Cretaceous period, and have come to us after
passing, without notable changes, through the Tertiary
formations of our continent."

According to these views, as regards plants at least,
the adaptation to successive times and changed condi-
tions has been maintained, not by absolute renewals,
but by gradual modifications. I, for one, cannot doubt
that the present existing species are the lineal success-
ors of those that garnished the earth in the old time
before them, and that they were as well adapted to

23i BARWINIANA.

their surroundings then, as those which flourish and
bloom around us are to their conditions now. Order
and exquisite adaptation did not wait for man's coming,
nor were they ever stereotyped. Organic I^ature — by
which I mean the system and totality of living things,
and their adaptation to each other and to the world —
with all its apparent and indeed real stability, should
be likened, not to the ocean, which varies only by tidal
oscillations from a fixed level to which it is always
returning, but rather to a river, so vast that we can
neither discern its shores nor reach its sources, whose
onward flow is not less actual because too slow to be
observed by the ejphemercB whi-ch hover over its surface,
or are borne upon its bosom.

Such ideas as these, though still repugnant to some,
and not long since to many, have so possessed the
minds of the naturalists of the present day that hardly
a discourse can be pronounced or an investigation pros-
ecuted without reference to them. I suppose that the
views here taken are little, if at all, in advance of the
average scientific mind of the day. I cannot regard
them as less noble than those which they are suc-
ceeding. An able philosophical writer, Mss Frances
Power Cobbe, has recently and truthfully said : '

"It is a singular fact that, when we can find out how any-
thing is done, our first conclusion seems to be that God did not
do it. No matter how wonderful, how beautiful, how intimate-
ly complex and delicate has been the machinery which has
worked, perhaps for centuries, perhaps for millions of ages, to
bring about some beneficent result, if we can but catch a glimpse
of the wheels its divine character disappears."

* "Darwinism in Morals," in Theological Review, April, 1871.

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 235

I agree with the writer that this first conclusion is
premature and unworthy — I will add, deplorable.
Through what faults or infirmities of dogmatism on
the one hand, and skepticism on the other, it came to
be so thought, we need not here consider. Let us
hope, and I confidently expect, that it is not to last ;
that the religious faith which survived without a shock
the notion of the fixity of the earth itself may equally
outlast the notion of the fixity of the species which
inhabit it ; that, in the future even more than in the
past, faith in an order^ which is the basis of science,
will not — as it cannot reasonably — be dissevered from
faith in an Ordainer^ which is the basis of religion.

YI.

THE ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS TOWARD DAR-
WINISM.^

(The Nation, October 16, 1873.)

That homely adage, " "What is one man's meat is
another man's poison," comes to mind when we con-
sider with what different eyes different naturalists look
upon the hypothesis of the derivative origin of actual
specific forms, since Mr. Darwin gave it vogue and

^ " Histoire des Sciences et des Sevants depuis deux Siecles, suivie
d'autres etudes sur des sujets scientifiques, en particulier sur la Selec-
tion dans I'Espece Humaine, par Alphonse De Candolle." Geneve : H.
Georg. 1873.

" Addresses of George Bentliam, President, read at the anniversary
meetings of the Linnean Society, 1862-1873."

" Notes on the Classification, History, and Geographical Distribution
of Compositse. By George Bentham." Separate issue from the Journal
of the Linnean Society. Vol, XIII. London. 1873.

" On Palceontological Evidence of Gradual Modification of Animal
Forms, read at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, April 25, 1873.
by Prof W. H. Flower." {Journal of the Royal Institution^ pp. 11.)

"The Distribution and Migration of Birds. Memoir presented to
the National Academy of Sciences, January, 1865, abstracted in the
American Journal of Science and the Arts. 1866, etc. By Spencer
F. Baird."

"The Story of the Earth and Man. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D.,
F. R. S., F. G. S., Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University,
Montreal. London: Hodder & Stoughton; New York: Harper &
Brothers. 1873. Pp. 403, 12mo.

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 237

vigor and a raison Wetre for tlie present day. This
latter lie did, not only by bringing forward a vera
causa in tlie survival of the fittest nnder changing eir-
cnmstances — about which the question among natural-
ists mainly is how much it will explain, some allowing
it a restricted, others an unlimited operation — but also
by showing that the theory may be made to do work,
may shape and direct investigations, the results of
which must in time tell us whether the theory is likely
to hold good or not. If the hypothesis of natural
selection and the things thereto appertaining had not
been capable of being put to useful work, although,
like the " Yestiges of the J^atural History of Creation,"
it might have made no little noise in the world, it
would hardly have engaged the attention of working
natm-alists as it has done. We have no idea even of
opening the question as to what work the Darwinian
theory has incited, and in what way the work done has
reacted upon the theory ; and least of all do we like to
meddle with the polemical literature of the subject,
already so voluminous that the German bibliographers
and booksellers make a separate class of it. But two
or three treatises before us, of a minor or incidental
sort, suggest a remark or two upon the attitude of mind
toward evolutionary theories taken by some of the
working naturalists.

Mr. Darwin's own expectation, that his new pre-
sentation of the s,ubject would have little or no effect
upon those who had already reached middle-age, has
— out of Paris — not been fulfilled. There are, indeed,
one or two who have thought it their duty to denounce
the theory as morally dangerous, as well as scientifi-
11

238 DAEWimAJSTA.

cally baseless ; a recent instance of tlie sort we may
have to consider fiirther on. Others, like the youth
at the river's bank, have been waiting in confident
expectation of seeing the current run itself dry. On
the other hand, a notable proportion of the more active-
minded naturalists had already come to doubt the re-
ceived doctrine of the entire fixity of species, and
still more that of their independent and supernatural
origination. While their systematic work all proceed-
ed implicitly upon the hypothesis of the independence
and entire permanence of species, they were perceiv-
ing more or less clearly that the whole question was
inevitably to be mooted again, and so were prepared
to give the alternative hypothesis a dispassionate con-
sideration. The veteran Lyell set an early example,
and, on a reconsideration of the whole question, wrote
anew his famous chapter and reversed his former and
weighty opinion. Owen, still earlier, signified his ad-
hesion to the doctrine of derivation in some form, but
apparently upon general, speculative grounds ; for he
repudiated natural selection, and offered no other
natural solution of the mystery of the orderly incom-
ing of cognate forms. As examples of the effect of
Darwin's " Origin of Species" upon the minds of nat-
uralists who are no longer young, and whose pre-
possessions, even more than Lyell' s, were likely to bias
them against the new doctrine, two from the botanical
side are brought to our notice through recent miscel-
laneous writings which are now before us.^

^ Since this article was in type, noteworthy examples of appreciative
scientific judgment of the derivative hjrpothesis have come to hand : 1.
In the opening address to the Geological Section of the British Associa-

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS, 239

Before tlie publication of Darwin's first volume,
M. Alplionse de Candolle had summed up the result
of his studies in this regard, in the final chapter of his
classical " Geographic Botanique Baisonnee," in the
conclusion, that existing vegetation must be regarded
as the continuation, through many geological and
geographical changes, of the anterior vegetations of
the world ; and that, consequently, the present distri-
bution of species is explicable only in the light of their
geological history. He surmised that, notwithstand-
ing the general stability of forms, certain species or
quasi-species might have originated through diversi-
fication under geographical isolation. But, on the
other hand, he was still disposed to admit that even
the same species might have originated independently
in two or more different regions of the world ; and he
declined, as unpractical and unavailing, all attempts
to apply hypotheses to the elucidation of the origin
of species. Soon after Darwin's book appeared, De
Candolle had occasion to study systematically a large
and wide-spread genus — that of the oak. Investigat-
ing it under the new light of natural selection, he
came to the conclusion that the existing oaks are all
descendants of earlier forms, and that no clear line
can be drawn between the diversification which has

tion, at its recent meeting, by its president, the veteran Phillips, perhaps
the oldest surviving geologist after Lyell ; and, 2. That of Prof. All-
man, President of the Biological Section. The first touches the subject
briefly, but in the way of favorable suggestion ; the second is a full and
discriminating exposition of the reasons which seem to assure at least
the provisional acceptance of the hypothesis, as a guide in all biological
studies, " a key to the order and hidden forces of the world of life."

2-iO BARWrniANA.

resulted in species and that which is exhibited in races
and minor varieties.

And no^Y, in the introductory chapter of the vol-
imie of essays before us, he informs us that the idea
which pervades them all, and in some sort connects
very diverse topics, is that of considering this princi-
ple of selection. Of the principle itself, he remarks
that it is neither a theory nor an hypothesis, but the
expression of a necessary fact ; that to deny it is very
much like denvins: that round stones will roll down-
hill faster and farther than flat ones; and that the
question of the present day in natural history is not
whether there be natural selection, or even whether
forms are derived from other forms, but to compre-
hend how, in what proportions, and by what means
hereditary deviations take place, and in what ways an
inevitable selection takes effect upon these. In two
of these essays natural selection is directly discussed
in its application to the human race ; the larger one
dealing ably with the whole subject, and with results
at first view seemingly in a great degree negative,
but yet showing that the supposed '' failure of natural
selection in the case of man " was an unwarrantable
conclusion from too limited a view of a very compli-
cated question. The article abounds in acute and
fertile suggestions, and its closing chapter, "on the
probable future of the human species " under the
laws of selection, is highly interesting and noteworthy.
The other and shorter essay discusses a special point,
and brings out a corollary of the law of heredity
which may not have been thought o:^ before, but
which is perfectly clear as soon as it is stated. It ex-

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 2il

plains at once wliy contagious or epidemic diseases are
most fatal at their first appearance, and less so after-
ward : not bj tlie dying out of a vinis — for, when the
disease reaches a new population, it is as virulent as
ever (as, for instance, the small-pox among the In-
dians)— but by the selection of a race less subject to
attack through the destruction of those that were
n'lore so, and the inheritance of the comparative immu-
nity by the children and the grandchildren of the sur-
vivors ; and how this immunity itself, causing the
particular disease to become rare, paves the way to a
return of the original fatality ; for the mass of such
population, both in the present and the immediately
preceding generation, not having been exposed to the
infection, or but little exposed, has not undergone se-
lection, and so in time the proportion liable to attack,
or to fatal attack, gets to be as large as ever. The
greater the fatality, especially in the population under
marriageable age, the more favorable the condition of
the survivors ; and, by the law of heredity, their chil-
dren should share in the immunity. This explanation
of the cause, or of one cause, of the return of pests at
intervals no less applies to the diminution of the effi-
cacy of remedies, and of preventive means, such as
vaccination. When Jenner introduced vaccination,
the small-pox in Europe and European colonies must
have lost somewhat of its primitive intensity by the
vigorous weeding out of the more susceptible through
many generations. Upon the residue, vaccination was
almost complete protection, and, being generally prac-
tised, small-pox consequently became rare. Selection
thus ceasing to operate, a population arises which has

242 DARWINIANA.

not been exposed to tlie contagion, and of wliicli a con-
siderable proportion, under the common law of ata-
vism, comes to be very much in the condition of a
people invaded for the first time by the disease. To
these, as we might expect, vaccination would prove a
less safeguard than to their progenitors three or four
generations before.

Mr. Bentham is a veteran systematic botanist of
the highest rank and widest knowledge. He had not,
BO far as we know, touched upon questions of origina-
tion in the ante-Darwinian era. The dozen of presi-
dential addresses delivered at anniversary meetings of
the Linnean Society, from his assumption of the chair
in the year 1862 down to the current year — each de-
voted to some topic of interest — and his recent " Me-
moir on Composit^e," summing up the general results
of a revision of an order to which a full tenth of all
higher plants belong, furnish apt examples both of
cautious criticism, conditional assent (as becomes the
inaugurator of the quantification of the predicate), and
of fruitful application of the new views to various
problems concerning the classification and geographi-
cal distribution of plants. In his hands the hypothe-
sis is turned at once to practical use as an instrument
of investigation, as a means of interrogating J^ature.
In the result, no doubt seems to be left upon the au-
thor's mind that the existing species of plants are the
result of the diiferentiation of previous species, or at
least that the derivative hypothesis is to be adopted as
that which ofliers the most natural, if not the only,
explanation of the problems concerned. Similar con-
clusions reached in this country, from a study of the

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 243

relations of its present flora witli tliat wliicli in earlier,
ages occupied the arctic zone, might also be referred
to. (See preceding article.)

An excellent instance of the way in which the de-
rivative hypothesis is practically applied in these days,
by a zoologist, is before lis in Prof. Flower's mod-
est and admirable paper on the Ungulata, or hoofed
animals, and their geological history. We refer to it
here, not so much for the conclusions it reaches or
suggests, as to commend the clearness and the impar-
tiality of the handling, and the sobriety and modera-
tion of the deductions. Confining himself "within
the region of the known, it is shown that, at least in
one group of animals, the facts which we have as yet
acquired point to the former existence of various inter-
mediate forms, so numerous that they go far to dis-
credit the view of the sudden introduction of new
species. . . . The modern forms are placed along lines
which converge toward a common centre." The gaps
between the existing forms of the odd-toed gi'oup of
ungulates (of which horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs,
are the principal representatives) are mostly bridged
over by palaeontology, and somewhat the same may be
said of the even-toed group, to which the ruminants
and the porcine genus belong. " Moreover, the lines
of both groups to a certain extent approximate, but,
within the limits of our knowledge, they do not meet.
. . . Was the order according to which the introduc-
tion of new forms seems to have taken place since the
Eocene then entirely changed, or did it continue as far
back as the period when these lines would have been
gradually fused in a common centre ? "

24:4: DARWINIANA.

Facts like these, wliicli suggest grave diversifica-
tion under long lapse of time, are well supplemented
by those which essentially demonstrate a slighter
diversification of many species over a wide range of
space ; whether into species or races depends partly
upon how the naturalist uses these terms, partly upon
the extent of the observations, or luck in getting to-
gether intermediate forms. The researches of Prof.
Baird upon the birds of this continent afibrd a good
illustration. A great number of our birds which
have been, and must needs have been, regarded as
very distinct species, each mainly with its own geo-
graphical area, are found to mingle their characters
along bordering lines ; and the same kinds of differ-
ences (of coloration, form, or other) are found to pre-
vail through the species of each region, thus impress-
ing upon them a geographical facies. Upon a sub-
mergence of the continent, reducing these several
regions to islands sufficiently separated, these forms
would be unquestioned species.

Considerations such as these, of which a few speci-
mens have now been adduced (not general specula-
tions, as the unscientific are apt to suppose), and trials
of the new views, to see how far they will explain
the problems or collocate the facts they are severally
dealing with, are what have mainly influenced work-
ing naturalists in the direction of the provisional
acceptance of the derivative hypothesis. They leave
to polemical speculators the fruitless discussion of the
question whether all species came from one or two, or
more ; they are trying to grasp the thing by the near,
not by the farther end, and to ascertain, first of all.

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 2J:5

wlietlier it is probable or provable tliat present species
are descendants of former ones which were like them,
but less and less like them the farther back we go.

And it is worth noting that they all seem to be
utterly unconscious of wrong-doing. Their repugnance
to novel hypotheses is only the natural and healthy
one. A chano-e of a wonted line of thouo^ht is not
made without an effort, nor need be made without
adequate occasion. Some courage was required of the
man who first swallowed an oyster from its shell ; and
of most of ns the snail would still demand more. As
the unaccustomed food proves to be good and satis-
fying, and also harmless, we may come to like it.
That, however, which many good and eminent natural-
ists find to be healthful and reasonable, and others
innocuous, a few still regard as most unreasonable and
harmful. At present, we call to mind only two who
not only hold to the entire fixity of species as an axiom
or a confirmed principle, but also as a dogma, and who
maintain, either expressly or implicitly, that the logi-
cal antithesis to the creation of species as they are, is
not by law (which implies intention), but by chance.
A recent book by one of these naturalists, or rather, by
a geologist of eminence, the " Story of the Earth and
Man," by Dr. Dawson, is now before us. The title is
too near that of Guyot's " Earth and Man," with the
publication of which popular volume that distinguished
physical naturalist commenced his career in this coun-
try ; and such catch-titles are a sort of trade-mark.
As to the nature and merits of Dr. Dawson's work, we
have left ourselves space only to say : 1. That it is
addressed ad populum, which renders it rather the

246 DARWINIANA.

more than less amenable to the criticisms we may be
disposed to make upon it. 2. That the author is thor-
oughly convinced that no species or form deserving
the name was ever derived from another, or originated
from natural causes ; and he maintains this doctrine
with earnestness, much variety of argument and illus-
tration, and no small ability ; so that he may be taken
as a representative of the view exactly opposed to that
which is favored by those naturalists whose essays we
have been considering — to whom, indeed, he stands in
marked contrast in spiiit and method, being greatly
disposed to argue the question from the remote rather
than the near end. 3. And finally, he has a convic-
tion that the evolutionary doctrines of the day are
not only untrue, but thoroughly bad and irreligious.
This belief, and the natural anxiety with which he con-
templates their prevalence, may excuse a certain vehe-
mence and looseness of statement which were better
avoided, as where the geologists of the day are said to
be " broken up into bands of specialists, little better
than scientific banditti, liable to be beaten in detail,
and prone to commit outrages on common-sense and
good taste which bring their otherwise good cause into
disrepute ; " and where he desj^airingly sugge&ts that
the prevalence of the doctrines he deprecates " seems
to indicate that the accumulated facts of our age have,
gone altogether beyond its capacity for generalization,
and, but for the vigor which one sees everywhere,
might be taken as an indication that the human mind
has fallen into a state of senility."

This is droll reading, when one considers that the
" evolutionist " is the only sort of naturalist who has

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 247

much occasion to employ Lis " capacity for generaliza-
tion " npon " the accumulated facts " in their bearing
upon the problem of the origin of species ; since the
" special creationist," who maintains that they were
supernaturally originated just as they are, by the very
terms of his doctrine places them out of the reach of
scientific explanation. Again, when one reflects upon
the new impetus which the derivative hypothesis has
given to systematic natural liistory, and reads the dec-
laration of a master in this department (the President
of the Linnean Society) that Mr. Darwin " has in this
nineteenth century brought about as great a revolution
in the philosophic study of organic Nature as that
which was effected in the previous centmy by the im-
mortal Swede," it sounds oddly to hear from Dr.
Dawson that " it obliterates the fine perception of dif-
ferences from the mind of the naturalist, . . . destroys
the possibility of a philosophical classification, reduc-
ing all things to a mere series, and leads to a rapid de-
cay in systematic zoology and botany, which is already
very manifest among the disciples of Spencer and
Darwin in England." So, also, " it removes from the
study of IS^ature the ideas of final cause and pui'pose "
— a sentence which reads curiously in the light of Dar-
win's special investigations, such as those upon the
climbing of plants, the agency of insects in the fertil-
ization of blossoms, and the like, which have brought
back teleology to natural science, wedded to morphol-
ogy and already fruitful of discoveries.

The difiiculty with Dr. Dawson here is (and it need
not be underrated) that apparently he cannot as yet
believe an adaptation, act, or result, to be purposed the

248 DA.R WINIANA.

apparatus of wliich is perfected or evolved in the course
of J^ature — a common but a crude state of mind on
the part of those who believe that there is any origi-
nating purpose in the universe, and one which, we are
sure, Dr. Dawson does not share as respects the mate-
rial world until he reaches the organic kingdoms, and
there, possibly, because he sees man at the head of
them — -of them, while above them. However that
may be, the position which Dr. Dawson chooses to oc-
cupy is not left uncertain. After concluding, substan-
tiallv, that those ''evolutionists" who exclude desio^n
from IsTature thereby exclude theism, which nobody
will deny, he proceeds (on page 348) to give his opin-
ion that the " evolutionism which professes to have a
creator somewhere behind it. . . . is practically athe-
istic," and, "if possible, more unphilosophical than
that which professes to set out from absolute and eter-
nal nonentity," etc.

There are some sentences which might lead one to
suppose that Dr. Dawson himself admitted of an evo-
lution " with a creator somewhere behind it." He
offers it (page 320) as a permissible alternative that
even man " has been created mediately by the opera-
tion of forces also concerned in the production of other
animals ; " concedes that a just theory " does not even
exclude evolution or derivation, to a certain extent "
(page 341) ; and that " a modern man of science " may
safely hold "that all things have been produced by
the Supreme Creative Will, acting either directly or
through the agency of the forces and materials of his
own production." "Well, if this be so, why denounce
the modern man of science so severely npon the other

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 249

page merely for accepting tlie permission ? At first
sight, it might be tliought that our author is exposing
himself in one paragraph to a share of the condemna-
tion which he deals out in the other. But the per-
mitted views are nowhere adopted as his own ; the
evolution is elsewhere restricted within specific limits ;
and as to " mediate creation," although we cannot
divine what is here meant by the term, there is reason
to think it does not imply that the several species of a
genus were mediately created, in a natural way, through
the supernatural creation of a remote common ances-
tor. So that his own judgment in the matter is prob-
ably more correctly gathered from the extract above
referred to and other similar deliverances, such as that
in which he warns those who "endeavor to steer a
middle course, and to maintain that the Creator has
proceeded by way of evolution," that " the bare, hard
logic of Spencer, the greatest English authority on
evolution, leaves no place for this compromise, and
shows that the theory, carried out to its legitimate
consequences, excludes the knowledge of a Creator and
the possibility of his work."

E^ow, this is a dangerous line to take. Those defend-
ers of the faith are more zealous than wise who must
needs fire away in their catapults the very bastions of
the citadel, in the defense of outposts that have become
untenable. It has been and alwaj^s will be possible to
take an atheistic view of ligature, but far more reason-
able from science and philosophy only to take a theis-
tic view. Yoltaire's saying here holds true : that if
there were no God known, it would be necessary to
invent .one. It is the best, if not the only, hypothesis

250 DARWINIANA.

for the explanation of the facts. Whether the philos-
ophy of Herbert Spencer (which is not to our liking)
is here fairly presented, we have little occasion and no
time to consider. In this regard, the close of his article
]^o. 12 in the Contemjyorary Revieio shows, at least,
his expectation of the entire permanence of our ideas
of cause, origin, and religion, and predicts the futility
of the expectation that the '^ religion of humanity "
will be the religion of the future, or " can ever more
than temporarily shut out the thought of a Power, of
which humanity is but a small and fugitive product,
which was in its course of ever-changing manifestation
before humanity was, and will continue through other
manifestations when humanity has ceased to be." If,
on the one hand, the philosophy of the unknowable of
the Infinite may be held in a merely quasi-theistic or
even atheistic way, were not its ablest expounders and
defenders Hamilton and Dean Mansel ? One would
suppose that Dr. Dawson might discern at least as much
of a divine foundation to Nature as Herbert Spencer
and Matthew Arnold ; might recognize in this power
that " something not ourselves that makes " for order
as well as " for righteousness," and which he fitly tenns
supreme creative will ; and, resting in this, endure with
more complacency and faith the inevitable prevalence
of evolutionary views which he is powerless to hinder.
Although he cannot arrest the stream, he might do
something toward keeping it in safe channels.

We wished to say something about the way in
which scientific men, worthy of the name, hold hy-
potheses and theories, using them for the purpose of
investigation and the collocation of facts, yielding or

ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS. 251

witliliolding assent in degrees or provisionally, accord-
ing to the amount of verification or likelihood, or
holding it long in suspense; which is quite in contrast
to that of amateurs and general speculators (not that
we reckon Dr. Dawson in this class), whose assent or
denial seldom waits, or endures qualification. With
them it must on all occasions be yea or nay only, ac-
cording to the letter of the Scriptural injunction, and
whatsoever is less than this, or between the two,
cometh of evil.

YII.

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY.*

(The Nation, January 15, 18T4.)

The attitude of theologians toward doctrines of
evolution, from the nebular hypothesis down to " Dar-
winism," is no less worthy of consideration, and hard-
ly less diverse, than that of naturalists. But the
topic, if pursued far, leads to questions too wide and
deep for om' handling here, except incidentally, in the
brief notice which it falls in our way to take of the
Rev. George Henslow's recent volume on " The Theory
of Evolution of Living Things." This treatise is on
the side of evolution, " considered as illustrative of
the wisdom and beneficence of the Almighty." It

^ " The Theory of Evolution of Living Things, and the Application
of the Principles of Evolution to Religion, considered as illustrative
of the ' Wisdom and Beneficence of the Almighty.' By the Rev.
George Henslow, M. A., F. L. S., F. G. S., etc." New York : Macmil-
lan & Co. 1873. 12mo, pp. 220.

"Systematic Theology. By Charles Hodge, D. D., Professor in the
Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. Vol. ii. (Part II, An-
thropology.") New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1872.

" Religion and Science : A Series of Sunday Lectures on the Relation
of Natural and Revealed Religion, or the Truths revealed in Nature and
Scripture. By Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Geology and Natural Hia-
tiory in the University of California." New York : D. Appleton & Co.
1874. 12mo, pp. 324.

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY, 253

was submitted for and received one of the Actonian
prizes recently awarded by the Royal Institution of
Great Britain. We gather that the staple of a part
of it is worked up anew from some earlier discourses
of the author uj)on " Genesis and Geology," '^ Science
and Scripture not antagonistic," etc.

In coupling with it a chapter of the second volume
of Dr. Hodge's " Systematic Theology (Part II., An-
thropology)," we call attention to a recent essay, by
an able and veteran writer, on the other side of the
question. As the two fairly enough represent the ex-
tremes of Christian thought upon the subject, it is
convenient to review them in connection. Theolo-
gians have a short and easy, if not wholly satisfactory,
way of refuting scientific doctrines which they object
to, by pitting the authority or opinion of one savant
against another. Already, amid the currents and ed-
dies of modern opinion, the savants may enjoy the
same advantage at the expense of the di\dnes — we
mean, of course, on the scientific arena; for the mu-
tual refutation of conflicting theologians on their own
ground is no novelty. It is not by way of offset, how-
ever, that these divergent or contradictory views are
here referred to, but only as an illustration of the fact
that the divines are by no means all arrayed upon one
side of the question in hand. And indeed, in the
present transition period, until some one goes much
deeper into the heart of the subject, as respects the re-
lations of modern science to the foundations of relig-
ious belief, than either of these writers has done, it is
as well that the weight of opinion should be distrib-
uted, even if only according to prepossessions, rather

254: DARWINIANA.

than that the whole stress should bear "ujDon a single
point, and that perhaps the authority of an interpreta-
tion of Scripture. A consensus of opinion upon Dr.
Hodge's ground, for instance (although better guarded
than that of Dr. Dawson), if it were still possible,
would — to say the least — probably not at all help to
reconcile science and religion. Therefore, it is not to
be regretted that the diversities of view among accred-
ited theologians and theological naturalists are about
as wide and as equably distributed between the ex-
tremes (and we may add that the views themselves are
quite as hypothetical) as those which prevail among
the various naturalists and natural philosophers of the
day.

As a theologian, Mr. Henslow doubtless is not to
be compared with the veteran professor at Princeton.
On the other hand, he has the advantage of being a
naturalist, and the son of a naturalist, as well as a
clergyman : consequently he feels the full force of an
array of facts in nature, and of the natural inferences
from them, which the theological professor, from his
Biblical standpoint, and on his implicit assumption
that the Old Testament must needs teach true science,
can hardly be expected to appreciate. Accordingly, a
naturalist would be apt to say of Dr. Hodge's exposi-
tion of " theories of the universe " and kindred top-
ics— and in no captious spirit — that whether right or
wrong on particular points, he is not often right or
wrong in the way of a man of science.

Probably from the lack of familiarity with preva-
lent ideas and their history, the theologians are apt to
suppose that scientific men of the present day are tak-

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 255

ing up theories of evolution in pure wantonness or
mere superfluity of naughtiness ; that it would have
been quite possible, as well as more proper, to leave
all such matters alone. Quieta non mover e is doubt-
less a wise rule upon such subjects, so long as it is fair-
ly applicable. But the time for its application in re-
spect to questions of the origin and relations of exist-
ing species has gone by. To ignore them is to imitate
the foolish bird that seeks security by hiding its head
in the sand. Moreover, the naturalists did not force
these questions upon the world ; but the world they
study forced them upon the naturalists. How these
questions of derivation came naturally and inevitably
to be revived, how the cumulative probability that the
existing are derived from preexisting forms impressed
itself upon the minds of many naturalists and think-
ers, Mr. Henslow has briefly explained in the intro-
duction and illustrated in the succeeding chapters of
the first part of his book. Science, he declares, has
been compelled to take up the hjqDothesis of the evo-
lution of living things as better explaining all the
phenomena. In his opinion, it has become " infinite-
ly more probable that all living and extinct beings
have been developed or evolved by natural laws of
generation from preexisting forms, than that they,
with all their innumerable races and varieties, should
owe their existences severally to Creative fiats." This
doctrine, which even Dr. Hodge allows may possibly
be held in a theistic sense, and which, as we suppose,
is so held or viewed by a great proportion of tlie nat-
uralists of our day, Mr. Henslow maintains is fully
compatible with dogmatic as well as natural theology ;

256 LARWINIANA,

that it explains moral anomalies, and acconnts for the
mixtm^e of good and evil in the world, as well as for
the merely relative perfection of things ; and, iinallv,
that " the whole scheme which God has framed for
man's existence, from the first that was created to all
eternity, collaj)ses if the great law of evolution be
suppressed." The second part of his book is occupied
with a development of this line of argument. By
this doctrine of evolution he does not mean the Dar-
winian hypothesis, although he accepts and includes
this, looking upon natural selection as playing an im-
portant though not an unlimited part. He would be
an evolutionist with Mivart and Owen and Argyll,
even if he had not the vera causa which Darwin con-
tributed to help him on. And, on rising to man, he
takes ground with Wallace, saying :

" I would wish to state distinctly that I do not at present
see any evidence for believing in a gradual development of man
from the lower animals by ordinary natural laws ; that is, with-
out some special interference, or, if it be preferred, some excep-
tional conditions which have thereby separated him from all other
creatures, and placed him decidedly in advance of them all.
On the other hand, it would be absurd to regard him as totally
severed from them. It is the great degree of difference I would
insist upon, bodily, mental, and spiritual, which precludes the
idea of his having been evolved by exactly the same processes,
and with the same limitations, as, for example, the horse from
the palfeotherium:"

In illustrating this view, he reproduces Wallace's
well-known points, and adds one or two of his own.
We need not follow up his lines of argument. The
essay, indeed, adds nothing material to the discussion

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOOT. 257

of evolution, altliongli it states one side of the case
moderately well, as far as it goes.

Dr. Hodge approaches tlie subject from tlie side
of systematic theology, and considers it mainly in its
bearing upon the origin and original state of man.
Under each head he first lays down " the Scriptural
doctrine," and then discusses ''anti-Scriptural theo-
ries," which latter, under the first head, are the hea-
then doctrine of spontaneous generation, the modern
doctrine of spontaneous generation, theories of devel-
opment, specially that of Darwin, the atheistic char-
acter of the theory, etc. Although he admits " that
there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebu-
lar hypothesis as to. the origin of the universe, so there
may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian
theory," yet he contends that " the system is thorough-
ly atheistic," notwithstanding that the author "ex-
pressly acknowledges the existence of God." Curious-
ly enough, the atheistic form of evolutionary hy-
potheses, or what he takes for such, is the only one
which Dr. Hodge cares to examin e. E ven the " Reign
of Law" theory, Owen's "purposive route of devel-
opment and change .... by virtue of mherent ten-
dencies thereto," as well as other expositions of the
general doctrine on a theistic basis, are barely men-
tioned without a word of comment, except, perhaps,
a general " protest against the arraying of probabili-
ties against the teachings of Scripture."

]^[ow, all former experience shows that it is neither
safe nor wise to pronounce a whole system " thorough-
ly atheistic" which it is conceded may be held theis-
tically, and which is likely to be largely held, if not

258 DARWINIANA.

to prevail, on scientific grounds. It may be well to
remember that, " of the two great minds of the sev-
enteenth century, ISTewton and Leibnitz, both pro-
foundly religious as well as philosophical, one pro-
duced the theory of gravitation, the other objected to
that theory that it was subversive of natural religion ;
also that the nebular hypothesis — a natural conse-
quence of the theory of gravitation and of the sub-
sequent progress of physical and astronomical dis-
covery— ^has been denounced as atheistical even down
to our day." It has now outlived anathema.

It is undeniable that Mr. Darwin lays himself open
to this kind of attack. The propounder of natural
selection might be expected to make the most of the
principle, and to overwork the law of parsimony in
its behalf. And a system in which exquisite adapta-
tion of means to ends, complicated interdependences,
and orderly sequences, appear as results instead of be-
ing introduced as factors, and in which special design
is ignored in the particulars, must needs be obnoxious,
unless guarded as we suppose Mr. Darwin might have
guarded his ground if he had chosen to do so. Our
own opinion, after long consideration, is, that Mr.
Darwin has no atheistical intent ; and that, as respects
the test question of design in ^N^ature, his view may
be made clear to the theological mind by likening it
to that of the " believer in general but not in particu-
lar Providence." There is no need to cull passages in
support of this interpretation from his various works
while the author — the most candid of men — retains

•

through all the editions of the " Origin of Species"

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 259

the two mottoes from Wliewell and Bisliop But-
ler.^

The gist of the matter lies in the answer that
should be rendered to the questions — 1. Do order and
useful-working collocation, pervading a s^^stem through-
out all its parts, prove design ? and, 2. Is such evi-
dence negatived or invalidated by the probability that
these particular collocations belong to lineal series of
such in time, and diversified in the course of Nature
— grown up, so to say, step by step? We do not
use the terms " adaptation," " arrangement of means
to ends," and the like, because they beg the ques-
tion in stating it.

Finally, ought not theologians to consider whether
they have not already, in principle, conceded to the
geologists and physicists all that they are asked to con-
cede to the evolutionists ; whether, indeed, the main
natural theological difficulties which attend the doc-
trine of evolution — serious as they may be — are not
virtually contained in the admission that there is a
system of l^ature with fixed laws. This, at least, we
may say, that, under a system in which so much is
done " by the establishment of general laws," it is

^ " But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far
as this — we can perceive that events are brought about, not by insu-
lated interpositions of divine power, exerted in each particular case,
but by the establishment of general laws." — WhewelPs Bridgewater
Treatise.

" The only distinct meaning of the word ' natural ' is stated^ fi^cd^ or
settled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an in-
telligent agent to render it so — i. e., to effect it continually or at stated
times — as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."
— Butler'' s Analogy.

260 DARWINIANA,

legitimate for any one to prove, if he can, that any
particular thing in the natural world is so done ; and
it is the proper business of scientific men to push their
enquiries in this direction. ,

It is beside the point for Dr. Hodge to object that,
'' from the nature of the case, what concerns the ori-
gin of things cannot be known except by a supernat-
ural revelation ; " that " science has to do with the
facts and laws of ISTature : here the question concerns
the origin of such facts." For the very object of the
evolutionists, and of Mr. Darwin in particular, is to
remove these subjects from the category of origina-
tion, and to bring them under the domain of science
by treating them as questions about how things go on,
not how they began. Whether the succession of liv-
ing forms on the earth is or is not among the facts and
laws of ITature, is the very matter in controversy.

Moreover, adds Dr. Hodge, it has been conceded
that in this matter " proofs, io the proper sense of the
word, are not to be had ; we are beyond the region of
demonstration, and have only probabilities to con-
sider." "Wherefore " Christians have a right to pro-
test against the arraying of probabilities against the
clear teachings of Scripture." The word is italicized,
as if to intimate that probabilities have no claims
which a theologian is bound to respect. As to array-
ing them against Scripture, there is nothing whatever
in the essay referred to that justifies the statement.
Indeed, no occasion offered ; for the writer was dis-
cussing evolution in its relations to theism, not to
Biblical theology, and probably would not be disposed
to intermix arguments so different in kind as those

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 261

from natural science and tlios^ from revelation. To
pursue eacli independently, according to its own
method, and tlien to compare the results, is thought
to be the better mode of proceeding. The weighing
of probabilities we had regarded as a proper exercise
of the mind preparatory to forming an opinion. Prob-
abilities, hypotheses, and even surmises, whatever
they may be worth, are just what, as it seems to us,
theologians ought not to be foremost in decrying,
particularly those who deal with the reconciliation of
science with Scripture, Genesis with geology, and the
like. As soon as they go beyond the literal statements
even of the English text, "and enter into the details of
the subject, they find ample occasion and display a
special aptitude for producing and using them, not
always with very satisfactory results. It is not, per-
haps, for us to suggest that the theological army in the
past has been too much encumbered with impedimenta
for effective aggression in the conflict against atheis-
tic tendencies in modern science ; and that in resist-
ing attack it has endeavored to hold too much ground,
so wasting strength in the obstinate defense of posi-
tions which have become unimportant as well as un-
tenable. Some of the arguments, as well as the guns,
which well served a former generation, need to be
replaced by o'thers of longer range and greater pene-
tration.

If the theologians are slow to discern the signs
and exigencies of the times, the religious philosophi-
cal naturalists must be looked to. Since the above re-
marks were written, Prof. Le Conte's " Eeligion and

Science," just issued, has come to our hands. It is a
12

262 LABWINIANA.

series of nineteen Sunday lectures on tlie relation of
natural and revealed religion, prepared in tlie first in-
stance for a Bible-class of young men, his pupils in
the University of South Carolina, repeated to similar
classes at the University of California, and finally de-
livered to a larger and general audience. They are
printed, the preface states, from a verljatim report,
with only verbal alterations and corrections of some
redundancies consequent upon extemporaneous deliv-
ery. They are not, we find, lectures on science under
a religious aspect, but discourses upon Christian theol-
ogy and its foundations from a scientific layman's point
of view, with illustrations from his own lines of study.
As the headings show, they cover, or, more correctly
speaking, range over, almost the whole field of the-
ological thought, beginning with the personality of
Deity as revealed in IS^ature, the spiritual nature and
attributes of Deity, and the incarnation ; discussing
by the way the general relations of theology to science,
man, and his place in IN'ature ; and ending with a dis-
cussion of predestination and free-will, and of prayer
in relation to invariable law — all in a volume of three
hundred and twenty -four duodecimo pages ! And yet
the author remarks that many important subjects have
been omitted because he felt unable to present them
in a satisfactory manner from a scientific point of view.
"We note, indeed, that one or two topics which would
naturally come in his way — such, especially, as the re-
lation of evolution to the human race* — are somewhat
conspicuously absent. That most of the momentous
subjects which he takes up are treated discursively,
and not exhaustively, is all the better for his readers.

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 263

What tliey and we most want to know is, liow these
serious matters are viewed by an honest, enlightened,
and devont scientific man. To solve the mysteries of
the universe, as the French lady required a philosopher
to explain his new system, ^'dansun mot^'' is beyond
rational expectation.

All that we have time and need to say of this lit-
tle book upon great subjects relates to its spirit and to
the view it takes of evolution. Its theology is wholly
orthodox ; its tone devotional, charitable, and hopeful ;
its confidence in religious truth, as taught both in Na-
ture and revelation, complete ; the illustrations often
happy, but often too rhetorical ; the science, as might
be expected from this author, unimpeachable as re-
gards matters of fact, discreet as to matters of opin-
ion. The argument from design in the first lecture
brings up the subject of the introduction of species.
Of this, considered '^ as a question of history, there is
no witness on the stand except geology."

" The present condition of geological evidence is undoubted-
ly in favor of some degree of suddenness — is against infinite
gradations. The evidence may be meagre .... but whether
meagre or not, it is all the evidence we have. . . . Now, the
evidence of geology to-day is, that species seem to come in sud-
denly and in full perfection, remain substantially unchanged dur-
ing the term of their existence, and pass away in full perfection.
Other species take their place apparently by substitution, not
hj transmutation. But you will ask me, ' Do you, then, reject the
doctrine of evolution? Do you accept the creation of species
directly and without secondary agencies and processes? ' I an-
swer, No ! Science knows nothing of phenomena which do not
take place by secondary causes and processes. She does not deny
such occurrence, for true Science is not dogmatic, and she knows

264: DARWINIANA.

full well tliat, tracing up tlie phenomena from cause to cause,
we must somewhere reach the more direct agency of a First
Cause. ... It is evident that, however species were intro-
duced, whether suddenly or gradually, it is the duty of Science
ever to strive to understand the means and processes by which
species originated. . . . Now, of the various conceivable sec-
ondary causes and processes, by some of which we must believe
species originated, by far the most probable is certainly that of
evolution from other species."

[We might interpose the remark that the witness
on the stand, if subjected to cross-examination by a
biologist, might be made to give a good deal of testi-
mony in favor of transmutation rather than substitu-
tion.]

After referring to different ideas as to the cause or
mode of evolution, he concludes that it can make no
difference, so far as the argument of design in E^atm^e
is concerned, whether there be evolution or not, or
whether, in the case of evolution, the change be parox-
ysmal or uniform. We may infer even that he accepts
the idea that "physical and chemical forces are changed
into vital force, and vice versa.^^ Physicists incline
more readily to this than physiologists ; and if what is
called vital force be a force in the physicists' sense,
then it is almost certainly so. But the illustration on
page 2Y5 touches this point only seemingly. It really
concerns only the storing and the using of physical
force in a living organism. If, for want of a special
expression, we continue to use the term vital force to
designate that intangible something which directs and
governs the accumulation and expenditure of physical
force in organisms, then there is as yet no proof and

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 265

little likeliliood that tliis is correlate with physical
force.

" A few words upon the first chapter of Genesis
and the Mosaic cosmogony, and I am done," says Prof.
Le Conte, and so are we :

"It might be expected by many that, after speaking of
schemes of reconciliation, I should give mine also. My Chris-
tian friends, these schemes of reconciliation become daily more
and more distasteful to me. I have used them in times past ;
but now the deliberate construction of such schemes seems to
me almost like trifling with the words of Scripture and the
teachings of Nature. They seem to me almost irreverent, and
quite foreign to the true, humble, liberal spirit of Christianity ;
they are so evidently artificial, so evidently mere ingenious
human devices. It seems to me that if we will only regard
the two books in the philosophical spirit which I have endeav-
ored to describe, and then simply wait and possess our souls
in patience, the questions in dispute will soon adjust them-
selves as other similar questions have already done."

yiii.

WHAT IS DARWINISM ? *
(The Nation, May 28, 1874.)

The question whicli Dr. Hodge asks lie promptly
and decisively answers: " What is Darwinism? it is
atheism."

Leaving aside all subsidiary and incidental matters,
let us consider — 1. What the Darwinian doctrine is,
and 2. How it is proved to be atheistic. Dr. Hodge's
own statement of it cannot be very much bettered :

"His [Darwin's] work on the 'Origin of Species' does not
purport to be philosophical. In this aspect it is very different
from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not specu-
late on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter or of
force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious ob-
server, skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in deal-
ing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. Ho
set before himself a single problem — namely. How are the fauna

' " What is Darwinism ? By Charles Hodge, Princeton, N. J." New
York : Seribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

" The Doctrine of Evolution. By Alexander Winchell, LL. D., etc."
New York: Harper & Brothers. 1874.

" Darwinism and Design ; or, Creation by Evolution. By George
St. Clair." London : Hodder & Stoughton. 1873.

" Westminster Sermons. By the Rev. Charles Kingsley, F. L. S.,
F. G. S., Canon of Westminster, etc." London and New York : Mac-
millan & Co. 1874.

WBAT IS DARWINISM? 267

and flora of our earth to be accounted for? ... To account for
the existence of matter and life, Mr. Darwin admits a Creator.
This is done explicitly and repeatedly. . . . He assumes the ef-
ficiency of physical causes, showing no disposition to resolve them
into mind-force or into the efficiency of the First Cause. . . . lie
assumes, also, the existence of life in the form of one or more
primordial germs. . . . How all living things on earth, includ-
ing the endless variety of plants and all the diversity of animals,
. . . have descended from the primordial animalcule, he thinks,
may be accounted for by the operation of the following natural
laws, viz. : First, the law of Heredity, or that by which like
begets like — the offspring are like the parent. Second, the law
of Variation ; that is, while the offspring are in all essential
characteristics like their immediate progenitor, they neverthe-
less vary more or less \vithin narrow limits from their parent
and from each other. Some of these variations are indifferent,
some deteriorations, some improvements — that is, such as enable
the plant or animal to exercise its functions to greater advan-
tage. Third, the law of Over-Production. All plants and ani-
mals tend to increase in a geometrical ratio, and therefore tend
to overrun enormously the means of support. If all the seeds
of a plant, all the spawn of a fish, were to arrive at maturity, in
a very short time the world could not contain them. Hence,
of necessity, arises a struggle for life. Only a few of the myri-
. ads born can possibly live. Fourth, here comes in the law of
ISTatural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest ; that is, if any
individual of a given species of plant or animal happens to have
a slight deviation from the normal type favorable to its success
in the struggle for life, it will survive. This variation, by the
law of heredity, will be transmitted to its offspring, and by them
again to theirs. Soon these favored ones gain the ascendency,
and the less favored perish, and the modification becomes estab-
lished in the species. After a time, another and another of such
favorable variations occur, with like results. Thus, very gradu-
ally, great changes of structure are introduced, and not only
species, but genera, families, and orders, in the vegetable and
animal world, are produced " (pp. 26-29).

26S DARWINIAN A.

XoWj the triitli or the probability of Darwin's hy-
pothesis is not here the question, but only its congru-
ity or incongruity with theism. We need take only
one exception to this abstract of it, but that is an
important one for the present investigation. It is to
the sentence which we have italicized in the earlier
part of Dr. Hodge's own statement of what Darwin-
ism is. With it begins our inquiry as to how he
proves the doctrine to be atheistic.

First, if we rightly apprehend it, a suggestion of
atheism is infused into the premises in a negative
form : Mr. Darwin shows no disposition to resolve
the efficiency of physical causes into the efficiency of
the First Cause. oS^ext (on page 48) comes the posi-
tive charge that "Mr. Darwin, although himself a the-
ist," maintains that " the contrivances manifested in
the organs of plants and animals .... are not due to
the continued cooperation and control of the divdne
mind, nor to the original purpose of God in the con-
stitution of the universe." As to the negative state-
ment, it might suffice to recall Dr. Hodge's truthful
remark that Darwin " is simply a naturalist," and that
" his work on the origin of species does not pui*port to
"be philosophical." In physical and physiological trea-
tises, the most religious men rarely think it necessary
to postulate the First Cause, nor are they misjudged
by the omission. But sm'ely Mr. Darwdn does show
the disposition which our author denies him, not only
by implication in many instances, but most explicitly
where one would naturally look for it, namely — at the
close of the volume in question : " To my mind, it
accords better with what we know of the laws im-

WHAT IS DARWimSM? 269

pressed on matter by the Creator," etc. If that does
not refer the efficiency of physical causes to the First
Cause, what form of words could do so ? The posi-
tive charge appears to be equally gratuitous. In both
Dr. Hodge must have overlooked the begiuning as
well as the end of the volume which he judges so hard-
ly. Just as mathematicians and physicists, in their
systems, are wont to postulate the fundamental and
undeniable truths they are concerned with, or what
they take for such and require to be taken for granted,
so Mr. Darwin postulates, upon the first page of his
notable work, and in the words of Whewell and Bish-
op Butler : 1. The establishment by divine power of
general laws, according to which, rather than by insu-
lated interpositions in each particular case, events are
brought about in the material world ; and 2. That by
the word " natural " is meant " stated, fixed, or settled,"
by this same power, " since what is natural as much
requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to ren-
der it so — ^i. e., to effect it continually or at stated
times — as what is supernatm'al or miraculous does to
effect it for once." ^ So when Mr. Darwin makes such
large and free use of " natural as antithetical to super-
natural" causes, we are left in no doubt as to the ul-
timate source which he refers them to. Rather let us
say there ought to be no doubt, unless there are other
grounds for it to rest upon.

Such ground there must be, or seem to be, to jus-
tify or excuse a veteran divine and scholar like Dr.
Hodge in his deduction of pure atheism from a system

^ These two postulate-mottoes are quoted in full in a previous article,
in No. 446 of the Nation (page 259 of the present volume).

270 DARWINIANA.

produced bj a confessed tlieist, and based, as we have
seen, ii]3on thoroughly orthodox fundamental concep-
tions. Even if we may not hope to reconcile the dif-
ference between the theologian and the naturalist, it
may be well to ascertain where their real divergence
begins, or ought to begin, and what it amounts to.
Seemingly, it is in their proximate, not in their ulti-
mate, principles, as Dr. Hodge insists when he declares
that the whole di'ift of Darwinism is to prove that
everything " may be accounted for by the blind opera-
tion of natural causes, without any intention, pui'pose,
or cooperation of God " (page 64). '' Why don't he
say," cries the theologian, ^' that the complicated or-
gans of plants and animals are the product of the di-
vine intelhgence ? If God made them, it makes no
difference, so far as the question of design is concerned,
how he made them, whether at once or by process of
evolution" (page 58). But, as we have seen, Mr. Dar-
win does say that, and he over and over implies it
when he refers the production of species "" to second-
ary causes," and likens their origination to the origi-
nation of individuals ; species being series of individuals
with greater difference. It is not for the theologian
to object that the power which made individual men
and other animals, and all the differences which the
races of mankind exhibit, through secondary causes,
could not have originated congeries of more or
less greatly differing individuals through the same
causes.

Clearly, then, the difference between the theologian
and the naturalist is not fundamental, and evolution
may be as profoundly and as particularly theistic as it is

WJIAT IS DARWimSMf 271

increasingly probable. The taint of atlieism which, in
Dr. Hodge's view, leavens the w^hole lump, is not in-
herent in the original grain of Darwinism — in the
principles posited — but has somehow been introduced
in the subsequent treatment. Possibly, when found,
it may be eliminated. Perhaps there is mutual mis-
apprehension growing out of some ambiguity in the
use of terms. "Without any intention, purpose, or
cooperation of God." These are sweeping and effect-
ual words. How came they to be applied to natural
selection by a divine who professes that God ordained
w^hatsoever cometh to pass ? In this wise : " The
point to be proved is, that it is the distinctive doctrine
of Mr. Darwin that species owe their origin — 1. Not to
the original intention of the divine mind ; 2. JSTot to
special acts of creation calling new forms into exist-
ence at certain epochs ; 3. Not to the constant and
everywhere operative efficiency of God guiding physi-
cal causes in the production of intended effects ; but 4.
To the gradual accumulation of unintended variations
of structure and instinct securing some advantage to
fheir subjects " (page 52). Then Dr. Hodge adduces
" Darwin's own testimony," to the pui-port that natu-
ral selection denotes the totality of natural causes and
their interactions, physical and physiological, repro-
duction, variation, birth, struggle, extinction — in short,
all that is going on in Nature ; that the variations
which in this interplay are picked out for survival are
not intentionally guided ; that " nothing * can be
more hopeless than the attempt to explain this simi-
larity of pattern in members of the same class by
utility or the doctrine of final causes" (which Dr.

272 DARWINIANA.

Hodge takes to be tlie denial of any such thing as final
causes) ; and that the interactions and processes going
on which constitute natural selection may suffice to ac-
count for the present diversity of animals and plants
(primordial organisms being postulated and time
enough given) with all their structures and adapta-
tions— that iSj to account for them scientifically, as
science accounts for other things.

A good deal may be made of this, but does it sus-
tain the indictment 1 Moreover, the counts of the in-
dictment may be demurred to. It seems to us that
only one of the three points which Darwin is said to
deny is really opposed to the fourth, which he is said
to maintain, except as concerns the perhaps ambigu-
ous word xmintended. Otherwise, the origin of spe-
cies through the gradual accumulation of variations —
i. e., by the addition of a series of small differences —
is surely not incongruous with their origin through
'Hhe original intention of the divine mind" or
through " the constant and everywhere operative ef-
ficiency of God." One or both of these Mr. Darwin
(being, as Dr. Hodge says, a theist) must needs hold to
in some form or other ; wherefore he may be presumed
toehold the fourth proposition in such wise as not
really to contradict the first or the third. The proper
antithesis is with the second proposition only, and the
issue comes to this : Have the multitudinous forms
of living creatures, past and present, been produced
by as many special and independent acts of creation at
very numerous epochs ? Or have they originated un-
der causes as natural as reproduction and birth, and

WHAT IS DARWINISM ? 273

no more so, by the variation and change of preceding
into succeeding species ?

Those who accept the latter alternative are evolu-
tionists. And Dr. Hodge fairly allows that their
views, although clearly wrong, may be genuinely the-
istic. Surely they need not become the less so by the
discovery or by the conjecture of natm'al operations
through which this diversification and continued adap-
tation of species to conditions is brought about.
IN'ow, Mr. Darwui thinks — and by this he is distin-
guished from most evolutionists — that he can assign
actual natural causes, adequate to the production of
the present out of the preceding state of the animal
and vegetable world, and so on backward — thus unit-
ing, not indeed the beginning but the far past with
the present in one coherent system of ITature. But in
assigning actual natural causes and processes, and ap-
plying them to the explanation of the whole case, Mr.
Darwin assumes the obligation of maintaining their
general sufficiency — a task from which the numerous
advocates and acceptors of evolution on the general
concurrence of probabilities and its usefulness as a
working hypothesis (with or without much conception
of the manner how) are happily free. Having hit
upon a modus operandi which all who understand it
admit will explain something, and many that it will
explain very much, it is to be expected that Mr. Dar-
win will make the most of it. Doubtless he is far
from pretending to know all the causes and operations
at work ; he has already added some and restricted the
range of others ; he probably looks for additions to
their number and new illustrations of their efficiency ;

274 DARWimANA.

but lie is bound to expect them all to fall within the
category of what he calls natural selection (a most ex-
pansible principle), or to be congruous with it — that is,
that they shall be natural causes. Also — and this is
the critical point — ^he is bound to maintain their suffi-
ciency without intervention.

Here, at length, we reach the essential difference
between Darwin, as we understand him, and Dr.
Hodge. The terms which Darwin sometimes uses,
and doubtless some of the ideas they represent, are
not such as we should adopt or like to defend ; and w^e
may say once for all — aside though it be from the
present issue — that, in our opinion, the adequacy of
the assigned causes to the explanation of the phenomena
has not been made out. But .we do not understand
him to deny " purpose, intention, or the cooperation
of God " in N^ature. This would be as gratuitous as
unphilosophical, not to say unscientific. When he
speaks of this or that particular or phase in the course
of events or the procession of organic forms as not
intended, he seems to mean not specially and disjunc-
tively intended and not brought about by intervention.
Purpose in the whole, as we suppose, is not denied but
implied. And when one considers how, under what-
ever view of the case, the designed and the contingent
lie inextricably commingled in this world of ours, past
man's disentanglement, and into what metaphysical
dilemmas the attempt at unraveling them leads, we
cannot greatly blame the naturalist for relegating such'
problems to the philosopher and the theologian. If
charitable, these will place the most favorable con-
struction upon attempts to extend and unify the opera-

WITAT IS DARWimSMf 275

tion of known secondary causes, tliis being the proper
business of the naturalist and physicist ; if wise,
they will be careful not to predicate or suggest the ab-
sence of intention from what conies about by degrees
through the continuous operation of phj^ical causes,
even in the organic world, lest, in their endeavor to re-
tain a probable excess of supernaturalism in that realm
of !N^ature, they cut away the grounds for recognizing
it at all in inorganic I^ature, and so fall into the same
condemnation that some of them award to the Dar-
winian.

Moreover, it is not certain that Mr. Darwin would
very much better his case, Dr. Hodge being judge, if
he did propound some theory of the nexus of divine
causation and natural laws, or even if he explicitly
adopted the one or the other of the views which he is
charged with rejecting. Either way he might meet a
procrustean fate ; and, although a saving amount of
theism might remain, he would not be sound or com-
fortable. For, if he predicates "the constant and
everywhere operative efficiency of God," he may
" lapse into the same doctrine " that the Duke of Ar-
gyll and Sir John Herschel " seem inclined to," the
latter of whom is blamed for thinking " it but reason-
able to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or
indirect result of a consciousness or will existing some-
where," and the former for regarding "it unphilo-
sophical ' to think or speak as if the forces of Nature
were either independent of or even separate from the
Creator's power ' " (page 24) : while if he falls back
upon an " original intention of the divine mind," en-
dowing matter with forces which he foresaw and in-

276 DARWrniANA.

tended should produce sucli results as tliese contriv-
ances in Nature, lie is told (pages 44-46) tliat this
banishes God from the world, and is inconsistent with
obvious facts. And that because of its implying that
" He never interferes to guide the operation of physi-
cal causes." We italicize the word, for interference
proves to be the keynote of Dr. Hodge's system. In-
terference with a divinely ordained physical ^Nature for
the accomplishment of natural results ! An unortho-
dox friend has just imparted to us, with much mis-
giving and solicitude lest he should be thought ir-
reverent, his tentative hypothesis, which is, that even
the Creator may be conceived to have improved with
time and experience ! Never before was this theory
so plainly and barely put before us. We were obliged
to say that, in principle and by implication, it was not
wholly original.

But in such matters, which are far too high for us,
no one is justly to be held responsible for the conclu-
sions which another may draw from his principles or
assumptions. Dr. Hodge's particular view should be
gathered from his own statement of it :

"In the external world there is always and everywhere in-
disputable evidence of the activity of two kinds of force, the
one physical, the other mental. The physical belongs to matter,
and is due to the properties with which it has been endowed ;
the other is the everywhere present and ever-acting mind of
God. To the latter are to be referred all the manifestations of
design in Nature, and the ordering of events in Providence.
This doctrine does not ignore the efficiency of second causes ;
it simply asserts that God overrules and controls them. Thus
the Psalmist says : ' I am fearfully and wonderfully made. My
substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret,

WHAT IS DAEWimSM? ' 277

and curiously wrought (or embroidered) in the lower parts of
the earth. . . . God makes the grass to grow, and herbs for
the children of men.' He sends rain, frost, and snow. He
controls the winds and the waves. He determines the casting
of the lot, the flight of an arrow, and the falling of a sparrow "
(pages 43, 44).

Far be it from us to object to this mode of con-
ceiving divine causation, altbougb, like the two otber
theistic conceptions referred to, it has its diflSculties,
and perhaps the difficulties of both. But, if we un-
derstand it, it draws an nnnsuallj hard and fast line
between causation in organic and inorganic IsTature,
seems to look for no manifestation of design in the
latter except as " God overrules and controls " second
causes, and, finally, refers to this overruling and con-
trolling (rather than to a normal action through en-
dowment) all embryonic development, the growth of
vegetables, and the like. He even adds, without
break or distinction, the sending of rain, frost, and
snow, the flight of an arrow, and the falling of a spar-
row. Somehow we must have misconceived the bear-
ing of the statement ; but so it stands as one of " the
three ways," and the right way, of " accounting for
contrivances in Nature;" the other two being — 1.
Their reference to the blind operation of natural
causes ; and, 2. That they were foreseen and purposed
by God, who endowed matter with forces which he
foresaw and intended should produce such results, but
never interferes to guide their operation.

In animadverting upon this latter view. Dr. Ilodge
brings forward an argument against evolution, with
the examination of which our remarks must close :

278 ■ DARWINIANA.

"Palej, indeed, says that if the construction of a watch he
an undeniable evidence of design, it would be a still more won-
derful manifestation of skill if a watch could be made to pro-
duce other watches, and, it may be added, not only other
watches, but all kinds of timepieces, in endless variety. So it
has been asked. If a man can make a telescope, why cannot
God make a telescope which produces others like itself? This
is simply asking whether matter can T)e made to do the work
of mind. The idea involves a contradiction. For a telescope
to make a telescope supposes it to select copper and zinc in due
proportions, and fuse them into brass; to fashion that brass
into inter-entering tubes ; to collect and combine the requisite
materials for the different kinds of gla^s needed; to melt them,
grind, fashion, and polish them, adjust their densities, focal dis-
tances, etc., etc. A man who can believe that brass can do
all this might as well believe in God" (pp. 45, 46).

If Dr. Hodge's meaning is, that matter nncon-
structed cannot do the work of mind, he misses the
point altogether ; for original construction bj an in-
telligent mind is given in the premises. If he means
that the machine cannot originate the power that
operates it, this is conceded by all except believers in
perpetual motion, and it equally misses the point ; for
the operating power is given in the case of the watch,
and implied in that of the reproductive telescope.
But if he means that matter cannot be made to do the
work of mind in constructions, machines, or organ-
isms, he is surely wrong. '^ Solviticr amhulando^''
vel scribendo / he confuted his argument in the act of
writing the sentetice. That is just what machines
and organisms are for; and a consistent Christian
theist should maintain that it is what all matter is for.
Finally, if, as we freely suppose, he means none of
these, he must mean (unless we are much mistaken)

WBAT IS DARWINISM f 279

that organisms originated by the Ahnighty Creator
conld not be endowed with the power of producing
similar organisms, or slightly dissimilar organisms,
without successive interventions. Then he begs the
very question in dispute, and that, too, in the face of
the primal command, " Be fruitful and multiply," and
its consequences in every natural birth. If the actual
facts could be ignored, how nicely the parallel would
run ! " The idea involves a contradiction." For an
animal to make an animal, or a plant to make a plant,
supposes it to select carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen, to combine these into cellulose and proto-
plasm, to join with these some phosphorus, lime, etc.,
to build them into structures and usefully-adjusted
organs. A man who can believe that plants and ani-
mals can do this (not, indeed, in the crude way sug-
gested, but in the appointed way) "might as well
believe in God." Yes, verily, and so he probably
will, in spite of all that atheistical philosophers have
to oifer, if not harassed and confused by such argu-
ments and statements as these.

There is a long line of gradually-increasing diver-
gence from the ultra-orthodox view of Dr. Hodge
through those of such men as Sir William Thomson,
Herschel, Argyll, Owen, Mivart, "Wallace, and Dar-
win, down to those of Strauss, Yogt, and Biichner.
To strike the line with telling power and good effect,
it is necessary to aim at the right place. Excellent
as the present volume is in motive and clearly as it
shows that Darwinism may bear an atheistic as well
as a theistic interpretation, we fear that it will not
contribute much to the reconcilement of science and
religion.

2S0 LARWimAN-A.

The length of the analysis of the first book on our
list precludes the notices which we intended to take
of the three others. Thej are all the production of
men who are both scientific and religions, one of them
a celebrated divine and writer nnnsnally ^^ersed in
natural history. They all look upon theories of evo-
lution either as in the way of being established or as
not unlikely to prevail, and they confidently expect
to lose thereby no solid ground for theism or religion.
Mr. St. Clair, a new writer, in his " Darwinism and
Design ; or. Creation by Evolution," takes his ground
in the following succinct statement of his preface :

" It is being assumed by our scientific guides that the design-
argument has been driven out of the field by the doctrine of
evolution. It seems to be thought by our theological teachers
that the best defense of the faith is to deny evolution in toto^
and denounce it as anti-Biblical. My volume endeavors to
show that, if evolution be true, all is not lost ; but, on the con-
trary, something is gained: the design-argument remains un-
shaken, and the wisdom and beneficence of God receive new
illustration."

Of his closing remark, that, so far as he knows,
the subject has never before been handled in the same
way for the same pui-pose, we will only say that the
handling strikes us as mamly sensible rather than as
substantially novel. He traverses the whole ground
of evolution, from that of the solar system to " the
origin of moral species." He is clearly a theistie
Darwinian without misgiving, and the arguments for
that hypothesis and for its religious aspects obtain
from him their most favorable presentation, while he
combats the dysteleology of Hackel, Biichner, etc.,
not, however, with any remarkable strength.

WRAT IS DARWimSM? 281

Dr. Winchell, chancellor of tlie new university at
Syracuse, in his volume just issued upon the " Doc-
trine of Evolution," adopts it in the abstract as
"clearly as the law of universal intelligence under
which complex results are brought into existence"
(whatever that may mean), accepts it practically for
the inorganic world as a geologist should, hesitates as
to the organic world, and sums up the arguments for
the origin of species by diversification unfavorably
for the Darwinians, regarding it mainly from the
geological side. As some of our zoologists and palae-
ontologists may have somewhat to say upon this matter,
we leave it for their consideration. We are tempted
to develop a point which Dr. IVinchell incidentally
refers to — viz., how very modern the idea of the inde-
pendent creation and fixity of species is, and how well
the old divines got on without it. Dr. Winchell re-
minds us that St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas
were model evolutionists ; and, where authority is de-
ferred to, this should count for something.

Mr. Kingsley's eloquent and suggestive "West-
minster Sermons," in which he touches here and
there upon many of the topics which evolution brings
up, has incorporated into the preface a paper which
he read in 1871 to a meeting of London clergy at
Sion College, upon certain problems of natural theol-
ogy as affected by modern theories in science. We
may hereafter have occasion to refer to this volume.
Meanwhile, perhaps we may usefully conclude this
article with two or three short extracts from it :

" The God wlio satisfies our conscience ought more or less
to satisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's mission ;

282 DAEWINIANA.

and he fulfilled it well. But it is a mission which has to be
refulfilled again and again, as human thought changes, and
human science develops. For if, in any age or country, the
God who seems to be revealed by Nature seems also different
from the God who is revealed by the then-popular religion,
then that God and the religion which tells of that God will
gradually cease to be believed in.

"For the demands of reason — as none knew better than
good Bishop Butler — must be and ought to be satisfied. And,
therefore, when a popular war arises between the reason of
any generation and its theology, then it behooves the minis-
ters of religion to inquire, with all humility and godly fear, on
whose side lies the fault ; whether the theology which they ex-
pound is all that it should be, or whether the reason of those
who impugn it is all that it should be."

Pronouncing it to be the duty of tlie naturalist to
find out the how of things, and of the natural theo-
logian to find out the why, Mr. Kingslej continues :

"But if it be said, 'After all, there is no why; the doctrine
of evolution, by doing away with the theory of creation, does
away with that of final causes,' let us answer boldly, 'Xot in
the least.' We might accept all that Mr. Darwin, all that Prof.
Huxley, all that other most able men have so learnedly and
acutely written on physical science, and yet preserve our natu-
ral theology on the same basis as that on which Butler and
Paley left it. That we should have to develop it I do not deny.

" Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope and
good-will, on these new theories ; they surely mark a tendency
toward a more, not a less. Scriptural view of Nature.

" Of old it was said by Him, without whom nothing is made, «
' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' Shall we quarrel
with Science if she should show how these words are true?
What, in on5 word, should we have to say but this : ' We know
of old that God was so wise that he could make all things ; but,
behold, he is so much wiser than even that, that he can make
all things make themselves? ' "

IX.

CHAELES DAEWIN : A SKETCH.

(Natttbe, June 4, 1S74, accompanying a poeteait,)

Two British naturalists, Hobert Brown and Cliarles
Darwin, have, more than any others, impressed their
influence npon science in this nineteenth centmy.
Unlike as these men and their works were and are?
we may most readily subserve the present purpose in
what we are called upon to say of the latter by briefly
comparing and contrasting the two.

Robert Brown died sixteen years ago, full of years
and scientific honors, and he seems to have finished,
several years earher, all the scientific work that he had
undertaken. To the other, Charles Darwin, a fair
number of productive years may yet remain, and are
earnestly hoped for. Both enjoyed the great advan-
tage of being all their lives long free from exacting
professional duties or cares, and so were able in the
main to apply themselves to research without distrac-
tion and according to their bent. Both, at the begin-
ning of their career, were attached to expeditions of
exploration in the southern hemisphere, where tney
amassed rich stores of observation and materials, and
probably struck out, while in the field, some of the
best ideas which they subsequently developed. They
worked in different fields and upon different methods ;

284 DARWINIANA.

only in a single instance, so far as we know, have they
handled the same topic ; and in this the more penetrat-
ing insight of the younger naturalist into an interest-
ing general problem may be appealed to in justification
of a comparison which some will deem presumptuous.
Ee this as it may, there will probably be little dissent
from the opinion that the characteristic trait common
to the two is an unrivaled scientific sagacity. In this
these two naturalists seem to us, each in his way, pre-
eminent. There is a characteristic likeness, too — ^un-
derlying much difierence — in their admirable manner
of dealing with facts closely, and at first hand, without
the interposition of the formal laws, vague ideal con-
ceptions, or " glittering generalities " which some phil-
osophical naturalists make large use of.

A likeness may also be discerned in the way in
which the works or contributions of predecessors and
contemporaries are referred to. The brief historical
summaries prefixed to many of Mr. Brown's papers
are models of judicial conscientiousness. And Mr.
Darwin's evident delight at discovering that some one
else has "said his good things before him," or has
been on the verge of uttering them, seemingly equals
that of making the discovery himself. It reminds one
of Goethe's insisting that his views in morphology
must have been held before him and must be some-
w^here on record, so obvious did they appear to him.

Considering the quiet and retired lives led by both
these men, and the prominent place they are likely to
occupy in the history of science, the contrast between
them as to contemporary and popular fame is very re-
markable. While. Mr. Brown was looked up to with
the greatest reverence by all the learned botanists, he

CHARLES DARWIN: A SKETCH. 285

was scarcely heard of by any one else ; and out of bot-
any be was unknown to science except as tlie discov-
erer of tbe Brownian motion of minute particles, which
discovery was promulgated in a privately-printed pam-
phlet that few have ever seen. Although Mr. Darwin
had been for twenty years well and widely known for
his " J^aturalist's Journal," his works on " Coral Isl-
ands,'- on " Yolcanic Islands," and especially for his
researches on the Barnacles, it was not till about fifteen
years ago that his name became popularly famous.
Ever since no scientific name has been so widely spo-
ken. Many others have had hypotheses or systems
named after them, but no one else that we know of a
department of bibliography. The nature of his latest
researches accounts for most of the difference, but not
for all. The Origin of Species is a fascinating topic,
having interests and connections with every branch of
science, natural and moral. The investigation of rec-
ondite affinities is very dry and special ; its questions,
processes, and results alike — although in part generally
presentable in the shape of morphology — are mainly,
like the higher mathematics, unintelligible except to
those who make them a subject of serious study.
They are especially so when presented in Mr. Brown's
manner. Perhaps no naturalist ever recorded the re-
sults of his investigations in fewer words and with
greater precision than Robert Brown : certainly no
one ever took more pains to state nothing beyond the
precise point in question. Indeed, we have sometimes
fancied that he preferred to enwrap rather than to ex-
plain his meaning ; to put it into such a form that,
unless you follow Solomon's injunction and dig for the

wisdom as for hid treasure, you may hardly apprehend
13

286 * DARWINIANA.

it imtil you have found it all out for yourself, when
you will Lave tlie satisfaction of perceiving that Mr.
Brown not only knew all about it, but had put it
upon record. Very different from this is the way in
which Mr. Darwin takes his readers into his con-
fidence, freely displays to them the sources of his
information, and the worldng of his mind, and even
shares with them all his doubts and misgivings, while
■ in a clear exposition he sets forth the reasons which
have guided him to his conclusions. These you may
hesitate or decline to adopt, but you feel sure that they
have been presented with perfect fairness ; and if you
think of arguments against them you may be confident
that they have all been duly considered before.

The sagacity which characterizes these two natu-
ralists is seen in their success in finding decisive in-
stances, and their sure insight into the meaning of
things. As an instance of the latter on Mr. Darwin's
part, and a justification of our venture to compare
him with the facile jprincejps hotanico'ncm, we will, in
conclusion, allude to the single instance in which they
took the same subject in hand. In his papers on the
organs and modes of fecundation in Orchidece and
Asclej)iadece, Mr. Brown refers more than once to C.
K. Sprengel's almost forgotten work, shows how the
structure of the flowers in these orders largely requires
the agency of insects for their fecundation, and is
aware that " in Asclepiadece .... the insect so read-
ily passes from one corolla to another that it not un-
frequently visits every flower of the umbel." He
must also have contemplated the transport of pollen
from plant to plant by wind and insects; and we
know from another source that he looked upon Spren-

CHARLES DARWIN: A SKETCH. 287

gel's ideas as far from fantastic. Yet, instead of
taking the single forward step wliich now seems so
obvious, lie even hazarded the conjecture that the
insect-forms of some orchideous flowers are intended
to deter rather than to attract insects. And so the
explanation of all these and other extraordinary struct-
ures, as well as of the arrangement of blossoms in
general, and even the very meaning and need of sex-
ual propagation, w^ere left to be supplied by Mr. Dar-
win. The aphorism " N^ature abhors a vacuum " is a
characteristic specimen of the science of the middle
ages. The aphorism '' Nature abhors close fertiliza-
tion," and the demonstration of the principle, belong
to our age, and to Mr. Darwin. To have originated
this, and also the principle of natural selection — the
truthfulness and importance of which are evident the
moment it is apprehended — and to have applied these
principles to the system of Nature in such a manner
as to make, within a dozen years, a deeper impression
upon natural history than has been made since Lin-
naeus, is ample title for one man^s fame.

There is no need of our givjng any account or of
estimating the importance of such works as the '' Ori-
gin of Species by means of Natural Selection," the
" Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestica-
tion," the " Descent of Man, and Selection in relation
to Sex," and the "Expression of the Emotions in
Man and Animals " — a series to which we may hope
other volumes may in due time be added. We w^ould
rather, if space permitted, attempt an analysis of the
less known, but not less masterly, subsidiary essays,
upon the various arrangements for insuring cross-fer-

288 DARWINIAJSTA.

tilization in flowers, for the climbing of plants, and
the like. These, as we have heard, may before long
be reprinted in a volume, and supplemented by some
long-pending but still unfinished investigations upon
the action of Dioncea and Drosera — a capital subject
for Mr. Darwin's handling.

A jprojyos to these papers, which furnish excellent
illustrations of it, let us recognize Darwin's great ser-
vice to natural science in bringing back to it Teleolo-
gy ; so that, instead of Morphology versus Teleology,
we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology. To
many, no doubt, evolutionary Teleology comes in such
a questionable shape as to seem shorn of all its good-
ness ; but they wiU think better of it in time, when
their ideas become adjusted, and they see what an
impetus the new doctrines have given to investiga-
tion. They are much mistaken who suppose that
Darwinism is only of speculative importance, and
perhaps transient interest. In its working applica-
tions it has proved to be a new power, eminently
practical and fruitful.

And here, again, we are bound to note a striking
contrast to Mr. Brown, greatly as we revere his
memory. He did far less work than was justly to be
expected from him. Mr. Darwin not only points out
the road, but labors upon it indefatigably and unceas-
ingly. A most commendable noblesse oblige assures
us that he will go on while strength (would we could
add health) remains. The vast amount of such work
he has already accomplished might overtax the powers
of the strongest. That it could have been done at all
under constant infirm health is most wonderful.

X.

INSECTIVOEOTJS PLANTS.

(The Nation, April 2 and 9, 1874.)

That animals should feed upon plants is natural
and normal, and the reverse seems impossible. But
the adage, " Natura non agit saltatim^^ has its appli-
cation even here. It is the naturalist, rather than
ITature, that draws hard and fast lines everywhere,
and marks put abrupt boundaries where she shades
off with gradations. However opposite the parts
which animals and vegetables play in the economy of
the world as the two opposed kingdoms of organic
Nature, it is becoming more and more obvious that
they are not only two contiguous kingdoms, but are
parts of one whole — antithetical and complementary
to each other, indeed ; but such " thin partitions do
the bounds divide" that no definitions yet framed
hold good without exception. This is a world of
transition in more senses than is commonly thought ;
and one of the lessons w^hich the philosophical natu-
ralist learns, or has to learn, is, that differences the
most wide and real in the main, and the. most essen-
tial, may nevertheless be here and there connected or
bridged over by gradations. There is a limbo filled
with organisms which never rise high enough in the

290 DAEWI^''IA^''A.

scale to be manifestly either animal or plant, unless it
may be said of some of tliem tliat they are each in
turn and neither long. There are undoubted animals
which produce the essential material of vegetable
fabric, or build up a part of their structure of it, or
elaborate the characteristic leaf-green which, under
solar light, assimilates inorganic into organic matter,
the most distinguishing function of vegetation. On
the other hand, there are plants — microscopic, indeed,
but unquestionable — which move spontaneously and
freely around and among animals that are fixed and
rooted. And, to come without further parley to the
matter in hand, while the majority of animals feed
directly upon plants, " for 'tis their nature to," there
are plants which turn the tables and feed upon them.
Some, being parasitic upon living animals, feed insidi-
ously and furtively ; these, although really cases in
point, are not so extraordinary, and, as they belong
to the lower orders, they are not much regarded, ex-
cept for the harm they do. There are others, and
those of the highest orders, which lure or entrap ani-
mals in ways which may well excite our special won-
der— all the more so since we are now led to conclude
that they not only capture but consume their prey.

As respects the two or three most notable in-
stances, the conclusions which have been reached are
among the very recent acquisitions of physiological
science. Curiously enough, however, now that they
are made out, it appears that they were in good part
long ago attained, recorded, and mainly forgotten.
The earlier observations and siu-mises shared the com-
mon fate of discoveries made before the time, or by

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 201

those who were not sagacious enougli to bring out.
their full meaning or importance. Vegetable mor-
phology, dimly apprehended by Linnaeus, initiated by
Caspar Frederick TVolff, and again, independently
in successive generations, by Goethe and by De Can-
dolle, offers a parallel instance. The botanists of
Goethe's day could not see any sense, advantage, or
practical application, to be made of the proposition
that the parts of a blossom answer to leaves ; and so
the study of homologies had long to wait. Until
lately it appeared to be of no consequence whatever
(except, perhaps, to the insects) whether Drosera and
Sarracenia caught flies or not ; and even Diongea ex-
cited only unreflecting wonder as a vegetable anomaly.
As if there were real anomalies in Nature, and some
one plant possessed extraordinary powers denied to
all others, and (as was supposed) of no importance to
itself !

That most expert of fly-catchers, Dionsea, of which
so much has been written and so little known until
lately, came very near revealing its secret to Solander
and Ellis a hundred years ago, and doubtless to John
Bartram, our botanical pioneer, its probable discoverer,
who sent it to Europe. Ellis, in his published letter
to Linnseus, with which the history begins, described
the structure and action of the living trap correctly ;
noticed that the irritability which called forth the
quick movement closing the trap, entirely resided in
the few small bristles of its upper face ; that this
whole surface was studded with glands, which proba-
bly secreted a liquid ; and that the trap did not open
again when an insect was captured, even upon the

292 LAEWINIANA.

.death of the captive, altliongh it opened very soon
when nothing was caught, or when the irritation was
caused by a bit of straw, or any such substance. It
was Linnseus who originated the contrary and errone-
ous statement, which has long prevailed in the books,
that the trap reopened when the fatigued captive
became quiet, and let it go; as if the plant caught
flies in mere play and pastime ! Linnaeus also omitted
all allusion to a secreted liquid — which was justifiaTjle,
as Ellis does not state that he had actually seen any ;
and, if he did see it, quite mistook its use, supposing
it to be, like the nectar of flowers, a lure for insects,
a bait for the trap. Whereas, in fact, the lure, if
there be any, must be an odor (although nothing is
perceptible to the human olfactories) ; for the liquid
secreted by tlfe glands never appears until the trap
has closed upon some insect, and held it at least for
some hours a prisoner. "Within twenty-four or forty-
eight hours this glairy liquid is abundant, bathing
and macerating the body of the perished insect. Its
analogue is not the nectar of flowers, but the saliva
or the gastric juice !

The observations which compel such an inference
are recent, and the substance of them may be briefly
stated. The late Rev. Dr. M. A. Curtis (by whose
death, two years ago, we lost one of our best botan-
ists, and the master in his especial line, mycology),
forty years and more ago resided at Wilmington,
IS'orth Carolina, in the midst of the only district to
which the Dionasa is native ; and he published, in
1834, in the first volume of the " Journal of the Bos-
ton Society of Natural History," by far the best ac-

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS 293

count of tliis singular plant wliicli liad then appeared.
He remarks that " the little prisoner is not crushed
and suddenly destroyed, as is sometimes supposed,"
for he had often liberated " captive flies and spiders,
which sped away as fast as fear or joy could hasten
them." But he neglected to state, although he must
have noticed the fact, that the two sides of the trap,-
at first concave to the contained insect, at length flat-
ten and close down firmly upon the prey, exerting no
inconsiderable pressure, and insuring the death of any
soft-bodied insect, if it had not already succumbed to
the confinement and salivation. This last Dr. Curtis
noticed, and first discerned its import, although he
hesitated to pronounce upon its universality. That
the captured insects were in some way " made sub-
servient to the nourishment of the plant " had been
conjectured from the first. Dr. Curtis "at times
[and he might have always at the proper time] found
them enveloped in a fluid of mucilaginous consistence,
which seems to act as a solvent, the insects being more
or less consumed in it." This was verified and the di-
gestive character of the liquid well-nigh demonstrated
six or seven years ago by Mr. Canby, of "Wilmington,
Delaware, who, upon a visit to the sister-town of
Worth Carolina, and afterward at his home, followed
up Dr. Curtis's suggestions with some capital observa-
tions and experiments. These were published at
Philadelphia in the tenth volume of Meehan's Gar-
deners' Monthly, August, 1868 ; but they do not ap-
pear to have attracted the attention which they
merited.

The points which Mr. Canby made out are, that

294 DARWINIANA.

this fluid is always poured out around the captured
insect in due time, •''if the leaf is in good condition
and the prey suitable ; " that it comes from the leaf
itself, and not from the decomposing insect (for, when
the trap caught a plum-curculio, the fluid was ponred
out while he was still alive, though very weak, and
endeavoring, ineffectually, to eat his way out) ; that
bits of raw beef, although sometimes rejected after
a while, were generally acted upon in the same man-
ner— i. e., closed down upon tightly, slavered with
the liquid, dissolved mainly, and absorbed ; so that, in
fine, the fluid may well be said to be analogous to the
gastric juice of animals, dissolving the prey and ren-
dering it fit for absorption by the leaf. Many leaves
remain inactive or slowly die away after one meal ;
others reopen for a second and perhaps even a third
capture, and are at least capable of digesting a second
meal.

Before Mr. Canby's experiments had been made,
we were aware that a similar series had been made in
England by Mr. Darwin, with the same results, and
with a small but highly-curious additional one —
namely, that the fiuid secreted in the trap of Dionasa,
like the gastric juice, has an acid reaction. Having
begun to mention unpublished results (too long al-
lowed to remain so), it may be well, under the circum-
stances, to refer to a still more remarkable experiment
by the same most sagacious investigator. By a prick
with a sharp lancet at a certain point, he lias been
able, to paralyze one-half of the leaf-trap, so that it
remained motionless under the stimulus to which the
other half responded. Such high and sensitive organ-

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 295

ization entails corresponding ailments. Mr. Canby
tells "US that lie gave to one of his Dionasa-subjects a
fatal dyspepsia by feeding it with cheese ; and under
Mr. Darwin's hands another suffers ivova. paraplegia.

Finally, Dr. Burdon-Sanderson's experiments, de-
tailed at the last meeting of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, show that the same
electrical cm*rents are developed upon the closing of
the Dionsea-trap as in the contraction of a muscle.

If the Yenus's Fly-trap stood alone, it would be
doubly marvelous — first, on account of its carnivorous
propensities, and then as constituting a real anomaly in
organic J^ature, to which nothing leads up. Before
acquiescing in such a conclusion, the modern naturalist
would scrutinize its relatives. ITow, the nearest rela-
tives of our vegetable wonder are the sundews.

While Dionsea is as local in habitation as it is sin-
gular in structure and habits, the Droseras or sundews
are widely diffused over the world and numerous in
species. The two whose captivating habits have at-
tracted attention abound in bogs all around the north-
ern hemisphere. That flies are caught by them is a
matter of common observation ; but this was thought
to be purely accidental. They spread out from the
root a circle of small leaves, the upper face of which
especially is beset and the margin fringed with stout
bristles (or what seem to be such, although the struct-
ure is more complex), tipped by a secreting gland,
which produces, while in vigorous state, a globule of
clear liquid like a drop of dew— whence the name,
both Greek and English. One expects these seeming
dew-drops to be dissipated by the morning sun ; but

296 DARWimANA.

they remain unaffected. A touch shows that the glis-
tening drops are glutinous and extremely tenacious, as
flies learn to their cost on alightmg, perhaps to sip the
tempting liquid, which acts first as a decoy and then
like birdlime. A small fly is held so fast, and in its
struggles comes in contact with so many of these glu-
tinous globules, that it seldom escapes.

The result is much the same to the insect, whether
captured in the trap of Dionsea or stuck fast to the
limed bristles of Drosera. As there are various plants
upon whose glandular hairs or glutinous surfaces small
insects are habitually caught and perish, it might be
pure coincidence that the most effectual arrangement
of the kind happens to occur in the nearest relatives
of Dionsea. Roth, a keen German botanist of the
eighteenth century, was the first to detect, or at least
to record, some evidence of intention in Drosera, and
to compare its action with that of Dionsea, which,
through Ellis's account, had shortly before been made
known in Europe. He noticed the telling fact that
not only the bristles which the unfortunate insect had
come in contact with, but also the surrounding rows,
before widely spreading, curved inward one by one,
although they had not been touched, so as within a
few hours to press their glutinous tips likewise against
the body of the captive insect — thus doubling or quad-
rupling the bonds of the victim and (as we may now
suspect) the sm*faces through which some part of the
animal substance may be imbibed. For Hoth sur-
mised that both these plants were, in their way, pre-
daceous. He even observed that the disk of the
Drosera-leaf itself often became concave and enveloped

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS 207

tlie prey. These facts, altliougli mentioned now and
then in some succeeding works, were generally forgot-
ten, except that of the adhesion of small insects to the
leaves of sundews, which must have been observed in
every generation. Up to and even within a few years
past, if any reference was made to these asserted move-
ments (as by such eminent physiologists as Meyen and
Treviranus) it was to discredit them. l!Tot because
they are difficult to verify, but because, being naturally
thought improbable, it was easier to deny or ignore
them. So completely had the knowledge of almost a
century ago died out in later years that, when the sub-
ject was taken up anew in our days by Mr. Darwin, he
had, as we remember, to advertise for it, by sending a
"note and query" to the magazines, asking where any
account of the fly-catching of the leaves of sundew
was recorded.

When Mr. Darwin takes a matter of this sort in
hand, he is not likely to leave it where he found it.
He not only confirmed all Roth's observations as to
the incm'ving of the bristles toward and upon an in-
sect entangled on any part of the disk of the leaf,
but also found that they responded similarly to a bit
of muscle or other animal substance, while to any par-
ticles of inorganic matter they were nearly indifferent.
To minute fragments of carbonate of ammonia, how-
ever, they were more responsive. As these remark-
able results, attained (as we are able to attest) half a
dozen years ago, remained unpublished (being portions
of an investigation not yet completed), it would have
been hardly proper to mention them, were it not that
independent observers were beginning to bring out

298 LARWIRIANA.

the same or similar facts. Mrs. Treat, of New Jersey,
noticed the habitual infolding of the leaf in the lon-
ger-leaved species of sundew {Ame?'ican Journal of
Science for J^ovember, 1871), as was then thought
for the first time — Koth's and Withering's observa-
tions not having been looked up. In recording this,
the next year, in a very little book, entitled " How
Plants Behave," the opportunity was taken to mention,
in the briefest way, the capital discovery of Mr. Dar-
win that the leaves of Drosera act differently when
different objects are placed upon them, the bristles
closing upon a particle of raw meat as upon a living
insect, while to a particle of chalk or wood ' they are
nearly inactive. The same facts were independently
brought out by Mr. A. TV. Bennett at the last year's
meeting of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, and have been mentioned in the
journals.

If to these statements, which we may certify, were
added some far more extraordinary ones, communi-
cated to the French Academy of Science in May last by
M. Zeigler, a stranger story of discrimination on the
part of sundew-bristles would be told. But it is safer
to wait for the report of the committee to which these
marvels were referred, and conclude this sufficiently
" strange eventful history " with some details of ex-
periments made last summer by Mrs. Treat, of New
Jersey, and published in the December number of the
American Naturalist. It is well to note that Mrs.
Treat selects for publication the observations of one
particular day in July, when the sundew-leaves were
unusually active ; for their moods vary with the weath-

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 299

er, and also in other unaccountable ways, altliongli in
general the sultrier days are the most appetizing :

"At fifteen minutes past ten of the same day I placed bits
of raw beef on some of the most vigorous leaves of Di'osera lon-
gifolia. Ten minutes past twelve, two of the leaves had folded
around the beef, hiding it from sight. Plalf-past eleven of the
same day, I placed living flies on the leaves of I), longifolia. At
12° 48' one of the leaves had folded entirely around its victim,
the other leaves had partially folded, and the flies had ceased to
struggle. By 2° 30' four leaves had each folded around a fly.
... I tried mineral substances — bits of dry chalk, magnesia,
and pebbles. In twenty-four hours, neither the leaves nor
their bristles had made any move like clasping these articles. I
wet a piece of chalk in water, and in less than an hour the bris-
tles were curving about it, but soon unfolded again, leaving the
chalk free on the blade of the leaf." Parallel experiments made
on D. rotundifolia, with bits of beef and of chalk, gave the same
results as to the action of the bristles ; while with a piece of raw
apple, after eleven hours, "part of the bristles were clasping it,
but not so closely as the beef," and in twenty-four hours " nearly
all the bristles were curved toward it, but not many of the
glands were touching it."

To make such observations is as easy as it is inter-
esting. Throughout the summer one has only to
transfer plants of Drosera from the bogs into pots or
pans filled with wet moss — if need be, allowing them
to become established in the somewhat changed condi-
tions, or even to put out fresh leaves — and to watch their
action or expedite it by placing small flies upon the
disk of the leaves. The more common round-leaved
sundew acts as well as the other by its bristles, and
the leaf itself is sometimes almost equally prehensile,
although in a different way, infolding the whole bor-

300 DARWINIANA.

der instead of the summit only. Yery cm-ious, and
even somewhat painful, is the sight when a fly, alight-
ing upon the central dew-tipped bristles, is held as
fast as by a spider's web ; while the efforts to escape
not only entangle the insect more hopelessly as they
exhaust its strength, but call into action the surround-
ing bristles, which, one by one, add to the number of
the bonds, each by itself apparently feeble, but in
their combination so effectual that the fly may be
likened to the sleeping Gulliver made fast in the tiny
but multitudinous toils of the Liliputians. Any-
body who can believe that such an apparatus was not
intended to captm*e flies might say the same of a spi-
der's web.

Is the intention here to be thought any the less
real because there are other species of Drosera which
are not so perfectly adapted for fly-catching, owing
to the form of their leaves and the partial or total
want of cooperation of their scattered bristles ? One
such species, D. filiformis^ the thread-leaved sundew,
is not uncommon in this country, both north and south
of the district that Dionsea locally inhabits. Its leaves
are long and thread-shaped, beset throughout with
glutinous gland-tipped bristles, but wholly destitute
of a blade. Fhes, even large ones, and even moths
and butterflies, as Mrs. Treat and Mr. Canby affirm
(in the American Naturalist)^ get stuck fast to these
bristles, whence they seldom escape. Accidental as
such captm^es are, even these thi^ead-shaped leaves re-
spond more or less to the contact, somewhat in the
manner of their brethren. In Mr. Canby's recent and
simple experiments, made at Mr. Darwin's suggestion,

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 301

when a small fly aliglits upon a leaf a little below its
slender apex, or when a bit of crushed fly is there
affixed, within a few hours the tip of the leaf bends
at the point of contact, and curls over or around the
body in question; and Mrs. Treat even found that
when living flies were pinned at half an inch in dis-
tance from the leaves, these in forty minutes had bent
their tips perceptibly toward the flies, and in less than
two hours reached them ! If this be confirmed — and
such a statement needs ample confirmation — then it
may be suspected that these slender leaves not only in-
curve after prolonged contact, just as do the leaf -stalks
of many climbers, but also make free and independent
circular sweeps, in the manner of twining stems and
of many tendrils.

Correlated movements like these indicate pui'pose.
When performed by climbing plants, the object and
the advantage are obvious. That the apparatus and
the actions of Dionsea and Drosera are purposeless and
without advantage to the plants themselves, may have
been believed in former days, when it was likewise
conceived that abortive and f unctionless organs were
specially created " for the sake of symmetry " and to
display a plan ; but this is not according to the genius
of modern science.

In the cases of insecticide next to be considered,
such evidence of intent is wanting, but other and cir-
cumstantial evidence may be had, sufficient to warrant
conviction. Sarracenias have hollow leaves in the
form of pitchers or trumpet-shaped tubes, containing
water, in which flies and other insects are habitually
drowned. They are all natives of the eastern side of

302 DARWINIANA,

l^ortli America, growing in bogs or low ground, so
that tliey cannot be supposed to need the water as such.
Indeed, they secrete a part if not all of it. The com-
monest species, and the only one at the North, which
ranges from ^Newfoundland to Florida, has a broad-
mouthed pitcher with an ujDright lid, into which rain
must needs fall more or less. The yellow Sarracenia,
with long tubular leaves, called ^'trumpets" in the
Southern States, has an arching or j)artly upright lid,
raised well above the orifice, so that some water may
rain in ; but a portion is certainly secreted there, and
may be seen bedewing the sides and collected at the
bottom before the mouth opens. In other species, the
orifice is so completely overarched as essentially to
prevent the access of water from without. In these
tubes, mainly in the water, flies and other insects ac-
cumulate, perish, and decompose. Flies thrown into
the open-mouthed tube of the yellow Sarracenia, even
when free from water, are unable to get out — one
hardly sees why, except that they cannot fly directly
upward; and microscopic chevaux-de-frise of fine,
sharp-pointed bristles which line most of the interior,
pointing strictly downward, may be a more effectual
obstacle to crawling up the sides than one would think
possible. On the inside of the lid or hood of the pur-
ple Northern species, the bristles are much stronger ;
but an insect might escape by the front without en-
countering these. In this species, the pitchers, how-
ever, are so well supplied with water that the insects
which somehow are most abundantly attracted thither
are effectually drowned, and the contents all summer
long are in the condition of a rich liquid manure.

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 303

That tlie tubes or pitcliers of tlie Soutliern species
are equally attractive and fatal to flies is well known.
Indeed, tliejare said to be taken into houses and used
as fly-traps. There is no perceptible odor to draw in-
sects, except what arises from the decomposition of
macerated victims ; nor is any kind of lure to be de-
tected at the mouth of the pitcher of the common
purple-flowered species. Some incredulity was there-
fore natural when it was stated by a Carolinian corre-
spondent (Mr. B. F. Grady) that in the long-leaved,
yellow-flowered species the lid just above the mouth
of the tubular pitcher habitually secretes drops of a
sweet and viscid liquid, which attracts flies and appar-
ently intoxicates them, since those that sip it soon
become unsteady in gait and mostly fall irretrievably
into the well beneath. But upon cultivating plants
of this species, obtained for the purpose, the existence
of this lure was abundantly verified ; and, although
we cannot vouch for its inebriating quality, we can
no longer regard it as unlikely.

No sooner was it thus ascertained that at least one
species of Sarracenia allures flies to their ruin than it
began to appear that — just as in the case of Drosera —
most of this was a mere revival of obsolete knowledge.
The " insect-destroying process " was known and well
described sixty years ago, the part played by the sweet
exudation indicated, and even the intoxication per-
haps hinted at, although evidently little thought of in
those ante-temperance days. Dr. James Macbride, of
South Carolina — the early associate of Elliott in his
" Botany of South Carolina and Georgia," and to
whose death, at the age of thirty-three, cutting short

304 BARWINIANA.

a life of remarkable promise, the latter toucliingly
alludes in the preface to his second volume — sent to
Sir James Edward Smith an account of his observa-
tions npon this subject, made in 1810 and the follow-
ing years. This was read to the Linnggan Society in
1815, and published in the twelfth volume of its
*' Transactions." From this forgotten paper (to which
attention has lately been recalled) we cull the follow-
ing extracts, premising that the observations mostly
relate to a third species, Sarracenia adunca, alias
vai'iolaris, which is said to be the most efficient fly-
catcher of the kind :

" If, in the months of May, June, or July, when the leaves
of those plants perform their extraordinary functions in the
greatest perfection, some of them be removed to a house and
fixed in an erect position, it will soon he perceived that flies are
attracted by them. These insects immediately approach the
fauces of the leaves, and, leaning over their edges, appear to sip
with eagerness something from their internal surfaces. In this
position they linger ; but at length, allured as it would seem by
the pleasure of taste, they enter the tubes. The fly which has
thus changed its situation will be seen to stand unsteadily ; it
totters for a few seconds, slips, and falls to the bottom of the
tube, where it is either drowned or attempts in vain to ascend
against the points of the hairs. The fly seldom takes wing in

its fall and escapes In a house much infested with flies,

this entrapment goes on so rapidly that a tube is filled in a few
hours, and it becomes necessary to add water, the natural
quantity being insufficient to drown the imprisoned insects.
The leaves of 8. adunca and rubra [a fourth species] might well
be employed as fly-catchers; indeed, I am credibly informed
they are in some neighborhoods. The leaves of the S.flava
[the species to which our foregoing remarks mainly relate], al-
though they are very capacious, and often grow to the height of

mSEGTIYOROUS PLANTS, 305

three feet or more, are never found to contain so many insccta
as those of the species above mentioned.

" The cause which attracts flies is evidently a sweet, viscid
substance resembling honey, secreted by or exuding from the
internal surface of the tube. . . . From the margin, where it
commences, it does not extend lower than one-fourth of an inch.

" The falling of the insect as soon as it enters the tube is
wholly attributable to the downward or inverted position of the
hairs of the internal surface of the leaf. At the bottom of a tube
split open, the hairs are plainly discernible pointing downward ;
as the eye ranges upward, they gradually become shorter and at-
tenuated, till at or just below the surface covered by the bait
they are no longer perceptible to the naked eye nor to the most
delicate touch. It is here that the fly cannot take a hold suflTi-
ciently strong to support itself, but falls. The inability of in-
sects to crawl up against the points of the hairs I have often
tested in the most satisfactory manner."

From the last paragraph it may be inferred that Dr.
Macbride did not suspect any inebriating property in
the nectar, and in a closing note there is a conjecture
of an impalpable loose powder in S. flava^ at the place
where the fly stands so unsteadily, and from which it
is supposed to slide. "We incline to take Mr. Grady's
view of the case.

The complete oblivion into which this paper and
the whole subject had fallen is the more remarkable
when it is seen that both are briefly but explicitly
referred to in Elliott's book, with which botanists
are familiar.

It is not so wonderful that the far earlier allusion
to these facts by the younger Bartram should have
been overlooked or disregarded. With the genuine
love of Nature and fondness for exploration, William
Bartram did not inherit the simplicity of his father,

306 DARWINIANA.

tlie earliest native botanist of tliis country. Fine
writing was his foible ; and the preface to his well-
known " Travels " (published at Philadelphia in 1791)
is its full-blowm illustration, sometimes perhaps de-
serving the epithet which he applies to the palms of
Florida — that of pomposity. In this preface he de-
clares that " all the Sarracenias are insect-catchers, and
so is the Drosera rotundifolia. Whether the insects
caught in their leaves, and which dissolve and mix
with the fluid, serve for aliment or support to these
kind of plants is doubtful," he thinks, but he should
be credited with the suggestion. In one sentence he
speaks of the quantities of insects which, " being in-
vited down to sip the mellifluous exuvia from the in-
terior surface of the tube, where they inevitably per-
ish," being prevented from returning by the stiff hairs
all pointing downward. This, if it refers to the sweet
secretion, would place it below, and not, as it is, above
the bristly surface, while the liquid below, charged
with decomposing insects, is declared in an earlier
sentence to be " cool and animating, limpid as the
morning dew." Bartram was evidently writing from
memory ; and it is very doubtful if he ever distinctly
recognized the sweet exudation which entices in-
sects.

Why should these plants take to organic food more
than others ? If we cannot answer the question, we
may make a probable step toward it. For plants that
are not parasitic, these, especially the sundews, have
much less than the ordinary amount of chlorophyll—
that is, of the universal leaf -green upon which the for-
mation of organic matter out of inorganic materials

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 307

depends. These take it instead of making it, to a cer-
tain extent.

What is the bearing of these remarkable adap-
tations and operations upon doctrines of evokition ?
There seems here to be a field on which the specific
creationist, the evolutionist with design, and the ne-
cessary evolutionist, may fight out an interesting, if
not decisive, " triangular duel."

XI.

INSECTIVOEOUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS/
(Thb Nation, January 6 and 13, 1876.)

" MiNEEALS grow ; vegetables grow and live ; ani-
iKals grow, live, and feel ; " this is the well-worn, not
to say out-worn, diagnosis of the* three kingdoms by
Linnceus. It must be said of it that the agreement
indicated in the first couplet is unreal, and that the
distinction declared in the second is evanescent. Crys-
tals do not grow at all in the sense that plants and
animals grow. On the other hand, if a response to
external impressions by special movements is evidence
of feeling, vegetables share this endowment with ani-
mals ; while, if conscious feeling is meant, this can be
afiirmed only of the higher animals. What appears to
remain true is, that the difference is one of successive
addition. That the increment in the organic world is
of many steps; that in the long series no absolute

1 " Insectivorous Plants. By Charles Darwin, M. A., F. R. S." With
Illustrations. London: John Murray, ISYS. Pp.462. New York:
D. Appleton & Co.

" The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By Charles Dar-
win, M. A,, F. R. S., etc." Second Edition, revised, with Illustrations.
London : John Murray. 1875. Pp. 208. New York : D. Appleton &
Co.

mSEGTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 309

lines separate, or have always separated, organisms
which, barely respond to impressions from those wliich
more actively and variously respond, and even from
those that consciously so respond — this, as we all know,
is what the author of the works before us has under-
taken to demonstrate. Without reference here either
to that part of the series with which man is connected,
and in some sense or other forms a part of, or to that
lower limho where the two organic kingdoms appar-
ently merge — or whence, in evolutionary phrase, they
have emerged — Mr. Darwin, in the present volumes,
directs our attention to- the behavior of the highest
plants alone. He shows that some (and he might add
that all) of them execute movements for their own
advantage, and that some capture and digest living
prey. When plants are seen to move and to devour,
what faculties are left that are distinctively animal ?

As to insectivorous or otherwise carnivorous plants,
we have so recently here discussed this subject — ^before
it attained to all this new popularity — that a brief ac-
count of Mr. Darwin's investigation may suffice.^ It

^ The Nation^ Nos. 457, 458, 1874. It was in these somewhat light
and desultory, but substantially serious, articles that some account of
Mr. Darwin's observations upon the digestive powers of Drosera and
Dioncea first appeared ; in fact, their leading motive was to make suf-
ficient reference to his then unpublished discoveries to guard against
expected or possible claims to priority. Dr. Burdon-Sanderson's lect-
ure, and the report in Nature, which first made them known in Eng-
land, appeared later.

A mistake on our part in the reading of a somewhat ambiguous
sentence in a letter led to the remark, at the close of the first of those
articles (p. 295), that the leaf-trap of Dioncea had been paralyzed on
one side in consequence of a dexterous puncture. What was commu-
nicated reallv related to Drosera.
14

310 DARWimANA.

is full of interest as a physiological research, and is a
model of its kind, as well for the simplicity and direct-
ness of the means employed as for the clearness with
which the results are brought out — results which any
one may verify now that the way to them is pointed
out, and which, surprising as they are, lose haK their
wonder in the ease and sureness with which they seem
to have been reached.

Kather more than half the volume is devoted to
one subject, the round-leaved sundew {Drosera rotun-
difolia), a rather common plant in the northern tem-
perate zone. That flies stick fast to its leaves, being
limed by the tenacious seeming dew-di'o^^s which stud
its upper face and margins, had long been noticed in
Europe and in this country. We have heard hunters
and explorers in our IS^orthern woods refer with satis-
faction to the fate which in this way often befalls one
of their plagues, the black fly of early summer. And
it was known to some observant botanists in the last
century, although forgotten or discredited in this, that
an insect caught on the viscid glands it has happened
to alight upon is soon fixed by many more — not mere-
ly in consequence of its struggles, but by the sponta-
neous incurvation of the stalks of surrounding: and
untouched glands ; and even the body of the leaf had
been observed to incmwe or become cup-shaped so as
partly to involve the captive insect.

Mr. Darwin's peculiar investigations not only con-
firm all this, but add greater wonders. They relate to
the sensitiveness of these tentacles^ as he prefers to call
them, and the mode in which it is manifested ; their
power of absorption ; their astonishing discernment of

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 311

the presence of animal or other soluble azotized mat-
ter, even in quantities so minute as to rival tlie spec-
troscope— that most exquisite instrument of modern
research — in delicacy ; and, finally, they establish the
fact of a true digestion, in all essential respects similar
to that of the stomach of animals.

First as to sensitiveness and movement. Sensi-
tiveness is manifested by movement or change of form
in response to an external impression. The sensitive-
ness in the sundew is all in the gland which surmounts
the tentacle. To incite movement or other action, it
is necessary that the gland itself should be reached.
Anything laid on the surface of the viscid drop, the
spherule of clear, glairy liquid which it secretes, pro-
duces no effect unless it sinks through to the gland ;
or unless the substance is soluble and reaches it in
solution, which, in the case of certain substances, has
the same effect. But the glands themselves do not
move, nor does any neighboring portion of the ten-
tacle. The outer and longer tentacles bend inward
(toward the centre of the leaf) promptly, when the
gland is irritated or stimulated, sweeping through an
arc of 180° or less, or more — the quickness and the
extent of the inflection depending, in equally vigorous
leaves, upon the amount of irritation or stimuLition,
and also upon its kind. A tentacle with a particle of
raw meat on its gland sometimes visibly begins to
bend in ten seconds, becomes strongly incurved in five
minutes, and its tip reaches the centre of the leaf in
half an hour ; but this is a case of extreme rapidity.
A particle of cinder, chalk, or sand, will also incite
the bending, if actually brought in contact with the

312 DARWINIANA.

gland, not merely resting on the di'op ; but the inflec-
tion is then much less pronounced and more tran-
sient. Even a bit of thin human hair, only -g-gVo ^^
an inch in length, weighing only the ^g^^q of a
grain, and largely supported by the viscid secretion,
suffices to induce movement ; but, on the other hand,
one or two momentary, although rude, touches with a
hard object produce no effect, although a repeated
touch or the slightest pressure, such as that of a gnat's
foot, prolonged for a short time, causes bending. The
seat of the movement is wholly or nearly confined to
a portion of the lower part of the tentacle, above the
base, where local irritation produces not the slighest
effect. The movement takes place only in response
to some impression made upon its own gland at the
distant extremity, or upon other glands far more re-
mote. For if one of these members suffers irritation
the others sympathize with it. Yery noteworthy is
the correlation between the central tentacles, upon
which an insect is most likely to alight, and these ex-
ternal and larger ones, which, in proportion to their
distance from the centre, take the larger share in the
movement. The shorter central ones do not move at
all when a bit of meat, or a crushed fly, or a particle
of a salt of ammonia, or the like, is placed upon
them ; but they transmit their excitation across the
leaf to the surrounding tentacles on all sides ; and
they, although absolutely untouched, as they succes-
sively receive the mysterious impulse, bend strongly
inward, just as they do when their own glands are ex-
cited. Whenever a tentacle bends in obedience to an
impulse from its own gland, the movement is always

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS, 313

toward tlie centre of the leaf; and this also takes
place, as we have seen, when an exciting object is
lodged at the centre. But when the object is placed
upon either half of the leaf, the impulse radiating
thence causes all the surrounding untouched ten-
tacles to bend with precision toward the point of
excitement, even the central tentacles, which are mo-
tioiiless when themselves charged, now responding
to the call. The inflection which follows mechanical
irritation or the presence of any inorganic or insoluble
body is transient ; that which follows the application
of organic matter lasts longer, more or less, according
to its nature and the amount ; but sooner or later the
tentacles resume their foimer position, their glands
glisten anew with fresh secretion, and they are ready
to act again.

As to how the impulse is originated and propa-
gated, and how the movements are made, compara-
tively simple as the structure is, we know as little as
we do of the nature of nervous impulse and muscular
motion. But two things Mr. Darwin has wellnigh
made out, both of them by means and observations
so simple and direct as to command our confidence,
although they are contrary to the prevalent teaching.
First, the transmission is through the ordinaiy cellular
tissue, and not through what are called the fibrous or
vascular bundles. Second, the movement is a vital
one, and is effected by contraction on the side toward
which the bending takes place, rather than by tur-
gescent tension of the opposite side. The tentacle is
pulled over rather than pushed over. So far all ac-
cords wdth muscular action.

3U DAEWmiANA.

The oj^eration of this fly-catcliing apparatus, in
any case, is plain. If the insect alights upon the disk
of the leaf, the viscid secretion holds it fast — at least,
an ordinary fly is unable to escape — its struggles only
increase the number of glands involved and the
amount of excitement ; this is telegraphed to the sur-
rounding and successively longer tentacles, which
bend over in succession, so that within ten to thirtv
hours, if the leaf is active and the fly large enough,
every one of the glands (on the average, nearly two
hundred in number) will be found applied to the body
of the insect. If the insect is small, and the lodg-
ment toward one side, only the neighboring tentacles
may take part in the capture. If two or three of
the strong marginal tentacles are first encountered,
their prompt inflection carries the intruder to the
centre, and presses it down upon the glands which
thickly pave the floor; these notify all the surrounding
tentacles of the capture, that they may share the
spoil, and the fate of that victim is even as of the flrst.
A bit of meat or a cinished insect is treated in the
game way.

This language implies that the animal matter is in
some way or other discerned by the tentacles, and is
appropriated. Formerly there was only a presump-
tion of this, on the general ground that such an organ-
ization could hardly be purposeless. Yet, while such
expressions were natural, if not unavoidable, they
generally were used by those familiar with the facts
in a half-serious, half -metaphorical sense. Thanks to
Mr. Darwin's investigations, they may now be used in
simplicity and seriousness.

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 315

That the glands secrete tlie glairy liquid of the
drop is evident, not only from its nature, but from its
persistence through a whole day's exposure to a sum-
mer sun, as also from its renewal after it has been re-
moved, dried up, or absorbed. That they absorb as
well as secrete, and that the whole tentacle may be
profoundly affected thereby, are proved by the differ-
ent effects, in kind and degree, which follow the appli-
cation of different- substances. Drops of rain-water,
like single momentary touches of a solid body, pro-
duce no effect, as indeed they conld be of no advan-
tage ; but a little carbonate of ammonia in the water,
or an infusion of meat, not only causes inflection, but
promptly manifests its action "upon the contents of
the cells of which the tentacle is constructed. These
cells are suflSciently transparent to be viewed under
the microscope without dissection or other interfer-
ence ; and the change which takes place in the fluid
contents of these cells, when the gland above has been
acted upon, is often visible through a- weak lens, or
sometimes even by the naked eye, although liigher
powers are required to discern what actually takes
place. This change, which Mr. Darwin discovered,
and turns to much account in his researches, he terms
"aggregation of the protoplasm." When untouched
and quiescent, the contents appear as an homogeneous
purple fluid. When the gland is acted upon, minute
purple particles appear, suspended in the now colorless
or almost colorless fluid ; and this change appears first
in the cells next the gland, and then in those next be-
neath, traveling down the whole length of the tenta-
cle. When the action is slight, this appearance does

316 DARWmiANA.

not last long; the particles of "aggregated proto-
plasm " redissolve, tlie process of redissolution travel-
ing upward from tlie base of the tentacle to the gland
in a reverse direction to that of the .aggregation.
Whenever the action is more prolonged or intense, as
when a bit of meat or crushed fly,' or a fitting solu-
tion, is left upon the gland, the aggregation proceeds
further, so that the whole protoplasm of each cell con-
denses into one or two masses, or into a single mass
which will often separate into two, which afterward
reunite ; indeed, they incessantly change their forms
and positions, being never at rest, although their
movements are rather slow. In appearance and move-
ments they are very like amoebae and the white cor-
puscles of the blood. Their motion, along with the
streaming movement of rotation in the layer of white
granular protoplasm that flows along the walls of the
cell, under the high powers of the microscope " pre
sents a wonderful scene of vital activity." This con-
tinues while the tentacle is inflected or the gland fed
by animal matter, but vanishes by dissolution when
the work is over and the tentacle straightens. That,
absoi'ption takes place, and matter is conveyed from
cell to cell, is well made out, especially by the exper-
iments with carbonate of ammonia. ^N^evertheless,
this aggregation is not dependent upon absorption, for
it equally occurs from mechanical irritation of the
gland, and always accompanies inflection, however
caused, though it may take place without it. This is
also apparent from the astonishingly minute quantity
of certain substances which sufiices to produce sensible
inflection and aggregation — such, for instance, as the

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 317

'2000^000 ^^ even tlie -^.^-^^^ of a grain of phos-
phate or nitrate of ammonia !

By varied experiments it was found that the nitrate
of ammonia was more powerful than the carbonate,
and the phosphate more powerful than the nitrate,
this result being intelligible from the difference in the
amount of nitrogen in. the first two salts, and from
the presence of phosphorus in the third. There is
nothing surprising in the absorption of such extremely
dilute solutions by a gland. As our author remarks :
''All physiologists admit that the roots of plants ab-
sorb the salts of ammonia brought to them by the rain ;
and fourteen gallons of rain-water [i. e., early rain-
water] contain a grain of ammonia ; therefore, only a
little more than twice as much as in the weakest solu-
tion employed by me. The fact which appears truly
wonderful is that the g o o o^o o o o ^^ ^ grain of the

1

phosphate of ammonia, including less than 30000000
of efiicient matter [if the water of crystallization
is deducted], when absorbed by a gland, should in-
duce some change in it which leads to a motor im-
pulse being transmitted down the whole length of
the tentacle, causing its basal part to bend, often
through an angle of 180°." But odoriferous particles
which act upon the nerves of anunals must be infinite-
ly smaller, and by these a dog a quarter of a mile to
the leeward of a deer perceives his presence by some
change in the olfactory nerves transmitted through
them to tlie brain.

When Mr. Darwin obtained these results, fourteen
years ago, he could claim for Drosera a power and
delicacy in the detection of minute quantities of a sub-

318 DARWINIANA.

stance far beyond the resources of the most skillful
chemist ; but in a foot-note he admits that " now the
spectroscope has altogether beaten Drosera / for, ac-
cording to Biinsen and Kirchhoff, probably less than
t^® ^00000000 of a grain of sodium can be thus
detected."

Finally, that this highly-sensitive and active living
organism absorbs, will not be doubted when it is
proved to digest, that is, to dissolve otherwise insol-
uble animal matter by the aid of s^Decial secretions.
That it does this is now past doubting. In the first
place, when the glands are excited they pour forth an
increased amount of the ropy secretion. This occurs
directly when a bit of meat is laid upon the central
glands ; and the influence which they transmit to the
long-stalked marginal glands causes them, while incurv-
ing their tentacles, to secrete more copiously long be-
fore they have themselves touched anything. The
primary fluid, secreted without excitation, does not of
itself digest. But the secretion under excitement
changes in l!Tatm'e and becomes acid. So, according
to Schiff, mechanical irritation excites the glands of
the stomach to secrete an acid. In both this acid ap-
pears to be necessary to, but of itself insufficient for,
digestion. The requisite solvent, a kind of ferment
called pepsin, which acts only in the presence of the
acid, is poured forth by the glands of the stomach only
after they have absorbed certain soluble nutritive sub-
stances- of the food; then this pepsin promptly dis-
solves muscle, fibrine, coagulated albumen, cartilage,
and the like. Similarly it appears that Drosera-gl2i;n.diQ^
after irritation by particles of glass, did not act upon

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBIXG PLANTS. 310

little cubes of albumen. But when moistened with
saliva, or replaced by bits of roast-meat or gelatine, or
even cartilage, which supply some soluble j9e^^^(?7ie-mat-
ter to initiate the process, these substances are promptly
acted upon, and dissolved or digested ; whence it is
inferred that the analogy with the stomach holds good
throughout, and that a ferment similar to pepsin is
poured out under the stimulus of some soluble animal
matter. But the direct evidence of this is furnished
only by the related carnivorous plant, Dioncea, from
which the secretions, poured out when digestion is
about to begin, may be collected in quantity sufficient
for chemical examination. In short, the experiments
show "that there is a remarkable accordance in the
power of digestion between the gastric juice of ani-
mals, with its pepsin and hydrochloric acid, and the
secretion of Drosera^ with its ferment and acid belong-
ing to the acetic series. We can, therefore, hardly
doubt that the ferment in both cases is closely similar,
if not identically the same. That a plant and an
animal should pour forth the same, or nearly the
same, complex secretion, adapted for the same pui*-
pose of digestion, is a new and wonderful fact in phys-
iology."

There are one or two other species of sundew —
one of them almost as common in Europe and JN^orth
America as the ordinary round-leaved S23ecies — which
act in the same way, except that, having their leaves
longer in proportion to their breadth, their sides never
curl inward, but they are much disposed to aid the
action of their tentacles by incurving the tip of the
leaf, as if to grasp the morsel. There are many otli-

320 LABWINIAN'A.

ers, with variously less efficient and less advantageously
arranged insectivorous apparatus, which, in the lan-
guage of the new science, may be either on the way to
acquire something better, or of losing what they may
have had, while now adapting themselves to a proper
vegetable life. There is one member of the family
{DrosojyJiyllumLiisitaniciim), an almost shrubby plant,
which grows on dry and sunny hills in Portugal and
Morocco — which the villagers call "the fly-catcher,"
and hang up in their cottages for the purpose — the
glandular tentacles of which have wholly lost their
powers of movement, if they ever had any, but which
still secrete, digest, and absorb, being roused to great
activity by the contact of any animal matter. A friend
of ours once remarked that it was fearful to contem-
plate the amount of soul that could be called forth in
a dog by the sight of a piece of meat. Equally won-
derful is the avidity for animal food manifested by
these vegetable tentacles, that can "only stand and
wait " for it.

Only a brief chapter is devoted to Dioncea of
N^orth Carolina, the Yenus's fly-trap, albeit, "from
the rapidity and force of its movements, one of the
most wonderful in the world." It is of the same
family as the sundew; but the action is transferred
from tentacles on tlie leaf to the body of the leaf
itself, which is transformed into a spring-trap, closing
with a sudden movement over the alighted insect. No
secretion is provided beforehand either for allurement
or detention ; but after the captive is secured, micro-
scopic glands within the surface of the leaf pour out
an abundant gastric juice to digest it. Mrs. Glass's

MSEGTIVOROUS AKD CLIMBING PLANTS. 321

classical directions in the cook-book, "first catcli your
hare," are implicitly followed.

Avoiding here all repetition or recapitulation of
our former narrative, suffice it now to mention two in-
teresting "recent additions to our knowledge, for which
we are indebted to Mr. Darwin. One is a research,
the other an inspiration. It is mainly his investiga-
tions which have shown that the glairy liquid, which
is poured upon and macerates the captured insect, ac-
complishes a true digestion ; that, like the gastric juice
of animals, it contains both a free acid and pepsin or
its analogue, these two together dissolving albumen,
meat, and the like. The other point relates to the sig-
nificance of a peculiarity in the process of capture.
When the trap suddenly incloses an insect which has
betrayed its presence by touching one of the internal
sensitive bristles, the closure is at first incomplete.
For the sides approach in an arching way, surround-
ing a considerable cavity, and the marginal spine-like
bristles merely intercross their tips, leaving interven-
ing spaces through which one may look into the cavity
beneath. A good idea may be had of it by bringing
the two palms near together to represent the sides of
the trap, and loosely interlocking the fingers to repre-
sent the marginal bristles or bars. After remaining
some time in this position the closure is made complete
by the margins coming into full contact, and the sides
finally flattening down so as to press firmly upon the
insect within ; the secretion excited by contact is now
poured out, and digestion begins. Why these two
stages? Why should time be lost by this preliminary
and incomplete closing? The query probably was

322 DARWmiA^TA.

never distinctly raised before, no one noticing any-
thing here that needed explanation. Darwinian tele-
ology, however, raises questions like this, and Mr.
Darwin not only propounded the riddle but solved it.
The object of the partial closing is to permit small
insects to escape through the meshes, detaining only
those plump enough to be worth the trouble of digest-
ing. For naturally only one insect is caught at a time,
and digestion is a slow business with Dionseas, as with
anacondas, requiring ordinarily a fortnight. It is not
worth while to undertake it with a gnat when larger
game may be had. To test this happy conjecture, Mr.
Canby was asked, on visiting the Dionaeas in their
native habitat, to collect early in the season a good
series of leaves in the act of digesting naturally-caught
insects. Upon opening them it was found that ten
out of fourteen were engaged upon relatively large
prey, and of the remaining four three had insects as
large as ants, and one a rather small fly.

"There be land-rats and water-rats" in this carniv-
orous sundew family. Aldrovaiida, of the warmer
parts of Europe and of India, is an aquatic plant, with
bladdery leaves, which were supposed to be useful in
rendering the herbage buoyant in water. But it has
recently been found that the bladder is composed of
two lobes, like the trap of its relative Dioncea, or the
valves of a mussel-shell ; that these open when the
plant is in an active state, are provided with some sen-
sitive bristles within, and when these are touched close
with a quick movement. These water-traps are mani-
festly adapted for catching living creatures ; and the
few incomplete investigations that have already been

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 323

made render it higlily probable that they appropriate
their prey for nourishment ; whether by digestion or
by mere absorption of decomposing animal matter, is
imcertain. It is certainly most remarkable that this
family of plants, wherever met with, and under tlie
most diverse conditions and modes of life, should
always in some way or other be predaceous and car-
nivorous.

If it be not only surprising but somewhat con-
founding to our classifications that a whole group of
plants should subsist partly by digesting animal mat-
ter and partly in the normal way of decomposing car-
bonic acid and producing the basis of animal matter,
we have, as Mr. Darwin remarks, a counterpart anom-
aly in the animal kingdom. While some plants have
stomachs, some animals have roots. " The rhizoceph-
alous crustaceans do not feed like other animals by
their mouths, for they are destitute of an alimentary
canal, but they live by absorbing through root-like
processes the juices of the animals on which they are
parasitic."

To a naturalist of our day, imbued with those ideas
of the solidarity of organic I^ature which such facts as
those we have been considering suggest, the greatest
anomaly of all would be that they are really anoma-
lous or unique. Reasonably supposing, therefore, that
the sundew did not stand alone, Mr. Darwin tmned
his attention to other groups of plants ; and, first, to
the bladderworts, which have no near kinship with the
^ sundews, but, like the aquatic representative of that
family, are provided with bladdery sacs, under water.
In the common species of Utriciolaria or bladderwort,

321 DARWrniANA.

tliese little sacs, hanging from submerged leaves or
l)rancheSj have tlieir orifice closed by a lid which ojDens
inwardly — a veritable trap-door. It had been noticed
in England and France that they contained minute
crustacean animals. Early in the summer of 1874,
Mr. Darwin ascertained the mechanism for their capt-
ure and the great success with which it is used. But
before his account was written out, Prof. Cohn pub-
lished an excellent paper on the- subject in Germany ;
and Mrs. Treat, of Yineland, ]!!Tew Jersey, a still ear-
lier one in this country — in the I^ew York Tribune in
the autumn of 1871. Of the latter, Mr. Darwin re-
marks that she "has been more successful than any
other observer in witnessing the actual entrance of
these minute creatures." They never come out, but
soon j)erish in their prison, which receives a continued
succession of victims, but little, if any, fresh air to the
contained water. The action of the trap is purely me-
chanical, without e'vadent irritability in the opening or
shutting. There is no evidence nor much likelihood of
proper digestion ; indeed, Mr. Darwin found evidence
to the contrary. But the more or less decomposed
and dissolved animal matter is doubtless absorbed in-
to the plant ; for the whole interior of the sac is lined
with peculiar, elongated and four-armed very thin-
walled processes, which contain active protoplasm, and
which were proved by experiment to " have the power
of absorbing matter from weak solutions of certain
salts of ammonia and urea, and from a putrid infusion

of raw meat."

«

Although the bladderworts "prey- on garbage,"
their terrestrial relatives "live cleanly," as nobler

mSEGTIVOROUS AFD CLIMBING PLANTS. 325

plants should clo, and have a good and true digestion.
Pingiiicida^ or butterwort, is the representative of
this family upon land. It gets both its Latin and its
English name from the fatty or greasy appearance of
the upper face of its broad leaves ; and this appear-
ance is due to a dense coat or pile of short-stalked
glands, which secrete a colorless and extremely viscid
liquid. By this small flies, or whatever may alight or
fall upon the leaf, are held fast. These waifs might
be useless or even injurious to the plant. Probably
Mr. Darwin was the first to ask whether they might
be of advantage. He certainly was the first to show
that they probably are so. The evidence from experi-
ment, shortly summed up, is, that insects alive or dead,
and also other nitrogenous bodies, excite these glands
to increased secretion; the secretion then becomes
acid, and acquires the power of dissolving solid ani-
mal substances — that is, the power of digestion in the
manner of Drosera and Dioncea. And the stalks of
their glands under the microscope give the same ocu-
lar evidence of absorption. The leaves of the butter-
wort are apt to have their margins folded inward, like
a rim or hem. Taking young and vigorous leaves to
which hardly anything had yet adhered, and of which
the margins were stiU flat, Mr. Darwin set within one
margin a row of small flies. Fifteen hours afterward
this edge was neatly turned inward, partly covering
the row of flies, and the surrounding glands were se-
creting copiously. The other edge remained flat and
unaltered. Then he stuck a fly to the middle of the
leaf just below its tip, and soon both margins infold-
ed, so as to clasp the object. Many other and varied

326 DARWimAN-A.

experiments yielded similar results. Even pollen,
which would not rarely be lodged upon these leaves,
as it falls from surrounding wind-fertilized plants, also
small seeds, excited the same action, and showed signs
of being acted upon. "We may therefore conclude,"
with Mr. Darwin, "that Pinguicula vulgaris, with
its small roots, is not only supported to a large extent
by the extraordinary number of insects which it habit-
ually captures, but likewise draws som^e nourishment
from the pollen, leaves, and seeds, of other plants which
often adhere to its leaves. It is, therefore, partly a
vegetable as well as an animal feeder."

What is now to be thought of the ordinary glandu-
lar hairs which render the surface of many and the
most various plants extremely viscid ? Their number
is legion. The Chinese primrose of common garden
and house culture is no extraordinary instance ; but
Mr. Francis Darwin, counting those on a small space
measured by the micrometer, estimated them at 65,371
to the square inch of foliage, taking in both surfaces
of the leaf, or two or three millions on a moderate-sized
specimen of this small herb. Glands of this sort were
loosely regarded as organs for excretion, without much
consideration of the question whether, in vegetable
life, there could be any need to excrete, or any advan-
tage gained by throwing off such products ; and, while
the popular name of catch-fly, given to several com-
mon species of Silene^ indicates long familiarity with
the fact, probably no one ever imagined that the
swarms of small insects which perish upon these sticky
surfaces were ever turned to account by the plant.
In many such cases, no doubt they perish as uselessly

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 32T

as when attracted into the flame of a candle. In the
tobacco-plant, for instance, Mr. Darwin could find no
evidence that the glandular hairs absorb animal mat-
ter. But Darwinian philosophy expects all gradations
between casualty and complete adaptation. It is
most probable that any thin-walled vegetable structure
which secretes may also be capable of absorbing under
favorable conditions. The myriads of exquisitely-
constructed glands of the Chinese primrose are not
likely to be functionless. Mr. Darwin ascertained by
direct experiment that they promptly absorb carbon-
ate of ammonia, both in watery solution and in vapor.
So, since rain-water usually contains a small percent-
age of ammonia, a use for these glands becomes aj^par-
ent — one completely congruous with that of absorbing
any animal matter, or products of its decomposition,
which may come in their way through the occasional
entanglement of insects in their viscid secretion. In
several saxifrages — not very distant relatives of Dro-
sera — ^the viscid glands equally manifested the power
of absorption.

To trace a gradation between a simply absorbing
hair wdth a glutinous tip, through which the plant may
perchance derive slight contingent advantage, and the
tentacles of a sundew, with their exquisite and asso-
ciated adaptations, does not much lessen the wonder
nor explain the phenomena. After all, as Mr. Dar-
win modestly concludes, " we see how little has been
made out in comparison with what remains unex-
plained and unknown." But all this must be allowed
to be an important contribution to the doctrine of
the gradual acquirement of uses and functions, and

323 DARWrniANA.

liardly to find conceivable explanation npon any
other hypothesis.

There remains one more mode in which plants of
the higher grade are known to prey npon animals ;
namely, by means of pitchers, urns, or tubes, in which
insects and the like are drowned or confined, and either
macerated or. digested. To this Mr. Darwin barely
alludes on the last page of the present volume. The
main facts known respecting the American pitcher-
plants have, as was natm-al, been ascertained in this
country ; and we gave an abstract, two years ago, of
our then incipient knowledge. Much has been learned
since, although all the observations have been of a des-
ultory character. If space permitted, an instructive
narrative might be drawn up, as well of the economy
of the Sarracenias as of how we came to know what
we do of it. But the very little we have room for will
be strictly supplementary to our former article.

The pitchers of our familiar Northern Sari^acenia^
which is likewise Southern, are open-mouthed ; and,
although they certainly secrete some liquid when
young, must derive most of the water they ordinarily
contain from rain. How insects are attracted is un-
known, but the water abounds with their drowned
bodies and decomposing remains.

In the more southern S. flava, the long and trum-
pet-shaped pitchers evidently dej)end upon the liquid
which they themselves secrete, although at maturity,
when the hood becomes erect, rain may somewhat add
to it. This species, as we know, allures insects by a
peculiar sweet exudation within the orifice ; they fall
in and perish, though seldom by drowning, yet few

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS 329

are able to escape ; and tlieir decomposing remains ac-
cumulate in the narrow bottom of the vessel. Two
other long-tubed species of the Southern States are
similar in these respects. There is another, S. psit-
tacina, the parrot-headed species, remarkable for the
cowl-shaped hood so completely inflexed over the
mouth of the small pitcher that no rain can possibly
enter. Little is known, however, of the efficiency of
this species as a fly-catcher ; but its conformation has
a morphological interest, leading up, as it does, to the
Californian type of pitcher presently to be mentioned.
Eut the remaining species, S. variolaris^ is the most
wonderful of our pitcher-plants in its adaptations for
the capture of insects. The inflated and mottled lid
or hood overarches the ample orifice of the tubular
pitcher sufficiently to ward off the rain, but not to
obstruct the free access of flying insects. Flies, ants,
and most insects, glide and fall from the treacherous
smooth throat into the deep well below, and never
escape. They are allured by a sweet secretion just
within the oriflce — which was discovered and described
long ago, and the knowledge of it wellnigh forgotten
until recently. And, finally. Dr. Mellichamp, of South
Carolina, two years ago made the capital discovery that,
during the height of the season, this lure extends from
the orifice down nearly to the ground, a length of a
foot or two, in the forai of a honeyed line or narrow
trail on the edge of the wing-like border which is con-
spicuous in all these species, although only in this one,
so far as known, turned to such account. Here, one
would say, is a special adaptation to ants and such ter-
restrial and creeping insects. "Well, long before this

330 DAEWINIANA.

sweet trail was known, it was remarked by tlie late
Prof. Wyman and others that the pitchers of this
species, in the savannahs of Georgia and Florida, con-
tain far more ants than they do of all other insects
put together.

Finally, all this is essentially repeated in the pecul-
iar Califomian pitcher-plant {Darlingtonid)^ a genus
of the same natural family, which captures insects in
great variety, enticing them by a sweetish secretion
over the whole inside of the inflated hood and that of
a curious forked appendage, resembling a hsh-tail,
which overhangs the orifice. This orifice is so con-
cealed that it can be seen and approached only from
below, as if — the casual observer might infer — to es-
cape visitation. But dead insects of all kinds, and
their decomposing remains, crowd the cavity and satu-
rate the liquid therein contained, enticed, it is said, by
a peculiar odor, as well as by the sweet lure which is
at some stages so abundant as to drip from the tips of
the overhanging appendage. The principal observa-
tions upon this pitcher-plant in its native habitat have
been made by Mrs. Austin, and only some of the ear-
lier ones have thus far been published by Mr. Canby.
But we are assured that in this, as in the Sarraceiiia
variolaris^ the sweet exudation extends at the proper
season from the orifice down the wing nearly to the
ground, and that ants follow this honeyed pathway to
their destruction. Also, that the watery liquid in the
pitcher, which must be wholly a secretion, is much in-
creased in quantity after the capture of insects.

It cannot now well be doubted that the animal
matter is utilized by the plant in all these cases, al-

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 331

tliongli most probably only after maceration or de-
composition. In some of tliem even digestion, or
at least the absorption of undecomposed soluble ani-
mal juices, may be suspected ; but there is no proof
of it. But, if pitchers of the Sarracenia family are
only macerating vessels, those of Nejpenthes — the
pitchers of the Indian Archipelago, familiar in con-
servatories—seem to be stomachs. The investigations
of the President of the Hoyal Society, Dr. Hooker,
although incomplete, wellnigh demonstrate that these
not only allure insects by a sweet secretion at the rim
and upon the lid of the cup, but also that their capt-
ure, or the presence of other partly soluble animal
matter, produces an increase and an acidulation of the
contained watery liquid, which thereupon becomes
capable of acting in the manner of that of Drosera
and Dioncea^ dissolving flesh, albumen, and the like.

After all, there never was just ground for denying
to vegetables the use of animal food. The fungi are
by far the most numerous family of plants, and they
all live upon organic matter, some upon dead and de-
composing, some upon living, some upon both; and
the number of those that feed upon living animals
is large. Whether these carnivorous propensities of
higher plants which so excite our wonder be regarded
as survivals of ancestral habits, or as comparatively
late acquirements, . or even as special endowments, in
any case what we have now learned of them goes to
strengthen the conclusion that the whole organic world
is akin.

The volume upon *' The Movements and Habits
of Climbing Plants " is a revised and enlarged edition

332 DARWINIANA.

of a memoir communicated to tlie Limicean Society in
1865, and published in the ninth volume of its Jour-
nal. There was an extra impression, but, beyond the
circle of naturalists, it can hardly have been much
known at first-hand. Even now, when it is made a
part of the general Darwinian literature, it is unlikely
to be as widely read as the companion volume which
we have been reviewing ; although it is really a more
readable book, and well worthy of far more extended
notice at our hands than it can now receive. The rea-
son is obvious. It seems as natural that plants should
climb as it does unnatural that any should take animal
food. Most people, knowing that some plants " twine
with the sun," and others " against the sun," have an
idea that the sun in some way causes the twining ; in-
deed, the notion is still fixed in the popular mind that
the same species twines in opposite directions north
and south of the equator.

Headers of this fascinating treatise will learn, first
of all, that the sun has no influence over such move-
ments directly, and that its indirect influence is com-
monly adverse or disturbing, except the heat, which
quickens vegetable as it does animal life. Also, that
climbing is accomplished by powers and actions as mi-
like those generally predicated of the vegetable king-
dom as any which have been brought to view in the
preceding volume. Climbing plants " feel " as well as
" grow and hve ; " and they also manifest an automa-
tism which is perhaps more wonderful than a response
by visible movement to an external irritation. Xor
do plants grow up their supports, as is unthinkingly
supposed ; for, although only growing or newly-grown

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 333

parts act in climbing, tlie climbing and tlie growth are
entirely distinct. To tliis tliere is one exception — an
instructive one, as showing how one action passes into
another, and how the same result may be brought
about in different ways — that of stems which climb by
rootlets, such as of ivy and trumpet-creeper. Here the
stem ascends by growth alone, taking upward direc-
tion, and is fixed by rootlets as it grows. There is no
iDetter way of climbing walls, precipices, and large
tree-trunks.

But small stems and similar supports are best as-
cended by twining ; and this calls out powers of anoth-
er and higher order. The twining stem does not grow
around its support, but winds around it, and it does
this by a movement the nature of which is best ob-
served in stems which have not yet reached their sup-
port, or have overtopped it and stretched out beyond
it. Then it may be seen that the extending summit,
reaching farther and farther as it grows, is making free
circular sweeps, by night as well as by day, and irre-
spective of external circumstances, except that warmth
accelerates the movement, and that the general ten-
dency of young stems to bend toward the light may,
in case of lateral illumination, accelerate one-half the
circuit while it equally retards the other. The arrest
of the revolution where the supporting body is struck,
while the portion beyond continues its movement,
brings about the twining. As to the proximate cause
of this sweeping motion, a few simple experiments
prove that it results from the bowing or bending of the
free summit of the stem into a more or less horizontal

position (this bending being successively to every point
15

334 DARWINIANA.

of tlie compass, through an action which circulates
around the stem in the direction of the sweep), and of
the consequent twining, i. e., " with the sun," or with
the movement of the hands of a watch, in the hop,
or in the opposite direction in pole-beans and most
twiners.

Twining plants, therefore, ascend trees or other
stems by an action and a movement of their own, from
which they derive advantage. To plants liable to be
overshadowed by more robust companions, climbing is
an economical method of obtaining a freer exposure to
light and air with the smallest possible expenditure of
material. But twiners have one disadvantage : to rise
ten feet they must produce fifteen feet of stem or
thereabouts, according to the diameter of the sup-
port, and the openness or closeness of the coil. A root-
let-climber saves much in this respect, but has a re-
stricted range of action, and other disadvantages.

There are two other modes, which combine the ut-
most economy of material with freer range of action.
There are, in the first place, leaf -climbers of various
sorts, agreeing only in this, that the duty of laying
hold is transferred to the leaves, so that the stem may
rise in a direct line. Sometimes the blade or leaflets,
or some of them, but more commonly their slender
stalks, undertake the work, and the plant rises as a boy
ascends a tree, grasping first with one hand or arm,
then with the other. Indeed, the comparison, like the
leaf-stalk, holds better than would be supposed ; for
the grasping of the latter is not the result of a blind
groping in all directions by a continuous movement,
but of a definite sensitiveness which acts only upon the

INSECTIYOEOUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 335

occasion. Most leaves make no regular sweeps ; but
when the stalks of a leaf-climbing species come into
prolonged contact with any fitting extraneous body,
they slowly incurve and make a turn around it, and
then commonly thicken and harden until they attain
a strength which may equal that of the stem itself.
Here we have the faculty of movement to a definite
end, upon external irritation, of the same nature with
that displayed by Dioncea and Drosera^ although slow-
er for the most part than even in the latter. But the
movement of the hour-hand of the clock is not differ-
ent in nature or cause from that of the second-hand.

Finally — distribution of oflSce being, on the whole,
most advantageous and economical, and this, in the
vegetable kingdom, being led up to by degrees — we
reach, through numerous gradations, the highest style
of climbing plants in the tendril-climber. A tendril,
morphologically, is either a leaf or branch of stem, or
a portion of one, specially organized for climbing.
Some tendrils simply turn away from light, as do those
of grape-vines, thus taking the direction in which some
supporting object is likely to be encountered ; most
are indifferent to light ; and many revolve in the man-
ner of the summit of twining stems. As the stems
which bear these highly-endowed tendrils in many
cases themselves also devolve more or less, though they
seldom twine, their reach is the more extensive ; and
to this endowment of automatic movement most ten-
drils add the other faculty, that of incurving and coil-
ing upon prolonged touch, or even- brief contact, in the
highest degree. Some long tendrils, when in their
best condition, revolve so rapidly that the sweeping

336 BARWmiANA.

movement may be plainly seen ; indeed, we have seen
a quarter-circuit in a Passiflora sicyoides accomplished
in less than a minute, and the half -circuit in ten min-
utes ; but the other half (for a reason alluded to in the
next paragraph) takes a much longer time. Then, as
to the coiling upon contact, in the case first noticed in
this country,^ in the year 1858, which Mr. Darwin
mentions as having led him into this investigation,
the tendril of Sicyos was seen to coil within half a
minute after a stroke with the hand, and to make a
full turn or more within the next minute ; furnishing
ocular evidence that tendrils grasp and coil in virtue
of sensitiveness to contact, and, one would suppose,
negativing Sachs's recent hypothesis that all these
movements are owing " to rapid growth on the side
opposite to that which becomes concave " — a view to
which Mr. Darwin objects, but not so strongly as he
might. The tendril of this sort, on striking some fit-
ting object, quickly curls round and fiimly grasps it ;
then, after some hours, one side shortening or remain-
ing short in proportion to the other, it coils into a
spire, dragging the stem up to its support, and ena-
bling the next tendril above to secure a readier
hold.

In revolving tendrils perhaps the most wonderful
adaptation is that by which they avoid attachment to,
or winding themselves upon, the ascending summit of
the stem that bears them. This they would inevitably
do if they continued their sweep horizontally. But

* [A. Gray, in " Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences," vol. iv., p. 98 ; and American Journal of Science and the
Arts, March, 1859, p. 2*78.]

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 337

when in its course it nears tlie parent stem the tendril
moves slowly, as if to gather strength, then stiffens
and rises into an erect position parallel with it, and so
passes bj the dangerous point ; after which it comes
rapidly down to the horizontal position, in which it
moves until it again approaches and again avoids the
impending obstacle.

Climbing plants are distributed throughout almost
all the natural orders. In some orders climbing is
the rule, in most it is the exception, occurring only in
certain genera. The tendency of stems to move in
circuits — upon which climbing more commonly de-
pends, and out of which it is conceived to have been
educed — is manifested incipiently by many a plant
which does not climb. Of those that do there are
all degrees, from the feeblest to the most efficient,
from those which have no special adaptation to those
which have exquisitely-endowed special organs for
climbing. The conclusion reached is, that the power
"is inherent, though undeveloped, in almost every
plant ; " " that climbing plants have utilized and per-
fected a widely-distributed and incipient capacity,
which, as far as we can see, is of no service to ordi-
nary plants."

Inherent powers and incipient manifestations, use-
less to their possessors but useful to their successors —
this, doubtless, is according to the order of l^ature ;
but it seems to need something more than natural se-
lection to account for it.

XII.

DUKATION AND ORIGINATION OF KACE AND SPECIES.

BIPOKT OF SEXUAL KEPEODUCTION.

Do Varieties wear out, or tend to wear out f

(New Tokk TKiBrNE, and American Jouknal of Science and tiie Abts,

February, 1875.)

This question has been argued from time to time
for more than half a century, and is far from being
settled yet. Indeed, it is not to be settled either way
so easily as is sometimes thought. The result of a
prolonged and rather lively discussion of the topic
about forty years ago in England, in which Lindley
bore a leading part on the negative side, was, if we
rightly remember, that the nays had the best of the
argument. The deniers could fairly well explain away
the facts adduced by the other side, and evade the
force of the reasons then assigned to prove that varie-
ties were bound to die out in the course of time. But
if the case were fully re-argued now, it is by no means
certain that the nays would win it. The most they
could expect would be the Scotch verdict, " not
proven.-' And this not because much, if any, addi-
tional evidence of the actual wearing out of any vari-

DURATION Oi RACES. 330

etj has turned up since, but because a presumption
has been raised under wliicli tlie evidence would take
a bias the other way. There is now in the minds of
scientific men some reason to expect that certain vari-
eties w^ould die out in the long rmi, and this might
have an important influence upon the intei"pretation
of the facts. Curiously enough, however, the recent
discussions to which our attention has been called
seem, on both sides, to have overlooked this.

But, first of all, the question needs to be more
specifically stated. There are varieties and varieties.
They may, some of them, disappear or deteriorate, but
yet not wear out — not come to an end from any inher-
ent cause. One might even say, the younger they are
the less the chance of survival unless well cared for.
They may be smothered out by the adverse force of
superior numbers; they are even more likely to be
bred out of existence by unprevented cross-fertiliza-
tion, or to disappear from mere change of fashion.
The question, however, is not so much about reversion to
an ancestral state, or the falling off of a high-bred stock
into an inferior condition. Of such cases it is enough
to say that, when a variety or strain, of animal or vege-
table, is led up to unusual fecundity or of size or prod-
uct of any organ, for our good, and not for the good
of the plant or animal itself, it can be kept so only by
high feeding and exceptional care ; and that with high
feeding and artificial appliances comes vastly increased
liability to disease, w^hich may practically annihilate
the race. But then the race, like the bursted boiler,
could not be said to wear out, while if left to ordinary
conditions, and allowed to degenerate back into a more

340 . DARWimANA.

natural if less useful state, its hold on life would evi-
dently be increased rather than diminished.

As to natural varieties or races under normal con-
ditions, sexually propagated, it could readily be shov^n
that they are neither more nor less likely to disappear
from any inherent cause than the species from which
they originated. Whether species wear out, i. e., have
their rise, culmination, and decline, from any inherent
cause, is wholly a geological and very speculative prob-
lem, upon which, indeed, only vague conjectures can
be offered. The matter actually under discussion con-
cerns cultivated domesticated varieties only, and, as to
plants, is covered by two questions.

First, Will races projpagated hy seed, being so fixed
that they come true to seed, and purely bred (not
crossed Avith any other sort), continue so indefinitely,
or will they run out in time — not die out, perhaps,
but lose their distinguishing characters ? Upon this,
all we are able to say is that we know no reason why
they should wear out or deteriorate from any inherent
cause. The transient existence or the deterioration
and disappearance of many such races are sufficiently
accounted for otherwise ; as in the case of extraordi-
narily exuberant varieties, such as mammoth fruits or
roots, by increased liability to disease, already adverted
to, or by the failure of the high feeding they demand.
A common cause, in ordinary cases, is cross-breeding,
through the agency of wind or insects, which is diflScult
to guard against. Or they go out of fashion and are
superseded by others thought to be better, and so the
old ones disappear.

Or, finally, they may revert to an ancestral form.

DURATION OF RACES. Z^\

As offspring tend to resemble grandparents almost as
mucli as parents, and as a line of close-bred ancestry
is generally prepotent, so newly-originated varieties
have always a tendency to reversion. This is pretty
sure to show itself in some of tlie progeny of the ear-
lier generations, and the breeder has to guard against
it by rigid selection. But the older the variety is —
that is, the longer the series of generations in which
it has come true from seed — the" less the chance of re-
version : for now, to be like the immediate parents, is
also to be like a long line of ancestry; and so all the
influences concerned — that is, both" parental and an-
cestral heritability — act in one and the same direction.
So, since the older a race is the more reason it has to
continue true, the presumption of the unlimited per-
manence of old races is very strong.

Of course the race itself may give off new varie-
ties ; but that is no interference with the vitality of
the original stock. If some of the new varieties sup-
plant the old, that will not be because the unvaried
stock is worn out or decrepit with age, but because in
wild Nature the newer forms are better adapted to the
surroundings, or, under man's care, better adapted to
his wants or fancies.

The second question, and one upon which the discus-
sion about the wearing out of varieties generally turns,
is. Will varieties projyagated from luds^ i, e., hj divis-
ion, grafts, hidhs, tuhers, and the like, necessarily dete-
inorate and die out f First, Do they die out as a matter
of fact ? Upon this, the testimony has all along been
conflicting. Andrew Knight was sure that tliey do,
and there could hardly be a more trustworthy witness.

312 DAEWimANA.

"The fact," he says, fifty years ago, "that certain varieties
of some species of fruit which have been long cultivated cannot
now be made to grow in the same soils and under the same
mode of management, which was a century ago so perfectly
successful, is placed beyond the reach of controversy. Every
experiment which seemed to afford the slightest prospect of
success was tried by myself and others to propagate the old
varieties of the apple and pear which formerly constituted the
orchards of Herefordshire, without a single healthy or eflScient
tree having been obtained; and I believe all attempts to propa-
gate these varieties have, during some years, wholly ceased to
be made."

To this it was replied, in that and the next gen-
eration, that cultivated vines have been transmitted by
j)erpetual division from the time of the Romans, and
that several of the sorts, still prized and prolific, are
well identified, among them the ancient Grsecnla, con-
sidered to be the modern Corinth or currant grape,
which has immemorially been seedless ; that the old
nonpareil apple was known in the time of Queen
Elizabeth; that the white beurre pears of France have
been propagated from the earliest times ; and that
golden pippins, St. Michael pears, and others said to
have run out, were still to be had in good condition.

Coming down to the present year, a glance through
the proceedings of pomological societies, and the de-
bates of farmers' clubs, brings out the same difference
of opinion. The testimony is nearly equally divided.
Perhaps the larger number speak of the deterioration
and failure of particular old sorts ; but when the ques-
tion turns on '^ wearing out," the positive evidence of
vigorous trees and sound fruits is most telling. A lit-
tle positive testimony outweighs a good deal of nega-

DURATION OF RAGES. 343

tive. This cannot readily be explained away, while
the failures may be, by exhaustion of soil, incoraiug
of disease, or alteration of climate or circumstances.
On the other hand, it may be urged that, if a variety
of this sort is fated to become decrepit and die out, it
is not bound to die out all at once, and everywhere at
the same time. It would be expected first to give
way wherever it is weakest, from whatever cause.
This consideration has an important bearing upon the
final question. Are old varieties of this kind on the
way to die out on account of their age or any inherent
limit of vitality?

Here, again, Mr. Knight took an extreme view.
In his essay in the " Philosophical Transactions," pub-
lished in the year 1810, he propounded the theory,
not merely of a natural limit to varieties from grafts
and cuttings, but even that they would not survive
the natural term of the life of the seedling trees from
which they were originally taken. Whatever may
have been his view of the natm-al term of the life of
a tree, and of a cutting being merely a part of the
individual that produced it, there is no doubt that he
laid himself open to the effective replies which were
made from all sides at the time, and have lost none of
their force since. "Weeping-willows, bread-fruits, ba-
nanas, sugar-cane, tiger-lilies, Jerusalem artichokes,
and the like, have been propagated for a long while
in this way, without evident decadence.

Moreover, the analogy upon which his hypothesis
is founded will not hold. Whether or not one adopts
the present writer's conception, that individuality is
not actually reached or maintained in the vegetal^le

344 DAEWmiANA.

world, it is clear enougli that a common plant or tree
is not an individual in the sense that a horse or man,
or any one of the higher animals, is — that it is an indi-
vidual only in the sense that a branching zoophyte
or mass of coral is. Solvitiir crescendo : the tree and
the branch equally demonstrate that they are not indi-
viduals, by being divided with impunity and advan-
tage, with no loss of life, but much increase. It looks
odd enough to see a writer like Mr. Sisley reproducing
the old hypothesis in so bare a form as this : "I am
prepared to maintain that varieties are individuals, and
that as they are born they must die, like other indi-
viduals. . . . We know that oaks. Sequoias, and other
trees, live several centuries, but how many we do not
exactly know. But that they must die, no one in his
senses will dispute." !N^ow, what people in their senses
do dispute is, not that the tree will die, but that other
trees, established from its cuttings, will die with it.

But does it follow from this that non-sexually-
propagated varieties are endowed with the same power
of milimited duration that is possessed by varieties
and species propagated sexually — i. e., by seed ? Those
who think so jump too soon at their conclusion. For,
as to the facts, it is not enough to point out the dis-
eases or the trouble in the soil or the atmosphere to
which certain old fruits are succumbing, nor to prove
that a parasitic fungus {Peronosjyora infe stand) is
what is the matter with potatoes. For how else would
constitutional debility, if such there be, more natural-
ly manifest itself than in such increased liability or
diminished resistance to such attacks? And if you
say that, anyhow, such varieties do not die of old age

DURATION OF RAGES. 345

— meaning tliat each individual attacked does not die
of old age, but of manifest disease — it may be asked In
retm*n, wliat individual man ever dies of old age in any
other sense than of a similar inability to resist inva-
sions which in earlier years would have produced no
noticeable effect 1 Aged people die of a slight cold
or a slight accident, but the inevitable weakness that
attends old age is what makes these slight attacks fatal.

Finally, there is a philosophical argument which
tells strongly for some limitation of the duration of
non-sexually-proj^agated forms, one that probably
Knight never thought of, but which we should not
have expected recent writers to overlook. Wlien Mr.
Darwin announced the principle that cross-fertilization
between the individuals of a species is the plan of
^Nature, and is practically so universal that it fairly
sustains his inference that no hermaphrodite species
continually self -fertilized would continue to exist, he
made it -clear to all who apprehend and receive the
principle that a series of plants propagated by buds
only must have weaker hold of life than a series re-
produced by seed. For the former is the closest pos-
sible kind of close breeding. Upon this ground such
varieties may be expected ultimately to die out ; but
" the mills of the gods grind so exceeding slow " that
we cannot say. that any particular grist has been actu-
ally ground out under human observation.

If it be asked how the asserted principle is proved
or made probable, we can here merely say that the
proof is wholly inferential. But the inference is
drawn from such a vast array of facts that it is well-
nigh irresistible. It is the legitimate explanation of

34:6 DARWINIANA.

those arrangements in JS^ature to seciu'e cross-fertiliza-
tion in the species, either constantly or occasionally,
which are so general, so varied and diverse, and, we
may add, so exquisite and wonderful, that, once pro-
pounded, we see that it must be true/ What else, in-
deed, is the meaning and use of sexual reproduction ?
Is^ot simply increase of numbers ; for that is otherwise
effectually provided for by budding propagation in
plants and many of the lower animals. There are
plants, indeed, of the lower sort (such as diatoms), in
which the whole multiplication takes place in this
way, and with great rapidity. These also have sexual
reproduction ; but in it two old individuals are always
destroyed to make a single new one ! Here propaga-
tion diminishes the number of individuals fifty per
cent. Who can suppose that such a costly process as
this, and that all the exquisite arrangements for cross-
fertilization in hermaphrodite plants, do not subserve
some most important purpose ? How and why the
union of two organisms, or generally of two very mi-

* Here an article would be in place, explaining the arrangements in
Nature for cross-fertilization, or wide-breeding, in plants, through the
agency, sometimes of the winds, but more commonly of insects ; the
more so, since the development of the principle, the appreciation of its
importance, and its confirmation by abundant facts, are mainly due to
Mr. Darwin. But our reviews and notices of his early work *' On the
Contrivances in Nature for the Fertilization of Orchids by Means of
Insects," in 1862, and his various subsequent papers upon other parta
of this subject, are either to otechnical or too fragmentary or spe-
cial to be here reproduced. Indeed, a popular essay is now hardly
needed, since the topic has been fully presented, of late years, in the
current popular and scientific journals, and in common educational
works and text-books, so that it is in the way of becoming a part — and
a most inviting part — of ordinary botanical instruction.

DURATION OF SPECIES. 3^7

nute portions of tliem, should reenforce vitality, wo
do not know, and can hardly conjecture. But this
must be the meaning of sexual reproduction.

- The conclusion of the matter, from the scientific
point of view, is, that sexually-propagated varieties or
races, although liable to disappear through change,
need not be expected to wear out, and there is no proof
that they do ; but, that non-sexually propagated va-
rieties, though not especially liable to change, may
tJieoretically be expected to wear out, but to be a very
long time about it.

II.

Do Species wear out f and if not, why not f

The question we have just been considering was
merely whether races are, or may be, as enduring as
sjDecies. As to the inherently unlimited existence of
species themselves, or the contrary, this, as we have
said, is a geological and very speculative problem. Not
a few geologists and naturalists, however, have con-
cluded, or taken for granted, that species have a natu-
ral term of existence — that they cuhninate, decline,
and disappear through exhaustion of specific vitality,
or some equivalent internal cause. As might be ex-
pected from the nature of the inquiry, the facts which
bear upon the question are far from decisive. If the
fact that species m general have not been interminable,
but that one after another in long succession has be-
come extinct, would seem to warrant this conclusion,
the persistence through immense periods of no incon-

348 DAEWINIANA.

siderable niiinber of the lower forms of vegetable and
animal life, and of a few of the higher plants from
the Tertiary period to the present, tells even more di-
rectly for the limitless existence of species. The. dis-
appearance is quite compatible with the latter view ;
while the persistence of any species is hardly explicable
npon any other. So that, even mider the common l)e-
lief of the entire stability and essential inflexibility of
species, extinction is more likely to have been acciden-
tal than predetermined, and the doctrine of inherent
limitation is unsupported by positive evidence.

On the other hand, it is an implication of the Dar-
winian doctrine that species are essentially unlimited
in existence. When they die out — as sooner or later
any species may — the verdict must be accidental death,
under stress of adverse circumstances, not exhaustion
of vitality ; and, commonly, when the species seems to
die out, it will rather have suffered change. For the
stock of vitality which enables it to vary and survive
in changed forms under changed circumstances must
be deemed sufficient for a continued unchanged exist-
ence under unaltered conditions. And, indeed, the
advancement from simpler to more complex, wliich
upon the theory must have attended the diversification,
would warrant or require the supposition of increase
instead of diminution of power from age to age.

The only case we call to mind which, under the
Darwinian view, might be intei'preted as a dying out
from inherent causes, is that of a species which refuses
to vary, and thus lacks the capacity of adaptation to
altering conditions. Under altering conditions, this
lack Would be fatal. But this would be the fatality

DURATION OF SPFGIES. 349

of 807716 species or form in particular, not of species
or forms generally, which, for the most part, may and
do vary sufficiently, and in varying survive, seeming-
ly none the worse, but rather the better, for their
long tenure of life.

The opposite idea, however, is maintained by M.
J^audin,^ in a detailed exposition of his own views of
evolution, which differ widely from those of Darwin
in most respects, and notably in excluding that which,
in our day, gives to the subject its first claim to scien-
tific (as distinguished from purely speculative) atten-
tion ; namely, natural selection. Instead of the causes
or operations collectively personified under this term,
and which are capable of exact or probable apprecia-
tion, M. Naudin invokes " the two principles of
rhythm and of the decrease of forces in E^ature."
He is a thorough evolutionist, stai-ting from essential-
ly the same point with Darwin ; for he conceives of
all the forms or species of animals and plants "comme
tire tout entier d'un protoplasma primordial, uniform,
instable, eminemment plastique." Also in '' I'integra-
tion croissante de la force evolutive a mesure qu'elle
se partage dans les formes produites, et la decrois-
sance proportionelle de la plasticite de ces formes a
mesui'e qu'elles s'eloignent davantage de leur ori-
gine, et qu'elles sont mieux arretees." As they get
older, they gain in fixity through the operation of the

^ " Les Especes affines et la Theorie de I'Evolution," par Cliarlea
Naudin, Membra de I'lnstitut, in Bulletin de la Socieie Botanique de
France^ tome xxi., pp. 240-2*72, ISYi. See also Comptes Baidus, Sep-
tember 27 and October 4, 1875, reproduced in " Annales des Sciences
Naturelles," 1876, pp. 73-81.

350 DARWINIANA.

fundamental law of inlieritance ; but the species, like
the individual, loses plasticity and vital force. To
continue in the language of the original :

" C'est dire qu'il y a eu, pour I'ensemble du monde orga-
nique, une periode de formatioD oti tout etait changeant et mo-
bile, une phase analogue a la vie embryonnaire et a la jeunesse
de cbaque ^tre particulier ; et qu'a cet age de mobilite et de
croissance a succ6de une periode de stabilite, au moins relative,
une sorte d'age adulte, oti la force Evolutive, ayant achev6 son
oeuvre, n'est plus occupee qu'a la maintenir, sans pouvoir pro-
duire d'organismes nouveaux. Limitee en quantity, comme
toutes les forces en jeu dans une planete ou dans un systeme
sideral tout entier, cette force n'a pu accomplir qu'un travail
limite ; et du m^me qu'un organisme, animal ou vegetal, ne
croit pas indefiniment et qu'il ^'arrete a des proportions que
rien ne pent faire depasser, de mfeme aussi I'organisme total de
la nature s'est arr^te a un etat d'equilibre, dont la duree, selon
toutes vraisemblances, doit etre beaucoup plus longue que cello
de la phase de developpement et de croissance.

A fixed amount of ^' evolutive force " is given, to
begin with. At first enomious, because none has
been used up in work, it is necessarily enfeebled in
the currents into which the stream divides, and the
narrower and narrower channels in which it flows
with slowly-diminishing power. Hence the limited
although very unequal duration of all individuals, of
all species, and of all types of organization. A mul-
titude of forms have disappeared already, and the
number of species, far from increasing, as some have
believed, must, on the contrary, be diminishing. Some
species, no doubt, have suffered death by violence or
accident, by geological changes, local alteration of the
conditions, or the direct or indirect attacks of other

DURATION OF SPECIES. 351

species ; but tliese liave only anticipated tlieir fate,
for M. Naudin contends that most of the extinct
species liave died a natural death from exhaustion of
force, and that all the survivors are on the way to it.
The gi-eat timepiece of Nature was wound up at the
beginning, and is running down. In the earlier
stages of great plasticity and exuberant power, diver-
sification took place freely, but only in definite lines,
and species and types multiplied. As the power of
survival is inherently limited, still more the power of
change : this diminishes in time, if we rightly appre-
hend the idea, partly through the waning of vital
force, partly through the fixity acquired by heredity
— like producing like, the more certainly in propor-
tion to the length and continuity of the ancestral
chain. And so the small variations of species which
we behold are the feeble remnants of the pristine
plasticity and an exhausted force. ^ This force of
variation or origination of forms has acted rhytlimi-
cally or intermittently, because each movement was
the result of the rupture of an equilibrium, the liber-

* In noticing M, Naudin's paper in the Comptes Rcndus^ now re-
printed in the "Annales des Sciences Naturelles," entitled " Yaiiation
desordonnee des Plantes Hybrides et Deductions qu'on pent en tircr,"
we were at a loss to conceive why he attributed all present variation of
species to atavism, i. e., to the reappearance of ancestral characters
(^American Journal of Science, February, 1876). His anterior paper
was not then known to us ; from which it now appears that this view
comes in as a part of the hypothesis of extreme plasticity and variabil-
ity at the first, subsiding at length into entire fixity and persistence of
character. According to which, it is assumed that the species of our
time have lost all power of original variation, but can still reproduce
some old ones — some reminiscences, as it were, of youthful vagaries —
in the way of atavism.

352 DAEWmiANA,

ation of a force wliicli till then was retained in a po-
tential state by some opposing force or obstacle, over-
coming which, it passes to a new equilibrium, and so
on. Hence alternations of djTiamic activity and
static repose, of origination of species and types, al-
ternated with periods of stability or fixity. The time-
piece does not run down regularly, but '' la force pro-
cede par saccades ; et . . . . par pulsations d'autant
plus energiques que la nature etait plus pres de son
commencement."

Such is the hypothesis. For a theory of evolu-
tion, this is singularly unlike Darwin's in most re-
spects, and particularly in the kind of causes invoked
and speculations indulged in. But we are not here
to comment upon it beyond the particular point under
consideration, namely, its doctrine of the inherently
limited duration of species. This comes, it will be
noticed, as a deduction from the modern physical
doctrine of the equivalence of force. The reasoning
is ingenious, but, if we mistake not, fallacious.

To call that " evolutive force " which produces the
change of one kind of plant or animal into another, is
simple and easy, but of little help by way of explana-
tion. To homologize it with physical force, as M.
ITaudin's argument requires, is indeed a step, and a
hardy one ; but it quite invalidates the argument.
For, if the " evolutive force " is a part of the physical
force of the universe, of which, as he reminds us, the
sum is fixed and the tendency is toward a stable equi-
librium in which all change is to end, then this evo-
lutive was derived from the physical force ; and why
not still derivable from it 'i "What is to prevent its

DURATION OF SPECIES. 353

replenisliment in YQgQiaiioTi^imri passu with tliat great
operation in which physical force is stored up in vege-
table organisms, and by the expenditure or transfoiTaa-
tion of which their work, and that of all animals, is
carried on ? Whatever be the cause (if any there be)
which determines the decadence and death of species,
one cannot well believe that it is a consequence of a
dmiinution of their proper force by plant-development
and division ; for instance, that the sum of what is
called vital force in a full-grown tree is not greater,
instead of less, than that in the seedling, and in the
grove greater than in the single parental tree. This
power, if it be properly a force, is doubtless as truly
derived from the sunbeam as is the power which the
plant and animal expend in work. Here, then, is a
source of replenishment as lasting as the sun itself,
and a ground — so far as a supply of force is concerned
— for indefinite duration. For all that any one can
mean by the indefinite existence of species is, that they
may (for all that yet appears) continue while the exter-
nal conditions of their being or well-being continue.

Perhaps, however, M. I^audin does not mean that
" evolutive force," or the force of vitality, is really
homologous with common physical force, but only
something which may be likened to it. In that case
the parallel has only a metaphorical value, and the rea-
son why variation must cease and species die out is
still to seek. In short, if that which continues the
series of individuals in propagation, whether like or
unlike the parents, be a force in the physical sense of
the term, then there is abundant provision in Nature
for its indefinite replenishment. If, rather, it be a

354 DARWINIANA.

part or phase of that something which directs and de-
termines the expenditure of force, then it is not subject
to the laws of the latter, and there is no ground for
inferring its exhaustibility. The limited vitality is an
unproved and unprovable conjecture. The evolutive
force, dying out in the using, is either the same con-
jecture repeated, or a misapplied analogy.

After all — apart from speculative analogies — the
only evidences we possess w^hich indicate a tendency
in species to die out, are those to which Mr. Darwin
has called attention. These are, first, the observed
deterioration which results, at least in animals, from
continued breeding in and in, which may possibly be
resolvable into cumulative heritable disease ; and,
secondly, as already stated (p. 346), what may be
termed the sedulous and elaborate pains everywhere
taken in Mature to prevent close breeding — arrange-
ments which are particularly prominent in plants, the
greater number of which bear hermaphrodite blossoms.
The importance of this may be inferred from the uni-
versality, variety, and practical perfection of the ar-
rangements which secure the end ; and the inference
may fairly be drawn that this is the physiological im-
port of sexes.

It follows from this that there is a tendency, seem-
ingly inherent, in species as in individuals, to die out ;
but that this tendency is counteracted or checked by
sexual wider breeding, which is, on the whole, amply
secured in Nature, and which in some way or other
reenforces vitality to such an extent as to warrant
Darwin's inference that " some unknown great good
is derived from the union of individuals which have

DURATION OF SPECIES. 355

been kept distinct for many generations." Wlietlier
tliis reenforcement is a complete preventive of de-
crepitude in species, or only a palliative, is more tlian
we can determine. If the latter, then existing species
and their derivatives must perish in time, and the
earth may be growing poorer in species, as M. Naudin
supposes, through mere senility. If the former, then
the earth, if not even growing richer, may be expected
to hold its own, and extant species or their derivatives
should last as long as the physical world lasts and
affords favorable conditions. General analogies seem
to favor the former view. Such facts as we possess,
and the Darwinian hypothesis, favor the latter.

XIII.

EVOLUTIONAET TELEOLOGY.

When Cuvier spoke of tlie " combination of organs
in such order that they may be in consistence with the
part which the animal has to play in ITatnre," his op-
ponent, Geoff roy St.-Hilaire, rejoined, " I know noth-
ing of animals which have to play a part in jN^ature."
The discussion was a notable one in its day. From
that time to this, the reaction of moi'phology against
" final causes " has not rarely gone to the extent of
denying the need and the propriety of assuming ends
in the study of animal and vegetable organizations.
Especially in our o^ti day, when it became apparent
that the actual use of an organ might not be the funda-
mental reason of its existence — that one and the same
organ, morphologically considered, was modified in dif-
ferent cases to the most diverse uses, while intrinsically
different organs subserved identical functions, and con-
sequently that use was a fallacious and homology the
surer guide to correct classification — it was not sur-
prising that teleological ideas nearly disappeared from
natural history. Probably it is still generally thought
that the school of Cuvier and that of St.-Hilaire have
nteither common ground nor capability of reconcile-
ment.

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 357

In a review of Darwin's volnme on tlie " Fertiliza-
tion of Orchids"^ (too technical and too detailed for
reproduction here), and Later in a brief sketch of the
character of his scientific work (art. x., p. 281), we
expressed our sense of the great gain to science from
his having brought back teleology to natural history.
In Darwinism, usefulness and purpose come to the
front again as working principles of the first order ;
upon them, indeed, the whole system rests.

To most, this restoration of teleology has come
from an unexpected quarter, and in an unwonted guise ;
so that the first look of it is by no means reassuring to
the minds of those who cherish theistic views of JS^a-
ture. Adaptations irresistibly suggesting pui*pose had
their supreme application in natural theology. Being
manifold, particular, and exquisite, and evidently in-
wrought into the whole system of the organic world,
they were held to furnish irrefragable as well as inde-
pendent proof of a personal designer, a divine origi-
nator of ISTature. By a confusion of thought, now ob-
vious, but at the time not unnatural, they were also
regarded as proof of a direct execution of the contriv-
ver's purpose in the creation of each organ and organ-
ism, as it were, in the manner man contrives and puts
together a machine — an idea which has been set up as
the orthodox doctrine, but which to St. Augustine and
other learned Christian fathers would have savored
of heterodoxy.

In the doctrine of the origination of species through
natural selection, these adaptations appear as the out-
come rather than as the motive, as final results rather

» London, 1862.
16

358 DARWrniANA.

tlian final causes. Adaptation to use, although the
very essence of Darwinism, is not a fixed and inflex-
ible adaptation, realized once for all at the outset ; it
includes a long progression and succession of modifi-
cations, adjusting themselves to changing circum-
stances, under which they may be more and more di-
versified, specialized, and in a .just sense perfected.
]^ow, the question is. Does this involve the destruction
or only the reconstruction of om^ consecrated ideas of
teleology ? Is it compatible with our seemingly inborn
conception of Nature as an ordered system ? Further-
more, and above all, can the Darwinian theory itself
dispense with the idea of purpose, in the ordinary
sense of the word, as tantamount to design ?

From two opposing sides .we hear the first two
questions answered in the negative. And an affirma-
tive response to the third is directly implied in the
following citation :

"The word pv.rpose has been used in a sense to which it is,
perhaps, worth while to call attention. Adaptation of means
to an end may be provided in two ways that we at present
know of: by processes of natural selection, and by the agency of
an' intelligence in which an image or idea of the end preceded
the use of the means. In both cases the existence of the adap-
tation is accounted for by the necessity or utility of the end.
It seems to me convenient to use the word purpose as meaning
generally the end to which certain means are adapted, both in
these two cases and in any other that may hereafter become
known, provided only that the adaptation is accounted for by
the necessity or utility of the end. And there seems no objec-
tion to the use of the phrase ' final cause ' in this wider sense, if
it is to be kept at all. The word ' design ' might then be kept
for tlie special case of adaptation by an intelligence. And we

EVOLUTIOXAEY TELEOLOGY. 359

may then say that, since the process of natural selection ha3
been understood, purpose has ceased to suggest design to in-
structed people, except in cases where the agency of man is
independently probable." — P. 0. W., in the Contemjjorary lie-
view for September, 1875, p. G57.

The distinction made by this anonymous writer is
convenient and useful, and his statement clear. ^\"e
propose to adopt this use of the ierm^ purjyose and de-
sign, and to examine the allegation. The latter comes
to this : " Processes of natural selection " exclude " the
agency of an intelligence in which the image or idea
of the end precedes the use of the means ; ". and since
the former have been understood ''purpose has ceased
to suggest design to instructed people, except in cases
where the agency of man is independently probable."
The maxim ^' Uliomme jprojpose^ Dieu disjpose^'' under
this reading means that the former has the monopoly
of design, while the latter accomplishes without de-
signing. Man's works alone suggest design.

But it is clear to us that this monopoly is shared
with certain beings of inferior grade. Granting that
quite possibly the capture of flies for food by Dioncea
and the sundews may be attributed to purpose apart
from design (if it 'be practicable in the last resort to
maintain this now convenient distinction), still their
capture by a spider' s-web, and by a swallow on the
wing, can hardly "cease to suggest design to in-
structed people." And surely, in coming at his mas-
ter's call, the dog fulfills his own design as well as
that of his master; and so of other actions and con-
structions of brute animals.

Without doubt so acute a writer has a clear and

360 DARWINIANA.

sensible meaning ; so we conclude that he regards
brutes as automata, and was thinking of design as co-
extensive merely with general conceptions. Not con-
cerning ourselves with the difficulty he may have in
drawing a line between the simpler judgments and
affections of man and those of the highest-endowed
brutes, we subserve our immediate ends by remarking
that the automatic theory would seem to be one
which can least of all dispense with design, since,
either in the literal or current sense of the word, un-
designed automatism is, as near as may be, a contra-
diction in tenns. As the automaton man constructs
manifests the designs of its maker and mover, so the
more efficient automata which man did not construct
would not legitimately suggest less than human intel-
ligence. And so all adaptations in the animal and
vegetable world which irresistibly suggest purpose
(in the sense now accepted) would also suggest de-
sign, and, under the law of parsimony, claim to be
thus intei'preted, unless some other hypothesis will
better account for the facts. AVe will consider, pres-
ently, if any other does so.

AYe here claim only that some beings other than
men design, and that the adaptations of means to ends
in the structure of animals and plants, in so far as
they carry the marks of purpose, carry also the impli-
cation of having been designed. Also, that the idea
^r hypothesis of a designing mind, as the author of
ISTature — however we came by it — having possession
of the field, and being one which man, himself a de-
signer, seemingly must needs form, cannot be rivaled
except by some other equally adequate for explana-

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3G1

tion, or displaced except by Bhowing the illegitimacy
of tlie inference. As to the latter, is the comnioii
apprehension and sense of mankind in this regard well
grounded ? Can we rightly reason from oiu* own in-
telligence and powers to a higher or a supreme intel-
ligence ordering and shaping the system of Nature ?

A very able and ingenious writer upon " The Evi-
dences of Design in Nature," in the Westminster He-
view for July, 1875, maintains the negative. His
article may be taken as the argument in support of
the position assumed by " P. C. W.," in the Contem-
jporary Review above cited. It opens with the ad-
mission that the orthodox view is the most simple and
apparently convincing, has had for centuries the un-
hesitating assent of an immense majority of thinkers,
and that the latest master-writer upon the subject dis-
posed to reject it, namely, Mill, comes to the conclu-
sion that, "in the present state of our knowledge,
the adaptations in Nature afford a large balance of
probability in favor of creation by intelligence." It
proceeds to attack not so much the evidence in favor
of design as the foundation upon which tlie whole
doctiine rests, and closes with the prediction that
sooner or later the superstructure must fall. And,
truly, if his reasonings are legitimate, and his con-
clusions just, " Science has laid the axe to the tree."

" Given a set of marks which we look upon in human pro-,
ductions as unfailing indications of design," he asks, "is not the
inference equally legitimate when we recognize these marks in
Nature? To gaze on such a universe as this, to feel our hearts
exult within us in the fullness of existence, and to olTor in ex-
planation of such beneficent provision no other word but

362' DARWINIANA.

Chance^ seems as unthankful and iniquitous as it seems absurd.
Chance produces nothing in the human sphere ; nothing, at
least, that can be relied upon for good. Design alone engen-
ders harmony, consistency ; and Chance not only never is the
T^arent, but is constantly the enemy of these. How, then, can
we suppose Chance to be the author of a system in which every-
thing is as regular as clock-work? .... The hypothesis of
Chance is inadmissible."

There is, tlien, in ^Nature, an order ; and, in '^ P.
C. "W.'s" sense of tlie word, a manifest purpose.
Some sort of conception as to tlie cause of it is inevi-
table, that of design first and foremost. ""Why" —
the Westmiiister Reviewer repeats the question —
*' why, if the marks of utility and adaptation are con-
clusive in the works of man, should they not be con-
sidered equally conclusive in the works of ^Nature ? "
His answer appears to us more ingenious than sound.
Because, referring to Paley's watch, —

"The watch-finder is not guided solely in his inference by
marks of adaptation and utility ; he would recognize design in
half a watch, in a mere fragment of a watch, just as surely as
in a whole time-keeper. . . . Two cog-wheels, grasping each
other, will be thought conclusive evidence of design, quite in-
dependently of any use attaching to them. And the inference,
indeed, is perfectly correct ; only it is an inference, not from a
mark of design, properly so called, but from a mark of human
workmanship. . . . N'o more is needed for the watch-finder,
since all the works of man are, at the same time, products of
design ; but a great deal more is requisite for us, who are called
upon by Paley to recognize design in works in which this
stamp, this label of human workmanship, is wanting. The
mental operation required in the one case is radically -difterent
from that performed in the other; there is no parallel, and
Palsy's demonstration is totally irrelevant." *

* Hume, in bis "Essays," anticipated this argument. But he did

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3G3

But, surely, all liuman doings are not " products
of design ; " many are contingent or accidental. And
why not suppose that the linder of the watch, or
of the watch-wheel, infers Ijoth design and human
workmanship ? The two are mutually exclusive only
on- the supposition that man alone is a designer,
which is simply begging the question in discussion.
If the watch-finder's attention had been arrested bv

not rest on it. His matured convictions appear to be expressed in
statements such as the following, here cited at second hand from Jack-
son's "Philosophy of Natural Theology," a volume to which a friend
has just called our attention :

*' Though the stupidity of men," writes Hume, "barbarous and un-
instructed, be so great that they may not see a sovereign author in the
more obvious works of Nature, to which they are so much familiarized,
yet it scarce seems possible that any one of good understanding should
reject that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an in-
tention, a design, is evident in everything ; and when our comprehen-
sion is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible
system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some
intelligent cause or author. The uniform maxims, too, which prevail
throughout the whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not neces-
sarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as single and undivided,
where the prejudices of education oppose not so reasonable a theory.
Even the contrarieties of Nature, by discovering themselves every-
where, become proofs of some consistent plan, and establish one single
purpose or intention, however inexplicable and incomprehensible." —
(" Natural History of Religion," xv.)

" In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the
latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irre-
sistible force that all objections appear (what I believe they really arc)
mere cavils and sophisms." — (" Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,"
Part X.)

"The order and arrangement of Nature, the curious adjustment of
final causes, the plain use and intention of every part and organ, all
these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author."
—(Ibid., Part IV.)

364 DARWmiANA.

a (lifferent object, sucli as a spider's web, lie would
have inferred both design and non-human workman-
ship. Of some objects he might be uncertain wheth-
er thej were of human origin or not, without ever
doubting thej were designed, ' while of others this
might remain doubtful. ]^or is man's recognition of
human workmanship, or of any other, dependent upon
his comprehending how it was done, or what particu-
lar ends it subserves. Such considerations make it
clear that " the label of human workmanship " is not
the generic stamp from which man infers design. It
seems equally clear that "the mental operation re-
quired in the one case " is not so radically or materially
" different from that performed in the other " as this
writer would have us suppose. The judgment re-
specting a spider's web, or a trap-door spider's dwell-
ing, would be the very same in this regard if it pre-
ceded, as it occasionally might, all knowledge of
whether the object met with were of human or ani-
mal origin. A dam across a stream, and the appear-
ance of the stumps of trees which entered into its
formation, would suggest design quite irrespective of
and antecedent to the considerable knowledge or ex-
perience which would enable the beholder to decide
whether this was the work of men or of beavers.
Why, then, should the judgment that any particular
structure is a designed work be thought illegitimate
when attributed to a higher instead of a lower intelli-
gence than that of man ? It might, indeed, be so if
the supposed observer had no conception of a power
and intelligence superior to his own. But it would
\\iQn be more than " irrelevant ; " it would be im-

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY, 3G5

possible, except on tlie supposition that the phenomena
would of themselves give rise to such an inference.
That it is now possible to make the inference, and,
indeed, hardly possible not to make it, is suflScient
warrant of its relevancy. •

It may, of course, be rejoined that, if this impor-
tant factor is given, the inference yields no indepen-
dent argument of a divine creator ; and it may also
be reasonably urged that the difference between things
that are made under our observation and comprehen-
sion, and things that grow, but have originated be-
yond our comprehension, is too wide for a sure infer-
ence from the one to the other. But the present
question involves neither of these. It is simply
whether the argument for design from adaj^tations in
JS^ature is relevant, not whether it is independent or
sure. It is conceded that the argument is analogical,
and the parallel incomplete. But the gut is in the
points that are parallel or similar. Pulleys, valves,
and such-like elaborate mechanical adaptations, can-
not differ greatly in meaning, wherever met with.

The opposing argument is repeated and pressed
in another form :

" Tlie evidepce of design afforded by the aiarks of adapta-
tion in works of human competence is null and void in the caso
of creation itself. . . . Nature is full of adaptations ; but these
are valueless to us as traces of design, unless we know some-
thing of the rival adaptations among which an intelligent being
miffht have chosen. To assert that in Nature no such rival
adaptations existed, and that in every case the useful function
in question could be established by no other instrument but
one, is simply to reason in a circle, since it is solely from what
we find existing that our notions of possibility and impossi-

36G DARWINIANA,

bility are drawn. . . . We cannot imagine ourselves in the
position of the Creator before his work began, nor examine
the materials among which he had to choose, nor count the
laws which limited his operations. Here all is dark, and the
inference we draw from the seeming perfections of the exist-
mg instruments or means is a measure of nothing but our ig-
norance."

•

Bat the question is not about tlie perfection of
these adaptations, or whether others might have been
instituted in their place. It is simply whether ob-
served adaptations of intricate sorts, admirably sub-
serving uses, do or do not legitimately suggest to one
designing mind that they are the product of some
other. If so, no amount of ignorance, or even incon-
ceivability, of the conditions and mode of production
could affect the validity of the inference, nor could it
be affected by any misunderstanding on our part as
to what the particular use or function was ; a state-
ment which would have been deemed superfluous,
except for the following :

" There is not an organ in our bodies but what has passed,
and is still passing, through a series of different and often con-
tradictory interpretations. Our lungs, for instance, were an-
ciently conceived to be a kind of cooling apparatus, a refriger-
ator ; at the close of the last century they were supposed to
be a centre of combustion ; and nowadays both these theories
have been abandoned for a third. . . . Have these changes
modified in the slightest degree the supposed evidence of de-
sign?"

We have not the least idea why they should. So,
also, of complicated processes, such as human diges-
tion, being replaced by other and simpler ones in
lower animals, or even in certain plants. If " we

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3f;7

argue the necessity of every adaptation solely from
the fact that it exists," and that " we cannot mutilate
it grossly without injury to the function," we do not
" announce triumphantly that digestion is impossible
in any way but this," etc., but see equal wisdom and
no impugnment of design in any number of simpler
adaptations accomplishing equivalent purposes in low-
er animals.

Finally, adaptation and utility being the only
marks of design in Nature which we possess, and
adaptation only as subservient to usefulness, the
Westminster Heviewer shows us how —

" The argument from utility may be equally refuted another
way. "We found in our discussion of the mark of adaptation
that the positive evidence of design affojded by the meclian-
isms of the human frame was never accompanied by the possi-
bility of negative evidence. We regarded this as a suspicious
circumstance, just as the fox, invited to attend the lion in his
den, was deterred from his visit by observing that all the foot-
tracks lay in one direction. The same suspicious circumstance
warns us now. If positive evidence of design be afforded by
the presence of a faculty, negative evidence of design ought
to be afforded by the absence of a faculty. This, however, is
not the case." [Then follows the account of a butterfly, which,
from the wonderful power of the males to find the females at
a great distance, is conceived to possess a sixth sense.] " Do
we consider the deficiency of this sixth sense in man as the
slightest evidence against design ? Should we be less apt to
infer creative wisdom if wo had only four senses instead of
five, or three instead of four? No, the case would stand pre-
cisely as it does now. We value our senses simply because wo
have them, and because our conception of life as we desire it
is drawn from them. But to reason from such value to tho
origin of our endowment, to argue that our senses must have

368 DARWINIANA.

been given to iis by a deity because we prize them, is evidently
to move round and round in a vicious circle.

"The same rejoinder is easily applicable to the argument
from beauty, which indeed is only a particular aspect of the
argument from utility. It is certainly improbable that a ran-
dom daubing of colors on a canvas will produce a tolerable
painting, even should the experiment be continued for thou-
sands of years. Our conception of beauty being given, it is
utterly improbable that chance should select, out of the infinity
of combinations which form and color may aiford, the precise
combination which that conception will approve. But the
universe is not posterior to our sense of beauty, but antecedent
to it : our sense of beauty grows out of what we see ; and
hence the conformance of our world to our a^sthetical concep-
tions is evidence, not of the world's origin, but of our own."

We are accustomed to hear design doubted on ac-
count of certain failures of provision, waste of re-
sources, or functionless condition of organs ; but it is
refreshingly new to have the very harmony itself of
man with his surroundings,, and the completeness of
provision for his wants and desires, brought up as a
refutation of the validity of the argument for design.
It is hard, indeed, if man must be out of harmony
with ISTature i:i order to judge anything respecting it,
or his relations with it ; if he must have experience
of chaos before he can predicate anything ©f order.

But is it true that man has all that he conceives
of, or thinks would be useful, and has no " negative
evidence of design afforded by the absence of a facul-
ty" to set against the positive evidence afforded by
its presence ? He notes that he lacks the faculty of
flight, sometimes wants it, and in dreams imagines
that he has it, yet as thoroughly believes that he was

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 309

designed not to have it as that lie was designed to
have the faculties and organs which he possesses. lie
notes that some animals lack sight, and so, with this
negative side of the testimony to the value of vision,
he is " apt to infer creative wisdom " both in what he
enjoys and in what the lower animal neither needs
nor wants. That man does not miss that which he
has no conception of, and is by this limitation dis-
qualified from judging rightly of what he can con-
ceive and know, is what the Westminster Remewer
comes to, as follows :

" We value the constitution of our world because we live by
it, and because we cannot conceive oursplves as living other-
wise. Our conceptions of possibility, of law, of regularity, of
logic, are all derived from the same source ; and as we are con-
stantly compelled to work with tliese conceptions, as in our in-
creasing endeavors to better our condition and increase our
provision we are constantly compelled to guide ourselves by
Nature's regulations, we accustom ourselves to look upon these
regularities and conceptions as antecedent to all work, even to
a Creator's, and to judge of the origin of Nature as we judge
of the origin of inventions and utilities ascribable to man. Tliis
explains why the argument of design has enjoyed such univer-
sal popularity. But that such popularity is no criterion of the
argument's worth, and that, indeed, it is no evidence of any-
thing save of an unhappy weakness in man's mental constitu-
tion, is abundantly proved by the explanation itself."

"Well, the constitution and condition of man being
such that he always does infer design in Nature, wliat
stronger presumption could there possibly be of tlie
relevancy of the inference? We do not say of its
correctness : that is another thing, and is not the pres-
ent point. At the last, as has well been saiJ, the

370 DARWmiANA.

whole question resolves itself into one respecting the
ultimate veracity of E'atm^e, or of the • author of ]^a-
ture, if there be anj.

Passing from these attempts to undermine the
foundation of the doctrine — which we judge to be
unsuccessful — we turn to the consideration of those
aimed at the superstructure. Evidences of design
may be relevant, but not cogent. They may, as Mill
thought, preponderate, or the wavering balance may
incline the other way. There are two lines of argu-
ment : one against the sufficiency, the other against
the necessity, of the principle of design. Design has
been denied on the ground that it squares with only
one part of the facts, and fails to explain others ; it
may be superseded by showing that all the facts are
in the way of being explained without it.

The things which the principle of design does not
explain are many and serious. Some" are in their na-
ture inexplicable, at least are beyond the power and
province of science. Others are of matters which
scientific students have to consider, and upon which
they may form opinions, more or less well-grounded.
As to biological science — with which alone we are
concerned — it is getting to be generally thought that
this principle, as commonly understood, is weighted
with much more than it can carry.

This statement will not be thought exaggerated
by those most familiar with the facts and the ideas of
the age, and accustomed to look them in the face.
Design is held to, no doubt, by most, and by a sm*e
instinct ; not, however, as always offering an exjDlana-
tion of the facts, but in spite of the failure to do so.

EVOLUTIONARY . TELEOLOGY. 371

The stumbling-blocks are various, and tliey lie in
every path: we can allude only to one or two as
specimens.

Adaptation and utility are the marks of design.
"What, then, are organs not adapted to use marks of ?
Functionless organs of some sort are the heritage of
almost every species. AYe have ways of seeming to ac-
count for them — and of late one which may really ac-
count for them — but they are unaccountable on the
principle of design. Some, shutting their eyes to the
difficulty, deny that we know them to be functionless,
and prefer to believe they must have a use because
they exist, and are more or less connected with or-
gans which are correlated to obvious use ; but only
blindfolded persons care to tread the round of so nar-
row a circle. Of late some such abortive organs in
flowers and fruits are found to have a use, though not
the use of their kind. But unwavering believers in de-
sign should not trust too much to instances of this
sort. There is an old adage that, if anything be kept
long enough, a use will be found for it. If the follow-
ing up of this line, when it comes in our way, should
bring us round again to a teleological principle, it
will not be one which conforms to the prevalent ideas
now attacked.

It is commonly said that abortive and useless or-
gans exist for the sake of symmetry, or as parts of a
plan. To say this, and stop there, is a fine instance
of mere seeming to say something. For, under the
principle of design, what is the sense of introducing
useless parts into a useful organism, and what shadow
of explanation does " sjnnmetry " give ? To go fur-

372 DARWINIANA.

ther and explain the cause of the sjmmetiy and how
abortive organs came to be, is more to the purpose,
but it introduces quite another principle than that of
design. The difficulty recurs in a somewhat different
form when an organ is useful and of exquisite per-
fection in some species, but functionless in another.
An organ, such as an eye, strikes us by its exquisite
and, as we say, perfect adaptation and utility in some
animal; it is found repeated, still useful but destitute
of many of its adaptations, in some animal of lower
grade ; in some one lower still it is rudimentary and
useless. It is asked, If the first was so created for its
obvious and actual use, and the second for such use as
it has, what was the design of the third ? One more
case, in which use after all is well subserved, we cite
from the article already much quoted fi'om :

" It is well known that certain fishes {Pleuronecta) display
the singularity of having both eyes on the same side of their
head, one eye being placed a little higher than the other. This
arrangement has its utility ; for the Pleuronecta, swimming on
their side quite near the bottom of the sea, have little occasion
-for their eyesight except to observe what is going on above
them. But the detail to which we would call notice is, that
the original position of the eyes is symmetrical in these fishes,
and that it is only at a certain point of their development that
the anomaly is manifested, one of the eyes passing to the other
side of the head. It is almost inconceivable that an intelligent
being should have selected such an arrangement ; and that, in-
tending the eyes to be used only on one side of the head, he
should have placed them originally on different sides."

Then the waste of being is enormous, far beyond
the common apprehension. Seeds, eggs, and other
germs, are designed to be plants and animals, but not

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 373

one of a tliousand or of a million acliieves its destiny.
Those that Ml into fitting places and in fitting num-
bers find beneficent provision, and, if they were to
wake to consciousness, might argue design from the
adaptation of their surroundings to their well-being.
But what of the vast majority that perish ? As of
the light of the sun, sent forth in all directions, only
a minute portion is intercepted by the earth or other
planets where some of" it may be utilized for present
or future life, so of potential organisms, or organisms
begun, no larger proportion attain the presumed end
of their creation.

" Destruction, therefore, is the rule ; life is the exception.
We notice chiefly the exception — namely, the lucky prize-win-
ner in the lottery — and take but little thought about the losers,
who vanish from our field of observation, and whose number
it is often impossible to estimate. But, in this question of de-
sign, the losers are important witnesses. If the maxim '■audi
alteram i)artem ' is applicable anywhere, it is applicable here.
We must hear both sides, and the testimony of the seed fallen
on good ground must be corrected by the testimony of that
which falls by the wayside, or on the rocks. When we find, as
we have seen above, that the sowing is a scattering at random,
and that, for one being provided for and living, ten thousand
perish unprovided for, we must allow that the existing order
would be accounted as the worst disorder in any human sphere
of action."

It is urged, moreover, that all this and nnicli more
applies equally to the past stages of our earth and its
immensely long and varied succession of former in-
habitants, different from, yet intimately connected
with, the present. It is not one specific creation tliat
the question has to deal with — as was thought not very

374 • DAEWn^'IAI^A.

many years ago — but a series of creations through
countless ages, and of wliicli the beginning is un-
known.

These references touch a few out of many points,
and merely allude to some of the difficulties which
the unheeding pass by, but which, when brought be-
fore the mind, are seen to be stupendous.

Somewhat may be justly, or at least plausibly,
said in reply to all this from the ordinary standpoint,
but probably not to much effect. There were always
insuperable difficulties, which, when they seemed to
be few, might be regarded as exceptional ; but, as
they increase in number and variety, they seem to fall
into a system. JSTo doubt we may still insist that, " in
the present state of our knowledge, the adaptations
in JS^ature afford a large balance of probability in
favor of creation by intelligence," as Mill concluded ;
and probability must needs be the guide of reason
through these dark places. Still, the balancing of
ii-reconcilable facts is not a satisfying occupation, nor
a wholly hopeful one, while fresh weights are from
time to time dropping into the lighter side of the bal-
ance. Sti'ong as our convictions are, they may be
overborne by evidence. TVe cannot rival the fabled
woman of Ephesus, who, beginning by carrying her
calf from the day of its birth, was still able to do so
when it became an ox. The burden which our fa-
thers carried comfortably, with some adventitious
help, has become too heavy for our shoulders.

Seriously, there must be* something wrong in the
position, some baleful error mixed with the truth, to
which this contradiction of our inmost convictions

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. ;>75

may be attributed. The error, as we suppose, lies in
the combination of the principle of design with tlie
hypothesis of the immutability and isolated creation of
species. The latter hypothesis, in its nature unprov-
able, has, on scientific grounds, become so far im-
probable that few, even of the anti-Darwinian natu-
ralists, now hold to it ; and, whatever may once have
been its religious claims, it is at present a hinderance
rather than a help to any just and consistent teleology.

By the adoption of the Darwinian hypothesis, or
something like it, which we incline to favor, many of
the difficulties are obviated, and others diminished.
In the comprehensive and far-reaching teleology
which may take the place of the former narrow con-
ceptions, organs and even faculties, useless to the
individual, find their explanation and reason of l;)eing.
Either they have done service in the past, or they
may do service in the future. They may have been
essentially useful in one way in a past species, and,
though now functionless, they may be turned to use-
ful account in some very different way hereafter. In
botany several cases come to our mind which suggest
such interpretation.

Under this view, moreover, waste of life and ma-
terial in organic Nature ceases to be utterly inexpli-
cable, because it ceases to be objectless. It is seen
to be a part of the general " economy of ISTature," a
phrase which has a real meaning. One good illustra-
tion of it is furnished by the pollen of ilowers. The
seeming waste of this in a pine-forest is enormous.
It gives rise to the so-called " showers of sul])]uir,''
which every one has heard of. Myriads upon myri-

376 DARWINIANA.

ads of pollen-grains (eacli an elaborate organic struct-
ure) are wastef ully dispersed by the winds to one which
reaches a female flower and fertilizes a seed. Con-
trast this with one of the close-fertilized flowers of a
violet, in which there are not many times more grains
of pollen produced than there are of seeds to be fer-
tilized ; or with an orchis-flower, in which the propor-
tion is not widely different. These latter are certain-
ly the more economical ; but there is reason to be-
lieve that the former arrangement is not wasteful.
The plan in the violet-flower assures the result with
the greatest possible saving of material and action ;
but this result, being close-fertilization or breeding in
and in, would, without much doubt, in the course of
time, defeat the very object of having seeds at all.'
So the same plant produces other flowers also, pro-
vided with a large surplus of j)olleD, and endowed (as
the others are not) with color, fragrance, and nectar,
attractive to certain insects, which are thereby induced
to convey this pollen from blossom to blossom, that
it may fulfill its ofiice. In such blossoms, and in the
great majority of flowers, the fertilization and conse-
quent perpetuity of which are committed to insects,
the likehhood that much pollen may be left behind or
lost in the transit is sufficient reason for the apparent
superfluity. So, too, the greater economy in orchis-
flowers is accounted for by the fact that the pollen is
packed in coherent masses, 'all attached to a common
stalk, the end of which is expanded into a sort of
button, with a glutinous adhesive face (hke a bit of
sticking-plaster), and this is placed exactly where the

* See page 340.

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 377

Head ot a motli or butterfly will be pressed against it
when it sucks nectar from the flower, and so the ])ol-
len will be bodily conveyed from blossom to blossom,
with small chance of waste or loss. The floral woi-ld
is full of such contrivances ; and while they exist the
doctrine of purpose or final cause is not likely to die
out. JSTow, in the contrasted case, that of pine-trees,
the vast superabundance of pollen would be sheer
waste if the intention was to fertilize the seeds of the
same tree, or if there were any provision for insect-
carriage ; but with wide-breeding as the end, and the
wind which " bloweth where it listeth " as the means,
no one is entitled to declare that pine-pollen is in
wasteful excess. The cheapness of wind-carriage may
be set against the over-production of pollen.

Similar considerations may apply to the mould-
fungi and other very low organisms, with spores dis-
persed through the air- in countless myriads, but of
which only an infinitesimal portion find opportunity
for development. The myriads perish. The excep-
tional one, falling into a fit medium, is imagined by
the Westviinster Remewer to argue design from the
beneficial -provision it finds itself enjoying, in happy
ignorance of the perishing or latent multitude. But,
in view of the large and important part they play (as
the producers of all fermentation and as the onmi-
present scavenger-police of ISTature), no good ground
appears for arguing either wasteful excess or absence
of design from the vast disparity between their po-
tential and their actual numbers. The reserve and
the active members of the force should both be count-
ed in, ready as they always and everywhere are for

378 DARWimANA.

service. Considering their ubiquity, persistent vital-
ity, and promptitude of action upon fitting occasion,
the suggestion would rather be that, while

" . . . . thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest,
They also serve [which] only stand and wait."

Finally, Darwinian teleology has the special ad-
vantage of accounting for the imperfections and fail-
ures as well as for successes. It not only accounts
for them, but turns them to practical account. It ex-
plains the seeming waste as being part and parcel of
a great economical process. Without the competing
multitude, no struggle for life ; and without this, no
natural selection and survival of the fittest, no con-
tinuous adaptation to changing surroundings, no di-
versification and improvement, leading from lower up
to higher and nobler forms. So the most puzzling
things of all to the old-school teleologists are the prin-
cipia of the Darwinian. In this system the forms
and species, in all their variety, are not mere ends in
themselves, but the whole a series of means and ends,
in the contemplation of which we may obtain higher
and more comprehensive, and j^erhaps worthier, as
well as more consistent, views of design in E'ature
than heretofore. At least, it would appear that in
Darwinian evolution we may have a theory that ac-
cords with if it does not explain the principal facts,
and a teleology that is free from the common objec-
tions.

But is it a teleology, or rather — to use the new-
fangled term — a dysteleology ? That depends upon

• • EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 379

how it is held. Darwinian evohition (whatever may
be said of other kinds) is neither theistieal nor non-
theisticaL Its relations to the question of design be-
long to the natural theologian, or, in the larger sense,
to the philosopher. So long as the world lasts it will
probably be open to any one to hold consistently, in
the last resort, either of the two hj^otheses, that of a
divine mind, or that of no divine mind. There is no
way that we know of by which the alternative may
be excluded. Yiewed philosophically, the question
only is. Which is- the better supported hypothesis of
the two ?

We have only to say that the Darwinian system,
as we understand it, coincides well with the theistic
view of ISTature. It not only acknowledges purpose
(in the Contem])orarij Reviewer'^ s sense),' but builds
upon it ; and if purpose in this sense does not of
itself imply design, it is certainly compatible with it,
and suggestive of it. Difficult as it may be to con-
ceive and impossible to demonstrate design in a
whole of which the series of parts appear to be con-
tingent, the alternative may be yet more difficult and
less satisfactory. If all Mature is of a piece — as mod-
ern physical philosophy insists — then it seems clear
that design must in some way, and in some sense,
pervade the system, or be wholly absent from it. Of
the alternatives, the predication of design — special,
general, or universal, as the case may be — is most
natural to the mind ; while the exclusion of it through-
out, because some utilities may happen, many adapta-
tions may be contingent results, and no organic mal-

' See pp. 358, 359.

380 DARWINIANA.

adaptations could continue, runs counter to sucli anal-
ogies as we have to guide ns, and leads to a conclu-
sion wMcli few men ever rested in. It need not much
trouble ns that we are incapable of drawing clear
lines of demarkation between mere ntilities, contin-
gent adaptations, and designed contrivances in ISTa-
ture ; for we are in much the same condition as re-
spects human affairs and those of lower animals.
What results are comprehended in a plan, and what
are incidental, is often more than we can readily de-
termine in matters open to observation. And in plans
executed mediately or indirectly, and for ends com-
prehensive and far-reaching, many purposed steps
must appear to us incidental or meaningless. But the
higher the intelligence, the more fully will the inci-
dents enter into the plan, and the more universal
and interconnected may the ends be. Trite as the
remark is, it would seem still needful to insist that
the failure of a finite being to compass the designs of
an infinite mind should not invalidate its conclusions
respecting proximate ends which he can understand.
It is just as in physical science, where, as our knowl-
edge and grasp increase, and happy discoveries are
m!ide, wider generalizations are formed, which com-
monly comprehend, rather than destroy, the earlier
and partial ones. So, too, the " sterility " of the
old doctrine of final causes in science, and the pre-
sumptuous uses made of them, when it was sup-
posed that every adapted arrangement or. structure
existed for this or that direct and special end, and
for no other, can hardly be pressed to the conclusion
that there are no final causes, i. e., ultimate reasons

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 381

of things/ Design in Katnre is distinguished from
that in human affairs — as it fittingly should he — ])y
all comprehensiveness and system. Its theological
synonym is Providence. Its application in particular
is surrounded by similar insoluble difiiculties ; never-
theless, both are bound up with theism.

Probably few at the present day will maintain
that Darwinian evolution is incompatible with the
principle of design ; but some insist that the theory
can dispense with, and in fact supersedes, this prin-
ciple.

The Westminster Remewer cleverly expounds how
it does so. The exposition is too long to quote, and
an abstract is unnecessary, for the argument adverse
to design is, as usual, a mere summation or illustration
of the. facts and assumptions of the hypothesis itself,
by us freely admitted. Simplest forms began ; varia-
tions occurred among them ; under the competition
consequent upon the arithmetical or geometrical pro-
gression in numbers, only the fittest for the condi-
tions survive and propagate, vary further, and are
similarly selected ; and so on.

" Progress having once begun by the establishment of spe-
cies, the laws of atavism and variability will suffice to tell the
remainder of the story. The colonies gifted with the faculty
of forming others in their likeness will soon by their increase
become sole masters of the field; but the common enemy be-
ing thus destroyed, the struggle for life will bo renewed among

1 '< No single and limited good can be assigned by us as the final
cause of any contrivance in Nature. The real final cause .... is
the sum of all the uses to which it is ever to be put. Any use to
which a contrivance of Nature is put, we may be sure, is a part of its
final cause."— (G. F. Wright, in The Neio-Englandcr, October, 1871.)

17

882 DARWINIANA.

the conquerors. The saying that ' a house divided against
itself cannot stand,' receives in Nature its flattest contradic-
tion. Civil war is here the very instrument of progress ; it
brings about the survival of the fittest. Original diiferences in
the cell-colonies, however slight, will bring about diflerences
of life and action ; the latter, continued through successive
generations, will widen the original differences of structure;
innumerable species will. thus spring up, branching forth in
every direction from the original stock; and the competition
of these species among each other for the ground they occupy,
or the food they seek, will bring out and develop the powers
of the rivals. One chief cause of superiority will lie in the
division of labor instituted by each colony ; or, in other words,
in the localization of the colony's functions. In the primitive
associations (as in the lowest organisms existing now), each cell
performed much the same work as its neighbor, and the func-
tions necessary to the existence of the whole (alimentation,
digestion, respiration, etc.) were exercised by every colonist in
his own behalf. Social life, however, acting upon the cells as
it acts upon the members of a human family, soon created dif-
ferences among them — differences ever deepened by continu-
ance, and which, by narrowing the limits of each colonist's ac-
tivity, and increasing his dependence on the rest, rendered him
fitter for his special task. Each function was thus gradually
monopolized ; but it came to be the appanage of a single group
of cells, or organ ; and so excellent did this ■ arrangement
prove, so greatly were the powers of each commonwealth en-
hanced by the division of its labor, that the more organs a
colony possessed, the more likely it was to succeed in its strug-
gle for life. . . . We shall go no further, for the reader will
easily fill out the remainder of the picture for himself. Man is
but an immense colony of cells, in which the division of labor,
together with the centralization of the nervous system, has
reached its highest limit. It is chiefly to this that his superi-
ority is due ; a superiority so great, as regards certain functions
of the brain, that he may be excused for having denied his
humbler relatives, and dreamed that, standing alone in the cen-
tre of the universe, sun, moon, and stara, were made for him."

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3S3

Let us learn from tlie same writer how both eved

ft.

of the flomider get, quite unintentionally, on the Bume
side of the head. The writer makes much of this case
{see p. 3Y2), and we are not disposed to pass it by :

"A similar application may be made to the PleuTonect'i.
Presmnablj, these fishes had adopted their peculiar mode of
swimming long before the position of their eyes became adapted
to it. A spontaneous variation occurred, consisting in the pas-
sage of one eye to the opposite side of the head ; and this varia-
tion afforded its possessors such increased facilities of sight tbat
in the course of time the exception became the rule. But the
remarkable point is, that the law of heredity not only preserved
the variation itself, but the date of its occurrence; and tliat,
altliough for thousands of years the adult Pleuronecta have had
both eyes on the same side, the young still continue during their
earlier development to exhibit the contrary arrangement, just
as if the variation still occurred spontaneously."

Here a wonderful and one would say miaccountaljle
transference takes place in a short time. As Steen-
strup showed, one eye actually passes through the
head while the young fish is growing. AVe ask how
this comes about ; and we are told, truly enough, that
it takes place in each generation because it did so in
the parents and in the whole line of ancestors, Why
offspring should be like parent is more than any one
can explain ; but so it is, in a manner so nearly fixed
and settled that we can count on it ; yet not from any
absolute necessity that we know of, and, indeed, with
sufficiently striking difference now and then to demon-
strate that it might have been otherwise, or is so in a
notable degree. This transference of one eye througli
the head, from the side where it would be nearly use-
less to that in which it may help the other, bears all

384 * DARWINIANA.

tlie marks of purpose, and so carries tlie implication
of design. The case is adduced as part of the evi-
dence that Darwinian evolution supersedes design.
But how ? ]^ot certainly in the way this goes on from
generation to generation ; therefore, doubtless in the
way it began. So we look for the explanation of how
it came about at the first unintentionally or. acciden-
tally ; how, under known or supposed conditions, it
must have happened, or at least was likely to hap-
pen. And we read, "A spontaneous variation oc-
curred, consisting in the passage of one eye to the
opposite side of the head." That is all; and we
suppose there is nothing more to be said. In short,
this surprising thing was undesigned because it took
place, and has taken place ever since ! The writer
presumes, moreover (but this is an obiter dictwn)^ that
the peculiarity originated long after flounders had
fixed the habit of swimming on one side (and in this
particular case it is rather difficult to see how the two
may have gone on ^:>(2?'^ passu), and so he cuts away
all obvious occasion for the alteration through the
summation of slight variations in one direction, each
bringing some advantage.

This is a strongly-marked case; but its features,
although unusually prominent, are like those of the
general run of the considerations by which evolution
is supposed to exclude design. Those of the penul-
timate citation and its context are all of the same
stamj). The differences which begin as variations are
said to be spontaneous — a metaphorical word of wide
meanings — are inferred to be casual (whereas we only
know them to be occult), or to be originated by sur-

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 385

rounding agencies (wliicli is not in a just sense true) ;
they are legitimately inferred to be led on Ly natural
selection, wholly new structures or organs appear, no
one can say how, certainly no one can show that they
are necessary outcomes of what preceded ; and these
two are through natural selection kept in harmony
with tlie surroundings, adapted to different ones,
diversified, and perfected ; pui-poses are all along sub-
served through exquisite adaptations ; and yet the
whole is thought to be undesigned, not because of
any assigned reason why this or that must have been
thus or so, but simply because they all occurred in
IS^ature ! The Darwinian theory implies that the
birth and development of a species are as natural as
those of an individual, are facts of the same kind in a
higher order. The alleged proof of the absence of
design from it amounts to a simple reiteration of the
statement, with particulars. Xow, the marks of con-
trivance in the structure of animals used not to be
questioned because of their com.ing in the way of
birth and development. It is curious that a further
extension of this birth and development should be
held to disprove them. It appears to us that all this
is begging the question against design in Mature, in-
stead of proving that it may be dispensed with.

Two things have helped on this confusion. One
is the notion of the direct and independent creation
of species, with only an ideal connection between
them, to question which was thought to question the
principle of design. The other is a wrong idea of
the natui'e and province of natural selection. In
former papers we have over and over explained the

X

386 DAEWINIANA.

Darwinian doctrine in this respect. It may be briefly
illustrated tlins: Natural selection is not the wind
which propels the vessel, but the rudder which, by
friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the
course. The rudder acts while the vessel is in mo-
tion, effects nothing when it is at rest. Yariation
answers to the wind : " Thou hear est the sound there-
of, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it
goeth."" Its course is controlled by natural selection,
the action of which, at any given moment, is seem-
ingly small or insensible ; but the ultimate results are
great. This proceeds mainly through outward influ-
ences. But we are more and more convinced that
variation, and therefore the ground of adaptation, is
not a product of, but a response to, the action of the
environment. Yariations, in other words, the differ-
ences between individual plants and animals, however
originated, are evidently not from without but from
within — not physical but physiological.

We cannot here assign particularly the reasons
for this opinion. But we notice that the way in
w^hich varieties make their appearance strongly sug-
gests it^ The variations of plants which spring up in
a seed-bed, for instance, seem to be in no assignable
relation to the external conditions. They arise, as we
say, spontaneously, and either with decided characters
from the first, or with obvious tendencies in one or
few directions. The occult power, whatever it be,
does not seeni in any given case to act vaguely, pro-
ducing all sorts of variations from a common centre,
to be reduced by the struggle for life to fewness and
the appearance of order ; there are, rather, orderly in-

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 387

di cations from tlie first. Tlie variations of which we
speak, as originating in no obvious causal rehition to
the external conditions, do not include dwarfed ur
starved, and gigantesque or luxuriant forms, and
those drawn up or expanded on the one hand, or con-
tracted and hardened on the other, by the direct dif-
ference in the supply of food and moisture, light and
heat.. Here the action of the environment is both
obvious and direct. But such cases do not count for
much in evolution.

Moreover, while we see how the mere struggle and
interplay among occurring forms may improve them
and lead them on, we cannot well imagine how the
'adaptations which arrest our attention are thereby
secured. Our difficulty, let it be understood, is not
about the natural origination of organs. To the tri-
umphant outcry, " How can an organ, such as an eye,
be formed under J^ature ? " we would respond witli a
parallel question. How can a complex and elaborate
organ, such as a nettle-sting, be formed under Na-
ture ? But it is so formed. In the same species
some individuals have these exquisitely-constructed
organs and some have not. And so of other glands,
the structure and adaptation of which, when looked
into, appear to be as wonderful as anything in Na-
ture. The hnpossibility lies in conceiving how the
obvious purpose was effectuated under natural se-
lection alone. This, under our view, any amount of
gradation in a series of forms goes a small way in
explaining. The transit of a young flounder's eye
across the head is a capital instance of a wonderful
thing done under Nature, and done un^accountaljly.

388 DARWINIANA.

But simpler correlations are involved in similar
difficulty. The superabundance of the pollen of pine-
trees above referred to, and in oak-trees, is correlated
with chance fertilization under the winds. In the
analogous instance of willows a diminished amount of
pollen is correlated with direct transportation by in-
sects. Even in so simple a case as this it is not easy
to see how this difference in the conveyance would
reduce the quantity of pollen produced. It is, we
know, in the very alphabet of Darwinism that if a
male willow-tree should produce a smaller amount of
pollen, and if this pollen communicated to the off-
spring of the female flowers it fertilized a similar
tendency (as it might), this male progeny would se-
cure whatever advantage might come from the saving
of a certain amount of work and material ; but why
should it begin to produce less poUen ? But this is as
nothing compared with the arrangements in orchid-
flowers, where new and peculiar structures are intro-
duced— structures which, ojice originated and then
set into variation, may thereupon be selected, and
thereby led on to improvement and diversification.
But the origination, and even the variation, still re-
mains unexplained either by the action of insects or
by any of the processes which collectively are per-
sonified by the term natural selection. We really
believe that these exquisite adaptations have come to
pass in the course of Nature, and under natural selec-
tion, but not that natural selection alone explains or
in a just scDse originates them. Or rather, if this
term is to stand for sufficient cause and rational ex-
planation, it must denote or include that inscrutable

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3S9

something which produces— as well as that whicli re-
sults in the sur\dval of — '' the fittest.''

We have been considering tins chiss of questions
only as a naturalist might who souglit for the ])rnper
or reasonable interpretation of the pruldem before
him, unmingled with considerations from any other
source. Weightier arguments in the last resort,
drawn from the intellectual and moral constitution of
man, lie on a higher plane, to which it was unneces-
sary for our particular pui-pose to rise, liowever indis-
pensable this be to a full presentation of the evidence
of mind in l^ature. To us the evidence, judged as
impartially as we are capable of judging, a])23ears con-
vincing. But, whatever view one unconvinced may
take, it cannot remain doubtful what position a the-
ist ought to occupy. If he cannot recognize design
in Nature because of evolution, he may be ranked
with those of wliom it was said, '' Except ye see
signs and wonders ye will not believe." How strange
that a convinced theist sliould be so prone to associate
design only with miracle !

All turns, however, upon what is meant by this
Nature, to which it appears more and more probable
that the being and becoming — no less than the well-
being and succession — of species and genera, as well
as of individuals, are committed. To us it means " the
world of force and movement in time and space," as
Aristotle defined it — the system and totality of things
in the visible universe.

What is generally called Nature Prof. T}Tidall
names matter — a peculiar nomenclature, requirin
new definitions (as he avers), in\ating misunderstand

IT

390 DARWINIANA,

ing, and leaving tlie questions we are concerned with
jiist where they were. For it is still to ask : whence
this rich endowment of matter ? Whence comes that
of which all we see and know is the outcome ? That
to which potency may in the last resort he ascribed,
Prof. Tyndall, suspending further judgment, calls
mystery — using the word in one of its senses, namely,
something hidden from us which we are not to seek
to know. But there are also mysteries proper to be
inquired into and to be reasoned about ; and, althougli
it may not be given unto us to know the mystery of
causation, there can hardly be a more legitimate sub-
ject of philosophical inquiry. Most scientific men
have thought themselves intellectually authorized to
have an opinion about it. " For, by the primitive
and very ancient men, it has been handed down in
the form of myths, and thus left to later generations,
that the Divine it is which holds together all J^a-
ture ; " and this tradition^ of which Aristotle, both
naturalist and philosopher, thus nobly speaks ^ — con-
tinued through succeeding ages, and illuminated by
the Light which has come, into the world — may still
express the worthiest thoughts of the modern scien-
tific investigator and reasoner.

^ ITapaSeSoTat Se imb rwu ap;^aiajv /cat iraixiraXalwv eu fxvQov (Tx^/iaxi
KaTa\eA.ei/ieVo toIs varepop, 'on Treptexet TO ©EION tV o\r}v (pvaiv. —
Arist. Metaphys., xi. 8, 19.

IKDEX.

Accident incidental to design, 154-157.
Agassiz, L., view of species, W, 16, 1C3,
191, 200 ; how ho diverges from Dar-
win, 16, 117,120,199; correspondence
. of his capital facts with Darwin's, 19^
theory theistic to excess, 14, 20-22,
154, 200; relation of tertiary to exist-
ing species, 49, 110 ; on age of Florida,
100; on prophetic types, 116; on in-
telligence of animals, 172 ; on destruc-
tion of species, 120; on geological
time, 100, 162; on design in Nature,
154-156.
Alaska, Sequoia fossil in, 22S.
Aldrovanda, insectivorous, 322. _

Analogy, use of, by Darwin, 47, 105; m
. proof of design, 365.
Argyll, Duke of, on creation by law, 2T5.
Aristotle, his definition of Nature, 3S9 ;

his theistic view of Nature, 890.
Atheism, relations of Darwinism to, 55,
5«, 69, 138 sq.. 154, 258, 266 5(7-, 269, 270,
279, 379; to doubt ordinary doctrine
of final causes not atheistical, 133.
Au2;ustine, St., on the method of crea-

■ tion, 357. ^ ^ ,

Austin, Mrs., on the Cahfornia pitcher-
plant, 330.

Bacon, Lord, view of Providence, 144.
Baird, Prof., on variation in the birds of

North America, 244.
Bartram, WiUiam, on insectivorous

plants, 305.
Beech, species of, now extending then:

limits, 186. .

Bentham, on the derivative hypothesis,

236,242. ^^ , -

Bible does not determme the mode oi
creation, 131, 291; a mirror of Provi-
dence, 142 ; interpretation of, partly a
matter of probabihties, 261.

Billiard-balls illustrate the proof of de-
sign, 62-64, 69-74, 77.

Birds, instinct of, 171.

Bladdcrwort, insectivorous, 823.

Boomerang, illustrating the method of
proving design, 72.

Breeding, thorough, 80 ; tendency of, to
reversion, 341; close, evil effects of,
354. , .

British flora, discrepancy of vioavs re-
garding, 34.

Broccoli, origin of. 111.

Brongniart, Adolpho, on distribution of
species in tertiary iK'ri<itl, 114.

Brown, Kobert, Bcieulific sagacity of;
etc., 2S4-2N9.

Budding, propagation by, relation ot, to
deterioration of varictii-s, 341.

Butler, Bishop, definition of natural,
61, 160, 259. 269.

Butterwort, insectivorous, 325; diges-
tion of, 325.

Cabbage, origin of. 111.
California, gigantic trees of, 207, see Se-
quoia ; general characteristics of fiora
ot; 208, 21b ; unhke that of the Atlantic
coast, 217.
Canby, observations of, on sundew, 293,

300, 322 ; on Sarracenia, 830.
Catastrophes in geology, 120.
Cattle, origin of breeds of. 111 ; increase
of, in South America, 89, 117; exist-
ence sometimes dependent on iusecta,
41.
Cauliflower, origin of. 111.
Caulophyllum, and relatives, dispersion

of; 222.
Cause, eflUcient, three theistic >aow3 oi;

1 53-168.
Cedar, species of, 188.
Chair, classification of, 167.
Chance, not admissible, 42. 55, 59, 68,

76-S4, 147, 153, 108, 170, 23.%.
China, relation of flora of, to that of

North America, 214 sq.
Classification, ditference of opinion upon,
.34; expresses judgments, not /<jc/w,
85,122, 184, 203, 2^9; expresses only
the coarser gradations, 126, 142 ; *etf •
Species, and Gradation.
Climate, as afl'octing the numbers of a
species, 40 > acts indirectly, 41 ; of the
north in cariy periods, 114, 224.
Climbing-plants, 331-337 ; fcid as well .i«
grow, 332 ; comparative advantage of
their habits, 334 ; cause of motion, \Wk
Cobbe, Frances Power, on the relation

of Qod to the Universe, 234.
Cohn, Prof, on Utricularia, 824.
Complexity of Nature, 41.
Competition sharpest between allied

species, 42.
Condor, rate of increase, 89.

392

INDEX.

ContingeBcy, Darwiuian hypothesis

based od, 52, 54, 76, 84, 86 ;* mingled

with design, 274.
Continuity of Nature, 123, 190, 284, 258,

273, 2S9, 328, 331, 379.
Creation, thi-ee views of, theistic, 158,

357.
Cretaceous flora, relation of, to present

flora, 233.
Cross-bi-eeding, essential to longevity

and vigor of species, 33, 346, 354.
Curtis, Rev. Dr., M. A., his account of

Dionaea, 293.
Cu\'ier, on the part animals have to play

in nature, 356.
Cypress, the bald, relation of, to Sequoia,

213, 225, 230.

Darwn, Charles, standing as a naturalist,
133, 283 sq., 287, 297; how his view of
species differs from the ordinary views,
13,16; how from Agassiz's view, 16,
117, 129 ; summary of arguments, 36,
109-116; his distinctive work, 37, 61,
273, 308-309, 827, 337 ; wKere his argu-
ment weakest, 47. 169 ; where strong-
est, 121 ; his candor, 169, 286; harmo-
nizes teleology and morphology, 52
121, 234, 247, 288, 322, 337, 357, 375;
does not deny creative Intervention,
61, 93, 143, 149 ; does not sneer at the
doctrine of design, 139, 140 ; never de-
pended exclusively on natm-al selec-
tion, 104; view of instinct, 173; no
atheistical intent, 258, 268^270, 274;
experiments with Dionaea, 294, 321.

Darwinism, still an hvpothesis, 58 sq.^
119, 128, 135. 179, 274"; compatible with
atheism, but not inconsistent with
theism, 54, 130, 159, 258, 279, 379 ; more
compatible -with theism than the the-
ory of gravitation, 55, 235 ; relation to
teleology, 57, 84-86, 121, 145, 151-152,
176, 234, 247, 258, 271, 272, 283, 337,
357; premonitions of, 88, 94, 238; re-
lations to Lyell'a geological theories,
1G3, 109, 110 ; objections to, 168-177 ;
argument for, from the distribution of
the species of the oak, 190 ; as stated
by Wallace, 191 ; present attitude of
^ naturalists to, 234, 236-251, 279 ; im-
plications of, regarding the indefinite
vitality of species, 848.

Darwinian Teleology, accounts for abor-
tive and useless organs, 371 ; for the
apparent waste of Nature, 376, 377 ; for
imperfections and failm-es, 378.

Dawson, on derivation of species, 236,
246.

De Candolle, Alph., on the oak, 178;
definition of species, 201, 202 ; deriva-
tion of species, 186, 200, 236, 239; on
multiple origin of species, 191, 239.

De Candolle, conception of the struggle
for existence, 37.

Des Hayes, on gradation of species in
the tertiary period, 49, 110.

Design versus Necessity, 62-86; distin-
guished from purpose, 358, 359 ; how
proved, 70-76, 84, 150-152, 16S, 301,
362, 865, 371 ; natural selection a
substitute for it, 69 ; can never be de-
monstrated, 70, 365 ; method of proof
illustrated by pump, 71 ; by boome-
rang, 72 ; by movement of bilhard balls,
62-64, 69-74,77; by the eye, 79-84;
by machinery, 85, 278 ; may act
through variation and natural selec-
tion, 148, 247, 272, 275, 288 ; evidence
of, complete in the individual, 151, 364,
366 ; all Nature a manifested design,
152, 153. 176, 274, 337, 379 ; manifest in
insectivorous plants, 300, 301, 314, 322 ;
in climbing plants. 335, 336 ; consistent
with three views of efficient cause, 158
ff, 272 ; not disproved by negative in-
stances, 369, 370, 380.

Dionasa, account of, 291-295, 320 ; digests
animal food, 019, 321.

Diseases, contagious, relation of, to nat-
ural selection, 241.

Divergence, how produced by nafural
selection, 91.

" Division of labor " m the organic world,
48.91.

Dogs, of diverse origin, 27.

Domestication, effect of, upon variation,
26, 29, 32, 184, 839, 340.

D'Orbigny, on destruction of species, 120.

Drosera, 291,295-301,310; sensitiveness
of, 312, 317.

Dubuque, address of Professor Gray at,
205.

Effect, as result of complex causes, 62-86.

Elephant, possible rapidity of increase,
38 ; Falconer on, 193-196.

Embryology, 118. " ,

Equilibrium of natural forces, 41, 42.

Evolution and theology. 252-265.

Evolutionary hypotheses should be the-
istic, 176, -199, 279, 381, 889, 390.

Evolutionary teleology, article on, 359-
390.

Extinction of species, not by cataclysms,
41.

Eye, formation of, 59, 60; illustrating
"design, 79-84.

Falconer, on the affinity of the mammoth
with the elephant, and the bearing
of the facts on Darwinism. 193-196.

Fertilization of plants, contrivances for,
346, 375-377.

Final causes, see Teleology.

Flounder, see Pleuronecta.

Flower, Prof., on the derivative hy-
pothesis, 236, 243.

Fly-trap, see Dionaea.

Forbes, Edward, on the dispersion of
species, 191.

INDEX,

3*J3

Fulmar petrel, the remarkable increase

oi;3a.

Gaston de Saporta, Count, on the orifjin
of tertiary species, I'JT, I'JS.

Genealogical tree, 17.

Genesis, the account of creation in, 131,
2G1, 2G.5.

Genus, dillicult to' define, 184, 204

Geology, incompleteness of record, 48,
IG'J, 263.

Ginseng, common to America and North-
ern Asia, 222.

Glacial period, as accounting for the dis-
tribution of species, 114, 115, 224 ; effect
of, on mammoth and elei)hant, 10;i-l'.)G.

Glyptostrobus of China, relation to Se-
quoia, 214, 225, 230.

God, relation of, to Nature, 51, 5S, 144-
16S, 199, 234, 257, 275 ; to the universe,
59; his presence required in a long
I)rocess of adaptation as well as in a
short one, 60,. 149 sq., 234, 256 ; imma-
nence in Nature, 61, 159; his thoughts
eternal, yet manifested in succession,
167; veracity of, in the works of Na-
tm-e, 371.

Gceppert on the antiquity of Taxodium
distichimi and other plants, 228.

Gradation, fi-om tertiary species down-
ward, 34, 101, 114, 115, 200; extent of,
in fossils of consecutive formations, 48 ;
between the tertiary and the present,
49, 110, 112; principle of, in organic
Nature, 123, 129 ; between plants and
animals, 124, 289, 803, 309, 323 ; ungu-
lata, 243 ; towards individuality, 125 ;
coarser in systems of classification than
in Nature, 126, 142, 1&4, 289 ; in climb-
ing plants, 335 ; in insectivorous plants,
827 ; of, in the species of oak, 180, 2u3 ;
between the cretaceous and tertiary
formations, 197.

Grady, Mr. B. F., on lure in Sarrace-
nia, 803, 305.

Greenland, fossil plants of, 231,

Grafting, effect on longevity of a species,
341 ff.

Grisebach, Prof., on geographical distri-
bution of species, 229.

Hayden, on fossil Sequoia in the Kocky

Mountains. 228.
Henslow, KeT. George, on evolution and

theology, 252, 256.
Heer, on origin of species, 192; on the

antiquity of Taxodium and other spe-
cies, 227 sg.
Hobbes, theory of society, 87, 89.
Hodge, Dr. Oharles, on evolution and

theology, 253, 257-261 ; on Darwinism,

269-283.
Horses, increase of, in South America,

89, 117 ; a former species existed in

South Amei-ica, 118.

norscliol. Sir John, on the relntiun of

God to Nature, 'J75,
Hilaire, (Jcoffroy St.-, ojipoHitiua of, to

teleology, 350.
Hooker, Dr. J. D., on Nepenthes and

S.arraceiii<i, 331.
Hume, on proof. if design In N:itur»', 8C3.
Hybrids, 50 ; how to U-at Btc-riiity, 51 ;

sterility (if, 175.
Hypothesis, domain of, 108, 119, 131, 132,

250, 259, 260.

Increase, r.ato of, in clephintp, 8S ; among
cattle and horses in South America,
39, 117, 118 ; caiLses affecting. 4<t.

Individuality, attained gnulunlly, 125,
343; not fully attained by plants, 34^t.

Inductive science, domain of, li, 9.1;
hmitation of, 47 ; process of, 23, 70
sq., 98, 101, 107, IDS, 112, 2<»1, 202, 244,
250 ; Darwm's method conformable
to, 37, 103, 111, 113, 114, 115, 119. 122,
244, 260 ; postulates the veracity of
Nature, 871.

Inheritance, more mysterious than non-
inheritance, 29; the only known caosu
of Ukeness in living species, 227.

Insects, agency of, in fertilization, 2->7.

Insectivorous plants, 2»9-303 ; and climb-
ing, 308, 337.

Instinct of animals, 171 ; of the TalegaL
171.

Intelligence of the higher animals, 172-
174.

Intention, see Design.

Interbreeding, when close, diminishes
vigor and fertility, 32, 2S7.

Iv3% Poison (Rhus Toxico(leiu{ron\
common to America and Japan, 221.

Jackson's " Philosophy of Natural The-
ology,^' 36;3.

Japan, relation of flora to that of North
Amei-ica, 215 sq. ; Grisebach on, 226.

Jussieu, A. L., definition of species, 16;},
201.

Kale, origin of. 111.

Kingsley, Rev. Charles, on " Evolution

and Theology," 299, 2S2.
Knight, Andrew, on effect of budding,

841-343.
Kohlrabi, origin of. 111.

Lamarck, his theory of transmutation,
28,52, 171.

Le Conte, Prof Joseph, on religion and
science, 252, 262.

Leibnitz charges Ne\vton with subvert-
ing natural theologv, 137, 25><.

Lesquereux, on fossif SequoLa, 229, 232 ;
on the relation of present flora to that
of the cretaceous ago, 2;<8.

Libocedrus, distribution of, 230.

394

INDEX.

Lindley, on the persistence of varieties,
338.

Linnaeus, definition of species, 12, 201 ;
diagnosis of the three kingdoms of
Nature, 308.

Lyell, Sir Charles, on the imperfection
of the geological record, 4S; on gra-
dation of species in later formations,
49, 110; theory of geological changes,
103, 109 ; acceptance of Dar^vinism,238.

Macbride, Dr. James, observations on
Sarracenia, 304.

Machinery, does not dispense with de-
sign, 85.

Malthus, on struggle for existence, 37, 89.

Mammoth, Falconer on, 193-196.

Man, sei)aration of, from the quadru-
mana, 50 ; mental power of, not
necessarily acquired, 59 ; may be an
exception to the rule, 92, 93, 256;
imity of origin, 99, 176 ; antiquity of,
100.

Materialism, philosophy of, rejected, 126,
158, 174 ; note, 176, 28.5, 250.

Melllchamp, Dr., on pitcher plants, 329.

Mill, J. S., on creation by intelligence,
861, 374.

Morphology, 52, 121, 122; reconciled
with teleology," 121, 2S8.

Mysteries, of natural operations, 53, 158,
317, 31S, 327; of Providence and Na-
ture the same, 153 ; in the action of
sundew, 312, 317 ; in similarity of off-
spring to parents, 383; proper to be
inquired into, 390.

Nature, definition of, 61, 160, 259, 269,
889 ; theistic views of, 158-168, 249,
257,390; see Continuity of; veracity
of, 370.

Natural history, province of, 209, 260,
268.

Natural selection, 34, 89 ; method of op-
eration, 44; a very expansive prin-
ciple, 273; supposed recent illustra-
tions of its efi"ect, 45 ; stiU an hypoth-
esis, 54, 135, 274 ; not inconsistent with
natural theology, 87 «(/., 137 sg., 255,
272, 386; how it produces divergence,
43, 91 ; not disproved by special mirac-
ulous exceptions, 93 ; not the exclusive
cause of modification, 104, 195, 337,
386 ; extent of operation, 104-109, 273 ;
not to be confounded with variation,
195.

Natural theology unshaken by physical
science, 22. 53, 84, 89, 95, 137, 150, 151,
152, 259, 337.

Naudin, Charles, views regarding the
evolution of species, 349 sq.

Nectarine, origin of. 111.

Necessity versus design, 62-86 ; how re-
lated to Darwinism, 69, 75.

Nepenthes, 331.

Nettle-sting, an example of the natural
production of a complex organ, 387.

Newberry, on the antiquity of Sequoia,
280, 232.

Newton, Sir Isaac, charged with sub-
verting natural theology, 137, 258.

North America, botany of, 206 ; former
climate of, 224; birds of, 244.

Novelties, difficult to accept, 87, 103, 247.

Oak, De CandoUe on, 178, 203 ; Linnaeus
on, 187; as illustrating the origin of
species, 179 ; a waning genus, 186 ;
dispersion of species, 188; in the Ter-
tiary deposits, 189 ; waste of pollen in,

Objections to Darwinism, philosophical,
^ 135; absence of close gradation, 47,
63 ; distance of man from quadru-
mana, 50 ; hybridism, 50, 51 ; special-
ization of organs, 52 ; novelty, 87, 103,
245.

Optimism, absurdity of, 141.

Orchids, fertilization of, 287.

Ostrich, increase of, 89.

Owen, Prof, evolutionary tendencies of,
68, 102(184, 136?) 238.

Paley, on teleology, 52, 57,

Pantheism, 55, 58.

Paraguay, relation of insects to cattle
in. 41.

Parsimony, law of, 360 (see Continuity
of Nature).

Peach, origin'of, 111.

Perfection, relative, 141.

Phyllotaxis, law of, 196.

Pictet on Darwinism, 105, 108, 109, 112,
127; on geological time, 162.

Pigeon, kno%vn extent of variation, 27;
why chosen for experiments, 28 ; re-
version of, 31.

Pinguicula, insectivorous, 325.

Pitcher Plant, see Sarracenia.

Plants, insectivorous and climbing, 289-
303, 303-337.

Pleuronecta, facts concerning, 372, 383.

Presumption against novelties, 87, 131,
132.

Probability, how far a guide. 47, 107, 260;
an elenient in scriptural interpreta-
tion, 260.

Progress in the succession of organic
beings, 115 sq.. 118.

Providence, mysteries of, compared with
those of Nature, 58, 142, 177 ; Lord
Bacon's view of, 144.

Pump, as illustrating the proof of de-
sign, 71.

Purpose, see Design ; distinguished from
design, 359.

Quercus, see Oak.

Eape, or Colza, origin of^ 111.

INDEX,

395

liodwood, of California, may bo disap-

pearinjj, 212, see St^inoia.
Relipion, as affected by Darwinism, 54,

175, 176; aud Science, by Joseph Lc

Con te, 261.
Eepreseutative species, definition of, 220,

226.
Kesemblance of progeny to parent,

cause of, inscrutable, 29.
Eevelation does not determine the mode

of creation, 181, 260, 261.
Keversion to aboriginal stock, 339, 341 ;

takes place in pigeons, 31 ; reason of,

81; not proved in general, 31, 339.
Eoth, observations of, on Drosera, 296,

297.
Eudlmentary organs. 371.
Eutabaga, origin of, 111.

Sachs, his view of the motion of climb-
ing plants, 336.

Saporta, Count Gaston de, on origin of
tertiary species, 197, 198.

Sarracenia, insectivorous habits of, 301,
302, 32S.

Science does not concern itself with pri-
mary cause, 145, 259, 263, 26S.

Scientific spirit, the, 95, 255, 259.

Selection, artificial, 30; may preserve a
variety which could not remain in a
natural state, 339; methodical, 81;
unconscious, 30; natural, 34, 89, 90;
probably hinders, 135, 196, 337; De
Candolle's estimate of, 192; Ileer's
\iew of, 192; Falconer on, 193-196;
confounded with variation, 195, 3S9 ;
relation of, to contagious diseases, 241 ;
to vaccination, 241 ; compared to the
rudder of a ship, 886.

Sequoia and its historj'-, 205-235; age
of, 207, 213; its isolation, 208, 230;
antiquity of, 229, 238 ; relations to the
bald cypress, 213, 225; to Glyptostro-
bus, 214, 225; to tertiary species, 214,
228 ; in the arctic zone, 229 ; to creta-
ceous species, 233.

Sexual reproduction, meaning of, 347.

Sisley, Mr., on individuaUty aud longev-
ity of species, 344.

South America, former existence of the
horse in, 117. *

Species, ordinary view of, 11, 16, 113,
129, 163, 199, 200, 201 ; Agassiz's \\e\v
of, 13-16, 117, 163, 164, 163, 191, 199 ;
Darwin's view of, 18-16,117; Dana's
view of, 11; De Candolle's view of,
191, 201, 202; Jussieu's definition of,
163, 201 ; Grisebach's definition of, 226;
Linnaeus's definition of. 12, 163, 201;
average numbers of individuals in, 39,
40; arranged in clusters, 97, 118; com-
munity of origin, how inferred, 12, 35,
111, 112, 113, 122, 182, 164, 183, 201,
283, 255, 2fri; distribution of, 98, 118,
191, 192, 200; in the tertiary period,

114; In time, IIS 238, 248 ; fmnMnu-
tjition of, how to bo jirovcd, 23 ; locul-
Ization of. 118, 114, 118,200; connec-
tion of, illustrated by a genealogical
tree, 17 vq. ; i)hy.sicul connection of,
not inconsistent with intiUertiial, 22,
58, 54, 95, 181, 146, 147, l.VJ, 160, ifj,

176, 284, 275, 27^ 279. 857, 860, 8s5,
889 ; do they wear out? 317 ; difliculty
of defining, 90, 97, 111. 122, 126, l4,
244; stability and [tersistency of, 175,
lfe5, 198, 888 «ry., 848 ; mode of origin
necessarily hviiothetii'^l, 129, 180, 131,
166; of the oak, 179 «v-, -'03.

Spencer, Herbert, philosopliy of, 250.
Spitzbergcn, fossil Sc(juoia of, 2-."<, 229.
Spontaneous generation, rejected by

Darwin, 98.
St. Clair, George, on Darwinism and

Design, 269, 2h0.
Sterihty of hybrids, how far proved, 50 ;

test of theories regarding, 52.
Struggle for existence, 87, 88. 41, 89,

SS'i ; conceived by De Candolle, 87.
Sundew, see Drosera.

Taxodium (see Cj-press).

Teleology, Paley on, 52, 57; of Darwin-
ism, 57, 84-86, 322, 874; reconciled
with morphology, 121, 210, 2^^ 357 ;
denial of ordinary doctrine of, not
atheism. 18-^140, l.M, 25s; not dis-
turbed by Darwinism, 145, 149, 151-
15;3. 176, 247, 822, 887, 860, 871, 875;
evolutionary, article on, 85f)-4^90 ; old
doctrine of, needs reconstruction, 870,
874, 380 ; old doctrine of. does not ac-
count for abortive and useless organs,
870 ; nor for the wastefulness of Na-
ture, 872 ; nor for imperfections and
failures, 87S. • .

Tertiary period, gradation of species in,
34, 49, 101. llii, 2<10; distribution of
species in, 112-115, 228-232 ; no hiatus
between the cretaceous and, 197, 19S,
238.

Theism, as affected bv Darwinism, 54,
181, 176, 2:34, 285, 24S 252-265, 807,
837, 879 ; by other physical theories,
54-56 ; by "nebular hypothesis, 187 ;
Darwinism compatible with, 67, 144 «f/.,
151-157, 199, 249, 2frS, 379 ; three views
of Nature compatible with, 1 58-168,

177. 275, 277.

Theologians, interest of, In evolutionary
hypothesis, 252 ; attitude toward, 258,
254, 261 ; deal largely in probabihties,
260.

Time, geological evidence of, 98-100, 162.

Transmutation, theories of. no novelty,
23 ; Lamarck's theorj' of, 23 ; of tho
" Vestiges of Creation," 24.

Treat, Mrs., of New Jersey, observ.iUona
on simdew, 298 • on lltricularia, 824.

Truth, search for, laudable, 95.

396

INDEX.

TuUoch, Principal, on the philosophy of

miracles, 199.
Turnip, origin of, 111.
Tyndall, Prof., on matter, .390.
Types, prophetic and synthetic, of Agas-

siz, 116.

. UngTilata, affiliation of, 243.

Unity of the human race, 179.

Universe, relation of God to, 57-59, 131,
152, 167.

Utricularla, or bladderwort, insectivor-
ous, 324.

Variation, cause of, unknown, 12, 76, 84,
157, 158, 170, 196, 337, 3S5 ; an inherent
tendency, 15, 96, 337, 386, 338; of
domestic animals not exceptional, 26 ;
extent of, undetermined, 27, 97, 111,
118, 203 ; eflfect of domestication upon,
26, 29, 203 ; more Ukely than inherit-
ance to be explained, 29, 207 ; not in
every direction, 147, 387 ; may be led
along beneficial lines, 143 ; among wild
fc;yecies, 174, 203 ; in the oak, 181, 185,

187 ; in the birds of America, 244 ;
compared to the wind Avhich propels a
ship, 386.

Varieties, do not dififer from closely re-
lated species, 35, 90, 97, 111, 112, 123-
126, 185, 200, 203 ; less definite than
species, 184; do they wear out? 333
sq., 345.

Venus's Fly-trap {see Dionaea).

Vestiges of creation, characterized, 24,
237.

"Wallace, A. R., formula of, concerning
the origin of species, 119, 191.

Wastefuhiess of Nature, 89, 372-374;
not objectless, 375, 377 ; of pollen in
pine and oak trees, 375 ; in mould fun-
gi, 377.

Westminster Review, article in, on de-
sign in Nature, 361 sq.

Whewell, on divine interposition in Na-
ture, 259, 269.

Winchell, Alexander, on the doctrine
of evolution, 269, 281.

Wind carriage, cheap, 377.

Wyman, Prof, on pitcher plants, 329.

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the first attempt ever made to produce a brief and simple history of science. The au-
thor has entirely succeeded In her labors, evincing judgment, learning, and literary
skill." — Episcopal Register.

A Hand-Book. of Arcllitectural Styles. Translated from the Ger-
man by W. Cotlett-Sanders. i vol., 8vo. With 639 Illustrations. $6.00.

" There is a great amount of information in the book. In a small compass. For one
who simply wishes to gain a full knowledge of the various styles of architecture,
written in a clear and interesting manner, the volume has not its equal nor rival In the
English language. This knowledge will be facilitated by the profuse illustrations, of
which there are not less than six hundred and thirty-nine, nearly all handsome spe-
cimens of engraving, among which figure a large number of famous buildings, ancient
and modern." — Evettitig Mail.

D. APPLET ON 6- CO., 549 6- 551 Broadway, N. K

JUST PUBLISH ED

Money and the Mechanism of ExcJiangc,

Vol. XVII. of the Intebnational Scibntifio SF.niEa. By W. Stanley Jevo.x s, M. A.,
F. R. S., Professor of Logic and Political Economy In the Owens College, Man-
chester. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, |1.75.

" He offers us what a clear-sighted, cool-headed, scientific student has to say on tho
nature, properties, and natural laws of money, without regard to local interests or na-
tional bias. His work is popularly written, and every page is replete with solid Instruc-
tion of a kind that is just now lamentably needed by multitudes of bur people who are
victimized by the grossest fallacies." — Popular Science Monthly.

" If Professor Jevons's book is read as extensively as It deserves to be, we shall
have sounder views on tho use and abuse of money, and more correct ideaa on what a-
circulating medium really means."— i?osto/i Saturday Evening OazHle.

"Prof. Jevons writes in a sprightly but colorless style, without trace of either
prejudice or mannerism, and shows no commitment to any theory. Tho time is not
very far distant, wo hope, when legislators will cease attempting to legislate upon
money before they know what money is, and, as a possible help toward such a change,
Prof. Jevons deserves the credit of having made a useful contribution to a depart-
ment of study long too much neglected, but of late years, we are gratified to say, bo-
coming less so:'— The Financier, New York.

Weights, Measures, and Money, of alt iVations.

Compiled by F. "W. Clarke, S. B., Professor of Physics and Chemistry in the Uni-
versity of Cincinnati. Price, $1.50.

"This work will be found very useful to the merchant, economfst, and banker, as
the arrangement is highly convenient for reference, and in a form and classification
never before presented to the public. It also contains a series of tables, arranged alpha-
betically, showing the value of each unit as given both in the English and the metric
standards. The metric system is used coextensively with the ordinary system, and
is a characteristic feature of the book.

"The contents, among other things, contain the following useful and comprehen-
sive tables, viz. : I. Measures of Length, in both tho English or American feet or
inches, and in French metres. II. Road-Measures in English miles and French kilo-
metres. III. Land-Measures. IV. Cubic Measures. V. Liquid Measures. VI.
Dry Measures. VII. Weights, and finally Money. This latter table is one of tho most
useful and valuable tables probably to be found, giving as it does the standards ia
dollars, ii-ancs, sterling, and marks, and alone is worth the cost of tho book."— .V. Y.
Commercial and Financial Chronicle.

""We commend this carefully-prepared and convenient volume to all persons who'
vrish to acquire information on the subject of which it treats."— i?os^on Globe.

"The work necessary to the production of this Uttle volumo has been judiciouslj
planned and skillfully executed."— CAicag'O Tribune.

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.

Works of Charles Darwin.

JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES into the Natural History and Ge-
ology of the Countries visited during the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle round the
World, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R. N. i vol., i2mo. 579 pages.
Cloth, Price, $2.00,

" Darwin was nearly five years on board tlie Beagle. A keen observer, and a genu-
ine philosopher, he has brought back to us a precious freight of facts and truths. The
work has been for some time before the public, and has won a high place among
readers of every class. It is not so scientific as to be above the comprehension of in-
telligent readers who are not scientific. Some facts and species, new even to the sci-
entific, are brought to light. Darwin's transparent, eloquent style richly illuminates
his observations. The weightier matters to which he alludes are interspersed among
more familiar observations, such as would naturally be made by a traveler passing
through new and wonderful scenes. It is an instructive and interesting book." —
Northwestern CJmstian A dvocate.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES by Means of Natural Selection, ox
the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. New and revised edi-
■ tion, with Additions. With copious Index, i vol., i2mo. Cloth. Price, $2.00.

"Personally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in geology,
a student of geographical distribution, not in maps and in museums, but by long voy-
ages and laborious collection ; having largely advanced each of these branches of sci-
ence, and having spent many years in gathering and sifting materials for his present
work, the store of accurately-registered facts upon which the author of the 'Origin of
Species' is able to draw at will, is prodigious." — Pt-qf. T. H. Huxley.

THE DESCENT OF AfAN, and Selection in Relation to Sex.
With Illustrations. New edition, revised and augmented. Complete in one vol-
ume. 688 pages. Price, $3.00.

"This theory is now indorsed by many eminent scientists, who at first combated
it, including Sir Charles Lyell, probably the most learned of geologists, and even by
a class of Christian divines like Dr. McCosh, who think that certain theories of cos-
mogony, like the nebular hypothesis and the law of evolution, may be accepted with-
out doing violence to faith." — Evening Bulletin.

THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND

the Lower Animals. With Photographic and other Illustrations, i vol., thick
i2mo. Cloth. Price, $3.50.

"Whatever one thinks of Mr. Darwin's theory, it must be admitted that his great
powers of observation are as conspicuous as ever in- this inquiry. During a space of
more than thirty years, he has, with exemplary patience, been accumulating informa-
tion from all available sources. The result of all this is undoubtedly the collection of a
mass of minute and trustworthy information which must possess the highest value,
whatever may be the conclusions ultimately deduced from it." — London Times.

INSECTIVpROUS PLANTS. With Illustrations, i vol., i2mo.
Cloth. Price, $2.00.

"In conclusion, we lay this book down with increased admiration for Mr. Darwin
as a discoverer and expositor offacts, and with great satisfaction at the increase to our
knowledge of plant physiology given us, as well as the ample promise of further addi-
tions as the direct consequence of the present publication." — London AthencEum.

" In this work Mr. Darwin's patient and painstaking methods of investigation ap-
pear to the best possible advantage. It is impossible to read it without enthusiastic
admiration for the ingenuity which he displays in devising tests to determine the char-
acteristics of the plants, the peculiarities of which he is studying, and, as is always
the case with him, he presents the conclusions arrived at in language so lucid that he
who reads simply for information is sure to be attracted and charmed quite as much a?
the professional student." — N. Y. Times.

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS.

By CHARLES DARWIN, F. R.S., etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
1 vol., 12mo. Cloth Price, $2.CXD.

" Mr. Darwin's book may be held up as a model of what a treatise should be that
is addressed to intelligent readers, a majority of whom, it is to be presumed, have no
special acquaintance with the matter under consideration. In style it is strongly
marked with Darwinian characteristics. The opening passage, indeed, allowing for
difference of subject, is drawn up almost precisely in the same way as that which ushers
in Chapter I. of the 'Origin of Species.' We have laid before us the circumstances
that led the author to pursue his researches in the first instance, so far back as i860;
then, step by step, we are treated to the history of those researches: fact is added to
fact, inference to inference, till at length the body of evidence, direct and indirect, be-
comes so overwhelming, that there is as little chance of controverting Mr. Darwin's
conclusions as there is for a fly to escape when once it has been caught in the cruel
embrace of a sun-dew. The modesty, the perfect candor, the scrupulous care to ac-
knowledge the labors of others, even in the most trifling particulars, are as apparent in
this as in the rest of Mr. Darwin's books. These Darwinian characteristics, as we
venture to call them, are only equaled by the apparendy inexhaustible patience with
which he has pursued his observations and experiments throughout many years." —
London A thenceujn.

" In this work Mr. Darwin's patient and painstaking methods of investigation ap-
pear to the best possible advantage. It is impossible to read it without enthusiastic
admiration for the ingenuity which he displays in devising tests to determine the char-
acteristics of the plants, the peculiarities of which he is studying, and, as is always the
case with him, he presents the conclusions arrived at in language so lucid that he who
reads simply for information is sure to be attracted and charmed quite as much as the
professional student." — N. V. Times.

" As a model of scientific inquiry, his work will scarcely find a parallel in any lan-
guage. It is utterly free from the diffuse verbiage which corrupts the style of so many
of the prominent German naturalists, and from the subtile refinements which so often
throw an air of romance around the physical speculations of French writers. In Eng-
lish scientific literature it has no superior in acuteness of thought, candor of judgment,
and felicity of expression.

" Mr. Darwin's manner is equally remote from the vehemence ot the polemic aiid the
indifference of the cold-blooded observer. His pages are warm with deep human inter-
est, but an interest inspired by the love of truth and knowledge, not by personal p.ission.
His anxious endeavor for accurate observation is evinced in every line of his writings,
•and, if he clings to theories with the earnestness of a discoverer, he clings still more de-
votedly to the facts of Nature which he undertakes to interpret. The scope of his ex-
periments illustrates the rare fertility of his mind, as well as his wonderful" patience.
The thoroughness of their execution is fully equal to the ingenuity of their conception.
No detail appears to escape his notice, no inadvertence mars the harmony of his state-
ment, no unwise haste disturbs the clearness and serenity of his judgment, and even if
one could be indifferent to his volume as a scientific production, it must still be admired
as a masterpiece of intellectual workmanship." — N. V. Tribune.

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.

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