V GERARD, S.J. EX LIBRIS. Bertram OL Jl. SBiitble, Science and Scientists SOME PAPERS ON NATURAL HISTORY BY THE REV. JOHN GERARD, S.J. SECOND EDITION LONDON CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY 69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, S.E. 1899 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY 69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.E. CONTENTS FACE MR. GRANT ALLEN'S BOTANICAL FABLES . . .1 WHO PAINTED THE FLOWERS? ... .21 SOME WAYSIDE PROBLEMS . . . . '45 " BEHOLD THE BIRDS OF THE AIR5' . . . 6l HOW THEORIES ARE MANUFACTURED . . -77 INSTINCT AND ITS LESSONS . . , IOI BY THE SAME AUTHOR UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME Price One Shilling, Cloth. By Post \s. -zd. SCIENCE OR ROMANCE? 1. A TANGLED TALE 2. MISSING LINKS 3. THE GAME OF SPECULATION 4. THE EMPIRE OF MAN 5. THE NEW GENESIS 6. THE VOICES OF BABEL The above Chapters, like those in the present Volume, may be had separately, price ONE PENNY each. flDr. (Brant Hllen'6 Botanical Jfables " Every one of these English plants and weeds has a long and eventful story of its own. In the days before the illuminating doctrine of evolution had been preached, all we could say about them was that they possessed such and such a shape, and size, and colour : and if we had been asked why they were not rounder or bigger or bluer than they actually are, we could give no sufficient reason, except that they were made so. But since the great prin- ciple of descent with modification has reduced the science of life from chaos to rational order, we are able to do much more than that. We can now answer confidently, Such and such a plant is what it is in virtue of such and such ancestral conditions, and it has been altered thus and thus by these and those variations in habit or environment " (Grant Allen, Flowers and their Pedigrees, p. 2). "The relation of our existing vegetation to preceding floras is beyond the scope of our present inquiry : it has been frequently made the subject of exposition, but to handle it requires a more lively imagination than I can lay claim to, or perhaps than it is desirable to employ in any strictly scientific investigation " (Address to Biological Section, British Association, 1 886. By William Carruthers, F.R.S., F.G.S., President of the Section). THERE is a very active and very influential school of philosophers at the present day who could invent for themselves no better designation than "peripatetics." Not Peripatetics, be it observed, in the traditional and transferred sense : Aristotle they repudiate ; and if he had the opportunity, the repudiation would probably be mutual. But, according to the original and literal meaning of the word, they are "walking" sages. They stroll out to the fields, or the moors, or the sea-shore, and every object they meet — beast, bird, insect, or weed — furnishes them with a text wherewith to enforce the great creed formulated by exact science and exact thought concerning the origin of the heavens and the i. 2 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables earth. The late Laureate familiarized us with the truth that in the lowliest of living things there is something that must remain incomprehensible until we shall have fathomed the whole mystery of being : — Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies ; Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower ; but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. Our peripatetics quite agree with the poet, that the key to all truth is needed in order to unlock the riddle of the flower's life ; but they differ from him altogether in this, that for them there is no mystery : they have the key, and therefore are they able to compel the blossom to display to us all that we should know, about ourselves, and about the forces which brought us into being. The writers with whom at present I am concerned, though they are not scientific men, yet claim to speak in the name of Science. They have not themselves engaged in original research, but they profess to expound the discoveries of specialists for the benefit of the general public, a large proportion of whom firmly believe that in them they are listening to the accredited agents of scientific thought. This is not strictly speaking the case, and yet scientific men have in great measure only themselves to thank for the confusion. Writers who publicly profess to popularize the new philosophy, should be publicly disowned if they misrepresent it. Men of science are quick enough to assail the exponents of the old belief when they seem to trench on their own ground: they ought, one would think, to be even more solicitous that the sacred name of science should not lightly be invoked on behalf of unsound doctrine. It must be remembered too that, whether scientific or not, these writers are eminently popular. They claim for their method, and claim justly, that they can be understanded of the people to a degree which is impos- sible for those who treat subjects in a more technical Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 3 fashion. Men who are quite incapable of even following an argument based on the structure of a tendon, or on the peculiarities of the "hippocampus major," can pick up a buttercup or a snail-shell and follow with intelligence and interest the lesson which the object is made to illustrate. The great doctrine of evolution can thus alone, it is said, be brought home to the general public ; thus alone can be satisfied the yearning, natural to men, for information as to how things came to be as they are. Now it is perfectly true that things are thus brought home to most of us as they could not otherwise be brought, and an opportunity is given us of forming a judgment on the subject, far more substantial than we could otherwise form. But it may be that this judgment will be adverse to the theories set before us, and that the insight imparted to us into the ways of nature will furnish us with arguments, not for, but against, the exhibitor's creed. The many must needs be mute when the question is referred to niceties of anatomy, but may feel themselves quite as competent to speak as any specialist, when the facts employed as data for discussion demand only a plain pair of eyes to examine them. Mr. Grant Allen is a notable specimen of the neo- peripatetic school. He has applied himself of set pur- pose to popularize the doctrine of evolution, — a doctrine which he follows to the extremity of determinationism, — by taking simple and well-known natural objects, and giving such an explanation as evolutionary principles afford of their more striking external features. He claims to have at least suggested the right way to go to work in the matter, even though he has not gone very deep. As I have said, I agree with him thus far. He has given plain people an opportunity of forming for themselves a judgment worth something on the subject before them, instead of feeling themselves forced to bow to the ipse dixit of a man who knows how to use a microscope or a scalpel. It may be worth while, there- fore, to take his various writings as a sort of running text on which to base some remarks concerning the 4 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables figure made by evolutionary argument, not to say by the doctrine of evolution itself, when thus brought, within the scope of ordinary vision.1 Apart from science, too, the objects to which he leads us may serve to enliven many a summer ramble, and his method, though we may differ widely from his conclusions, will, at least, teach us to use both our eyes and our brains. Which, being premised, let us stroll out with him into the country. One of his first texts is afforded by a Strawberry — a wild Strawberry. growing by a lane side.2 He undertakes to tell us in this, as in all his other instances, how such a product of nature came to its present form. No one, I suppose, in these days of popular lectures and elemen- tary hand-books, needs to be told that what we call the fruit of the Strawberry is not the fruit, but the receptacle or cushion on which the fruit is placed, the fruit being in reality the hard little brown nuts which, if we conde- scend to notice them at all, we usually call seeds. But while the fruit remains — to ordinary ideas — unfruitlike the receptacle becomes fleshy and juicy and red, and, acquires the flavour which induced old Isaac Walton to say, or at least to endorse the saying, that God could without doubt have made a better berry, but equally without doubt God never did. Now how comes it, asks Mr. Allen, that the Strawberry has developed the habit of producing this succulent and conspicuous cushion? It was not so from the beginning : this was not the " primitive form." The primeval Strawberry fruits were crowded together on a green, dry, inedible receptacle. Whence the change? "Why does the Strawberry develop this large mass of apparently useless matter ? " The answer follows unhesitatingly. For a plant with 1 The works I shall chiefly refer to are The Evolutionist at Large (Chatto and Windus, 1881) ; Vignettes from Nature (Chatto and Windus, 1881); Flowers and their Pedigrees (Longmans, 1883); and certain articles in Knowledge, incorporated in Nature Studies (Longmans). 2 Evolutionist at Large % p. 16. Mr. Grant Allen s Botanical Fables 5 indigestible fruits, like these little nuts, it was a clear gain in the struggle for life to be eaten by birds, and, consequently, to have something to tempt birds to eat. Some of the ancestral Strawberries chanced to have a receptacle a trifle more juicy than their chaffy brethren, and by virtue of this piece of luck gave birth to more than the usual number of seedlings, all reproducing and some farther developing the maternal characteristic. The most developed were throughout the most fortu- nate, till the present state of affairs was reached ; while the Strawberry plants which had not chanced so to develop were utterly beaten in the race of life, to the extent of becoming altogether extinct. By a like process the berries (if we may so call them, — for botanists will reprovingly tell us they are no such thing) became red, the colour serving as an advertising medium to let the fowls of the air know where the now luscious morsels were to be found. Now I am far from saying that this is an impossible account of the growth of Strawberries — I will not even say that it is very improbable. But Mr. Grant Allen gives it simply as matter of fact, as categorically as he would tell us that Columbus discovered the New World. Is it a certain matter of fact ? Are there no difficulties in the way of accepting his piece of history ? A very notable difficulty is sure to grow in the same hedgerow in the shape of a little plant,1 a Potentilla, first cousin of the Strawberry, and with a blossom so similar that it has been said, by some botanists,2 to be undistinguishable. This Potentilla differs from the Strawberry, we may say, only in this, that it has not developed in the course of its history any juiciness or edibility of receptacle. Its fruitlets — hard and indi- gestible as those of its cousin — remain crowded together upon a scaly and uninviting green receptacle, which no living thing finds it worth while to eat. And, strange to say, in spite of this circumstance, the plant has been 1 Potentilla Fragariastrum, or Barren Strawberry. - Lindley makes this assertion, which is, however, incorrect. 6 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables nowise beaten in the race of life; it is just as prolific and as numerous as the Strawberry itself. Now, how is this, if the history above recounted be so indubitably the true one ? Mr. Allen sees the difficulty and undertakes to solve it. And this is his solution : * " Science cannot answer as yet. After all, these questions are still in their infancy, and we can scarcely yet do more than discover a single stray interpretation here and there. In trie present case a botanist can only suggest either that the Potentilla finds its own mode of dispersion equally well adapted to its own peculiar circumstances, or else that the lucky accident, the casual combination of circum- stances, which produced the first elongation of the receptacle in the Strawberry has never happened to befall its more modest kinsfolk." But if this be true, how can the history given above be assumed as certain ? If we know so little about the matter, how can we be sure that the interpretation put upon the Strawberry's characteristics is the true one? Can we be positive that it has benefited by becoming eatable, if it is not equally plain that the Potentilla has been handicapped by not becoming so? To explain away difficulties by pleading our ignorance is very well, so far as those difficulties go, but the bearings of the plea will not stop there ; if we plead ignorance, we cannot claim to be heard on the score of knowledge. In plain language, therefore, the explanation we have heard comes to this, that we know nothing about either the one plant or the other, and have to be satisfied with guess-work, more or less ingenious. It is all very good to talk about discovering an interpretation, but more accurately the process should be termed imagining. Close to the Strawberry there will probably be found another plant which likewise furnishes Mr. Allen with a theme — the curious plant which the learned call Arum maculatum, and the unlearned "Lords and Ladies" or "Cuckoo-pint." By these names most 1 Evolutionist^ p. 23 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 7 people will recognize the large hooded blossom with a pink or pale-green knob in its midst, which Mr. Allen tells us is now known to be one of the earliest flower-forms still surviving upon earth.1 Certainly, if this be so, the history which he proceeds to give of it goes to show that much development has not served to make more modern creatures a match for this crafty and malignant antediluvian vegetable. But before we trace the grimmer features of its character, there is a question as to its fertilization on which popular writers seem now agreed, but which may afford some profitable study. Sir John Lubbock2 tells us, at great length, that it is of advantage for a blossom to have the stigmas of its pistil fertilized by pollen from another plant, and he cites the Arum as an illustration of the way in which this is brought about. This plant is monoecious, that is, it has stamens and pistils in different flowers, but on the same plant. These are arranged on the lower part of the knob already mentioned, the large green hood being no part of the flower proper, but a sort of envelope and protection. On this central knobbed column are ar- ranged, beginning from the bottom, first the pistillate, then the staminate flowers, and then a number of threadlike stalks, of which botanists a short time ago did not profess to know the meaning. Now, however, we are told — by both Mr. Grant Allen and Sir J. Lubbock — that they act as a chevaux de frise to close up the entrance of the cup in which the flowers below are placed, for these hairs point downwards, and the envelope is much contracted just about their position. Consequently, says Mr. Allen, they serve as the spikes in an eel-trap or lobster-pot. This being so, what happens in the case of the Arum, we are told, is this. The pistillate blossoms flower first, in consequence of which the first Arum of the season must go without pollen, and therefore 1 Evolutionist , p. 84. - British Wild Flcnuers in relation to Insects, p. 28. 8 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables without seed for that year. But there is something in the envelope that attracts small flies, which crowd into the hood in great numbers. Getting in is easy enough, for, as has been said, the hairs in the neck bend downwards; but getting out is another matter, and the adventurous insects must wait till the opposing hairs wither. By this time the staminate flowers have bloomed, and the pollen therefrom falls on the flies and dusts their backs and legs, and when on being released they proceed to plunge straightway — despite experience — into another Arum hood, they find the pistillate flowers mature and ready to be dusted with this pollen, thus securing cross-fertilization. This is a very pretty and interesting history : and to look at the picture of the Arum which Sir J. Lubbock engraves we should judge it to be very probable. But flowers do not always grow in the fields as they are drawn in books, and if the observer will go out for himself and find an Arum and slice it open with his penknife, he will probably find that there is nothing whatever in the chevaux de frise to hinder any fly from walking out when he likes. The threads are by no means thick set, they twist about and do not run straight, and there is generally plenty of room between their extremities and some portion of the walls. Flies there are generally in plenty, little black flies, so small that it would seem to be a matter of no consequence which way the spikes point, for they could pass between them. The real obstacle to egress is a condition which looks very much like being drunk and incapable. They lie, often many deep, at the bottom, some without any sign of life, many in a limp and languid condition, much like rioters who have broken into a wine-vault. Whether, when they come forth from their confinement, the fresh air, to which they have been so long unac- customed, gives them strength and energy to hunt up another Arum before they get rid of their coat of pollen — and Arums do not generally grow very Mr. Grant Allen s Botanical Fables 9 near one another — is a question requiring a great deal of very close and clever observation for its solution.1 But this is somewhat of a digression. The Arum is made to tell us a story which bears remarkably on that already related by the Strawberry. The former plant is not merely "one of the earliest flower-forms now existing on the earth," but probably the most virulent specimen of plant life that exists, at least on English ground, so virulent indeed that I hope none of my readers will ever dare to masticate even a small portion of its large glossy arrow-shaped leaves. The fruits are of the quality of the plant, and these fruits turn when ripe to a rich red colour, till they form "a beautiful cluster of living coral."2 When speaking of the Strawberry fruit, Mr. Allen tells us that "birds have quick eyes for colour, especially for red and white ; and, therefore, almost all edible berries have assumed one or other of these hues."3 But, if this be true, how comes it that so very /^edible a berry comes to appear in the favoured hue? Mr. Allen is at once ready with the answer. Its object, he tells us, is to attract the animal world in the shape of field-mice, squirrels, and small birds, but with treacherous intent : ' ' For though these berries be beautiful and palatable enough, they are deadly poison. The robins and small rodents which eat them, attracted by their bright colour and pleasant taste, not only aid in dispersing them, but also die after swallowing them, and become huge manure heaps for the growth of the young plant." ^ As to which, in the first place, if this be so, how have the robins and field-mice got on in the race of life if they have developed this insensate habit of rushing like so many bulls at everything scarlet? 1 Since writing the above in 1882, I have convinced myself that the Arum kills the flies which visit it, and absorbs their more succulent portions into its own substance. 2 Evolutionist, p. 86. 3 Ibid. p. 22. 4 Ibid. p. 86. io Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables The Arum is a very old-world and primitive growth. How did it so early in the history of the earth pick up what Captain Costigan would call this "aisy stratagem," which long subsequent ages of develop- ment in higher creatures have not sufficed to elude? But in the second place, is this a piece of fact or a piece of fancy? Are Arums usually, or ever, found to grow out from among the skeletons of robins or of shrews? I commend the question to the experi- mental zeal of my readers; the research requires only a strong knife or a small spud.1 From fruits and flowers let us turn to the leaves of plants, of which Mr. Allen speaks in connexion with Buttercups.2 Holding up one of these familiar flowers for our perusal, he thus directs attention to the leaves: "These, one notices at once, are raised on long stalks and deeply divided into several segments. . . . Now such a complex leaf as this shows by its very nature that it must be the product of considerable previous development. All very early leaves are quite simple and rounded ; it is only by slow steps that a leaf thus gets broken up into many divided segments. . . . There are some other Butter- cups, such as the Ivy-leaved Crowfoot, which creeps along the mud of ditches, or the Lesser Celandine, which springs in the meadows in early April, whose leaves are entire and undivided; . . . but both these plants, having plenty of room to spread in the un- occupied fields of spring or the unappropriated ditches, have never felt the necessity for subdivision into minute segments. They have free access to the air and sunlight, and so they can assimilate to their hearts' content the carbon of which their tissues are built up. It is otherwise, however, when similar plants push out into new situations less fully supplied. . . . The Buttercups have taken to growing in the open 1 See more on this subject in the Essay, How Theories are Manufactured. 2 Nature Studies } p. 99. Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 1 1 meadow where the competition for vegetable food- stuffs is keen and the struggle for existence bitter. Hence they have been compelled to divide their leaves into many finger-like segments; and only those which have succeeded in doing so have managed to hold their own in the struggle, and so to hand down their peculiarities to future generations. As a rule, just in proportion as vegetation is thick and matted, do the plants of which it is composed tend to develop minutely divided and attenuated foliage." After reading a passage like this it would seem as though, in evolutionary argument, instead of the theory being extracted from the facts, the facts are evolved from the theory. Here is a string of asser- tions fit to take away the breath of any one who will but go out walking and use his eyes. Firstly. "All very early leaves are quite simple and rounded" What is meant by earlyJ Does it mean "the earliest forms on the earth," or those which appear earliest in the year? If the first, how about grasses, which certainly are amongst the oldest forms of vegetation, but whose leaves though simple are very much the reverse of round? Or for those other forms which men of science are never weary of indicating to us as the primitive vegetation of all — the Mosses and Horse-tails — where shall we find more subdivided fronds than theirs ? If, on the other hand, it be meant that early flowering plants have round leaves, where shall we find earlier flowers than the Shepherd's Purse and the Groundsel? while the Spring Crocus, which certainly has the field pretty much to itself, reduces its foliage almost to the limits of tenuity. Next, as to the theory on which the whole argu- ment is based. "They have been compelled to divide their leaves, . . . and only those which have succeeded in so doing have managed to hold their own." How so ? How does the subdivision of leaves help a plant to obtain a larger share of "vegetable food-stuffs"? It is not the edges, but the surfaces of 12 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables the leaves, which suck in carbonic acid through the stomata, or breathing pores, situated chiefly on the under side. It is, therefore, amount of surface that should most assist a plant to gain a livelihood in a populous and competitive neighbourhood. But, cc&teris paribus, surface must be proportionally greater in a simple than in a divided leaf; it should, therefore, follow that plants growing where vegetation is dense are distinguished by having their leaves not divided. Mr. Grant Allen may perhaps find in a consideration of this point an answer to the complaint he makes in another place,1 that " the problem of the shape of leaves, ... a most important one, . . . has hardly been even recognized by our scientific pastors and masters." So much for theory. Now, thirdly, for facts. "Just in proportion as vegetation is thick and matted do the plants of which it is composed tend to develop minutely divided and attenuated foliage." The Butter- cup being the concrete instance in hand, apropos of which this is laid down, we may take for granted that the vegetation amidst which it is found is of the thick and matted order, and therefore let us go and view in any meadow that may be at hand the plants which press around it, and observe how far they can, as a body, be said to have divided and attenuated foliage. First there are the Sorrel and the Dock, concerning the shape of whose leaves it is hardly necessary to say anything. There is the Lady's Mantle, which by its name sufficiently indicates the form of its foliage. There are the three Plantains, all with leaves broad and entire. There is the White Saxifrage, leaves slightly lobed, the Cat's-ear and the Knap-weed, neither of them divided or attenuated. These are flowers sure to be found in any English meadow; could an equal number be named equally certain to be present which would in any degree bear out Mr. Allen's assertion about] the form of leaves in such a situation? 1 Evohitionist at Large> p. 37. Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables i If these criticisms be true, it may perhaps be thought that I am simply setting up a man of straw to contend with, and endeavouring to make a point against evolu- tion by fastening on an unfavourable representative of its doctrines. But it must be remembered that Mr. Allen's sermons are delivered in somewhat high places. The papers which we are mainly considering first appeared in the St. James's Gazette^ or in the rival Pall Mall. Like utterances were given forth in the journal called Knowledge — which claimed to be the newest organ of science "plainly worded, exactly described." In face of all this we cannot but take Mr. Allen as an authorized exponent of his creed, the only difference between him and others being that he treats of matters which we can more practically understand. Enough has perhaps been given in the way of examination, more or less minute, of his various theories. It will be worth while, however briefly, to collect some specimens of the easy way in which stepping-stones are found in the deepest places to help the historian forward to the desired conclusions. Thus we are airily told — apropos of Water Crowfoot — that one of the Buttercup tribe1 "took once, under stress of circum- stances, to living pretty permanently in the water.''' As to the migration of Salmon : 2 " The ancestral fish, only a hundredth fraction in weight of its huge descendant, must have somehow acquired the habit of going seaward.'" The Cyclostoma3 "is a gill-breathing pond snail which has taken to living on dry land" In these and numberless other instances, what is the greatest difficulty in the matter is simply set down as a fact, and then used as a basis by means of which to explain the rest. In the last quoted instance it is frankly declared that it is "the light cast upon the question by Darwinism " which vouches for the fact being as stated. In other words Darwinism, which by way of being proved, or at least demonstrated, is taken 1 Evolutionist at Large, p. 42. -Ibid. p. 1 1 8. Italics mine throughout. 3 Ibid. p. 177. 14 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables for granted to start with, and, as I have already said, instead of the theory being educed from the facts, the facts are made to square with the theory. Some very curious principles are likewise introduced which assist in the fashion of a deus ex machina over many an awkward stile. Thus, talking of the plumage of birds, we are told1 that "it is probable that an aesthetic taste for pure and dazzling hues [in the plumage of their mates] is almost confined to those creatures which, like butterflies, humming-birds, and parrots, seek their livelihood amongst beautiful fruits and flowers." Indeed! Do bees fall short of butterflies in this respect? The most beautiful beetles feed on filth; the goldfinch on thistle-seeds; the kingfisher on minnows and bull-heads. But another question arises. If there be the alleged connexion between the colours admired in mates and those which are found in articles of food, should it not follow that those creatures which admire any particular colours in the world outside should likewise consider them additions to the beauty of their own race ? And if so, how about men? Mr. Grant Allen tells us whence they acquire their appreciation of the various hues which meet their eyes : 2 " The reason why we consider these -colours pretty seems to me obvious. We are the descendants of ancient arboreal ancestors, who sought their food among bright orange and blue and crimson fruits in tropical forests;3 and those % fruits were specially coloured to allure their eyes, just as the speedwells and primroses and buttercups are specially coloured to allure the eyes of bee or butterfly. And further, as the eyes of the bees are so developed that these colours attract them, the eyes of our pre- human ancestors must have been so developed as to be attracted by the similar colours of oranges and mangoes, and tertiary plums or peaches." 1 Evolutionist at Large, p. 194. 2 Vignettes, p. 86. 3 See more on this subject in the Essay, HOT.V Theories are Manufactured. Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 15 Now if all this be meant for sober fact, should it not also be maintained that the arboreal race which was happy enough to live in a climate where such fruits hung on the trees all the year round, and in such pro- fusion as to afford a staple article of food, should have come to regard plum colour, or black and blue, as the most becoming hue, and the most conducive to good looks among their own kind ? And should not the "mulberry-faced Dictator's" have been an enviable complexion ? A still more pertinent question is whether there be the slighest tittle of evidence to show that there ever was a race so sustained, except the necessity of supposing it in order to find an explanation for the colour-sense. There is likewise a very curious piece of philosophy introduced under the aegis of Mr. Herbert Spencer, apropos of a donkey.1 This much misunderstood animal is in reality, we are told, quite an aristocrat among brutes, "one of the final developments of one of the most successful branches of the great progressive ungulate tribe." Being so high up in the social scale, he " really cannot well avoid being an extremely clever brute." But his cleverness is limited by physical con- ditions, and here comes in the latest addition to our philosophy on this subject: "He is not so clever to be sure as the higher monkeys and the elephants; for, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has pointed out, the opposable thumb and the highly mobile trunk with its tactile appendage give these creatures an exceptional chance of grasping an object all round, and so of thoroughly learning its physical properties, which has put them intellectually in the very front rank of the animal world." Here we have a prime example of the fatal facility with which theories may be invented and presented for acceptance, theories which the most ordinary obser- vation should serve to discredit. We are asked to believe that the power of " grasping an object all round "" 1 Vignettes ', p. 197. 1 6 Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables begets intelligence. Yet what creature succeeds so thoroughly in getting round an object as that stupid brute the Boa-constrictor? And how about the saga- cious Dog and the cunning Fox? Neither of them embraces its prey like the slow-witted Bear. The Parrot is said by some writers, improving on Mr. Spencer, to get the intelligence displayed in its talking, because it has a prehensile foot and bill. But the Crossbill has both, yet does not learn to talk ; and the Magpie, Jay, and Jackdaw have neither, yet talk not so much worse than a Parrot, and display intelligence, in other ways, far beyond his. It would in fact be just as reasonable to maintain that animals with big tails are cleverer than those scantily furnished in that respect, citing, on the one side, the Beaver, Fox, Magpie, and Collie Dog, and on the other the Guinea-pig, the Mole, and the Bat. Mr. Allen sets his face with much determination against the idea that there is any intentional beauty in the universe ; there is, in fact, no beauty in anything at all till it is "read in by the fancy of the human race."1 In a sense we need not very much quarrel with this, but evidently that sense is not his. What he means is that there is no sort of relation between the beauty we find in nature and the faculty by which we recognize it ; that the thing which we feel to be beautiful, and the perception of its beauty within ourselves, equally come to exist in a blundering hap- hazard fashion quite independently the one of the other. The subject is too large and too deep a one to be attempted here in any fulness ; it will suffice to set forth one of Mr. Allen's notices of it, leaving it to speak for itself. He is talking of the flower of the Lesser Bindweed: 2 "Nothing could be prettier than this alter- nation of dark and light belts; but how was it pro- duced ? Merely thus : The Convolvulus blossom in the bud is twisted, and the bits of the blossom which are 1 Evohitionist, p. 199. 2 Evolutionist, p. 200. The italics are mine. Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 17 outermost become more deeply oxidized than the other parts, and acquire a russet-red hue. The belted appear- ance which thus results is really as accidental, if I may use that unphilosophical expression, as the belted ap- pearance of an old umbrella. The flower happened to be folded so and got coloured, or discoloured, accordingly. . . . Four or five petals radially arranged in them- selves produce that kind of symmetry which man, with his intellectual love for order and definite patterns, always finds beautiful. But the symmetry in the flower simply results from the fact that a single whorl of leaves has grown into this particular shape^ while other whorls have grown into other shapes, and every such whorl always and necessarily presents us with an example of the kind of symmetry which we so much admire. . . . Thus the whole loveliness of flowers is in the last resort dependent upon all kinds of accidental causes — causes, that is to say, into which the deliberate design of the production of beautiful effects does not enter." Here is surely a key to many difficulties, and an antidote to much misplaced admiration. Let the reader remember next time he may chance to visit a print- works that the figures impressed on the calico are but a necessary result of the machinery : given that the rollers rotate, and that the stuff passes under them, the distri- bution of reds and blacks and yellows in the forms we see, follows as a matter of course. It is moreover to be remarked that the Bindweed is frequently destitute of these dark bands, though in bud it has been folded as described. There are many tempting themes to which Mr. Allen invites us, and not least when he decides concerning the Butterfly that it is "mainly an animated puppet," but yet "a puppet which, after its vague little fashion, thinks and feels very much as we do."1 Into these themes, however, I cannot now follow him, but before parting company I would try a specimen of his method on my own account, and, going out into the fields, look to see 1 Evolutionist ', p. 160. Italics mine. 1 8 Mr. Grant Allen's Botanical Fables whether there be not evolutionary difficulties as well as evolutionary arguments to be found there. First, let us look up to the tops of the elms, where the Rooks are as I write so busy with their nests. How came they to develop their nest-building faculty? These large conspicuous structures must be placed on the tops of trees to be safe. The first building of them must have been in such a position. But if the ancestral rook had tried the experiment of estab- lishing his household gods there before he had acquired the present architectural skill — would any young rook have survived to carry his dusky race down to the present day? To build dry unbendable sticks into a nest on a windy tree-top would seem to be but to prepare for it the fate of the historic cradle placed in a like position. I much doubt if, without the aid of twine, the cleverest man living, although in possession of an opposable thumb — as to which gift alone Mr. Grant Allen seems to say1 have his ancestors behaved better to him than those of a donkey — could with such materials construct a nest which should withstand the gentlest breeze, let alone a south-western gale. This is, at least, something of a problem. If from the tree-tops we turn our eyes down to the waters under the earth, we shall meet with another. How come the backs of fishes so closely to resemble the surface above which these fish live ? How, to take particular examples, does the Loach come so exactly to mimic the stones at the bottom of the brook, or the Skate and Flounder, as we see in aquariums, the gravel or sand on which they respectively dwell? It is not enough to say that " nature " enables them for protec- tive purposes thus to hide themselves. Take a dozen, or a score, or a hundred fish, and in no two are the markings the same ; there is every variety of detail, but one general effect of resemblance to the common object, just as in a long gallery of deal doors which a skilful 1 Vignettes from Nature, p. 90. Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables 19 grainer has converted into the semblance of oak. Now, how can there be implanted in a nature, by any blind and accidental forces, a tendency simply to resemble gravel or mud ? We might possibly conceive every fish being so provided with a black or red spot in one unvarying position, but where there is this strange evidence of an indefinite and yet artistic purpose do we not come face to face with what Mr. Grant Allen would deny, " the deliberate design of the production of effects ? " I have said that here I will conclude, at least for the present. A large and tempting field yet remains un visited —the question of the colour of flowers, con- cerning which Mr. Allen says something and Sir John Lubbock much. But this subject, if attempted at all, would demand an entire paper to itself,1 and should be treated with an amount of detail which, at present, I wish to avoid. My object is but to show how evolu- tionary argument looks when it condescends to come down to a field in which we can experiment for our- selves, and of what texture are the argumentative pro- ducts of that modern exact thought which we are daily told to regard as putting to shame the loose reasonings of our undeveloped ancestors. Theories and hypotheses have their place, and a most valuable place it is, in the field of scientific knowledge, and undoubtedly we do well to feel our way by means of them to the solution of problems which older genera- tions never attempted. But we outrage science and bar the road to sound knowledge if we take as proved and certain what is as yet but hypothetical and specu- lative ; and if, through a natural partiality for a system of our own, we get ourselves into the way of forcing facts to fit into it, whether they will or no, or neglect those which tell against it, having no eyes to see anything but what seems to bear witness in its favour. Of all this there seems to be only too much danger. We are in such desperate haste to assure ourselves 1 See the Essay, Who painted the Flowers ? 2O Mr. Grant Aliens Botanical Fables that we have sounded the bottom of all knowledge, that we cannot be content to acknowledge our ignorance, even when our ignorance is the truth. Hence, instead of patiently and dispassionately garnering the facts and sifting them, to see what they will yield, writers too frequently start with an assurance that they know the issue before they examine the record, and with an indignation against those who deny their theory which would be righteous if that theory were already demonstrated, but which is thoroughly un- scientific if Darwinism is still beset by a multitude of scientific difficulties. Is it not far more wise to say that we do not yet know, as in fact we do not, than to amuse ourselves with imaginary histories, and giving them to the world as contributions to its knowledge ? Wbo paintefc tbe 3f lowers ? IT may, I suppose, be without question assumed that flowers are beautiful. Whatever else the caprice of taste may command us or forbid us to admire, there is one fashion which, though every season repeated, is yet found to be ever fresh — the fashion of the Violet and the Rose; and there is no truth to which the common observation and the common-sense of man- kind have given a readier assent, than they have to the declaration that the most splendid of monarchs in all his glory was not arrayed as are the lilies of the field. So far there is agreement. But in these days of ours it will not do to rest satisfied with the fact : it must needs be asked how the fact came to be. That these beautiful flowers were made beautiful, simply as they are, that their gracefulness came to them as it comes to a copy of themselves on a Christmas card or in an artificial bouquet, directly from the hand of an artist, is not the sort of explanation of which contem- porary science will take account. But as the fact has to be somehow explained, science is ready to explain it, and that particular school of science for which there are no puzzles, for which the making of an apple is an operation nowise more mysterious than the making of an apple-dumpling, is here, as everywhere, ready with a full, true, and particular account of the process of their adornment and of every step and stage in the same. As usual, too, the explanation offered is not likely to err through any morbid deference towards the ideas of previous generations. It has hitherto been supposed that flowers are not only the most beautiful but also the ii. 2 2 Who painted the Flowers ? least utilitarian of the products of the earth ; that their chief function is not in any way to toil or to spin, but to adorn our fields and woods with the brightness of their hues and the fragrance of their breath, and that in the need of some such adornment to save the face of nature from too dull a monotony, is somehow to be sought the reason of their being. This, we now learn, is all wrong. The colours on the petals of a Rose are no more to be attributed to a purely artistic motive than those on the sign-board of an enter- prising publican. Flowers are in fact like nothing so much as sign-boards, which let the passing insect know where good cheer, in the shape of honey, is to be had ; and the blossoms which we see at the present day are what they are simply because they have managed their advertising business better than others, which they have consequently trampled out of the world in the keen com- petition for existence. This is no overstatement of the theory in vogue. Flowers, it is said, need the service of insects to assist in their propagation, and therefore must attract insects, and those which have best succeeded in so doing have best succeeded in the race of life. And consequently the various hues and their various arrangements which we see in blossoms have come to be there because their casual presence helped in the great work of attrac- tion, and therefore they were, by natural selection, "developed." Hear Sir John Lubbock:1 p. 6. Who painted the Flowers ? 29 literature on this side of the question is summed up by Dr. Asa Gray1 in the proposition "that all the various adaptations of flowers to insects are in view of inter- crossing." It is assumed, in fact, that by a timely deference to nature's "abhorrence," those plants which have secured cross-fertilization have produced a vigorous progeny which has stamped out the effete rivals which failed to avoid a contradiction of the fundamental law. " No continuously self-fertilized species would continue to exist," is an aphorism of the school. But the Cel- andine is a vigorous growth, making fields yellow with its useless cups, and with no mark of approaching extinction upon it. And how, failing its blossoms, does it contrive to propagate? Simply thus. In the axils of its leaves there form little proliferous bulbs, which in due season, dropping off, become the parents of new plants. This is the very contrary of crossing. For a cross, such as is postulated, two distinct plants should contribute to produce a new one, and here there is not the contribution even of two distinct organs. And this is by no means a solitary case : propagation on the same principle is adopted by very large classes of plants. Sometimes it is by runners rooting at the joints (of which the Strawberry affords a familiar instance), some- times by suckers, sometimes by buds, or by slips and shoots. And such plants are propagated in endless abundance. It has, for example, been said that all the Weeping Willows we see have probably been produced by slips from one common ancestor, for the willow is dioecious (bearing stamens and pistils on different trees), and there is no staminate Weeping Willow known in Britain, and consequently the tree never fruits ; 2 while, as is well known, all our cultivated Apples are propa- gated by grafting, each variety carrying on through all its members the life of one individual ancestor. Some of these varieties (for instance, the Herefordshire " Red 1 Ibid. p. 600. 2 A large number of the trees of this species have been propa- gated from Napoleon's Willow at St. Helena. 3O Who painted the Flowers ? streak " and " Fox whelp ") are known to have existed for nearly three centuries. Indeed, so far from being unduly handicapped in the race by their utter neglect of the fundamental law, these self-propagating plants are precisely the most rampant and aggressive of all, and the most difficult to get rid of. For instance, the Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens) is designated ' ' a troublesome weed " because it increases by creeping roots or scions^ which take root wherever a leaf is produced ; the Coltsfoot ( Tussilago Farfara) is almost ineradicable, because any fragment of its long and brittle roots serves to produce a new plant; and a variety of the Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratensis] merits the designation "remarkably proli- ferous " because^ while its flowers become incapable of fertilization, owing to doubling, the leaflets as they come to the ground produce fresh plants. There seem, therefore, to be facts, on the very threshold of the inquiry, which may at least justify us in pausing before we accept the doctrine which is so unhesitatingly laid down. But the most interesting portion of my task will consist in an examination of the case made out by the advocates for the insects. Before undertaking such examination of some facts of this case, which will raise some new points as well as some of those already noticed, it will be well to state precisely once again what is my contention. I do not at all wish to deny that insects are of service to flowers, nor, this being so, that there are many "arrangements" on both sides to secure that the service be effectually rendered. But given a fact, many modern writers are far too prone to found on it an hypothesis which depends far more on an a priori conception of the fitness of things than on the fact with, which it is thought to square. The hypothesis once stated is then far too often itself treated as a fact, and it is sought to make out a case for it by quoting other facts which seem to bear it out. The making out of such a case is not difficult, and is apt, quite unin- Who painted the Flowers ? 3 1 tentionally, to become a mere piece of special pleading. It is very easy to collect all the instances that tell one way, and to forget those which tell the other way : it is easy for a man who has too hastily assumed the truth of his hypothesis to see all facts through its medium, and to make them mean something which on more critical examination would be seen not to be their meaning. It seems to me that a conspicuous example of such a process is afforded here, when from the undoubted usefulness of insects to some flowers it has been inferred that all flowers have been entirely modified by insects in all those respects which bring them into connexion. It seems also that even so earnest and so painstaking an investigator as Sir John Lubbock has not escaped the danger above indicated, and has in many instances seen his facts with pre-determined eyes. In his work, British Wild Flowers in their Relation to Insects, from which I have already quoted the general conclusion which he seeks to draw, he runs through the whole British flora, and endeavours in the case of each family to establish the truth of his hypothesis. It seems truer to say that we need go no further than his book to find convincing proof that insects can not do all that is claimed for them. It is not easy to arrange in very logical order the points which arise from the examination of many separate examples. Having in- dicated my general drift, I shall consider it enough to arrange my strictures very much in the order which his work suggests. He tells us,1 with regard to anemophilous, or wind- fertilized flowers, that "it is an advantage to these plants to flower before the leaves are out, because the latter would greatly interfere with the access of the pollen to the female flower." Now it is true that Hazels, Poplars, and the like, flower before the leaves appear, and that they are wind-fertilized ; but no less so 1 Op. dt. p. 8. 32 Who painted the Flowers? do the Wild Cherry and other entomophilous^ or insect- fertilized, trees. Again, the large class of the Coniferce, the Fir tribe, are evergreen^ with one exception, the Larch. The Larch is also the one which is not wind- fertilized. In the case of all the others, Scotch Fir, Yew, Spruce, for instance, the flowers cannot possibly appear before the foliage. "Again," says Sir John, "in such [wind-fertilized] flowers, the filaments of the stamens are generally long ; " but again, I would remark, in the Scotch Fir and the Yew there are no filaments at all. Some woodcuts are given by Sir John to show how the stigma * in wind-fertilized flowers is more branched and hairy than in those fertilized by insects. No doubt, it is obvious that such an arrangement is but natural and to be. expected; but it is dangerous to deduce general rules from particular facts, and if the examples were somewhat differently selected, the conclusion would not be so clear. If, for example, the Apple or the Water-Plantain (Alisma Plantago] were chosen to re- present the entomophilous, and the Ash the anemo- philous plants, it might seem that the rule was re- versed. But these are minor matters, and are valuable only as showing how easy and how unsafe it is to generalize. To come now to the main point at issue, which resolves itself into two questions, (i) How far does it appear proved that the sole function of colour in flowers is to attract insects? (2) How far, that the service of insects is the main advantage to plants in the struggle for exist- ence? As to the first question, Sir John Lubbock implies2 that even in the case of two species of the same genus, the larger or more showy flower will attract the more numerous insects. But how does the theory so implied agree with the fact that many of the most insect- 1 The summit of the pistil on which pollen from the stamens has to be deposited for fertilization. 2 P. 41. Who painted the Flowers ? 33 frequented flowers are the least conspicuous ? Mignon- ette, for example : it is hard to conceive a flower offering less in the way of show, and certainly none is a greater favourite with bees. Again, many intelligent people might be in the habit of seeing trees all their lives, and yet never advert to the fact that the Sycamore and the Lime bear flowers at all — so unobtrusive are they. Yet these flowers are prime favourites with bees. If it be said that the size of the trees renders coloration unnecessary, how, I would ask, can such a position be maintained ? Amid so many other trees which produce no honey, surely a guiding mark ought to be as essential as in the case of blossoms in a field. How, again, account for the fact that so many large trees do produce conspicuous flowers — for example, the Horse-Chestnut and the Hawthorn? Again, though it be true that the Lime and the Mignonette bear sweet- smelling flowers, yet the Sycamore, whose flowers are the least conspicuous, is comparatively scentless, while the Lily, for example, and the Violet, are both showy and odoriferous. Moreover, as there are colourless flowers that attract insects, so there are brilliant flowers which contain no honey. An instance has been already quoted, namely, the Poppy ; which, however, we are told insects visit for the sake of the pollen. But how, in such a case, can their visits produce