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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lectures and Essays , by T.H. Huxley
+#31 in our series by T.H. Huxley
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+Title: Lectures and Essays 
+
+Author: T.H. Huxley
+
+Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6414]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on December 8, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LECTURES AND ESSAYS  ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher asschers@bigpond.com
+
+
+
+
+Lectures and Essays
+
+by T.H. Huxley
+
+
+***
+
+
+
+THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S NOTE.
+
+Of the great thinkers of the nineteenth century, Thomas Henry Huxley,
+son of an Ealing schoolmaster, was undoubtedly the most noteworthy. His
+researches in biology, his contributions to scientific controversy, his
+pungent criticisms of conventional beliefs and thoughts have probably
+had greater influence than the work of any other English scientist. And
+yet he was a "self-made" intellectualist. In spite of the fact that his
+father was a schoolmaster he passed through no regular course of
+education. "I had," he said, "two years of a pandemonium of a school
+(between eight and ten) and after that neither help nor sympathy in any
+intellectual direction till I reached manhood." When he was twelve a
+craving for reading found satisfaction in Hutton's "Geology," and when
+fifteen in Hamilton's "Logic."
+
+At seventeen Huxley entered as a student at Charing Cross Hospital, and
+three years later he was M.B. and the possessor of the gold medal for
+anatomy and physiology. An appointment as surgeon in the navy proved to
+be the entry to Huxley's great scientific career, for he was gazetted to
+the "Rattlesnake", commissioned for surveying work in Torres Straits. He
+was attracted by the teeming surface life of tropical seas and his study
+of it was the commencement of that revolution in scientific knowledge
+ultimately brought about by his researches.
+
+Thomas Henry Huxley was born at Ealing on May 4, 1825, and died at
+Eastbourne June 29, 1895.
+
+***
+
+
+
+LECTURES
+
+AND
+
+ESSAYS
+
+BY
+
+T.H. HUXLEY.
+
+
+
+    CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
+    LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK, TORONTO & MELBOURNE.
+    MCMVIII.
+
+
+***
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CAUSES OF THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE:
+
+ THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+ THE PAST CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+ THE METHOD BY WHICH THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT AND PAST CONDITIONS OF
+ ORGANIC NATURE ARE TO BE DISCOVERED.--THE ORIGINATION OF LIVING BEINGS.
+
+ THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS, HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION AND
+ VARIATION.
+
+ THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE AS AFFECTING THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING
+ BEINGS.
+
+ A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE POSITION OF MR. DARWIN'S WORK, "ON THE
+ ORIGIN OF SPECIES," IN RELATION TO THE COMPLETE THEORY OF THE CAUSES OF
+ THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+
+ESSAYS ON DARWIN'S "ORIGIN OF SPECIES":
+
+ THE DARWINIAN HYPOTHESIS.
+
+ TIME AND LIFE.
+
+ THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
+
+ CRITICISMS ON "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES".
+
+
+EVIDENCE AS TO MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE:
+
+ ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES.
+
+ ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.
+
+ ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
+
+
+ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY.
+
+
+GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE.
+
+
+CORAL AND CORAL REEFS.
+
+
+YEAST.
+
+
+THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
+
+
+***
+
+
+
+ON OUR KNOWLEDGE
+
+OF THE CAUSES OF THE PHENOMENA
+
+OF
+
+ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+
+
+NOTICE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
+
+The Publisher of these interesting Lectures, having made an arrangement
+for their publication with Mr. J.A. Mays, the Reporter, begs to append
+the following note from Professor Huxley:--
+
+"Mr. J. Aldous Mays, who is taking shorthand notes of my 'Lectures to
+Working Men,' has asked me to allow him, on his own account, to print
+those Notes for the use of my audience. I willingly accede to this
+request, on the understanding that a notice is prefixed to the effect
+that I have no leisure to revise the Lectures, or to make alterations in
+them, beyond the correction of any important error in a matter of fact."
+
+***
+
+
+ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE CAUSES OF THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE:
+
+
+THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+When it was my duty to consider what subject I would select for the six
+lectures* ([Footnote] *To Working Men, at the Museum of Practical
+Geology, 1863.) which I shall now have the pleasure of delivering to
+you, it occurred to me that I could not do better than endeavour to put
+before you in a true light, or in what I might perhaps with more modesty
+call, that which I conceive myself to be the true light, the position of
+a book which has been more praised and more abused, perhaps, than any
+book which has appeared for some years;--I mean Mr. Darwin's work on the
+"Origin of Species". That work, I doubt not, many of you have read; for
+I know the inquiring spirit which is rife among you. At any rate, all of
+you will have heard of it,--some by one kind of report and some by
+another kind of report; the attention of all and the curiosity of all
+have been probably more or less excited on the subject of that work. All
+I can do, and all I shall attempt to do, is to put before you that kind
+of judgment which has been formed by a man, who, of course, is liable to
+judge erroneously; but, at any rate, of one whose business and
+profession it is to form judgments upon questions of this nature.
+
+And here, as it will always happen when dealing with an extensive
+subject, the greater part of my course--if, indeed, so small a number of
+lectures can be properly called a course--must be devoted to preliminary
+matters, or rather to a statement of those facts and of those principles
+which the work itself dwells upon, and brings more or less directly
+before us. I have no right to suppose that all or any of you are
+naturalists; and even if you were, the misconceptions and
+misunderstandings prevalent even among naturalists on these matters
+would make it desirable that I should take the course I now propose to
+take,--that I should start from the beginning,--that I should endeavour
+to point out what is the existing state of the organic world,--that I
+should point out its past condition,--that I should state what is the
+precise nature of the undertaking which Mr. Darwin has taken in hand;
+that I should endeavour to show you what are the only methods by which
+that undertaking can be brought to an issue, and to point out to you how
+far the author of the work in question has satisfied those conditions,
+how far he has not satisfied them, how far they are satisfiable by man,
+and how far they are not satisfiable by man.
+
+To-night, in taking up the first part of this question, I shall
+endeavour to put before you a sort of broad notion of our knowledge of
+the condition of the living world. There are many ways of doing this. I
+might deal with it pictorially and graphically. Following the example of
+Humboldt in his "Aspects of Nature", I might endeavour to point out the
+infinite variety of organic life in every mode of its existence, with
+reference to the variations of climate and the like; and such an attempt
+would be fraught with interest to us all; but considering the subject
+before us, such a course would not be that best calculated to assist us.
+In an argument of this kind we must go further and dig deeper into the
+matter; we must endeavour to look into the foundations of living Nature,
+if I may so say, and discover the principles involved in some of her
+most secret operations. I propose, therefore, in the first place, to
+take some ordinary animal with which you are all familiar, and, by
+easily comprehensible and obvious examples drawn from it, to show what
+are the kind of problems which living beings in general lay before us;
+and I shall then show you that the same problems are laid open to us by
+all kinds of living beings. But first, let me say in what sense I have
+used the words "organic nature." In speaking of the causes which lead to
+our present knowledge of organic nature, I have used it almost as an
+equivalent of the word "living," and for this reason,--that in almost
+all living beings you can distinguish several distinct portions set
+apart to do particular things and work in a particular way. These are
+termed "organs," and the whole together is called "organic." And as it
+is universally characteristic of them, this term "organic" has been very
+conveniently employed to denote the whole of living nature,--the whole
+of the plant world, and the whole of the animal world.
+
+Few animals can be more familiar to you than that whose skeleton is
+shown on our diagram. You need not bother yourselves with this "Equus
+caballus" written under it; that is only the Latin name of it, and does
+not make it any better. It simply means the common Horse. Suppose we
+wish to understand all about the Horse. Our first object must be to
+study the structure of the animal. The whole of his body is inclosed
+within a hide, a skin covered with hair; and if that hide or skin be
+taken off, we find a great mass of flesh, or what is technically called
+muscle, being the substance which by its power of contraction enables
+the animal to move. These muscles move the hard parts one upon the
+other, and so give that strength and power of motion which renders the
+Horse so useful to us in the performance of those services in which we
+employ him.
+
+And then, on separating and removing the whole of this skin and flesh,
+you have a great series of bones, hard structures, bound together with
+ligaments, and forming the skeleton which is represented here.
+
+(FIGURE 1. Section through a horse.
+
+FIGURE 2. Section through a cell.)
+
+In that skeleton there are a number of parts to be recognized. The long
+series of bones, beginning from the skull and ending in the tail, is
+called the spine, and those in front are the ribs; and then there are
+two pairs of limbs, one before and one behind; and there are what we all
+know as the fore-legs and the hind-legs. If we pursue our researches
+into the interior of this animal, we find within the framework of the
+skeleton a great cavity, or rather, I should say, two great
+cavities,--one cavity beginning in the skull and running through the
+neck-bones, along the spine, and ending in the tail, containing the
+brain and the spinal marrow, which are extremely important organs. The
+second great cavity, commencing with the mouth, contains the gullet, the
+stomach, the long intestine, and all the rest of those internal
+apparatus which are essential for digestion; and then in the same great
+cavity, there are lodged the heart and all the great vessels going from
+it; and, besides that, the organs of respiration--the lungs: and then
+the kidneys, and the organs of reproduction, and so on. Let us now
+endeavour to reduce this notion of a horse that we now have, to some
+such kind of simple expression as can be at once, and without
+difficulty, retained in the mind, apart from all minor details. If I
+make a transverse section, that is, if I were to saw a dead horse
+across, I should find that, if I left out the details, and supposing I
+took my section through the anterior region, and through the fore-limbs,
+I should have here this kind of section of the body (Figure 1). Here
+would be the upper part of the animal--that great mass of bones that we
+spoke of as the spine (a, Figure 1). Here I should have the alimentary
+canal (b, Figure 1). Here I should have the heart (c, Figure 1); and
+then you see, there would be a kind of double tube, the whole being
+inclosed within the hide; the spinal marrow would be placed in the upper
+tube (a, Figure 1), and in the lower tube (d d, Figure 1), there would
+be the alimentary canal (b), and the heart (c); and here I shall have
+the legs proceeding from each side. For simplicity's sake, I represent
+them merely as stumps (e e, Figure 1). Now that is a horse--as
+mathematicians would say--reduced to its most simple expression. Carry
+that in your minds, if you please, as a simplified idea of the structure
+of the Horse. The considerations which I have now put before you belong
+to what we technically call the 'Anatomy' of the Horse. Now, suppose we
+go to work upon these several parts,--flesh and hair, and skin and
+bone,--and lay open these various organs with our scalpels, and examine
+them by means of our magnifying-glasses, and see what we can make of
+them. We shall find that the flesh is made up of bundles of strong
+fibres. The brain and nerves, too, we shall find, are made up of fibres,
+and these queer-looking things that are called ganglionic corpuscles. If
+we take a slice of the bone and examine it, we shall find that it is
+very like this diagram of a section of the bone of an ostrich, though
+differing, of course, in some details; and if we take any part
+whatsoever of the tissue, and examine it, we shall find it all has a
+minute structure, visible only under the microscope. All these parts
+constitute microscopic anatomy or 'Histology.' These parts are
+constantly being changed; every part is constantly growing, decaying,
+and being replaced during the life of the animal. The tissue is
+constantly replaced by new material; and if you go back to the young
+state of the tissue in the case of muscle, or in the case of skin, or
+any of the organs I have mentioned, you will find that they all come
+under the same condition. Every one of these microscopic filaments and
+fibres (I now speak merely of the general character of the whole
+process)--every one of these parts--could be traced down to some
+modification of a tissue which can be readily divided into little
+particles of fleshy matter, of that substance which is composed of the
+chemical elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, having such a
+shape as this (Figure 2). These particles, into which all primitive
+tissues break up, are called cells. If I were to make a section of a
+piece of the skin of my hand, I should find that it was made up of these
+cells. If I examine the fibres which form the various organs of all
+living animals, I should find that all of them, at one time or other,
+had been formed out of a substance consisting of similar elements; so
+that you see, just as we reduced the whole body in the gross to that
+sort of simple expression given in Figure 1, so we may reduce the whole
+of the microscopic structural elements to a form of even greater
+simplicity; just as the plan of the whole body may be so represented in
+a sense (Figure 1), so the primary structure of every tissue may be
+represented by a mass of cells (Figure 2).
+
+Having thus, in this sort of general way, sketched to you what I may
+call, perhaps, the architecture of the body of the Horse (what we term
+technically its Morphology), I must now turn to another aspect. A horse
+is not a mere dead structure: it is an active, living, working machine.
+Hitherto we have, as it were, been looking at a steam-engine with the
+fires out, and nothing in the boiler; but the body of the living animal
+is a beautifully-formed active machine, and every part has its different
+work to do in the working of that machine, which is what we call its
+life. The Horse, if you see him after his day's work is done, is
+cropping the grass in the fields, as it may be, or munching the oats in
+his stable. What is he doing? His jaws are working as a mill--and a very
+complex mill too--grinding the corn, or crushing the grass to a pulp. As
+soon as that operation has taken place, the food is passed down to the
+stomach, and there it is mixed with the chemical fluid called the
+gastric juice, a substance which has the peculiar property of making
+soluble and dissolving out the nutritious matter in the grass, and
+leaving behind those parts which are not nutritious; so that you have,
+first, the mill, then a sort of chemical digester; and then the food,
+thus partially dissolved, is carried back by the muscular contractions
+of the intestines into the hinder parts of the body, while the soluble
+portions are taken up into the blood. The blood is contained in a vast
+system of pipes, spreading through the whole body, connected with a
+force pump,--the heart,--which, by its position and by the contractions
+of its valves, keeps the blood constantly circulating in one direction,
+never allowing it to rest; and then, by means of this circulation of the
+blood, laden as it is with the products of digestion, the skin, the
+flesh, the hair, and every other part of the body, draws from it that
+which it wants, and every one of these organs derives those materials
+which are necessary to enable it to do its work.
+
+The action of each of these organs, the performance of each of these
+various duties, involve in their operation a continual absorption of the
+matters necessary for their support, from the blood, and a constant
+formation of waste products, which are returned to the blood, and
+conveyed by it to the lungs and the kidneys, which are organs that have
+allotted to them the office of extracting, separating, and getting rid
+of these waste products; and thus the general nourishment, labour, and
+repair of the whole machine is kept up with order and regularity. But
+not only is it a machine which feeds and appropriates to its own support
+the nourishment necessary to its existence--it is an engine for
+locomotive purposes. The Horse desires to go from one place to another;
+and to enable it to do this, it has those strong contractile bundles of
+muscles attached to the bones of its limbs, which are put in motion by
+means of a sort of telegraphic apparatus formed by the brain and the
+great spinal cord running through the spine or backbone; and to this
+spinal cord are attached a number of fibres termed nerves, which proceed
+to all parts of the structure. By means of these the eyes, nose, tongue,
+and skin--all the organs of perception--transmit impressions or
+sensations to the brain, which acts as a sort of great central
+telegraph-office, receiving impressions and sending messages to all
+parts of the body, and putting in motion the muscles necessary to
+accomplish any movement that may be desired. So that you have here an
+extremely complex and beautifully-proportioned machine, with all its
+parts working harmoniously together towards one common object--the
+preservation of the life of the animal.
+
+Now, note this: the Horse makes up its waste by feeding, and its food is
+grass or oats, or perhaps other vegetable products; therefore, in the
+long run, the source of all this complex machinery lies in the vegetable
+kingdom. But where does the grass, or the oat, or any other plant,
+obtain this nourishing food-producing material? At first it is a little
+seed, which soon begins to draw into itself from the earth and the
+surrounding air matters which in themselves contain no vital properties
+whatever; it absorbs into its own substance water, an inorganic body; it
+draws into its substance carbonic acid, an inorganic matter; and
+ammonia, another inorganic matter, found in the air; and then, by some
+wonderful chemical process, the details of which chemists do not yet
+understand, though they are near foreshadowing them, it combines them
+into one substance, which is known to us as 'Protein,' a complex
+compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which alone
+possesses the property of manifesting vitality and of permanently
+supporting animal life. So that, you see, the waste products of the
+animal economy, the effete materials which are continually being thrown
+off by all living beings, in the form of organic matters, are constantly
+replaced by supplies of the necessary repairing and rebuilding materials
+drawn from the plants, which in their turn manufacture them, so to
+speak, by a mysterious combination of those same inorganic materials.
+
+Let us trace out the history of the Horse in another direction. After a
+certain time, as the result of sickness or disease, the effect of
+accident, or the consequence of old age, sooner or later, the animal
+dies. The multitudinous operations of this beautiful mechanism flag in
+their performance, the Horse loses its vigour, and after passing through
+the curious series of changes comprised in its formation and
+preservation, it finally decays, and ends its life by going back into
+that inorganic world from which all but an inappreciable fraction of its
+substance was derived. Its bones become mere carbonate and phosphate of
+lime; the matter of its flesh, and of its other parts, becomes, in the
+long run, converted into carbonic acid, into water, and into ammonia.
+You will now, perhaps, understand the curious relation of the animal
+with the plant, of the organic with the inorganic world, which is shown
+in this diagram (Figure 3).
+
+(FIGURE 3. Diagram showing material relationship of the Vegetable,
+Animal and Inorganic Worlds.)
+
+The plant gathers these inorganic materials together and makes them up
+into its own substance. The animal eats the plant and appropriates the
+nutritious portions to its own sustenance, rejects and gets rid of the
+useless matters; and, finally, the animal itself dies, and its whole
+body is decomposed and returned into the inorganic world. There is thus
+a constant circulation from one to the other, a continual formation of
+organic life from inorganic matters, and as constant a return of the
+matter of living bodies to the inorganic world; so that the materials of
+which our bodies are composed are largely, in all probability, the
+substances which constituted the matter of long extinct creations, but
+which have in the interval constituted a part of the inorganic world.
+
+Thus we come to the conclusion, strange at first sight, that the MATTER
+constituting the living world is identical with that which forms the
+inorganic world. And not less true is it that, remarkable as are the
+powers or, in other words, as are the FORCES which are exerted by living
+beings, yet all these forces are either identical with those which exist
+in the inorganic world, or they are convertible into them; I mean in
+just the same sense as the researches of physical philosophers have
+shown that heat is convertible into electricity, that electricity is
+convertible into magnetism, magnetism into mechanical force or chemical
+force, and any one of them with the other, each being measurable in
+terms of the other,--even so, I say, that great law is applicable to the
+living world. Consider why is the skeleton of this horse capable of
+supporting the masses of flesh and the various organs forming the living
+body, unless it is because of the action of the same forces of cohesion
+which combines together the particles of matter composing this piece of
+chalk? What is there in the muscular contractile power of the animal but
+the force which is expressible, and which is in a certain sense
+convertible, into the force of gravity which it overcomes? Or, if you go
+to more hidden processes, in what does the process of digestion differ
+from those processes which are carried on in the laboratory of the
+chemist? Even if we take the most recondite and most complex operations
+of animal life--those of the nervous system, these of late years have
+been shown to be--I do not say identical in any sense with the
+electrical processes--but this has been shown, that they are in some way
+or other associated with them; that is to say, that every amount of
+nervous action is accompanied by a certain amount of electrical
+disturbance in the particles of the nerves in which that nervous action
+is carried on. In this way the nervous action is related to electricity
+in the same way that heat is related to electricity; and the same sort
+of argument which demonstrates the two latter to be related to one
+another shows that the nervous forces are correlated to electricity; for
+the experiments of M. Dubois Reymond and others have shown that whenever
+a nerve is in a state of excitement, sending a message to the muscles or
+conveying an impression to the brain, there is a disturbance of the
+electrical condition of that nerve which does not exist at other times;
+and there are a number of other facts and phenomena of that sort; so
+that we come to the broad conclusion that not only as to living matter
+itself, but as to the forces that matter exerts, there is a close
+relationship between the organic and the inorganic world--the difference
+between them arising from the diverse combination and disposition of
+identical forces, and not from any primary diversity, so far as we can
+see.
+
+I said just now that the Horse eventually died and became converted into
+the same inorganic substances from whence all but an inappreciable
+fraction of its substance demonstrably originated, so that the actual
+wanderings of matter are as remarkable as the transmigrations of the
+soul fabled by Indian tradition. But before death has occurred, in the
+one sex or the other, and in fact in both, certain products or parts of
+the organism have been set free, certain parts of the organisms of the
+two sexes have come into contact with one another, and from that
+conjunction, from that union which then takes place, there results the
+formation of a new being. At stated times the mare, from a particular
+part of the interior of her body, called the ovary, gets rid of a minute
+particle of matter comparable in all essential respects with that which
+we called a cell a little while since, which cell contains a kind of
+nucleus in its centre, surrounded by a clear space and by a viscid mass
+of protein substance (Figure 2); and though it is different in
+appearance from the eggs which we are mostly acquainted with, it is
+really an egg. After a time this minute particle of matter, which may
+only be a small fraction of a grain in weight, undergoes a series of
+changes,--wonderful, complex changes. Finally, upon its surface there is
+fashioned a little elevation, which afterwards becomes divided and
+marked by a groove. The lateral boundaries of the groove extend upwards
+and downwards, and at length give rise to a double tube. In the upper
+smaller tube the spinal marrow and brain are fashioned; in the lower,
+the alimentary canal and heart; and at length two pairs of buds shoot
+out at the sides of the body, which are the rudiments of the limbs. In
+fact a true drawing of a section of the embryo in this state would in
+all essential respects resemble that diagram of a horse reduced to its
+simplest expression, which I first placed before you (Figure 1).
+
+Slowly and gradually these changes take place. The whole of the body, at
+first, can be broken up into "cells," which become in one place
+metamorphosed into muscle,--in another place into gristle and bone,--in
+another place into fibrous tissue,--and in another into hair; every part
+becoming gradually and slowly fashioned, as if there were an artificer
+at work in each of these complex structures that we have mentioned. This
+embryo, as it is called, then passes into other conditions. I should
+tell you that there is a time when the embryos of neither dog, nor
+horse, nor porpoise, nor monkey, nor man, can be distinguished by any
+essential feature one from the other; there is a time when they each and
+all of them resemble this one of the Dog. But as development advances,
+all the parts acquire their speciality, till at length you have the
+embryo converted into the form of the parent from which it started. So
+that you see, this living animal, this horse, begins its existence as a
+minute particle of nitrogenous matter, which, being supplied with
+nutriment (derived, as I have shown, from the inorganic world), grows up
+according to the special type and construction of its parents, works and
+undergoes a constant waste, and that waste is made good by nutriment
+derived from the inorganic world; the waste given off in this way being
+directly added to the inorganic world; and eventually the animal itself
+dies, and, by the process of decomposition, its whole body is returned
+to those conditions of inorganic matter in which its substance
+originated.
+
+This, then, is that which is true of every living form, from the lowest
+plant to the highest animal--to man himself. You might define the life
+of every one in exactly the same terms as those which I have now used;
+the difference between the highest and the lowest being simply in the
+complexity of the developmental changes, the variety of the structural
+forms, the diversity of the physiological functions which are exerted by
+each.
+
+If I were to take an oak tree as a specimen of the plant world, I should
+find that it originated in an acorn, which, too, commenced in a cell;
+the acorn is placed in the ground, and it very speedily begins to absorb
+the inorganic matters I have named, adds enormously to its bulk, and we
+can see it, year after year, extending itself upward and downward,
+attracting and appropriating to itself inorganic materials, which it
+vivifies, and eventually, as it ripens, gives off its own proper acorns,
+which again run the same course. But I need not multiply examples,--from
+the highest to the lowest the essential features of life are the same,
+as I have described in each of these cases.
+
+So much, then, for these particular features of the organic world, which
+you can understand and comprehend, so long as you confine yourself to
+one sort of living being, and study that only.
+
+But, as you know, horses are not the only living creatures in the world;
+and again, horses, like all other animals, have certain limits--are
+confined to a certain area on the surface of the earth on which we
+live,--and, as that is the simpler matter, I may take that first. In its
+wild state, and before the discovery of America, when the natural state
+of things was interfered with by the Spaniards, the Horse was only to be
+found in parts of the earth which are known to geographers as the Old
+World; that is to say, you might meet with horses in Europe, Asia, or
+Africa; but there were none in Australia, and there were none whatsoever
+in the whole continent of America, from Labrador down to Cape Horn. This
+is an empirical fact, and it is what is called, stated in the way I have
+given it you, the 'Geographical Distribution' of the Horse.
+
+Why horses should be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and not in
+America, is not obvious; the explanation that the conditions of life in
+America are unfavourable to their existence, and that, therefore, they
+had not been created there, evidently does not apply; for when the
+invading Spaniards, or our own yeomen farmers, conveyed horses to these
+countries for their own use, they were found to thrive well and multiply
+very rapidly; and many are even now running wild in those countries, and
+in a perfectly natural condition. Now, suppose we were to do for every
+animal what we have here done for the Horse,--that is, to mark off and
+distinguish the particular district or region to which each belonged;
+and supposing we tabulated all these results, that would be called the
+Geographical Distribution of animals, while a corresponding study of
+plants would yield as a result the Geographical Distribution of plants.
+
+I pass on from that now, as I merely wished to explain to you what I
+meant by the use of the term 'Geographical Distribution.' As I said,
+there is another aspect, and a much more important one, and that is, the
+relations of the various animals to one another. The Horse is a very
+well-defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we are all pretty
+familiar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck you, that it
+resembles very much no other member of the animal kingdom, except
+perhaps the Zebra or the Ass. But let me ask you to look along these
+diagrams. Here is the skeleton of the Horse, and here the skeleton of
+the Dog. You will notice that we have in the Horse a skull, a backbone
+and ribs, shoulder-blades and haunch-bones. In the fore-limb, one upper
+arm-bone, two fore arm-bones, wrist-bones (wrongly called knee), and
+middle hand-bones, ending in the three bones of a finger, the last of
+which is sheathed in the horny hoof of the fore-foot: in the hind-limb,
+one thigh-bone, two leg-bones, anklebones, and middle foot-bones, ending
+in the three bones of a toe, the last of which is encased in the hoof of
+the hind-foot. Now turn to the Dog's skeleton. We find identically the
+same bones, but more of them, there being more toes in each foot, and
+hence more toe-bones.
+
+Well, that is a very curious thing! The fact is that the Dog and the
+Horse--when one gets a look at them without the outward impediments of
+the skin--are found to be made in very much the same sort of fashion.
+And if I were to make a transverse section of the Dog, I should find the
+same organs that I have already shown you as forming parts of the Horse.
+Well, here is another skeleton--that of a kind of Lemur--you see he has
+just the same bones; and if I were to make a transverse section of it,
+it would be just the same again. In your mind's eye turn him round, so
+as to put his backbone in a position inclined obliquely upwards and
+forwards, just as in the next three diagrams, which represent the
+skeletons of an Orang, a Chimpanzee, a Gorilla, and you find you have no
+trouble in identifying the bones throughout; and lastly turn to the end
+of the series, the diagram representing a man's skeleton, and still you
+find no great structural feature essentially altered. There are the same
+bones in the same relations. From the Horse we pass on and on, with
+gradual steps, until we arrive at last at the highest known forms. On
+the other hand, take the other line of diagrams, and pass from the Horse
+downwards in the scale to this fish; and still, though the modifications
+are vastly greater, the essential framework of the organization remains
+unchanged. Here, for instance, is a Porpoise: here is its strong
+backbone, with the cavity running through it, which contains the spinal
+cord; here are the ribs, here the shoulder blade; here is the little
+short upper-arm bone, here are the two forearm bones, the wrist-bone,
+and the finger-bones.
+
+Strange, is it not, that the Porpoise should have in this queer-looking
+affair--its flapper (as it is called), the same fundamental elements as
+the fore-leg of the Horse or the Dog, or the Ape or Man; and here you
+will notice a very curious thing,--the hinder limbs are absent. Now, let
+us make another jump. Let us go to the Codfish: here you see is the
+forearm, in this large pectoral fin--carrying your mind's eye onward
+from the flapper of the Porpoise. And here you have the hinder limbs
+restored in the shape of these ventral fins. If I were to make a
+transverse section of this, I should find just the same organs that we
+have before noticed. So that, you see, there comes out this strange
+conclusion as the result of our investigations, that the Horse, when
+examined and compared with other animals, is found by no means to stand
+alone in nature; but that there are an enormous number of other
+creatures which have backbones, ribs, and legs, and other parts arranged
+in the same general manner, and in all their formation exhibiting the
+same broad peculiarities.
+
+I am sure that you cannot have followed me even in this extremely
+elementary exposition of the structural relations of animals, without
+seeing what I have been driving at all through, which is, to show you
+that, step by step, naturalists have come to the idea of a unity of
+plan, or conformity of construction, among animals which appeared at
+first sight to be extremely dissimilar.
+
+And here you have evidence of such a unity of plan among all the animals
+which have backbones, and which we technically call "Vertebrata". But
+there are multitudes of other animals, such as crabs, lobsters, spiders,
+and so on, which we term "Annulosa". In these I could not point out to
+you the parts that correspond with those of the Horse,--the backbone,
+for instance,--as they are constructed upon a very different principle,
+which is also common to all of them; that is to say, the Lobster, the
+Spider, and the Centipede, have a common plan running through their
+whole arrangement, in just the same way that the Horse, the Dog, and the
+Porpoise assimilate to each other.
+
+Yet other creatures--whelks, cuttlefishes, oysters, snails, and all
+their tribe ("Mollusca")--resemble one another in the same way, but
+differ from both "Vertebrata" and "Annulosa"; and the like is true of
+the animals called "Coelenterata" (Polypes) and "Protozoa" (animalcules
+and sponges).
+
+Now, by pursuing this sort of comparison, naturalists have arrived at
+the conviction that there are,--some think five, and some seven,--but
+certainly not more than the latter number--and perhaps it is simpler to
+assume five--distinct plans or constructions in the whole of the animal
+world; and that the hundreds of thousands of species of creatures on the
+surface of the earth, are all reducible to those five, or, at most,
+seven, plans of organization.
+
+But can we go no further than that? When one has got so far, one is
+tempted to go on a step and inquire whether we cannot go back yet
+further and bring down the whole to modifications of one primordial
+unit. The anatomist cannot do this; but if he call to his aid the study
+of development, he can do it. For we shall find that, distinct as those
+plans are, whether it be a porpoise or man, or lobster, or any of those
+other kinds I have mentioned, every one begins its existence with one
+and the same primitive form,--that of the egg, consisting, as we have
+seen, of a nitrogenous substance, having a small particle or nucleus in
+the centre of it. Furthermore, the earlier changes of each are
+substantially the same. And it is in this that lies that true "unity of
+organization" of the animal kingdom which has been guessed at and
+fancied for many years; but which it has been left to the present time
+to be demonstrated by the careful study of development. But is it
+possible to go another step further still, and to show that in the same
+way the whole of the organic world is reducible to one primitive
+condition of form? Is there among the plants the same primitive form of
+organization, and is that identical with that of the animal kingdom? The
+reply to that question, too, is not uncertain or doubtful. It is now
+proved that every plant begins its existence under the same form; that
+is to say, in that of a cell--a particle of nitrogenous matter having
+substantially the same conditions. So that if you trace back the oak to
+its first germ, or a man, or a horse, or lobster, or oyster, or any
+other animal you choose to name, you shall find each and all of these
+commencing their existence in forms essentially similar to each other:
+and, furthermore, that the first processes of growth, and many of the
+subsequent modifications, are essentially the same in principle in
+almost all.
+
+In conclusion, let me, in a few words, recapitulate the positions which
+I have laid down. And you must understand that I have not been talking
+mere theory; I have been speaking of matters which are as plainly
+demonstrable as the commonest propositions of Euclid--of facts that must
+form the basis of all speculations and beliefs in Biological science. We
+have gradually traced down all organic forms, or, in other words, we
+have analyzed the present condition of animated nature, until we found
+that each species took its origin in a form similar to that under which
+all the others commence their existence. We have found the whole of the
+vast array of living forms, with which we are surrounded, constantly
+growing, increasing, decaying and disappearing; the animal constantly
+attracting, modifying, and applying to its sustenance the matter of the
+vegetable kingdom, which derived its support from the absorption and
+conversion of inorganic matter. And so constant and universal is this
+absorption, waste, and reproduction, that it may be said with perfect
+certainty that there is left in no one of our bodies at the present
+moment a millionth part of the matter of which they were originally
+formed! We have seen, again, that not only is the living matter derived
+from the inorganic world, but that the forces of that matter are all of
+them correlative with and convertible into those of inorganic nature.
+
+This, for our present purposes, is the best view of the present
+condition of organic nature which I can lay before you: it gives you the
+great outlines of a vast picture, which you must fill up by your own
+study.
+
+In the next lecture I shall endeavour in the same way to go back into
+the past, and to sketch in the same broad manner the history of life in
+epochs preceding our own.
+
+End of The Present Condition of Organic Nature.
+
+***
+
+
+THE PAST CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+In the lecture which I delivered last Monday evening, I endeavoured to
+sketch in a very brief manner, but as well as the time at my disposal
+would permit, the present condition of organic nature, meaning by that
+large title simply an indication of the great, broad, and general
+principles which are to be discovered by those who look attentively at
+the phenomena of organic nature as at present displayed. The general
+result of our investigations might be summed up thus: we found that the
+multiplicity of the forms of animal life, great as that may be, may be
+reduced to a comparatively few primitive plans or types of construction;
+that a further study of the development of those different forms
+revealed to us that they were again reducible, until we at last brought
+the infinite diversity of animal, and even vegetable life, down to the
+primordial form of a single cell.
+
+We found that our analysis of the organic world, whether animals or
+plants, showed, in the long run, that they might both be reduced into,
+and were, in fact, composed of, the same constituents. And we saw that
+the plant obtained the materials constituting its substance by a
+peculiar combination of matters belonging entirely to the inorganic
+world; that, then, the animal was constantly appropriating the
+nitrogenous matters of the plant to its own nourishment, and returning
+them back to the inorganic world, in what we spoke of as its waste; and
+that finally, when the animal ceased to exist, the constituents of its
+body were dissolved and transmitted to that inorganic world whence they
+had been at first abstracted. Thus we saw in both the blade of grass and
+the horse but the same elements differently combined and arranged. We
+discovered a continual circulation going on,--the plant drawing in the
+elements of inorganic nature and combining them into food for the animal
+creation; the animal borrowing from the plant the matter for its own
+support, giving off during its life products which returned immediately
+to the inorganic world; and that, eventually, the constituent materials
+of the whole structure of both animals and plants were thus returned to
+their original source: there was a constant passage from one state of
+existence to another, and a returning back again.
+
+Lastly, when we endeavoured to form some notion of the nature of the
+forces exercised by living beings, we discovered that they--if not
+capable of being subjected to the same minute analysis as the
+constituents of those beings themselves--that they were correlative
+with--that they were the equivalents of the forces of inorganic
+nature--that they were, in the sense in which the term is now used,
+convertible with them. That was our general result.
+
+And now, leaving the Present, I must endeavour in the same manner to put
+before you the facts that are to be discovered in the Past history of
+the living world, in the past conditions of organic nature. We have,
+to-night, to deal with the facts of that history--a history involving
+periods of time before which our mere human records sink into utter
+insignificance--a history the variety and physical magnitude of whose
+events cannot even be foreshadowed by the history of human life and
+human phenomena--a history of the most varied and complex character.
+
+We must deal with the history, then, in the first place, as we should
+deal with all other histories. The historical student knows that his
+first business should be to inquire into the validity of his evidence,
+and the nature of the record in which the evidence is contained, that he
+may be able to form a proper estimate of the correctness of the
+conclusions which have been drawn from that evidence. So, here, we must
+pass, in the first place, to the consideration of a matter which may
+seem foreign to the question under discussion. We must dwell upon the
+nature of the records, and the credibility of the evidence they contain;
+we must look to the completeness or incompleteness of those records
+themselves, before we turn to that which they contain and reveal. The
+question of the credibility of the history, happily for us, will not
+require much consideration, for, in this history, unlike those of human
+origin, there can be no cavilling, no differences as to the reality and
+truth of the facts of which it is made up; the facts state themselves,
+and are laid out clearly before us.
+
+But, although one of the greatest difficulties of the historical student
+is cleared out of our path, there are other difficulties--difficulties
+in rightly interpreting the facts as they are presented to us--which may
+be compared with the greatest difficulties of any other kinds of
+historical study.
+
+What is this record of the past history of the globe, and what are the
+questions which are involved in an inquiry into its completeness or
+incompleteness? That record is composed of mud; and the question which
+we have to investigate this evening resolves itself into a question of
+the formation of mud. You may think, perhaps, that this is a vast
+step--of almost from the sublime to the ridiculous--from the
+contemplation of the history of the past ages of the world's existence
+to the consideration of the history of the formation of mud! But, in
+nature, there is nothing mean and unworthy of attention; there is
+nothing ridiculous or contemptible in any of her works; and this
+inquiry, you will soon see, I hope, takes us to the very root and
+foundations of our subject.
+
+How, then, is mud formed? Always, with some trifling exception, which I
+need not consider now--always, as the result of the action of water,
+wearing down and disintegrating the surface of the earth and rocks with
+which it comes in contact--pounding and grinding it down, and carrying
+the particles away to places where they cease to be disturbed by this
+mechanical action, and where they can subside and rest. For the ocean,
+urged by winds, washes, as we know, a long extent of coast, and every
+wave, loaded as it is with particles of sand and gravel as it breaks
+upon the shore, does something towards the disintegrating process. And
+thus, slowly but surely, the hardest rocks are gradually ground down to
+a powdery substance; and the mud thus formed, coarser or finer, as the
+case may be, is carried by the rush of the tides, or currents, till it
+reaches the comparatively deeper parts of the ocean, in which it can
+sink to the bottom, that is, to parts where there is a depth of about
+fourteen or fifteen fathoms, a depth at which the water is, usually,
+nearly motionless, and in which, of course, the finer particles of this
+detritus, or mud as we call it, sinks to the bottom.
+
+Or, again, if you take a river, rushing down from its mountain sources,
+brawling over the stones and rocks that intersect its path, loosening,
+removing, and carrying with it in its downward course the pebbles and
+lighter matters from its banks, it crushes and pounds down the rocks and
+earths in precisely the same way as the wearing action of the sea waves.
+The matters forming the deposit are torn from the mountain-side and
+whirled impetuously into the valley, more slowly over the plain, thence
+into the estuary, and from the estuary they are swept into the sea. The
+coarser and heavier fragments are obviously deposited first, that is, as
+soon as the current begins to lose its force by becoming amalgamated
+with the stiller depths of the ocean, but the finer and lighter
+particles are carried further on, and eventually deposited in a deeper
+and stiller portion of the ocean.
+
+It clearly follows from this that mud gives us a chronology; for it is
+evident that supposing this, which I now sketch, to be the sea bottom,
+and supposing this to be a coast-line; from the washing action of the
+sea upon the rock, wearing and grinding it down into a sediment of mud,
+the mud will be carried down, and at length, deposited in the deeper
+parts of this sea bottom, where it will form a layer; and then, while
+that first layer is hardening, other mud which is coming from the same
+source will, of course, be carried to the same place; and, as it is
+quite impossible for it to get beneath the layer already there, it
+deposits itself above it, and forms another layer, and in that way you
+gradually have layers of mud constantly forming and hardening one above
+the other, and conveying a record of time.
+
+It is a necessary result of the operation of the law of gravitation that
+the uppermost layer shall be the youngest and the lowest the oldest, and
+that the different beds shall be older at any particular point or spot
+in exactly the ratio of their depth from the surface. So that if they
+were upheaved afterwards, and you had a series of these different layers
+of mud, converted into sandstone, or limestone, as the case might be,
+you might be sure that the bottom layer was deposited first, and that
+the upper layers were formed afterwards. Here, you see, is the first
+step in the history--these layers of mud give us an idea of time.
+
+The whole surface of the earth,--I speak broadly, and leave out minor
+qualifications,--is made up of such layers of mud, so hard, the majority
+of them, that we call them rock whether limestone or sandstone, or other
+varieties of rock. And, seeing that every part of the crust of the earth
+is made up in this way, you might think that the determination of the
+chronology, the fixing of the time which it has taken to form this crust
+is a comparatively simple matter. Take a broad average, ascertain how
+fast the mud is deposited upon the bottom of the sea, or in the estuary
+of rivers; take it to be an inch, or two, or three inches a year, or
+whatever you may roughly estimate it at; then take the total thickness
+of the whole series of stratified rocks, which geologists estimate at
+twelve or thirteen miles, or about seventy thousand feet, make a sum in
+short division, divide the total thickness by that of the quantity
+deposited in one year, and the result will, of course, give you the
+number of years which the crust has taken to form.
+
+Truly, that looks a very simple process! It would be so except for
+certain difficulties, the very first of which is that of finding how
+rapidly sediments are deposited; but the main difficulty--a difficulty
+which renders any certain calculations of such a matter out of the
+question--is this, the sea-bottom on which the deposit takes place is
+continually shifting.
+
+Instead of the surface of the earth being that stable, fixed thing that
+it is popularly believed to be, being, in common parlance, the very
+emblem of fixity itself, it is incessantly moving, and is, in fact, as
+unstable as the surface of the sea, except that its undulations are
+infinitely slower and enormously higher and deeper.
+
+Now, what is the effect of this oscillation? Take the case to which I
+have previously referred. The finer or coarser sediments that are
+carried down by the current of the river, will only be carried out a
+certain distance, and eventually, as we have already seen, on reaching
+the stiller part of the ocean, will be deposited at the bottom.
+
+(FIGURE 4. Section through deposits on sea-bottom and shore.)
+
+Let C y (Figure 4) be the sea-bottom, y D the shore, x y the sea-level,
+then the coarser deposit will subside over the region B, the finer over
+A, while beyond A there will be no deposit at all; and, consequently, no
+record will be kept, simply because no deposit is going on. Now, suppose
+that the whole land, C, D, which we have regarded as stationary, goes
+down, as it does so, both A and B go further out from the shore, which
+will be at yl; x1, y1, being the new sea-level. The consequence will be
+that the layer of mud (A), being now, for the most part, further than
+the force of the current is strong enough to convey even the finest
+'debris', will, of course, receive no more deposits, and having attained
+a certain thickness will now grow no thicker.
+
+We should be misled in taking the thickness of that layer, whenever it
+may be exposed to our view, as a record of time in the manner in which
+we are now regarding this subject, as it would give us only an imperfect
+and partial record: it would seem to represent too short a period of
+time.
+
+Suppose, on the other hand, that the land (C D) had gone on rising
+slowly and gradually--say an inch or two inches in the course of a
+century,--what would be the practical effect of that movement? Why, that
+the sediment A and B which has been already deposited, would eventually
+be brought nearer to the shore-level, and again subjected to the wear
+and tear of the sea; and directly the sea begins to act upon it, it
+would of course soon cut up and carry it away, to a greater or less
+extent, to be re-deposited further out.
+
+Well, as there is, in all probability, not one single spot on the whole
+surface of the earth, which has not been up and down in this way a great
+many times, it follows that the thickness of the deposits formed at any
+particular spot cannot be taken (even supposing we had at first obtained
+correct data as to the rate at which they took place) as affording
+reliable information as to the period of time occupied in its deposit.
+So that you see it is absolutely necessary from these facts, seeing that
+our record entirely consists of accumulations of mud, superimposed one
+on the other; seeing in the next place that any particular spots on
+which accumulations have occurred, have been constantly moving up and
+down, and sometimes out of the reach of a deposit, and at other times
+its own deposit broken up and carried away, it follows that our record
+must be in the highest degree imperfect, and we have hardly a trace left
+of thick deposits, or any definite knowledge of the area that they
+occupied, in a great many cases. And mark this! That supposing even that
+the whole surface of the earth had been accessible to the
+geologist,--that man had had access to every part of the earth, and had
+made sections of the whole, and put them all together,--even then his
+record must of necessity be imperfect.
+
+But to how much has man really access? If you will look at this Map you
+will see that it represents the proportion of the sea to the earth: this
+coloured part indicates all the dry land, and this other portion is the
+water. You will notice at once that the water covers three-fifths of the
+whole surface of the globe, and has covered it in the same manner ever
+since man has kept any record of his own observations, to say nothing of
+the minute period during which he has cultivated geological inquiry. So
+that three-fifths of the surface of the earth is shut out from us
+because it is under the sea. Let us look at the other two-fifths, and
+see what are the countries in which anything that may be termed
+searching geological inquiry has been carried out: a good deal of
+France, Germany, and Great Britain and Ireland, bits of Spain, of Italy,
+and of Russia, have been examined, but of the whole great mass of
+Africa, except parts of the southern extremity, we know next to nothing;
+little bits of India, but of the greater part of the Asiatic continent
+nothing; bits of the Northern American States and of Canada, but of the
+greater part of the continent of North America, and in still larger
+proportion, of South America, nothing!
+
+Under these circumstances, it follows that even with reference to that
+kind of imperfect information which we can possess, it is only of about
+the ten-thousandth part of the accessible parts of the earth that has
+been examined properly. Therefore, it is with justice that the most
+thoughtful of those who are concerned in these inquiries insist
+continually upon the imperfection of the geological record; for, I
+repeat, it is absolutely necessary, from the nature of things, that that
+record should be of the most fragmentary and imperfect character.
+Unfortunately this circumstance has been constantly forgotten. Men of
+science, like young colts in a fresh pasture, are apt to be exhilarated
+on being turned into a new field of inquiry, to go off at a hand-gallop,
+in total disregard of hedges and ditches, losing sight of the real
+limitation of their inquiries, and to forget the extreme imperfection of
+what is really known. Geologists have imagined that they could tell us
+what was going on at all parts of the earth's surface during a given
+epoch; they have talked of this deposit being contemporaneous with that
+deposit, until, from our little local histories of the changes at
+limited spots of the earth's surface, they have constructed a universal
+history of the globe as full of wonders and portents as any other story
+of antiquity.
+
+But what does this attempt to construct a universal history of the globe
+imply? It implies that we shall not only have a precise knowledge of the
+events which have occurred at any particular point, but that we shall be
+able to say what events, at any one spot, took place at the same time
+with those at other spots.
+
+(FIGURE 5. Section through two beds of mud.)
+
+Let us see how far that is in the nature of things practicable. Suppose
+that here I make a section of the Lake of Killarney, and here the
+section of another lake--that of Loch Lomond in Scotland for instance.
+The rivers that flow into them are constantly carrying down deposits of
+mud, and beds, or strata, are being as constantly formed, one above the
+other, at the bottom of those lakes. Now, there is not a shadow of doubt
+that in these two lakes the lower beds are all older than the
+upper--there is no doubt about that; but what does 'this' tell us about
+the age of any given bed in Loch Lomond, as compared with that of any
+given bed in the Lake of Killarney? It is, indeed, obvious that if any
+two sets of deposits are separated and discontinuous, there is
+absolutely no means whatever given you by the nature of the deposit of
+saying whether one is much younger or older than the other; but you may
+say, as many have said and think, that the case is very much altered if
+the beds which we are comparing are continuous. Suppose two beds of mud
+hardened into rock,--A and B--are seen in section. (Figure 5.)
+
+Well, you say, it is admitted that the lowermost bed is always the
+older. Very well; B, therefore, is older than A. No doubt, 'as a whole',
+it is so; or if any parts of the two beds which are in the same vertical
+line are compared, it is so. But suppose you take what seems a very
+natural step further, and say that the part 'a' of the bed A is younger
+than the part 'b' of the bed B. Is this sound reasoning? If you find any
+record of changes taking place at 'b', did they occur before any events
+which took place while 'a' was being deposited? It looks all very plain
+sailing, indeed, to say that they did; and yet there is no proof of
+anything of the kind. As the former Director of this Institution, Sir H.
+De la Beche, long ago showed, this reasoning may involve an entire
+fallacy. It is extremely possible that 'a' may have been deposited ages
+before 'b'. It is very easy to understand how that can be. To return to
+Figure 4; when A and B were deposited, they were 'substantially'
+contemporaneous; A being simply the finer deposit, and B the coarser of
+the same detritus or waste of land. Now suppose that that sea-bottom
+goes down (as shown in Figure 4), so that the first deposit is carried
+no farther than 'a', forming the bed Al, and the coarse no farther than
+'b', forming the bed B1, the result will be the formation of two
+continuous beds, one of fine sediment (A A1) over-lapping another of
+coarse sediment (B Bl). Now suppose the whole sea-bottom is raised up,
+and a section exposed about the point Al; no doubt, AT THIS SPOT, the
+upper bed is younger than the lower. But we should obviously greatly err
+if we concluded that the mass of the upper bed at A was younger than the
+lower bed at B; for we have just seen that they are contemporaneous
+deposits. Still more should we be in error if we supposed the upper bed
+at A to be younger than the continuation of the lower bed at Bl; for A
+was deposited long before B1. In fine, if, instead of comparing
+immediately adjacent parts of two beds, one of which lies upon another,
+we compare distant parts, it is quite possible that the upper may be any
+number of years older than the under, and the under any number of years
+younger than the upper.
+
+Now you must not suppose that I put this before you for the purpose of
+raising a paradoxical difficulty; the fact is, that the great mass of
+deposits have taken place in sea-bottoms which are gradually sinking,
+and have been formed under the very conditions I am here supposing.
+
+Do not run away with the notion that this subverts the principle I laid
+down at first. The error lies in extending a principle which is
+perfectly applicable to deposits in the same vertical line to deposits
+which are not in that relation to one another.
+
+It is in consequence of circumstances of this kind, and of others that I
+might mention to you, that our conclusions on and interpretations of the
+record are really and strictly only valid so long as we confine
+ourselves to one vertical section. I do not mean to tell you that there
+are no qualifying circumstances, so that, even in very considerable
+areas, we may safely speak of conformably superimposed beds being older
+or younger than others at many different points. But we can never be
+quite sure in coming to that conclusion, and especially we cannot he
+sure if there is any break in their continuity, or any very great
+distance between the points to be compared.
+
+Well now, so much for the record itself,--so much for its
+imperfections,--so much for the conditions to be observed in
+interpreting it, and its chronological indications, the moment we pass
+beyond the limits of a vertical linear section.
+
+Now let us pass from the record to that which it contains,--from the
+book itself to the writing and the figures on its pages. This writing
+and these figures consist of remains of animals and plants which, in the
+great majority of cases, have lived and died in the very spot in which
+we now find them, or at least in the immediate vicinity. You must all of
+you be aware--and I referred to the fact in my last lecture--that there
+are vast numbers of creatures living at the bottom of the sea. These
+creatures, like all others, sooner or later die, and their shells and
+hard parts lie at the bottom; and then the fine mud which is being
+constantly brought down by rivers and the action of the wear and tear of
+the sea, covers them over and protects them from any further change or
+alteration; and, of course, as in process of time the mud becomes
+hardened and solidified, the shells of these animals are preserved and
+firmly imbedded in the limestone or sandstone which is being thus
+formed. You may see in the galleries of the Museum up stairs specimens
+of limestones in which such fossil remains of existing animals are
+imbedded. There are some specimens in which turtles' eggs have been
+imbedded in calcareous sand, and before the sun had hatched the young
+turtles, they became covered over with calcareous mud, and thus have
+been preserved and fossilized.
+
+Not only does this process of imbedding and fossilization occur with
+marine and other aquatic animals and plants, but it affects those land
+animals and plants which are drifted away to sea, or become buried in
+bogs or morasses; and the animals which have been trodden down by their
+fellows and crushed in the mud at the river's bank, as the herd have
+come to drink. In any of these cases, the organisms may be crushed or be
+mutilated, before or after putrefaction, in such a manner that perhaps
+only a part will be left in the form in which it reaches us. It is,
+indeed, a most remarkable fact, that it is quite an exceptional case to
+find a skeleton of any one of all the thousands of wild land animals
+that we know are constantly being killed, or dying in the course of
+nature: they are preyed on and devoured by other animals or die in
+places where their bodies are not afterwards protected by mud. There are
+other animals existing in the sea, the shells of which form exceedingly
+large deposits. You are probably aware that before the attempt was made
+to lay the Atlantic telegraphic cable, the Government employed vessels
+in making a series of very careful observations and soundings of the
+bottom of the Atlantic; and although, as we must all regret, up to the
+present time that project has not succeeded, we have the satisfaction of
+knowing that it yielded some most remarkable results to science. The
+Atlantic Ocean had to be sounded right across, to depths of several
+miles in some places, and the nature of its bottom was carefully
+ascertained. Well, now, a space of about 1,000 miles wide from east to
+west, and I do not exactly know how many from north to south, but at any
+rate 600 or 700 miles, was carefully examined, and it was found that
+over the whole of that immense area an excessively fine chalky mud is
+being deposited; and this deposit is entirely made up of animals whose
+hard parts are deposited in this part of the ocean, and are doubtless
+gradually acquiring solidity and becoming metamorphosed into a chalky
+limestone. Thus, you see, it is quite possible in this way to preserve
+unmistakable records of animal and vegetable life. Whenever the
+sea-bottom, by some of those undulations of the earth's crust that I
+have referred to, becomes upheaved, and sections or borings are made, or
+pits are dug, then we become able to examine the contents and
+constituents of these ancient sea-bottoms, and find out what manner of
+animals lived at that period.
+
+Now it is a very important consideration in its bearing on the
+completeness of the record, to inquire how far the remains contained in
+these fossiliferous limestones are able to convey anything like an
+accurate or complete account of the animals which were in existence at
+the time of its formation. Upon that point we can form a very clear
+judgment, and one in which there is no possible room for any mistake.
+There are of course a great number of animals--such as jelly-fishes, and
+other animals--without any hard parts, of which we cannot reasonably
+expect to find any traces whatever: there is nothing of them to
+preserve. Within a very short time, you will have noticed, after they
+are removed from the water, they dry up to a mere nothing; certainly
+they are not of a nature to leave any very visible traces of their
+existence on such bodies as chalk or mud. Then again, look at land
+animals; it is, as I have said, a very uncommon thing to find a land
+animal entire after death. Insects and other carnivorous animals very
+speedily pull them to pieces, putrefaction takes place, and so, out of
+the hundreds of thousands that are known to die every year, it is the
+rarest thing in the world to see one imbedded in such a way that its
+remains would be preserved for a lengthened period. Not only is this the
+case, but even when animal remains have been safely imbedded, certain
+natural agents may wholly destroy and remove them.
+
+Almost all the hard parts of animals--the bones and so on--are composed
+chiefly of phosphate of lime and carbonate of lime. Some years ago, I
+had to make an inquiry into the nature of some very curious fossils sent
+to me from the North of Scotland. Fossils are usually hard bony
+structures that have become imbedded in the way I have described, and
+have gradually acquired the nature and solidity of the body with which
+they are associated; but in this case I had a series of 'holes' in some
+pieces of rock, and nothing else. Those holes, however, had a certain
+definite shape about them, and when I got a skilful workman to make
+castings of the interior of these holes, I found that they were the
+impressions of the joints of a backbone and of the armour of a great
+reptile, twelve or more feet long. This great beast had died and got
+buried in the sand; the sand had gradually hardened over the bones, but
+remained porous. Water had trickled through it, and that water being
+probably charged with a superfluity of carbonic acid, had dissolved all
+the phosphate and carbonate of lime, and the bones themselves had thus
+decayed and entirely disappeared; but as the sandstone happened to have
+consolidated by that time, the precise shape of the bones was retained.
+If that sandstone had remained soft a little longer, we should have
+known nothing whatsoever of the existence of the reptile whose bones it
+had encased.
+
+How certain it is that a vast number of animals which have existed at
+one period on this earth have entirely perished, and left no trace
+whatever of their forms, may be proved to you by other considerations.
+There are large tracts of sandstone in various parts of the world, in
+which nobody has yet found anything but footsteps. Not a bone of any
+description, but an enormous number of traces of footsteps. There is no
+question about them. There is a whole valley in Connecticut covered with
+these footsteps, and not a single fragment of the animals which made
+them has yet been found. Let me mention another case while upon that
+matter, which is even more surprising than those to which I have yet
+referred. There is a limestone formation near Oxford, at a place called
+Stonesfield, which has yielded the remains of certain very interesting
+mammalian animals, and up to this time, if I recollect rightly, there
+have been found seven specimens of its lower jaws, and not a bit of
+anything else, neither limb-bones nor skull, or any part whatever; not a
+fragment of the whole system! Of course, it would be preposterous to
+imagine that the beasts had nothing else but a lower jaw! The
+probability is, as Dr. Buckland showed, as the result of his
+observations on dead dogs in the river Thames, that the lower jaw, not
+being secured by very firm ligaments to the bones of the head, and being
+a weighty affair, would easily be knocked off, or might drop away from
+the body as it floated in water in a state of decomposition. The jaw
+would thus be deposited immediately, while the rest of the body would
+float and drift away altogether, ultimately reaching the sea, and
+perhaps becoming destroyed. The jaw becomes covered up and preserved in
+the river silt, and thus it comes that we have such a curious
+circumstance as that of the lower jaws in the Stonesfield slates. So
+that, you see, faulty as these layers of stone in the earth's crust are,
+defective as they necessarily are as a record, the account of
+contemporaneous vital phenomena presented by them is, by the necessity
+of the case, infinitely more defective and fragmentary.
+
+It was necessary that I should put all this very strongly before you,
+because, otherwise, you might have been led to think differently of the
+completeness of our knowledge by the next facts I shall state to you.
+
+The researches of the last three-quarters of a century have, in truth,
+revealed a wonderful richness of organic life in those rocks. Certainly
+not fewer than thirty or forty thousand different species of fossils
+have been discovered. You have no more ground for doubting that these
+creatures really lived and died at or near the places in which we find
+them than you have for like scepticism about a shell on the sea-shore.
+The evidence is as good in the one case as in the other.
+
+Our next business is to look at the general character of these fossil
+remains, and it is a subject which it will be requisite to consider
+carefully; and the first point for us is to examine how much the extinct
+'Flora' and 'Fauna' as a 'whole'--disregarding altogether the
+'succession' of their constituents, of which I shall speak
+afterwards--differ from the 'Flora' and 'Fauna' of the present day;--how
+far they differ in what we 'do' know about them, leaving altogether out
+of consideration speculations based upon what we 'do not' know.
+
+I strongly imagine that if it were not for the peculiar appearance that
+fossilised animals have, any of you might readily walk through a museum
+which contains fossil remains mixed up with those of the present forms
+of life, and I doubt very much whether your uninstructed eyes would lead
+you to see any vast or wonderful difference between the two. If you
+looked closely, you would notice, in the first place, a great many
+things very like animals with which you are acquainted now: you would
+see differences of shape and proportion, but on the whole a close
+similarity.
+
+I explained what I meant by ORDERS the other day, when I described the
+animal kingdom as being divided in sub-kingdoms, classes and orders. If
+you divide the animal kingdom into orders, you will find that there are
+about one hundred and twenty. The number may vary on one side or the
+other, but this is a fair estimate. That is the sum total of the orders
+of all the animals which we know now, and which have been known in past
+times, and left remains behind.
+
+Now, how many of those are absolutely extinct? That is to say, how many
+of these orders of animals have lived at a former period of the world's
+history, but have at present no representatives? That is the sense in
+which I meant to use the word "extinct." I mean that those animals did
+live on this earth at one time, but have left no one of their kind with
+us at the present moment. So that estimating the number of extinct
+animals is a sort of way of comparing the past creation as a whole with
+the present as a whole. Among the mammalia and birds there are none
+extinct; but when we come to the reptiles there is a most wonderful
+thing: out of the eight orders, or thereabouts, which you can make among
+reptiles, one-half are extinct. These diagrams of the plesiosaurus, the
+ichthyosaurus, the pterodactyle, give you a notion of some of these
+extinct reptiles. And here is a cast of the pterodactyle and bones of
+the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus, just as fresh as if it had been
+recently dug up in a churchyard. Thus, in the reptile class, there are
+no less than half of the orders which are absolutely extinct. If we turn
+to the 'Amphibia', there was one extinct order, the Labyrinthodonts,
+typified by the large salamander-like beast shown in this diagram.
+
+No order of fishes is known to be extinct. Every fish that we find in
+the strata--to which I have been referring--can be identified and placed
+in one of the orders which exist at the present day. There is not known
+to be a single ordinal form of insect extinct. There are only two orders
+extinct among the 'Crustacea'. There is not known to be an extinct order
+of these creatures, the parasitic and other worms; but there are two,
+not to say three, absolutely extinct orders of this class, the
+'Echinodermata'; out of all the orders of the 'Coelenterata' and
+'Protozoa' only one, the Rugose Corals.
+
+So that, you see, out of somewhere about 120 orders of animals, taking
+them altogether, you will not, at the outside estimate, find above ten
+or a dozen extinct. Summing up all the orders of animals which have left
+remains behind them, you will not find above ten or a dozen which cannot
+be arranged with those of the present day; that is to say, that the
+difference does not amount to much more than ten per cent.: and the
+proportion of extinct orders of plants is still smaller. I think that
+that is a very astounding, a most astonishing fact, seeing the enormous
+epochs of time which have elapsed during the constitution of the surface
+of the earth as it at present exists; it is, indeed, a most astounding
+thing that the proportion of extinct ordinal types should be so
+exceedingly small.
+
+But now, there is another point of view in which we must look at this
+past creation. Suppose that we were to sink a vertical pit through the
+floor beneath us, and that I could succeed in making a section right
+through in the direction of New Zealand, I should find in each of the
+different beds through which I passed the remains of animals which I
+should find in that stratum and not in the others. First, I should come
+upon beds of gravel or drift containing the bones of large animals, such
+as the elephant, rhinoceros, and cave tiger. Rather curious things to
+fall across in Piccadilly! If I should dig lower still, I should come
+upon a bed of what we call the London clay, and in this, as you will see
+in our galleries upstairs, are found remains of strange cattle, remains
+of turtles, palms, and large tropical fruits; with shell-fish such as
+you see the like of now only in tropical regions. If I went below that,
+I should come upon the chalk, and there I should find something
+altogether different, the remains of ichthyosauri and pterodactyles, and
+ammonites, and so forth.
+
+I do not know what Mr. Godwin Austin would say comes next, but probably
+rocks containing more ammonites, and more ichthyosauri and plesiosauri,
+with a vast number of other things; and under that I should meet with
+yet older rocks, containing numbers of strange shells and fishes; and in
+thus passing from the surface to the lowest depths of the earth's crust,
+the forms of animal life and vegetable life which I should meet with in
+the successive beds would, looking at them broadly, be the more
+different the further that I went down. Or, in other words, inasmuch as
+we started with the clear principle, that in a series of
+naturally-disposed mud beds the lowest are the oldest, we should come to
+this result, that the further we go back in time the more difference
+exists between the animal and vegetable life of an epoch and that which
+now exists. That was the conclusion to which I wished to bring you at
+the end of this Lecture.
+
+End of The Past Condition of Organic Nature.
+
+***
+
+
+THE METHOD BY WHICH THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT AND PAST CONDITIONS OF
+ORGANIC NATURE ARE TO BE DISCOVERED.--THE ORIGINATION OF LIVING BEINGS.
+
+In the two preceding lectures I have endeavoured to indicate to you the
+extent of the subject-matter of the inquiry upon which we are engaged;
+and now, having thus acquired some conception of the Past and Present
+phenomena of Organic Nature, I must now turn to that which constitutes
+the great problem which we have set before ourselves;--I mean, the
+question of what knowledge we have of the causes of these phenomena of
+organic nature, and how such knowledge is obtainable.
+
+Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are
+in the world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose
+judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of
+their sincerity, who are of opinion that Vital Phenomena, and especially
+all questions relating to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions
+quite apart from the ordinary run of inquiry, and are, by their very
+nature, placed out of our reach. They say that all these phenomena
+originated miraculously, or in some way totally different from the
+ordinary course of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to be
+futile, not to say presumptuous, to attempt to inquire into them.
+
+To such sincere and earnest persons, I would only say, that a question
+of this kind is not to be shelved upon theoretical or speculative
+grounds. You may remember the story of the Sophist who demonstrated to
+Diogenes in the most complete and satisfactory manner that he could not
+walk; that, in fact, all motion was an impossibility; and that Diogenes
+refuted him by simply getting up and walking round his tub. So, in the
+same way, the man of science replies to objections of this kind, by
+simply getting up and walking onward, and showing what science has done
+and is doing--by pointing to that immense mass of facts which have been
+ascertained and systematized under the forms of the great doctrines of
+Morphology, of Development, of Distribution, and the like. He sees an
+enormous mass of facts and laws relating to organic beings, which stand
+on the same good sound foundation as every other natural law; and
+therefore, with this mass of facts and laws before us, therefore, seeing
+that, as far as organic matters have hitherto been accessible and
+studied, they have shown themselves capable of yielding to scientific
+investigation, we may accept this as proof that order and law reign
+there as well as in the rest of nature; and the man of science says
+nothing to objectors of this sort, but supposes that we can and shall
+walk to a knowledge of the origin of organic nature, in the same way
+that we have walked to a knowledge of the laws and principles of the
+inorganic world.
+
+But there are objectors who say the same from ignorance and ill-will. To
+such I would reply that the objection comes ill from them, and that the
+real presumption, I may almost say the real blasphemy, in this matter,
+is in the attempt to limit that inquiry into the causes of phenomena
+which is the source of all human blessings, and from which has sprung
+all human prosperity and progress; for, after all, we can accomplish
+comparatively little; the limited range of our own faculties bounds us
+on every side,--the field of our powers of observation is small enough,
+and he who endeavours to narrow the sphere of our inquiries is only
+pursuing a course that is likely to produce the greatest harm to his
+fellow-men.
+
+But now, assuming, as we all do, I hope, that these phenomena are
+properly accessible to inquiry, and setting out upon our search into the
+causes of the phenomena of organic nature, or, at any rate, setting out
+to discover how much we at present know upon these abstruse matters, the
+question arises as to what is to be our course of proceeding, and what
+method we must lay down for our guidance. I reply to that question, that
+our method must be exactly the same as that which is pursued in any
+other scientific inquiry, the method of scientific investigation being
+the same for all orders of facts and phenomena whatsoever.
+
+I must dwell a little on this point, for I wish you to leave this room
+with a very clear conviction that scientific investigation is not, as
+many people seem to suppose, some kind of modern black art. I say that
+you might easily gather this impression from the manner in which many
+persons speak of scientific inquiry, or talk about inductive and
+deductive philosophy, or the principles of the "Baconian philosophy." I
+do protest that, of the vast number of cants in this world, there are
+none, to my mind, so contemptible as the pseudoscientific cant which is
+talked about the "Baconian philosophy."
+
+To hear people talk about the great Chancellor--and a very great man he
+certainly was,--you would think that it was he who had invented science,
+and that there was no such thing as sound reasoning before the time of
+Queen Elizabeth. Of course you say, that cannot possibly be true; you
+perceive, on a moment's reflection, that such an idea is absurdly wrong,
+and yet, so firmly rooted is this sort of impression,--I cannot call it
+an idea, or conception,--the thing is too absurd to be entertained,--but
+so completely does it exist at the bottom of most men's minds, that this
+has been a matter of observation with me for many years past. There are
+many men who, though knowing absolutely nothing of the subject with
+which they may be dealing, wish, nevertheless, to damage the author of
+some view with which they think fit to disagree. What they do, then, is
+not to go and learn something about the subject, which one would
+naturally think the best way of fairly dealing with it; but they abuse
+the originator of the view they question, in a general manner, and wind
+up by saying that, "After all, you know, the principles and method of
+this author are totally opposed to the canons of the Baconian
+philosophy." Then everybody applauds, as a matter of course, and agrees
+that it must be so. But if you were to stop them all in the middle of
+their applause, you would probably find that neither the speaker nor his
+applauders could tell you how or in what way it was so; neither the one
+nor the other having the slightest idea of what they mean when they
+speak of the "Baconian philosophy."
+
+You will understand, I hope, that I have not the slightest desire to
+join in the outcry against either the morals, the intellect, or the
+great genius of Lord Chancellor Bacon. He was undoubtedly a very great
+man, let people say what they will of him; but notwithstanding all that
+he did for philosophy, it would be entirely wrong to suppose that the
+methods of modern scientific inquiry originated with him, or with his
+age; they originated with the first man, whoever he was; and indeed
+existed long before him, for many of the essential processes of
+reasoning are exerted by the higher order of brutes as completely and
+effectively as by ourselves. We see in many of the brute creation the
+exercise of one, at least, of the same powers of reasoning as that which
+we ourselves employ.
+
+The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of
+the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode
+at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact.
+There is no more difference, but there is just the same kind of
+difference, between the mental operations of a man of science and those
+of an ordinary person, as there is between the operations and methods of
+a baker or of a butcher weighing out his goods in common scales, and the
+operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis
+by means of his balance and finely-graduated weights. It is not that the
+action of the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other,
+differ in the principles of their construction or manner of working; but
+the beam of one is set on an infinitely finer axis than the other, and
+of course turns by the addition of a much smaller weight.
+
+You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give you some familiar
+example. You have all heard it repeated, I dare say, that men of science
+work by means of Induction and Deduction, and that by the help of these
+operations, they, in a sort of sense, wring from Nature certain other
+things, which are called Natural Laws, and Causes, and that out of
+these, by some cunning skill of their own, they build up Hypotheses and
+Theories. And it is imagined by many, that the operations of the common
+mind can be by no means compared with these processes, and that they
+have to be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship to the craft. To
+hear all these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of
+science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men; but
+if you will not be frightened by terms, you will discover that you are
+quite wrong, and that all these terrible apparatus are being used by
+yourselves every day and every hour of your lives.
+
+There is a well-known incident in one of Moliere's plays, where the
+author makes the hero express unbounded delight on being told that he
+had been talking prose during the whole of his life. In the same way, I
+trust, that you will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on
+the discovery that you have been acting on the principles of inductive
+and deductive philosophy during the same period. Probably there is not
+one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in
+motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though
+differing of course in degree, as that which a scientific man goes
+through in tracing the causes of natural phenomena.
+
+A very trivial circumstance will serve to exemplify this. Suppose you go
+into a fruiterer's shop, wanting an apple,--you take up one, and, on
+biting it, you find it is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard
+and green. You take up another one, and that too is hard, green, and
+sour. The shopman offers you a third; but, before biting it, you examine
+it, and find that it is hard and green, and you immediately say that you
+will not have it, as it must be sour, like those that you have already
+tried.
+
+Nothing can be more simple than that, you think; but if you will take
+the trouble to analyze and trace out into its logical elements what has
+been done by the mind, you will be greatly surprised. In the first
+place, you have performed the operation of INDUCTION. You found that, in
+two experiences, hardness and greenness in apples go together with
+sourness. It was so in the first case, and it was confirmed by the
+second. True, it is a very small basis, but still it is enough to make
+an induction from; you generalize the facts, and you expect to find
+sourness in apples where you get hardness and greenness. You found upon
+that a general law, that all hard and green apples are sour; and that,
+so far as it goes, is a perfect induction. Well, having got your natural
+law in this way, when you are offered another apple which you find is
+hard and green, you say, "All hard and green apples are sour; this apple
+is hard and green, therefore this apple is sour." That train of
+reasoning is what logicians call a syllogism, and has all its various
+parts and terms,--its major premiss, its minor premiss, and its
+conclusion. And, by the help of further reasoning, which, if drawn out,
+would have to be exhibited in two or three other syllogisms, you arrive
+at your final determination, "I will not have that apple." So that, you
+see, you have, in the first place, established a law by Induction, and
+upon that you have founded a Deduction, and reasoned out the special
+conclusion of the particular case. Well now, suppose, having got your
+law, that at some time afterwards, you are discussing the qualities of
+apples with a friend: you will say to him, "It is a very curious
+thing,--but I find that all hard and green apples are sour!" Your friend
+says to you, "But how do you know that?" You at once reply, "Oh, because
+I have tried it over and over again, and have always found them to be
+so." Well. if we were talking science instead of common sense, we should
+call that an Experimental Verification. And, if still opposed, you go
+further, and say, "I have heard from the people in Somersetshire and
+Devonshire, where a large number of apples are grown, that they have
+observed the same thing. It is also found to be the case in Normandy,
+and in North America. In short, I find it to be the universal experience
+of mankind wherever attention has been directed to the subject."
+Whereupon, your friend, unless he is a very unreasonable man, agrees
+with you, and is convinced that you are quite right in the conclusion
+you have drawn. He believes, although perhaps he does not know he
+believes it, that the more extensive Verifications are,--that the more
+frequently experiments have been made, and results of the same kind
+arrived at,--that the more varied the conditions under which the same
+results have been attained, the more certain is the ultimate conclusion,
+and he disputes the question no further. He sees that the experiment has
+been tried under all sorts of conditions, as to time, place, and people,
+with the same result; and he says with you, therefore, that the law you
+have laid down must be a good one, and he must believe it.
+
+In science we do the same thing;--the philosopher exercises precisely
+the same faculties, though in a much more delicate manner. In scientific
+inquiry it becomes a matter of duty to expose a supposed law to every
+possible kind of verification, and to take care, moreover, that this is
+done intentionally, and not left to a mere accident, as in the case of
+the apples. And in science, as in common life, our confidence in a law
+is in exact proportion to the absence of variation in the result of our
+experimental verifications. For instance, if you let go your grasp of an
+article you may have in your hand, it will immediately fall to the
+ground. That is a very common verification of one of the best
+established laws of nature--that of gravitation. The method by which men
+of science establish the existence of that law is exactly the same as
+that by which we have established the trivial proposition about the
+sourness of hard and green apples. But we believe it in such an
+extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal
+experience of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any
+time; and that is the strongest possible foundation on which any natural
+law can rest.
+
+So much by way of proof that the method of establishing laws in science
+is exactly the same as that pursued in common life. Let us now turn to
+another matter (though really it is but another phase of the same
+question), and that is, the method by which, from the relations of
+certain phenomena, we prove that some stand in the position of causes
+towards the others.
+
+I want to put the case clearly before you, and I will therefore show you
+what I mean by another familiar example. I will suppose that one of you,
+on coming down in the morning to the parlour of your house, finds that a
+tea-pot and some spoons which had been left in the room on the previous
+evening are gone,--the window is open, and you observe the mark of a
+dirty hand on the window-frame, and perhaps, in addition to that, you
+notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoe on the gravel outside. All these
+phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and before two minutes
+have passed you say, "Oh, somebody has broken open the window, entered
+the room, and run off with the spoons and the tea-pot!" That speech is
+out of your mouth in a moment. And you will probably add, "I know there
+has; I am quite sure of it!" You mean to say exactly what you know; but
+in reality what you have said has been the expression of what is, in all
+essential particulars, an Hypothesis. You do not 'know' it at all; it is
+nothing but an hypothesis rapidly framed in your own mind! And it is an
+hypothesis founded on a long train of inductions and deductions.
+
+What are those inductions and deductions, and how have you got at this
+hypothesis? You have observed, in the first place, that the window is
+open; but by a train of reasoning involving many Inductions and
+Deductions, you have probably arrived long before at the General
+Law--and a very good one it is--that windows do not open of themselves;
+and you therefore conclude that something has opened the window. A
+second general law that you have arrived at in the same way is, that
+tea-pots and spoons do not go out of a window spontaneously, and you are
+satisfied that, as they are not now where you left them, they have been
+removed. In the third place, you look at the marks on the window-sill,
+and the shoemarks outside, and you say that in all previous experience
+the former kind of mark has never been produced by anything else but the
+hand of a human being; and the same experience shows that no other
+animal but man at present wears shoes with hob-nails on them such as
+would produce the marks in the gravel. I do not know, even if we could
+discover any of those "missing links" that are talked about, that they
+would help us to any other conclusion! At any rate the law which states
+our present experience is strong enough for my present purpose.--You
+next reach the conclusion, that as these kinds of marks have not been
+left by any other animals than men, or are liable to be formed in any
+other way than by a man's hand and shoe, the marks in question have been
+formed by a man in that way. You have, further, a general law, founded
+on observation and experience, and that, too, is, I am sorry to say, a
+very universal and unimpeachable one,--that some men are thieves; and
+you assume at once from all these premisses--and that is what
+constitutes your hypothesis--that the man who made the marks outside and
+on the window-sill, opened the window, got into the room, and stole your
+tea-pot and spoons. You have now arrived at a 'Vera Causa';--you have
+assumed a Cause which it is plain is competent to produce all the
+phenomena you have observed. You can explain all these phenomena only by
+the hypothesis of a thief. But that is a hypothetical conclusion, of the
+justice of which you have no absolute proof at all; it is only rendered
+highly probable by a series of inductive and deductive reasonings.
+
+I suppose your first action, assuming that you are a man of ordinary
+common sense, and that you have established this hypothesis to your own
+satisfaction, will very likely be to go off for the police, and set them
+on the track of the burglar, with the view to the recovery of your
+property. But just as you are starting with this object, some person
+comes in, and on learning what you are about, says, "My good friend, you
+are going on a great deal too fast. How do you know that the man who
+really made the marks took the spoons? It might have been a monkey that
+took them, and the man may have merely looked in afterwards." You would
+probably reply, "Well, that is all very well, but you see it is contrary
+to all experience of the way tea-pots and spoons are abstracted; so
+that, at any rate, your hypothesis is less probable than mine." While
+you are talking the thing over in this way, another friend arrives, one
+of that good kind of people that I was talking of a little while ago.
+And he might say, "Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly going on a great
+deal too fast. You are most presumptuous. You admit that all these
+occurrences took place when you were fast asleep, at a time when you
+could not possibly have known anything about what was taking place. How
+do you know that the laws of Nature are not suspended during the night?
+It may be that there has been some kind of supernatural interference in
+this case." In point of fact, he declares that your hypothesis is one of
+which you cannot at all demonstrate the truth, and that you are by no
+means sure that the laws of Nature are the same when you are asleep as
+when you are awake.
+
+Well, now, you cannot at the moment answer that kind of reasoning. You
+feel that your worthy friend has you somewhat at a disadvantage. You
+will feel perfectly convinced in your own mind, however, that you are
+quite right, and you say to him, "My good friend, I can only be guided
+by the natural probabilities of the case, and if you will be kind enough
+to stand aside and permit me to pass, I will go and fetch the police."
+Well, we will suppose that your journey is successful, and that by good
+luck you meet with a policeman; that eventually the burglar is found
+with your property on his person, and the marks correspond to his hand
+and to his boots. Probably any jury would consider those facts a very
+good experimental verification of your hypothesis, touching the cause of
+the abnormal phenomena observed in your parlour, and would act
+accordingly.
+
+Now, in this supposititious case, I have taken phenomena of a very
+common kind, in order that you might see what are the different steps in
+an ordinary process of reasoning, if you will only take the trouble to
+analyse it carefully. All the operations I have described, you will see,
+are involved in the mind of any man of sense in leading him to a
+conclusion as to the course he should take in order to make good a
+robbery and punish the offender. I say that you are led, in that case,
+to your conclusion by exactly the same train of reasoning as that which
+a man of science pursues when he is endeavouring to discover the origin
+and laws of the most occult phenomena. The process is, and always must
+be, the same; and precisely the same mode of reasoning was employed by
+Newton and Laplace in their endeavours to discover and define the causes
+of the movements of the heavenly bodies, as you, with your own common
+sense, would employ to detect a burglar. The only difference is, that
+the nature of the inquiry being more abstruse, every step has to be most
+carefully watched, so that there may not be a single crack or flaw in
+your hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many of the hypotheses of daily life
+may be of little or no moment as affecting the general correctness of
+the conclusions at which we may arrive; but, in a scientific inquiry, a
+fallacy, great or small, is always of importance, and is sure to be
+constantly productive of mischievous, if not fatal results.
+
+Do not allow yourselves to be misled by the common notion that an
+hypothesis is untrustworthy simply because it is an hypothesis. It is
+often urged, in respect to some scientific conclusion, that, after all,
+it is only an hypothesis. But what more have we to guide us in
+nine-tenths of the most important affairs of daily life than hypotheses,
+and often very ill-based ones? So that in science, where the evidence of
+an hypothesis is subjected to the most rigid examination, we may rightly
+pursue the same course. You may have hypotheses and hypotheses. A man
+may say, if he likes, that the moon is made of green cheese: that is an
+hypothesis. But another man, who has devoted a great deal of time and
+attention to the subject, and availed himself of the most powerful
+telescopes and the results of the observations of others, declares that
+in his opinion it is probably composed of materials very similar to
+those of which our own earth is made up: and that is also only an
+hypothesis. But I need not tell you that there is an enormous difference
+in the value of the two hypotheses. That one which is based on sound
+scientific knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value; and that
+which is a mere hasty random guess is likely to have but little value.
+Every great step in our progress in discovering causes has been made in
+exactly the same way as that which I have detailed to you. A person
+observing the occurrence of certain facts and phenomena asks, naturally
+enough, what process, what kind of operation known to occur in nature
+applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the mystery?
+Hence you have the scientific hypothesis; and its value will be
+proportionate to the care and completeness with which its basis had been
+tested and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs
+of practical life: the guess of the fool will be folly, while the guess
+of the wise man will contain wisdom. In all cases, you see that the
+value of the result depends on the patience and faithfulness with which
+the investigator applies to his hypothesis every possible kind of
+verification.
+
+I dare say I may have to return to this point by-and-by; but having
+dealt thus far with our logical methods, I must now turn to something
+which, perhaps, you may consider more interesting, or, at any rate, more
+tangible. But in reality there are but few things that can be more
+important for you to understand than the mental processes and the means
+by which we obtain scientific conclusions and theories.* ([Footnote]
+*Those who wish to study fully the doctrines of which I have endeavoured
+to give some rough and ready illustrations, must read Mr. John Stuart
+Mill's 'System of Logic'.) Having granted that the inquiry is a proper
+one, and having determined on the nature of the methods we are to pursue
+and which only can lead to success, I must now turn to the consideration
+of our knowledge of the nature of the processes which have resulted in
+the present condition of organic nature.
+
+Here, let me say at once, lest some of you misunderstand me, that I have
+extremely little to report. The question of how the present condition of
+organic nature came about, resolves itself into two questions. The first
+is: How has organic or living matter commenced its existence? And the
+second is: How has it been perpetuated? On the second question I shall
+have more to say hereafter. But on the first one, what I now have to say
+will be for the most part of a negative character.
+
+If you consider what kind of evidence we can have upon this matter, it
+will resolve itself into two kinds. We may have historical evidence and
+we may have experimental evidence. It is, for example, conceivable, that
+inasmuch as the hardened mud which forms a considerable portion of the
+thickness of the earth's crust contains faithful records of the past
+forms of life, and inasmuch as these differ more and more as we go
+further down,--it is possible and conceivable that we might come to some
+particular bed or stratum which should contain the remains of those
+creatures with which organic life began upon the earth. And if we did
+so, and if such forms of organic life were preservable, we should have
+what I would call historical evidence of the mode in which organic life
+began upon this planet. Many persons will tell you, and indeed you will
+find it stated in many works on geology, that this has been done, and
+that we really possess such a record; there are some who imagine that
+the earliest forms of life of which we have as yet discovered any
+record, are in truth the forms in which animal life began upon the
+globe. The grounds on which they base that supposition are these:--That
+if you go through the enormous thickness of the earth's crust and get
+down to the older rocks, the higher vertebrate animals--the quadrupeds,
+birds, and fishes--cease to be found; beneath them you find only the
+invertebrate animals; and in the deepest and lowest rocks those remains
+become scantier and scantier, not in any very gradual progression,
+however, until, at length, in what are supposed to be the oldest rocks,
+the animal remains which are found are almost always confined to four
+forms--'Oldhamia', whose precise nature is not known, whether plant or
+animal; 'Lingula', a kind of mollusc; 'Trilobites', a crustacean animal,
+having the same essential plan of construction, though differing in many
+details from a lobster or crab; and Hymenocaris, which is also a
+crustacean. So that you have all the 'Fauna' reduced, at this period, to
+four forms: one a kind of animal or plant that we know nothing about,
+and three undoubted animals--two crustaceans and one mollusc.
+
+I think, considering the organization of these mollusca and crustacea,
+and looking at their very complex nature, that it does indeed require a
+very strong imagination to conceive that these were the first created of
+all living things. And you must take into consideration the fact that we
+have not the slightest proof that these which we call the oldest beds
+are really so: I repeat, we have not the slightest proof of it. When you
+find in some places that in an enormous thickness of rocks there are but
+very scanty traces of life, or absolutely none at all; and that in other
+parts of the world rocks of the very same formation are crowded with the
+records of living forms, I think it is impossible to place any reliance
+on the supposition, or to feel oneself justified in supposing that these
+are the forms in which life first commenced. I have not time here to
+enter upon the technical grounds upon which I am led to this
+conclusion,--that could hardly be done properly in half a dozen lectures
+on that part alone;--I must content myself with saying that I do not at
+all believe that these are the oldest forms of life.
+
+I turn to the experimental side to see what evidence we have there. To
+enable us to say that we know anything about the experimental
+origination of organization and life, the investigator ought to be able
+to take inorganic matters, such as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and
+salines, in any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to build them
+up into Protein matter, and that that Protein matter ought to begin to
+live in an organic form. That, nobody has done as yet, and I suspect it
+will be a long while before anybody does do it. But the thing is by no
+means so impossible as it looks; for the researches of modern chemistry
+have shown us--I won't say the road towards it, but, if I may so say,
+they have shown the finger-post pointing to the road that may lead to
+it.
+
+It is not many years ago--and you must recollect that Organic Chemistry
+is a young science, not above a couple of generations old,--you must not
+expect too much of it; it is not many years ago since it was said to be
+perfectly impossible to fabricate any organic compound; that is to say,
+any non-mineral compound which is to be found in an organized being. It
+remained so for a very long period; but it is now a considerable number
+of years since a distinguished foreign chemist contrived to fabricate
+Urea, a substance of a very complex character, which forms one of the
+waste products of animal structures. And of late years a number of other
+compounds, such as Butyric Acid, and others, have been added to the
+list. I need not tell you that chemistry is an enormous distance from
+the goal I indicate; all I wish to point out to you is, that it is by no
+means safe to say that that goal may not be reached one day. It may be
+that it is impossible for us to produce the conditions requisite to the
+origination of life; but we must speak modestly about the matter, and
+recollect that Science has put her foot upon the bottom round of the
+ladder. Truly he would be a bold man who would venture to predict where
+she will be fifty years hence.
+
+There is another inquiry which bears indirectly upon this question, and
+upon which I must say a few words. You are all of you aware of the
+phenomena of what is called spontaneous generation. Our forefathers,
+down to the seventeenth century, or thereabouts, all imagined, in
+perfectly good faith, that certain vegetable and animal forms gave
+birth, in the process of their decomposition, to insect life. Thus, if
+you put a piece of meat in the sun, and allowed it to putrefy, they
+conceived that the grubs which soon began to appear were the result of
+the action of a power of spontaneous generation which the meat
+contained. And they could give you receipts for making various animal
+and vegetable preparations which would produce particular kinds of
+animals. A very distinguished Italian naturalist, named Redi, took up
+the question, at a time when everybody believed in it; among others our
+own great Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. You
+will constantly find his name quoted, however, as an opponent of the
+doctrine of spontaneous generation; but the fact is, and you will see it
+if you will take the trouble to look into his works, Harvey believed it
+as profoundly as any man of his time; but he happened to enunciate a
+very curious proposition--that every living thing came from an 'egg'; he
+did not mean to use the word in the sense in which we now employ it, he
+only meant to say that every living thing originated in a little rounded
+particle of organized substance; and it is from this circumstance,
+probably, that the notion of Harvey having opposed the doctrine
+originated. Then came Redi, and he proceeded to upset the doctrine in a
+very simple manner. He merely covered the piece of meat with some very
+fine gauze, and then he exposed it to the same conditions. The result of
+this was that no grubs or insects were produced; he proved that the
+grubs originated from the insects who came and deposited their eggs in
+the meat, and that they were hatched by the heat of the sun. By this
+kind of inquiry he thoroughly upset the doctrine of spontaneous
+generation, for his time at least.
+
+Then came the discovery and application of the microscope to scientific
+inquiries, which showed to naturalists that besides the organisms which
+they already knew as living beings and plants, there were an immense
+number of minute things which could be obtained apparently almost at
+will from decaying vegetable and animal forms. Thus, if you took some
+ordinary black pepper or some hay, and steeped it in water, you would
+find in the course of a few days that the water had become impregnated
+with an immense number of animalcules swimming about in all directions.
+From facts of this kind naturalists were led to revive the theory of
+spontaneous generation. They were headed here by an English
+naturalist,--Needham,--and afterwards in France by the learned Buffon.
+They said that these things were absolutely begotten in the water of the
+decaying substances out of which the infusion was made. It did not
+matter whether you took animal or vegetable matter, you had only to
+steep it in water and expose it, and you would soon have plenty of
+animalcules. They made an hypothesis about this which was a very fair
+one. They said, this matter of the animal world, or of the higher
+plants, appears to be dead, but in reality it has a sort of dim life
+about it, which, if it is placed under fair conditions, will cause it to
+break up into the forms of these little animalcules, and they will go
+through their lives in the same way as the animal or plant of which they
+once formed a part.
+
+The question now became very hotly debated. Spallanzani, an Italian
+naturalist, took up opposite views to those of Needham and Buffon, and
+by means of certain experiments he showed that it was quite possible to
+stop the process by boiling the water, and closing the vessel in which
+it was contained. "Oh!" said his opponents; "but what do you know you
+may be doing when you heat the air over the water in this way? You may
+be destroying some property of the air requisite for the spontaneous
+generation of the animalcules."
+
+However, Spallanzani's views were supposed to be upon the right side,
+and those of the others fell into discredit; although the fact was that
+Spallanzani had not made good his views. Well, then, the subject
+continued to be revived from time to time, and experiments were made by
+several persons; but these experiments were not altogether satisfactory.
+It was found that if you put an infusion in which animalcules would
+appear if it were exposed to the air into a vessel and boiled it, and
+then sealed up the mouth of the vessel, so that no air, save such as had
+been heated to 212 degrees, could reach its contents, that then no
+animalcules would be found; but if you took the same vessel and exposed
+the infusion to the air, then you would get animalcules. Furthermore, it
+was found that if you connected the mouth of the vessel with a red-hot
+tube in such a way that the air would have to pass through the tube
+before reaching the infusion, that then you would get no animalcules.
+Yet another thing was noticed: if you took two flasks containing the
+same kind of infusion, and left one entirely exposed to the air, and in
+the mouth of the other placed a ball of cotton wool, so that the air
+would have to filter itself through it before reaching the infusion,
+that then, although you might have plenty of animalcules in the first
+flask, you would certainly obtain none from the second.
+
+These experiments, you see, all tended towards one conclusion--that the
+infusoria were developed from little minute spores or eggs which were
+constantly floating in the atmosphere, which lose their power of
+germination if subjected to heat. But one observer now made another
+experiment which seemed to go entirely the other way, and puzzled him
+altogether. He took some of this boiled infusion that I have been
+speaking of, and by the use of a mercurial bath--a kind of trough used
+in laboratories--he deftly inverted a vessel containing the infusion
+into the mercury, so that the latter reached a little beyond the level
+of the mouth of the 'inverted' vessel. You see that he thus had a
+quantity of the infusion shut off from any possible communication with
+the outer air by being inverted upon a bed of mercury.
+
+He then prepared some pure oxygen and nitrogen gases, and passed them by
+means of a tube going from the outside of the vessel, up through the
+mercury into the infusion; so that he thus had it exposed to a perfectly
+pure atmosphere of the same constituents as the external air. Of course,
+he expected he would get no infusorial animalcules at all in that
+infusion; but, to his great dismay and discomfiture, he found he almost
+always did get them.
+
+Furthermore, it has been found that experiments made in the manner
+described above answer well with most infusions; but that if you fill
+the vessel with boiled milk, and then stop the neck with cotton-wool,
+you 'will' have infusoria. So that you see there were two experiments
+that brought you to one kind of conclusion, and three to another; which
+was a most unsatisfactory state of things to arrive at in a scientific
+inquiry.
+
+Some few years after this, the question began to be very hotly discussed
+in France. There was M. Pouchet, a professor at Rouen, a very learned
+man, but certainly not a very rigid experimentalist. He published a
+number of experiments of his own, some of which were very ingenious, to
+show that if you went to work in a proper way, there was a truth in the
+doctrine of spontaneous generation. Well, it was one of the most
+fortunate things in the world that M. Pouchet took up this question,
+because it induced a distinguished French chemist, M. Pasteur, to take
+up the question on the other side; and he has certainly worked it out in
+the most perfect manner. I am glad to say, too, that he has published
+his researches in time to enable me to give you an account of them. He
+verified all the experiments which I have just mentioned to you--and
+then finding those extraordinary anomalies, as in the case of the
+mercury bath and the milk, he set himself to work to discover their
+nature. In the case of milk he found it to be a question of temperature.
+Milk in a fresh state is slightly alkaline; and it is a very curious
+circumstance, but this very slight degree of alkalinity seems to have
+the effect of preserving the organisms which fall into it from the air
+from being destroyed at a temperature of 212 degrees, which is the
+boiling point. But if you raise the temperature 10 degrees when you boil
+it, the milk behaves like everything else; and if the air with which it
+comes in contact, after being boiled at this temperature, is passed
+through a red-hot tube, you will not get a trace of organisms.
+
+He then turned his attention to the mercury bath, and found on
+examination that the surface of the mercury was almost always covered
+with a very fine dust. He found that even the mercury itself was
+positively full of organic matters; that from being constantly exposed
+to the air, it had collected an immense number of these infusorial
+organisms from the air. Well, under these circumstances he felt that the
+case was quite clear, and that the mercury was not what it had appeared
+to M. Schwann to be,--a bar to the admission of these organisms; but
+that, in reality, it acted as a reservoir from which the infusion was
+immediately supplied with the large quantity that had so puzzled him.
+
+But not content with explaining the experiments of others, M. Pasteur
+went to work to satisfy himself completely. He said to himself: "If my
+view is right, and if, in point of fact, all these appearances of
+spontaneous generation are altogether due to the falling of minute germs
+suspended in the atmosphere,--why, I ought not only to be able to show
+the germs, but I ought to be able to catch and sow them, and produce the
+resulting organisms." He, accordingly, constructed a very ingenious
+apparatus to enable him to accomplish this trapping of this "germ dust"
+in the air. He fixed in the window of his room a glass tube, in the
+centre of which he had placed a ball of gun-cotton, which, as you all
+know, is ordinary cotton-wool, which, from having been steeped in strong
+acid, is converted into a substance of great explosive power. It is also
+soluble in alcohol and ether. One end of the glass tube was, of course,
+open to the external air; and at the other end of it he placed an
+aspirator, a contrivance for causing a current of the external air to
+pass through the tube. He kept this apparatus going for four-and-twenty
+hours, and then removed the 'dusted' gun-cotton, and dissolved it in
+alcohol and ether. He then allowed this to stand for a few hours, and
+the result was, that a very fine dust was gradually deposited at the
+bottom of it. That dust, on being transferred to the stage of a
+microscope, was found to contain an enormous number of starch grains.
+You know that the materials of our food and the greater portion of
+plants are composed of starch, and we are constantly making use of it in
+a variety of ways, so that there is always a quantity of it suspended in
+the air. It is these starch grains which form many of those bright
+specks that we see dancing in a ray of light sometimes. But besides
+these, M. Pasteur found also an immense number of other organic
+substances such as spores of fungi, which had been floating about in the
+air and had got caged in this way.
+
+He went farther, and said to himself, "If these really are the things
+that give rise to the appearance of spontaneous generation, I ought to
+be able to take a ball of this 'dusted' gun-cotton and put it into one
+of my vessels, containing that boiled infusion which has been kept away
+from the air, and in which no infusoria are at present developed, and
+then, if I am right, the introduction of this gun-cotton will give rise
+to organisms."
+
+Accordingly, he took one of these vessels of infusion, which had been
+kept eighteen months, without the least appearance of life, and by a
+most ingenious contrivance, he managed to break it open and introduce
+such a ball of gun-cotton, without allowing the infusion or the cotton
+ball to come into contact with any air but that which had been subjected
+to a red heat, and in twenty-four hours he had the satisfaction of
+finding all the indications of what had been hitherto called spontaneous
+generation. He had succeeded in catching the germs and developing
+organisms in the way he had anticipated.
+
+It now struck him that the truth of his conclusions might be
+demonstrated without all the apparatus he had employed. To do this, he
+took some decaying animal or vegetable substance, such as urine, which
+is an extremely decomposable substance, or the juice of yeast, or
+perhaps some other artificial preparation, and filled a vessel having a
+long tubular neck with it. He then boiled the liquid and bent that long
+neck into an S shape or zig-zag, leaving it open at the end. The
+infusion then gave no trace of any appearance of spontaneous generation,
+however long it might be left, as all the germs in the air were
+deposited in the beginning of the bent neck. He then cut the tube close
+to the vessel, and allowed the ordinary air to have free and direct
+access; and the result of that was the appearance of organisms in it, as
+soon as the infusion had been allowed to stand long enough to allow of
+the growth of those it received from the air, which was about
+forty-eight hours. The result of M. Pasteur's experiments proved,
+therefore, in the most conclusive manner, that all the appearances of
+spontaneous generation arose from nothing more than the deposition of
+the germs of organisms which were constantly floating in the air.
+
+To this conclusion, however, the objection was made, that if that were
+the cause, then the air would contain such an enormous number of these
+germs, that it would be a continual fog. But M. Pasteur replied that
+they are not there in anything like the number we might suppose, and
+that an exaggerated view has been held on that subject; he showed that
+the chances of animal or vegetable life appearing in infusions, depend
+entirely on the conditions under which they are exposed. If they are
+exposed to the ordinary atmosphere around us, why, of course, you may
+have organisms appearing early. But, on the other hand, if they are
+exposed to air from a great height, or from some very quiet cellar, you
+will often not find a single trace of life.
+
+So that M. Pasteur arrived at last at the clear and definite result,
+that all these appearances are like the case of the worms in the piece
+of meat, which was refuted by Redi, simply germs carried by the air and
+deposited in the liquids in which they afterwards appear. For my own
+part, I conceive that, with the particulars of M. Pasteur's experiments
+before us, we cannot fail to arrive at his conclusions; and that the
+doctrine of spontaneous generation has received a final 'coup de grace'.
+
+You, of course, understand that all this in no way interferes with the
+POSSIBILITY of the fabrication of organic matters by the direct method
+to which I have referred, remote as that possibility may be.
+
+
+End of The Origination of Living Beings.
+
+***
+
+
+THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS, HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION AND
+VARIATION.
+
+The inquiry which we undertook, at our last meeting, into the state of
+our knowledge of the causes of the phenomena of organic nature,--of the
+past and of the present,--resolved itself into two subsidiary inquiries:
+the first was, whether we know anything, either historically or
+experimentally, of the mode of origin of living beings; the second
+subsidiary inquiry was, whether, granting the origin, we know anything
+about the perpetuation and modifications of the forms of organic beings.
+The reply which I had to give to the first question was altogether
+negative, and the chief result of my last lecture was, that, neither
+historically nor experimentally, do we at present know anything
+whatsoever about the origin of living forms. We saw that, historically,
+we are not likely to know anything about it, although we may perhaps
+learn something experimentally; but that at present we are an enormous
+distance from the goal I indicated.
+
+I now, then, take up the next question, What do we know of the
+reproduction, the perpetuation, and the modifications of the forms of
+living beings, supposing that we have put the question as to their
+origination on one side, and have assumed that at present the causes of
+their origination are beyond us, and that we know nothing about them?
+Upon this question the state of our knowledge is extremely different; it
+is exceedingly large, and, if not complete, our experience is certainly
+most extensive. It would be impossible to lay it all before you, and the
+most I can do, or need do to-night, is to take up the principal points
+and put them before you with such prominence as may subserve the
+purposes of our present argument.
+
+The method of the perpetuation of organic beings is of two kinds,--the
+asexual and the sexual. In the first the perpetuation takes place from
+and by a particular act of an individual organism, which sometimes may
+not be classed as belonging to any sex at all. In the second case, it is
+in consequence of the mutual action and interaction of certain portions
+of the organisms of usually two distinct individuals,--the male and the
+female. The cases of asexual perpetuation are by no means so common as
+the cases of sexual perpetuation; and they are by no means so common in
+the animal as in the vegetable world. You are all probably familiar with
+the fact, as a matter of experience, that you can propagate plants by
+means of what are called "cuttings;" for example, that by taking a
+cutting from a geranium plant, and rearing it properly, by supplying it
+with light and warmth and nourishment from the earth, it grows up and
+takes the form of its parent, having all the properties and
+peculiarities of the original plant.
+
+Sometimes this process, which the gardener performs artificially, takes
+place naturally; that is to say, a little bulb, or portion of the plant,
+detaches itself, drops off, and becomes capable of growing as a separate
+thing. That is the case with many bulbous plants, which throw off in
+this way secondary bulbs, which are lodged in the ground and become
+developed into plants. This is an asexual process, and from it results
+the repetition or reproduction of the form of the original being from
+which the bulb proceeds.
+
+Among animals the same thing takes place. Among the lower forms of
+animal life, the infusorial animalculae we have already spoken of throw
+off certain portions, or break themselves up in various directions,
+sometimes transversely or sometimes longitudinally; or they may give off
+buds, which detach themselves and develop into their proper forms. There
+is the common fresh-water Polype, for instance, which multiplies itself
+in this way. Just in the same way as the gardener is able to multiply
+and reproduce the peculiarities and characters of particular plants by
+means of cuttings, so can the physiological experimentalist--as was
+shown by the Abbe Trembley many years ago--so can he do the same thing
+with many of the lower forms of animal life. M. de Trembley showed that
+you could take a polype and cut it into two, or four, or many pieces,
+mutilating it in all directions, and the pieces would still grow up and
+reproduce completely the original form of the animal. These are all
+cases of asexual multiplication, and there are other instances, and
+still more extraordinary ones, in which this process takes place
+naturally, in a more hidden, a more recondite kind of way. You are all
+of you familiar with those little green insects, the 'Aphis' or blight,
+as it is called. These little animals, during a very considerable part
+of their existence, multiply themselves by means of a kind of internal
+budding, the buds being developed into essentially asexual animals,
+which are neither male nor female; they become converted into young
+'Aphides', which repeat the process, and their offspring after them, and
+so on again; you may go on for nine or ten, or even twenty or more
+successions; and there is no very good reason to say how soon it might
+terminate, or how long it might not go on if the proper conditions of
+warmth and nourishment were kept up.
+
+Sexual reproduction is quite a distinct matter. Here, in all these
+cases, what is required is the detachment of two portions of the
+parental organisms, which portions we know as the egg and the
+spermatozoon. In plants it is the ovule and the pollen-grain, as in the
+flowering plants, or the ovule and the antherozooid, as in the
+flowerless. Among all forms of animal life, the spermatozoa proceed from
+the male sex, and the egg is the product of the female. Now, what is
+remarkable about this mode of reproduction is this, that the egg by
+itself, or the spermatozoa by themselves, are unable to assume the
+parental form; but if they be brought into contact with one another, the
+effect of the mixture of organic substances proceeding from two sources
+appears to confer an altogether new vigour to the mixed product. This
+process is brought about, as we all know, by the sexual intercourse of
+the two sexes, and is called the act of impregnation. The result of this
+act on the part of the male and female is, that the formation of a new
+being is set up in the ovule or egg; this ovule or egg soon begins to be
+divided and subdivided, and to be fashioned into various complex
+organisms, and eventually to develop into the form of one of its
+parents, as I explained in the first lecture. These are the processes by
+which the perpetuation of organic beings is secured. Why there should be
+the two modes--why this re-invigoration should be required on the part
+of the female element we do not know; but it is most assuredly the fact,
+and it is presumable, that, however long the process of asexual
+multiplication could be continued, I say there is good reason to believe
+that it would come to an end if a new commencement were not obtained by
+a conjunction of the two sexual elements.
+
+That character which is common to these two distinct processes is this,
+that, whether we consider the reproduction, or perpetuation, or
+modification of organic beings as they take place asexually, or as they
+may take place sexually,--in either case, I say, the offspring has a
+constant tendency to assume, speaking generally, the character of the
+parent. As I said just now, if you take a slip of a plant, and tend it
+with care, it will eventually grow up and develop into a plant like that
+from which it had sprung; and this tendency is so strong that, as
+gardeners know, this mode of multiplying by means of cuttings is the
+only secure mode of propagating very many varieties of plants; the
+peculiarity of the primitive stock seems to be better preserved if you
+propagate it by means of a slip than if you resort to the sexual mode.
+
+Again, in experiments upon the lower animals, such as the polype, to
+which I have referred, it is most extraordinary that, although cut up
+into various pieces, each particular piece will grow up into the form of
+the primitive stock; the head, if separated, will reproduce the body and
+the tail; and if you cut off the tail, you will find that that will
+reproduce the body and all the rest of the members, without in any way
+deviating from the plan of the organism from which these portions have
+been detached. And so far does this go, that some experimentalists have
+carefully examined the lower orders of animals,--among them the Abbe
+Spallanzani, who made a number of experiments upon snails and
+salamanders,--and have found that they might mutilate them to an
+incredible extent; that you might cut off the jaw or the greater part of
+the head, or the leg or the tail, and repeat the experiment several
+times, perhaps, cutting off the same member again and again; and yet
+each of those types would be reproduced according to the primitive type:
+nature making no mistake, never putting on a fresh kind of leg, or head,
+or tail, but always tending to repeat and to return to the primitive
+type.
+
+It is the same in sexual reproduction: it is a matter of perfectly
+common experience, that the tendency on the part of the offspring always
+is, speaking broadly, to reproduce the form of the parents. The proverb
+has it that the thistle does not bring forth grapes; so, among
+ourselves, there is always a likeness, more or less marked and distinct,
+between children and their parents. That is a matter of familiar and
+ordinary observation. We notice the same thing occurring in the cases of
+the domestic animals--dogs, for instance, and their offspring. In all
+these cases of propagation and perpetuation, there seems to be a
+tendency in the offspring to take the characters of the parental
+organisms. To that tendency a special name is given--it is called
+'Atavism', it expresses this tendency to revert to the ancestral type,
+and comes from the Latin word 'atavus', ancestor.
+
+Well, this 'Atavism' which I shall speak of, is, as I said before, one
+of the most marked and striking tendencies of organic beings; but, side
+by side with this hereditary tendency there is an equally distinct and
+remarkable tendency to variation. The tendency to reproduce the original
+stock has, as it were, its limits, and side by side with it there is a
+tendency to vary in certain directions, as if there were two opposing
+powers working upon the organic being, one tending to take it in a
+straight line, and the other tending to make it diverge from that
+straight line, first to one side and then to the other.
+
+So that you see these two tendencies need not precisely contradict one
+another, as the ultimate result may not always be very remote from what
+would have been the case if the line had been quite straight.
+
+This tendency to variation is less marked in that mode of propagation
+which takes place asexually; it is in that mode that the minor
+characters of animal and vegetable structures are most completely
+preserved. Still, it will happen sometimes, that the gardener, when he
+has planted a cutting of some favourite plant, will find, contrary to
+his expectation, that the slip grows up a little different from the
+primitive stock--that it produces flowers of a different colour or make,
+or some deviation in one way or another. This is what is called the
+'sporting' of plants.
+
+In animals the phenomena of asexual propagation are so obscure, that at
+present we cannot be said to know much about them; but if we turn to
+that mode of perpetuation which results from the sexual process, then we
+find variation a perfectly constant occurrence, to a certain extent;
+and, indeed, I think that a certain amount of variation from the
+primitive stock is the necessary result of the method of sexual
+propagation itself; for, inasmuch as the thing propagated proceeds from
+two organisms of different sexes and different makes and temperaments,
+and as the offspring is to be either of one sex or the other, it is
+quite clear that it cannot be an exact diagonal of the two, or it would
+be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact intermediate form between
+that of each of its parents--it must deviate to one side or the other.
+You do not find that the male follows the precise type of the male
+parent, nor does the female always inherit the precise characteristics
+of the mother,--there is always a proportion of the female character in
+the male offspring, and of the male character in the female offspring.
+That must be quite plain to all of you who have looked at all
+attentively on your own children or those of your neighbours; you will
+have noticed how very often it may happen that the son shall exhibit the
+maternal type of character, or the daughter possess the characteristics
+of the father's family. There are all sorts of intermixtures and
+intermediate conditions between the two, where complexion, or beauty, or
+fifty other different peculiarities belonging to either side of the
+house, are reproduced in other members of the same family. Indeed, it is
+sometimes to be remarked in this kind of variation, that the variety
+belongs, strictly speaking, to neither of the immediate parents; you
+will see a child in a family who is not like either its father or its
+mother; but some old person who knew its grandfather or grandmother, or,
+it may be, an uncle, or, perhaps, even a more distant relative, will see
+a great similarity between the child and one of these. In this way it
+constantly happens that the characteristic of some previous member of
+the family comes out and is reproduced and recognised in the most
+unexpected manner.
+
+But apart from that matter of general experience, there are some cases
+which put that curious mixture in a very clear light. You are aware that
+the offspring of the Ass and the Horse, or rather of the he-Ass and the
+Mare, is what is called a Mule; and, on the other hand, the offspring of
+the Stallion and the she-Ass is what is called a 'Hinny'. I never saw
+one myself; but they have been very carefully studied. Now, the curious
+thing is this, that although you have the same elements in the
+experiment in each case, the offspring is entirely different in
+character, according as the male influence comes from the Ass or the
+Horse. Where the Ass is the male, as in the case of the Mule, you find
+that the head is like that of the Ass, that the ears are long, the tail
+is tufted at the end, the feet are small, and the voice is an
+unmistakable bray; these are all points of similarity to the Ass; but,
+on the other hand, the barrel of the body and the cut of the neck are
+much more like those of the Mare. Then, if you look at the Hinny,--the
+result of the union of the Stallion and the she-Ass, then you find it is
+the Horse that has the predominance; that the head is more like that of
+the Horse, the ears are shorter, the legs coarser, and the type is
+altogether altered; while the voice, instead of being a bray, is the
+ordinary neigh of the Horse. Here, you see, is a most curious thing: you
+take exactly the same elements, Ass and Horse, but you combine the sexes
+in a different manner, and the result is modified accordingly. You have
+in this case, however, a result which is not general and
+universal--there is usually an important preponderance, but not always
+on the same side.
+
+Here, then, is one intelligible, and, perhaps, necessary cause of
+variation: the fact, that there are two sexes sharing in the production
+of the offspring, and that the share taken by each is different and
+variable, not only for each combination, but also for different members
+of the same family.
+
+Secondly, there is a variation, to a certain extent--though, in all
+probability, the influence of this cause has been very much
+exaggerated--but there is no doubt that variation is produced, to a
+certain extent, by what are commonly known as external conditions,--such
+as temperature, food, warmth, and moisture. In the long run, every
+variation depends, in some sense, upon external conditions, seeing that
+everything has a cause of its own. I use the term "external conditions"
+now in the sense in which it is ordinarily employed: certain it is, that
+external conditions have a definite effect. You may take a plant which
+has single flowers, and by dealing with the soil, and nourishment, and
+so on, you may by-and-by convert single flowers into double flowers, and
+make thorns shoot out into branches. You may thicken or make various
+modifications in the shape of the fruit. In animals, too, you may
+produce analogous changes in this way, as in the case of that deep
+bronze colour which persons rarely lose after having passed any length
+of time in tropical countries. You may also alter the development of the
+muscles very much, by dint of training; all the world knows that
+exercise has a great effect in this way; we always expect to find the
+arm of a blacksmith hard and wiry, and possessing a large development of
+the brachial muscles. No doubt training, which is one of the forms of
+external conditions, converts what are originally only instructions,
+teachings, into habits, or, in other words, into organizations, to a
+great extent; but this second cause of variation cannot be considered to
+be by any means a large one. The third cause that I have to mention,
+however, is a very extensive one. It is one that, for want of a better
+name, has been called "spontaneous variation;" which means that when we
+do not know anything about the cause of phenomena, we call it
+spontaneous. In the orderly chain of causes and effects in this world,
+there are very few things of which it can be said with truth that they
+are spontaneous. Certainly not in these physical matters,--in these
+there is nothing of the kind,--everything depends on previous
+conditions. But when we cannot trace the cause of phenomena, we call
+them spontaneous.
+
+Of these variations, multitudinous as they are, but little is known with
+perfect accuracy. I will mention to you some two or three cases, because
+they are very remarkable in themselves, and also because I shall want to
+use them afterwards. Reaumur, a famous French naturalist, a great many
+years ago, in an essay which he wrote upon the art of hatching
+chickens,--which was indeed a very curious essay,--had occasion to speak
+of variations and monstrosities. One very remarkable case had come under
+his notice of a variation in the form of a human member, in the person
+of a Maltese, of the name of Gratio Kelleia, who was born with six
+fingers upon each hand, and the like number of toes to each of his feet.
+That was a case of spontaneous variation. Nobody knows why he was born
+with that number of fingers and toes, and as we don't know, we call it a
+case of "spontaneous" variation. There is another remarkable case also.
+I select these, because they happen to have been observed and noted very
+carefully at the time. It frequently happens that a variation occurs,
+but the persons who notice it do not take any care in noting down the
+particulars, until at length, when inquiries come to be made, the exact
+circumstances are forgotten; and hence, multitudinous as may be such
+"spontaneous" variations, it is exceedingly difficult to get at the
+origin of them.
+
+The second case is one of which you may find the whole details in the
+"Philosophical Transactions" for the year 1813, in a paper communicated
+by Colonel Humphrey to the President of the Royal Society,--"On a new
+Variety in the Breed of Sheep," giving an account of a very remarkable
+breed of sheep, which at one time was well known in the northern states
+of America, and which went by the name of the Ancon or the Otter breed
+of sheep. In the year 1791, there was a farmer of the name of Seth
+Wright in Massachusetts, who had a flock of sheep, consisting of a ram
+and, I think, of some twelve or thirteen ewes. Of this flock of ewes,
+one at the breeding-time bore a lamb which was very singularly formed;
+it had a very long body, very short legs, and those legs were bowed! I
+will tell you by-and-by how this singular variation in the breed of
+sheep came to be noted, and to have the prominence that it now has. For
+the present, I mention only these two cases; but the extent of variation
+in the breed of animals is perfectly obvious to any one who has studied
+natural history with ordinary attention, or to any person who compares
+animals with others of the same kind. It is strictly true that there are
+never any two specimens which are exactly alike; however similar, they
+will always differ in some certain particular.
+
+Now let us go back to Atavism,--to the hereditary tendency I spoke of.
+What will come of a variation when you breed from it, when Atavism
+comes, if I may say so, to intersect variation? The two cases of which I
+have mentioned the history, give a most excellent illustration of what
+occurs. Gratio Kelleia, the Maltese, married when he was twenty-two
+years of age, and, as I suppose there were no six-fingered ladies in
+Malta, he married an ordinary five-fingered person. The result of that
+marriage was four children; the first, who was christened Salvator, had
+six fingers and six toes, like his father; the second was George, who
+had five fingers and toes, but one of them was deformed, showing a
+tendency to variation; the third was Andre; he had five fingers and five
+toes, quite perfect; the fourth was a girl, Marie; she had five fingers
+and five toes, but her thumbs were deformed, showing a tendency toward
+the sixth.
+
+These children grew up, and when they came to adult years, they all
+married, and of course it happened that they all married five-fingered
+and five-toed persons. Now let us see what were the results. Salvator
+had four children; they were two boys, a girl, and another boy; the
+first two boys and the girl were six-fingered and six-toed like their
+grandfather; the fourth boy had only five fingers and five toes. George
+had only four children; there were two girls with six fingers and six
+toes; there was one girl with six fingers and five toes on the right
+side, and five fingers and five toes on the left side, so that she was
+half and half. The last, a boy, had five fingers and five toes. The
+third, Andre, you will recollect, was perfectly well-formed, and he had
+many children whose hands and feet were all regularly developed. Marie,
+the last, who, of course, married a man who had only five fingers, had
+four children; the first, a boy, was born with six toes, but the other
+three were normal.
+
+Now observe what very extraordinary phenomena are presented here. You
+have an accidental variation arising from what you may call a
+monstrosity; you have that monstrosity tendency or variation diluted in
+the first instance by an admixture with a female of normal construction,
+and you would naturally expect that, in the results of such an union,
+the monstrosity, if repeated, would be in equal proportion with the
+normal type; that is to say, that the children would be half and half,
+some taking the peculiarity of the father, and the others being of the
+purely normal type of the mother; but you see we have a great
+preponderance of the abnormal type. Well, this comes to be mixed once
+more with the pure, the normal type, and the abnormal is again produced
+in large proportion, notwithstanding the second dilution. Now what would
+have happened if these abnormal types had intermarried with each other;
+that is to say, suppose the two boys of Salvator had taken it into their
+heads to marry their first cousins, the two first girls of George, their
+uncle? You will remember that these are all of the abnormal type of
+their grandfather. The result would probably have been, that their
+offspring would have been in every case a further development of that
+abnormal type. You see it is only in the fourth, in the person of Marie,
+that the tendency, when it appears but slightly in the second
+generation, is washed out in the third, while the progeny of Andre, who
+escaped in the first instance, escape altogether.
+
+We have in this case a good example of nature's tendency to the
+perpetuation of a variation. Here it is certainly a variation which
+carried with it no use or benefit; and yet you see the tendency to
+perpetuation may be so strong, that, notwithstanding a great admixture
+of pure blood, the variety continues itself up to the third generation,
+which is largely marked with it. In this case, as I have said, there was
+no means of the second generation intermarrying with any but
+five-fingered persons, and the question naturally suggests itself, What
+would have been the result of such marriage? Reaumur narrates this case
+only as far as the third generation. Certainly it would have been an
+exceedingly curious thing if we could have traced this matter any
+further; had the cousins intermarried, a six-fingered variety of the
+human race might have been set up.
+
+To show you that this supposition is by no means an unreasonable one,
+let me now point out what took place in the case of Seth Wright's sheep,
+where it happened to be a matter of moment to him to obtain a breed or
+raise a flock of sheep like that accidental variety that I have
+described--and I will tell you why. In that part of Massachusetts where
+Seth Wright was living, the fields were separated by fences, and the
+sheep, which were very active and robust, would roam abroad, and without
+much difficulty jump over these fences into other people's farms. As a
+matter of course, this exuberant activity on the part of the sheep
+constantly gave rise to all sorts of quarrels, bickerings, and
+contentions among the farmers of the neighbourhood; so it occurred to
+Seth Wright, who was, like his successors, more or less 'cute, that if
+he could get a stock of sheep like those with the bandy legs, they would
+not be able to jump over the fences so readily, and he acted upon that
+idea. He killed his old ram, and as soon as the young one arrived at
+maturity, he bred altogether from it. The result was even more striking
+than in the human experiment which I mentioned just now. Colonel
+Humphreys testifies that it always happened that the offspring were
+either pure Ancons or pure ordinary sheep; that in no case was there any
+mixing of the Ancons with the others. In consequence of this, in the
+course of a very few years, the farmer was able to get a very
+considerable flock of this variety, and a large number of them were
+spread throughout Massachusetts. Most unfortunately, however--I suppose
+it was because they were so common--nobody took enough notice of them to
+preserve their skeletons; and although Colonel Humphreys states that he
+sent a skeleton to the President of the Royal Society at the same time
+that he forwarded his paper, I am afraid that the variety has entirely
+disappeared; for a short time after these sheep had become prevalent in
+that district, the Merino sheep were introduced; and as their wool was
+much more valuable, and as they were a quiet race of sheep, and showed
+no tendency to trespass or jump over fences, the Otter breed of sheep,
+the wool of which was inferior to that of the Merino, was gradually
+allowed to die out.
+
+You see that these facts illustrate perfectly well what may be done if
+you take care to breed from stocks that are similar to each other. After
+having got a variation, if, by crossing a variation with the original
+stock, you multiply that variation, and then take care to keep that
+variation distinct from the original stock, and make them breed
+together,--then you may almost certainly produce a race whose tendency
+to continue the variation is exceedingly strong.
+
+This is what is called "selection"; and it is by exactly the same
+process as that by which Seth Wright bred his Ancon sheep, that our
+breeds of cattle, dogs, and fowls, are obtained. There are some
+possibilities of exception, but still, speaking broadly, I may say that
+this is the way in which all our varied races of domestic animals have
+arisen; and you must understand that it is not one peculiarity or one
+characteristic alone in which animals may vary. There is not a single
+peculiarity or characteristic of any kind, bodily or mental, in which
+offspring may not vary to a certain extent from the parent and other
+animals.
+
+Among ourselves this is well known. The simplest physical peculiarity is
+mostly reproduced. I know a case of a man whose wife has the lobe of one
+of her ears a little flattened. An ordinary observer might scarcely
+notice it, and yet every one of her children has an approximation to the
+same peculiarity to some extent. If you look at the other extreme, too,
+the gravest diseases, such as gout, scrofula, and consumption, may be
+handed down with just the same certainty and persistence as we noticed
+in the perpetuation of the bandy legs of the Ancon sheep.
+
+However, these facts are best illustrated in animals, and the extent of
+the variation, as is well known, is very remarkable in dogs. For
+example, there are some dogs very much smaller than others; indeed, the
+variation is so enormous that probably the smallest dog would be about
+the size of the head of the largest; there are very great variations in
+the structural forms not only of the skeleton but also in the shape of
+the skull, and in the proportions of the face and the disposition of the
+teeth.
+
+The Pointer, the Retriever, Bulldog, and the Terrier, differ very
+greatly, and yet there is every reason to believe that every one of
+these races has arisen from the same source,--that all the most
+important races have arisen by this selective breeding from accidental
+variation.
+
+A still more striking case of what may be done by selective breeding,
+and it is a better case, because there is no chance of that partial
+infusion of error to which I alluded, has been studied very carefully by
+Mr. Darwin,--the case of the domestic pigeons. I dare say there may be
+some among you who may be pigeon 'fanciers', and I wish you to
+understand that in approaching the subject, I would speak with all
+humility and hesitation, as I regret to say that I am not a pigeon
+fancier. I know it is a great art and mystery, and a thing upon which a
+man must not speak lightly; but I shall endeavour, as far as my
+understanding goes, to give you a summary of the published and
+unpublished information which I have gained from Mr. Darwin.
+
+Among the enormous variety,--I believe there are somewhere about a
+hundred and fifty kinds of pigeons,--there are four kinds which may be
+selected as representing the extremest divergences of one kind from
+another. Their names are the Carrier, the Pouter, the Fantail, and the
+Tumbler. In the large diagrams they are each represented in their
+relative sizes to each other. This first one is the Carrier; you will
+notice this large excrescence on its beak; it has a comparatively small
+head; there is a bare space round the eyes; it has a long neck, a very
+long beak, very strong legs, large feet, long wings, and so on. The
+second one is the Pouter, a very large bird, with very long legs and
+beak. It is called the Pouter because it is in the habit of causing its
+gullet to swell up by inflating it with air. I should tell you that all
+pigeons have a tendency to do this at times, but in the Pouter it is
+carried to an enormous extent. The birds appear to be quite proud of
+their power of swelling and puffing themselves out in this way; and I
+think it is about as droll a sight as you can well see to look at a cage
+full of these pigeons puffing and blowing themselves out in this
+ridiculous manner.
+
+The third kind I mentioned--the Fantail--is a small bird, with
+exceedingly small legs and a very small beak. It is most curiously
+distinguished by the size and extent of its tail, which, instead of
+containing twelve feathers, may have many more,--say thirty, or even
+more--I believe there are some with as many as forty-two. This bird has
+a curious habit of spreading out the feathers of its tail in such a way
+that they reach forward, and touch its head; and if this can be
+accomplished, I believe it is looked upon as a point of great beauty.
+
+But here is the last great variety,--the Tumbler; and of that great
+variety, one of the principal kinds, and one most prized, is the
+specimen represented here--the short-faced Tumbler. Its beak is reduced
+to a mere nothing. Just compare the beak of this one and that of the
+first one, the Carrier--I believe the orthodox comparison of the head
+and beak of a thoroughly well-bred Tumbler is to stick an oat into a
+cherry, and that will give you the proper relative proportions of the
+head and beak. The feet and legs are exceedingly small, and the bird
+appears to be quite a dwarf when placed side by side with this great
+Carrier.
+
+These are differences enough in regard to their external appearance; but
+these differences are by no means the whole or even the most important
+of the differences which obtain between these birds. There is hardly a
+single point of their structure which has not become more or less
+altered; and to give you an idea of how extensive these alterations are,
+I have here some very good skeletons, for which I am indebted to my
+friend, Mr. Tegetmeier, a great authority in these matters; by means of
+which, if you examine them by-and-by, you will be able to see the
+enormous difference in their bony structures.
+
+I had the privilege, some time ago, of access to some important MSS. of
+Mr. Darwin, who, I may tell you, has taken very great pains and spent
+much valuable time and attention on the investigation of these
+variations, and getting together all the facts that bear upon them. I
+obtained from these MSS. the following summary of the differences
+between the domestic breeds of pigeons; that is to say, a notification
+of the various points in which their organization differs. In the first
+place, the back of the skull may differ a good deal, and the development
+of the bones of the face may vary a great deal; the back varies a good
+deal; the shape of the lower jaw varies; the tongue varies very greatly,
+not only in correlation to the length and size of the beak, but it seems
+also to have a kind of independent variation of its own. Then the amount
+of naked skin round the eyes, and at the base of the beak, may vary
+enormously; so may the length of the eyelids, the shape of the nostrils,
+and the length of the neck. I have already noticed the habit of blowing
+out the gullet, so remarkable in the Pouter, and comparatively so in the
+others. There are great differences, too, in the size of the female and
+the male, the shape of the body, the number and width of the processes
+of the ribs, the development of the ribs, and the size, shape, and
+development of the breastbone. We may notice, too,--and I mention the
+fact because it has been disputed by what is assumed to be high
+authority,--the variation in the number of the sacral vertebrae. The
+number of these varies from eleven to fourteen, and that without any
+diminution in the number of the vertebrae of the back or of the tail.
+Then the number and position of the tail-feathers may vary enormously,
+and so may the number of the primary and secondary feathers of the
+wings. Again, the length of the feet and of the beak,--although they
+have no relation to each other, yet appear to go together,--that is, you
+have a long beak wherever you have long feet. There are differences also
+in the periods of the acquirement of the perfect plumage,--the size and
+shape of the eggs,--the nature of flight, and the powers of
+flight,--so-called "homing" birds having enormous flying powers;*
+([Footnote] *The "Carrier," I learn from Mr. Tegetmeier, does not
+'carry'; a high-bred bird of this breed being but a poor flier. The
+birds which fly long distances, and come home,--"homing" birds,--and are
+consequently used as carriers, are not "carriers" in the fancy sense.)
+while, on the other hand, the little Tumbler is so called because of its
+extraordinary faculty of turning head over heels in the air, instead of
+pursuing a direct course. And, lastly, the dispositions and voices of
+the birds may vary. Thus the case of the pigeons shows you that there is
+hardly a single particular,--whether of instinct, or habit, or bony
+structure, or of plumage,--of either the internal economy or the
+external shape, in which some variation or change may not take place,
+which, by selective breeding, may become perpetuated, and form the
+foundation of, and give rise to, a new race.
+
+If you carry in your mind's eye these four varieties of pigeons, you
+will bear with you as good a notion as you can have, perhaps, of the
+enormous extent to which a deviation from a primitive type may be
+carried by means of this process of selective breeding.
+
+End of The Perpetuation of Living Beings.
+
+***
+
+
+THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE AS AFFECTING THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING
+BEINGS.
+
+In the last Lecture I endeavoured to prove to you that, while, as a
+general rule, organic beings tend to reproduce their kind, there is in
+them, also, a constantly recurring tendency to vary--to vary to a
+greater or to a less extent. Such a variety, I pointed out to you,
+might arise from causes which we do not understand; we therefore called
+it spontaneous; and it might come into existence as a definite and
+marked thing, without any gradations between itself and the form which
+preceded it. I further pointed out, that such a variety having once
+arisen, might be perpetuated to some extent, and indeed to a very
+marked extent, without any direct interference, or without any exercise
+of that process which we called selection. And then I stated further,
+that by such selection, when exercised artificially--if you took care to
+breed only from those forms which presented the same peculiarities of
+any variety which had arisen in this manner--the variation might be
+perpetuated, as far as we can see, indefinitely.
+
+The next question, and it is an important one for us, is this: Is there
+any limit to the amount of variation from the primitive stock which can
+be produced by this process of selective breeding? In considering this
+question, it will be useful to class the characteristics, in respect of
+which organic beings vary, under two heads: we may consider structural
+characteristics, and we may consider physiological characteristics.
+
+In the first place, as regards structural characteristics, I endeavoured
+to show you, by the skeletons which I had upon the table, and by
+reference to a great many well-ascertained facts, that the different
+breeds of Pigeons, the Carriers, Pouters, and Tumblers, might vary in
+any of their internal and important structural characters to a very
+great degree; not only might there be changes in the proportions of the
+skull, and the characters of the feet and beaks, and so on; but that
+there might be an absolute difference in the number of the vertebrae of
+the back, as in the sacral vertebrae of the Pouter; and so great is the
+extent of the variation in these and similar characters that I pointed
+out to you, by reference to the skeletons and the diagrams, that these
+extreme varieties may absolutely differ more from one another in their
+structural characters than do what naturalists call distinct SPECIES of
+pigeons; that is to say, that they differ so much in structure that
+there is a greater difference between the Pouter and the Tumbler than
+there is between such wild and distinct forms as the Rock Pigeon or the
+Ring Pigeon, or the Ring Pigeon and the Stock Dove; and indeed the
+differences are of greater value than this, for the structural
+differences between these domesticated pigeons are such as would be
+admitted by a naturalist, supposing he knew nothing at all about their
+origin, to entitle them to constitute even distinct genera.
+
+As I have used this term SPECIES, and shall probably use it a good deal,
+I had better perhaps devote a word or two to explaining what I mean by
+it.
+
+Animals and plants are divided into groups, which become gradually
+smaller, beginning with a KINGDOM, which is divided into SUB-KINGDOMS;
+then come the smaller divisions called PROVINCES; and so on from a
+PROVINCE to a CLASS from a CLASS to an ORDER, from ORDERS to FAMILIES,
+and from these to GENERA, until we come at length to the smallest
+groups of animals which can be defined one from the other by constant
+characters, which are not sexual; and these are what naturalists call
+SPECIES in practice, whatever they may do in theory.
+
+If, in a state of nature, you find any two groups of living beings,
+which are separated one from the other by some constantly-recurring
+characteristic, I don't care how slight and trivial, so long as it is
+defined and constant, and does not depend on sexual peculiarities, then
+all naturalists agree in calling them two species; that is what is
+meant by the use of the word species--that is to say, it is, for the
+practical naturalist, a mere question of structural differences.*
+([Footnote] * I lay stress here on the PRACTICAL signification of
+"Species." Whether a physiological test between species exist or not,
+it is hardly ever applicable by the practical naturalist.)
+
+We have seen now--to repeat this point once more, and it is very
+essential that we should rightly understand it--we have seen that
+breeds, known to have been derived from a common stock by selection,
+may be as different in their structure from the original stock as
+species may be distinct from each other.
+
+But is the like true of the physiological characteristics of animals?
+Do the physiological differences of varieties amount in degree to those
+observed between forms which naturalists call distinct species? This
+is a most important point for us to consider.
+
+As regards the great majority of physiological characteristics, there is
+no doubt that they are capable of being developed, increased, and
+modified by selection.
+
+There is no doubt that breeds may be made as different as species in
+many physiological characters. I have already pointed out to you very
+briefly the different habits of the breeds of Pigeons, all of which
+depend upon their physiological peculiarities,--as the peculiar habit
+of tumbling, in the Tumbler--the peculiarities of flight, in the
+"homing" birds,--the strange habit of spreading out the tail, and
+walking in a peculiar fashion, in the Fantail,--and, lastly, the habit
+of blowing out the gullet, so characteristic of the Pouter. These are
+all due to physiological modifications, and in all these respects these
+birds differ as much from each other as any two ordinary species do.
+
+So with Dogs in their habits and instincts. It is a physiological
+peculiarity which leads the Greyhound to chase its prey by sight,--that
+enables the Beagle to track it by the scent,--that impels the Terrier
+to its rat-hunting propensity,--and that leads the Retriever to its
+habit of retrieving. These habits and instincts are all the results of
+physiological differences and peculiarities, which have been developed
+from a common stock, at least there is every reason to believe so. But
+it is a most singular circumstance, that while you may run through
+almost the whole series of physiological processes, without finding a
+check to your argument, you come at last to a point where you do find a
+check, and that is in the reproductive processes. For there is a most
+singular circumstance in respect to natural species--at least about some
+of them--and it would be sufficient for the purposes of this argument
+if it were true of only one of them, but there is, in fact, a great
+number of such cases--and that is, that, similar as they may appear to
+be to mere races or breeds, they present a marked peculiarity in the
+reproductive process. If you breed from the male and female of the same
+race, you of course have offspring of the like kind, and if you make
+the offspring breed together, you obtain the same result, and if you
+breed from these again, you will still have the same kind of offspring;
+there is no check. But if you take members of two distinct species,
+however similar they may be to each other and make them breed together,
+you will find a check, with some modifications and exceptions, however,
+which I shall speak of presently. If you cross two such species with
+each other, then,--although you may get offspring in the case of the
+first cross, yet, if you attempt to breed from the products of that
+crossing, which are what are called HYBRIDS--that is, if you couple a
+male and a female hybrid--then the result is that in ninety-nine cases
+out of a hundred you will get no offspring at all; there will be no
+result whatsoever.
+
+The reason of this is quite obvious in some cases; the male hybrids,
+although possessing all the external appearances and characteristics of
+perfect animals, are physiologically imperfect and deficient in the
+structural parts of the reproductive elements necessary to generation.
+It is said to be invariably the case with the male mule, the cross
+between the Ass and the Mare; and hence it is, that, although crossing
+the Horse with the Ass is easy enough, and is constantly done, as far
+as I am aware, if you take two mules, a male and a female, and endeavour
+to breed from them, you get no offspring whatever; no generation will
+take place. This is what is called the sterility of the hybrids
+between two distinct species.
+
+You see that this is a very extraordinary circumstance; one does not see
+why it should be. The common teleological explanation is, that it is
+to prevent the impurity of the blood resulting from the crossing of one
+species with another, but you see it does not in reality do anything of
+the kind. There is nothing in this fact that hybrids cannot breed with
+each other, to establish such a theory; there is nothing to prevent the
+Horse breeding with the Ass, or the Ass with the Horse. So that this
+explanation breaks down, as a great many explanations of this kind do,
+that are only founded on mere assumptions.
+
+Thus you see that there is a great difference between "mongrels," which
+are crosses between distinct races, and "hybrids," which are crosses
+between distinct species. The mongrels are, so far as we know, fertile
+with one another. But between species, in many cases, you cannot
+succeed in obtaining even the first cross: at any rate it is quite
+certain that the hybrids are often absolutely infertile one with
+another.
+
+Here is a feature, then, great or small as it may be, which
+distinguishes natural species of animals. Can we find any
+approximation to this in the different races known to be produced by
+selective breeding from a common stock? Up to the present time the
+answer to that question is absolutely a negative one. As far as we
+know at present, there is nothing approximating to this check. In
+crossing the breeds between the Fantail and the Pouter, the Carrier and
+the Tumbler, or any other variety or race you may name--so far as we
+know at present--there is no difficulty in breeding together the
+mongrels. Take the Carrier and the Fantail, for instance, and let them
+represent the Horse and the Ass in the case of distinct species; then
+you have, as the result of their breeding, the Carrier-Fantail
+mongrel,--we will say the male and female mongrel,--and, as far as we
+know, these two when crossed would not be less fertile than the
+original cross, or than Carrier with Carrier. Here, you see, is a
+physiological contrast between the races produced by selective
+modification and natural species. I shall inquire into the value of
+this fact, and of some modifying circumstances by and by; for the
+present I merely put it broadly before you.
+
+But while considering this question of the limitations of species, a
+word must be said about what is called RECURRENCE--the tendency of
+races which have been developed by selective breeding from varieties to
+return to their primitive type. This is supposed by many to put an
+absolute limit to the extent of selective and all other variations.
+People say, "It is all very well to talk about producing these
+different races, but you know very well that if you turned all these
+birds wild, these Pouters, and Carriers, and so on, they would all
+return to their primitive stock." This is very commonly assumed to be
+a fact, and it is an argument that is commonly brought forward as
+conclusive; but if you will take the trouble to inquire into it rather
+closely, I think you will find that it is not worth very much. The
+first question of course is, Do they thus return to the primitive
+stock? And commonly as the thing is assumed and accepted, it is
+extremely difficult to get anything like good evidence of it. It is
+constantly said, for example, that if domesticated Horses are turned
+wild, as they have been in some parts of Asia Minor and South America,
+that they return at once to the primitive stock from which they were
+bred. But the first answer that you make to this assumption is, to ask
+who knows what the primitive stock was; and the second answer is, that
+in that case the wild Horses of Asia Minor ought to be exactly like the
+wild Horses of South America. If they are both like the same thing,
+they ought manifestly to be like each other! The best authorities,
+however, tell you that it is quite different. The wild Horse of Asia
+is said to be of a dun colour, with a largish head, and a great many
+other peculiarities; while the best authorities on the wild Horses of
+South America tell you that there is no similarity between their wild
+Horses and those of Asia Minor; the cut of their heads is very
+different, and they are commonly chestnut or bay-coloured. It is quite
+clear, therefore, that as by these facts there ought to have been two
+primitive stocks, they go for nothing in support of the assumption that
+races recur to one primitive stock, and so far as this evidence is
+concerned, it falls to the ground.
+
+Suppose for a moment that it were so, and that domesticated races, when
+turned wild, did return to some common condition, I cannot see that
+this would prove much more than that similar conditions are likely to
+produce similar results; and that when you take back domesticated
+animals into what we call natural conditions, you do exactly the same
+thing as if you carefully undid all the work you had gone through, for
+the purpose of bringing the animal from its wild to its domesticated
+state. I do not see anything very wonderful in the fact, if it took
+all that trouble to get it from a wild state, that it should go back
+into its original state as soon as you removed the conditions which
+produced the variation to the domesticated form. There is an important
+fact, however, forcibly brought forward by Mr. Darwin, which has been
+noticed in connection with the breeding of domesticated pigeons; and it
+is, that however different these breeds of pigeons may be from each
+other, and we have already noticed the great differences in these
+breeds, that if, among any of those variations, you chance to have a
+blue pigeon turn up, it will be sure to have the black bars across the
+wings, which are characteristic of the original wild stock, the Rock
+Pigeon.
+
+Now, this is certainly a very remarkable circumstance; but I do not see
+myself how it tells very strongly either one way or the other. I
+think, in fact, that this argument in favour of recurrence to the
+primitive type might prove a great deal too much for those who so
+constantly bring it forward. For example, Mr. Darwin has very forcibly
+urged, that nothing is commoner than if you examine a dun horse--and I
+had an opportunity of verifying this illustration lately, while in the
+islands of the West Highlands, where there are a great many dun
+horses--to find that horse exhibit a long black stripe down his back,
+very often stripes on his shoulder, and very often stripes on his
+legs. I, myself, saw a pony of this description a short time ago, in a
+baker's cart, near Rothesay, in Bute: it had the long stripe down the
+back, and stripes on the shoulders and legs, just like those of the
+Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra. Now, if we interpret the theory of
+recurrence as applied to this case, might it not be said that here was
+a case of a variation exhibiting the characters and conditions of an
+animal occupying something like an intermediate position between the
+Horse, the Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra, and from which these had
+been developed? In the same way with regard even to Man. Every
+anatomist will tell you that there is nothing commoner, in dissecting
+the human body, than to meet with what are called muscular
+variations--that is, if you dissect two bodies very carefully, you will
+probably find that the modes of attachment and insertion of the muscles
+are not exactly the same in both, there being great peculiarities in
+the mode in which the muscles are arranged; and it is very singular,
+that in some dissections of the human body you will come upon
+arrangements of the muscles very similar indeed to the same parts in the
+Apes. Is the conclusion in that case to be, that this is like the
+black bars in the case of the Pigeon, and that it indicates a
+recurrence to the primitive type from which the animals have been
+probably developed? Truly, I think that the opponents of modification
+and variation had better leave the argument of recurrence alone, or it
+may prove altogether too strong for them.
+
+To sum up--the evidence as far as we have gone is against the argument
+as to any limit to divergences, so far as structure is concerned; and
+in favour of a physiological limitation. By selective breeding we can
+produce structural divergences as great as those of species, but we
+cannot produce equal physiological divergences. For the present I leave
+the question there.
+
+Now, the next problem that lies before us--and it is an extremely
+important one--is this: Does this selective breeding occur in nature?
+Because, if there is no proof of it, all that I have been telling you
+goes for nothing in accounting for the origin of species. Are natural
+causes competent to play the part of selection in perpetuating
+varieties? Here we labour under very great difficulties. In the last
+lecture I had occasion to point out to you the extreme difficulty of
+obtaining evidence even of the first origin of those varieties which we
+know to have occurred in domesticated animals. I told you, that almost
+always the origin of these varieties is overlooked, so that I could
+only produce two of three cases, as that of Gratio Kelleia and of the
+Ancon sheep. People forget, or do not take notice of them until they
+come to have a prominence; and if that is true of artificial cases,
+under our own eyes, and in animals in our own care, how much more
+difficult it must be to have at first hand good evidence of the origin
+of varieties in nature! Indeed, I do not know that it is possible by
+direct evidence to prove the origin of a variety in nature, or to prove
+selective breeding; but I will tell you what we can prove--and this
+comes to the same thing--that varieties exist in nature within the
+limits of species, and, what is more, that when a variety has come into
+existence in nature, there are natural causes and conditions, which are
+amply competent to play the part of a selective breeder; and although
+that is not quite the evidence that one would like to have--though it
+is not direct testimony--yet it is exceeding good and exceedingly
+powerful evidence in its way.
+
+As to the first point, of varieties existing among natural species, I
+might appeal to the universal experience of every naturalist, and of
+any person who has ever turned any attention at all to the
+characteristics of plants and animals in a state of nature; but I may as
+well take a few definite cases, and I will begin with Man himself.
+
+I am one of those who believe that, at present, there is no evidence
+whatever for saying, that mankind sprang originally from any more than
+a single pair; I must say, that I cannot see any good ground whatever,
+or even any tenable sort of evidence, for believing that there is more
+than one species of Man. Nevertheless, as you know, just as there are
+numbers of varieties in animals, so there are remarkable varieties of
+men. I speak not merely of those broad and distinct variations which
+you see at a glance. Everybody, of course, knows the difference
+between a Negro and a white man, and can tell a Chinaman from an
+Englishman. They each have peculiar characteristics of colour and
+physiognomy; but you must recollect that the characters of these races
+go very far deeper--they extend to the bony structure, and to the
+characters of that most important of all organs to us--the brain; so
+that, among men belonging to different races, or even within the same
+race, one man shall have a brain a third, or half, or even seventy per
+cent. bigger than another; and if you take the whole range of human
+brains, you will find a variation in some cases of a hundred per cent.
+Apart from these variations in the size of the brain, the characters of
+the skull vary. Thus if I draw the figures of a Mongul and of a Negro
+head on the blackboard, in the case of the last the breadth would be
+about seven-tenths, and in the other it would be nine-tenths of the
+total length. So that you see there is abundant evidence of variation
+among men in their natural condition. And if you turn to other animals
+there is just the same thing. The fox, for example, which has a very
+large geographical distribution all over Europe, and parts of Asia, and
+on the American Continent, varies greatly. There are mostly large
+foxes in the North, and smaller ones in the South. In Germany alone,
+the foresters reckon some eight different sorts.
+
+Of the tiger, no one supposes that there is more than one species; they
+extend from the hottest parts of Bengal, into the dry, cold, bitter
+steppes of Siberia, into a latitude of 50 degrees,--so that they may
+even prey upon the reindeer. These tigers have exceedingly different
+characteristics, but still they all keep their general features, so that
+there is no doubt as to their being tigers. The Siberian tiger has a
+thick fur, a small mane, and a longitudinal stripe down the back, while
+the tigers of Java and Sumatra differ in many important respects from
+the tigers of Northern Asia. So lions vary; so birds vary; and so, if
+you go further back and lower down in creation, you find that fishes
+vary. In different streams, in the same country even, you will find
+the trout to be quite different to each other and easily recognisable by
+those who fish in the particular streams. There is the same
+differences in leeches; leech collectors can easily point out to you
+the differences and the peculiarities which you yourself would probably
+pass by; so with fresh-water mussels; so, in fact, with every animal
+you can mention.
+
+In plants there is the same kind of variation. Take such a case even as
+the common bramble. The botanists are all at war about it; some of them
+wanting to make out that there are many species of it, and others
+maintaining that they are but many varieties of one species; and they
+cannot settle to this day which is a species and which is a variety!
+
+So that there can be no doubt whatsoever that any plant and any animal
+may vary in nature; that varieties may arise in the way I have
+described,--as spontaneous varieties,--and that those varieties may be
+perpetuated in the same way that I have shown you spontaneous varieties
+are perpetuated; I say, therefore, that there can be no doubt as to the
+origin and perpetuation of varieties in nature.
+
+But the question now is:--Does selection take place in nature? is there
+anything like the operation of man in exercising selective breeding,
+taking place in nature? You will observe that, at present, I say
+nothing about species; I wish to confine myself to the consideration of
+the production of those natural races which everybody admits to exist.
+The question is, whether in nature there are causes competent to
+produce races, just in the same way as man is able to produce by
+selection, such races of animals as we have already noticed.
+
+When a variety has arisen, the CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE are such as to
+exercise an influence which is exactly comparable to that of artificial
+selection. By Conditions of Existence I mean two things,--there are
+conditions which are furnished by the physical, the inorganic world,
+and there are conditions of existence which are furnished by the
+organic world. There is, in the first place, CLIMATE; under that head
+I include only temperature and the varied amount of moisture of
+particular places. In the next place there is what is technically
+called STATION, which means--given the climate, the particular kind of
+place in which an animal or a plant lives or grows; for example, the
+station of a fish is in the water, of a fresh-water fish in fresh
+water; the station of a marine fish is in the sea, and a marine animal
+may have a station higher or deeper. So again with land animals: the
+differences in their stations are those of different soils and
+neighbourhoods; some being best adapted to a calcareous, and others to
+an arenaceous soil. The third condition of existence is FOOD, by which
+I mean food in the broadest sense, the supply of the materials necessary
+to the existence of an organic being; in the case of a plant the
+inorganic matters, such as carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and the
+earthy salts or salines; in the case of the animal the inorganic and
+organic matters, which we have seen they require; then these are all,
+at least the two first, what we may call the inorganic or physical
+conditions of existence. Food takes a mid-place, and then come the
+organic conditions; by which I mean the conditions which depend upon the
+state of the rest of the organic creation, upon the number and kind of
+living beings, with which an animal is surrounded. You may class these
+under two heads: there are organic beings, which operate as
+'opponents', and there are organic beings which operate as 'helpers' to
+any given organic creature. The opponents may be of two kinds: there
+are the 'indirect opponents', which are what we may call 'rivals'; and
+there are the 'direct opponents', those which strive to destroy the
+creature; and these we call 'enemies'. By rivals I mean, of course, in
+the case of plants, those which require for their support the same kind
+of soil and station, and, among animals, those which require the same
+kind of station, or food, or climate; those are the indirect opponents;
+the direct opponents are, of course, those which prey upon an animal or
+vegetable. The 'helpers' may also be regarded as direct and indirect:
+in the case of a carnivorous animal, for example, a particular
+herbaceous plant may in multiplying be an indirect helper, by enabling
+the herbivora on which the carnivore preys to get more food, and thus
+to nourish the carnivore more abundantly; the direct helper may be best
+illustrated by reference to some parasitic creature, such as the
+tape-worm. The tape-worm exists in the human intestines, so that the
+fewer there are of men the fewer there will be of tape-worms, other
+things being alike. It is a humiliating reflection, perhaps, that we
+may be classed as direct helpers to the tape-worm, but the fact is so:
+we can all see that if there were no men there would be no tape-worms.
+
+It is extremely difficult to estimate, in a proper way, the importance
+and the working of the Conditions of Existence. I do not think there
+were any of us who had the remotest notion of properly estimating them
+until the publication of Mr. Darwin's work, which has placed them
+before us with remarkable clearness; and I must endeavour, as far as I
+can in my own fashion, to give you some notion of how they work. We
+shall find it easiest to take a simple case, and one as free as
+possible from every kind of complication.
+
+I will suppose, therefore, that all the habitable part of this
+globe--the dry land, amounting to about 51,000,000 square miles,--I
+will suppose that the whole of that dry land has the same climate, and
+that it is composed of the same kind of rock or soil, so that there will
+be the same station everywhere; we thus get rid of the peculiar
+influence of different climates and stations. I will then imagine that
+there shall be but one organic being in the world, and that shall be a
+plant. In this we start fair. Its food is to be carbonic acid, water
+and ammonia, and the saline matters in the soil, which are, by the
+supposition, everywhere alike. We take one single plant, with no
+opponents, no helpers, and no rivals; it is to be a "fair field, and no
+favour". Now, I will ask you to imagine further that it shall be a
+plant which shall produce every year fifty seeds, which is a very
+moderate number for a plant to produce; and that, by the action of the
+winds and currents, these seeds shall be equally and gradually
+distributed over the whole surface of the land. I want you now to
+trace out what will occur, and you will observe that I am not talking
+fallaciously any more than a mathematician does when he expounds his
+problem. If you show that the conditions of your problem are such as
+may actually occur in nature and do not transgress any of the known
+laws of nature in working out your proposition, then you are as safe in
+the conclusion you arrive at as is the mathematician in arriving at the
+solution of his problem. In science, the only way of getting rid of the
+complications with which a subject of this kind is environed, is to
+work in this deductive method. What will be the result, then? I will
+suppose that every plant requires one square foot of ground to live
+upon; and the result will be that, in the course of nine years, the
+plant will have occupied every single available spot in the whole
+globe! I have chalked upon the blackboard the figures by which I
+arrive at the result:--
+
+                Plants.                               Plants
+                  1 x 50 in 1st year =                    50
+                 50 x 50 "  2nd "    =                 2,500
+              2,500 x 50 "  3rd "    =               125,000
+            125,000 x 50 "  4th "    =             6,250,000
+          6,250,000 x 50 "  5th "    =           312,500,000
+        312,500,000 x 50 "  6th "    =        15,625,000,000
+     15,625,000,000 x 50 "  7th "    =       781,250,000,000
+    781,250,000,000 x 50 "  8th "    =    39,062,500,000,000
+ 39,062,500,000,000 x 50 "  9th "    = 1,953,125,000,000,000
+
+51,000,000 sq. miles--the dry surface of the earth x 27,878,400--the
+number of sq. ft. in 1 sq. mile = sq. ft. 1,421,798,400,000,000 being
+531,326,600,000,000 square feet less than would be required at the end
+of the ninth year.
+
+You will see from this that, at the end of the first year the single
+plant will have produced fifty more of its kind; by the end of the
+second year these will have increased to 2,500; and so on, in
+succeeding years, you get beyond even trillions; and I am not at all
+sure that I could tell you what the proper arithmetical denomination of
+the total number really is; but, at any rate, you will understand the
+meaning of all those noughts. Then you see that, at the bottom, I have
+taken the 51,000,000 of square miles, constituting the surface of the
+dry land; and as the number of square feet are placed under and
+subtracted from the number of seeds that would be produced in the ninth
+year, you can see at once that there would be an immense number more of
+plants than there would be square feet of ground for their
+accommodation. This is certainly quite enough to prove my point; that
+between the eighth and ninth year after being planted the single plant
+would have stocked the whole available surface of the earth.
+
+This is a thing which is hardly conceivable--it seems hardly
+imaginable--yet it is so. It is indeed simply the law of Malthus
+exemplified. Mr. Malthus was a clergyman, who worked out this subject
+most minutely and truthfully some years ago; he showed quite
+clearly,--and although he was much abused for his conclusions at the
+time, they have never yet been disproved and never will be--he showed
+that in consequence of the increase in the number of organic beings in
+a geometrical ratio, while the means of existence cannot be made to
+increase in the same ratio, that there must come a time when the number
+of organic beings will be in excess of the power of production of
+nutriment, and that thus some check must arise to the further increase
+of those organic beings. At the end of the ninth year we have seen that
+each plant would not be able to get its full square foot of ground, and
+at the end of another year it would have to share that space with fifty
+others the produce of the seeds which it would give off.
+
+What, then, takes place? Every plant grows up, flourishes, occupies its
+square foot of ground, and gives off its fifty seeds; but notice this,
+that out of this number only one can come to anything; there is thus,
+as it were, forty-nine chances to one against its growing up; it
+depends upon the most fortuitous circumstances whether any one of these
+fifty seeds shall grow up and flourish, or whether it shall die and
+perish. This is what Mr. Darwin has drawn attention to, and called the
+"STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE"; and I have taken this simple case of a plant
+because some people imagine that the phrase seems to imply a sort of
+fight.
+
+I have taken this plant and shown you that this is the result of the
+ratio of the increase, the necessary result of the arrival of a time
+coming for every species when exactly as many members must be destroyed
+as are born; that is the inevitable ultimate result of the rate of
+production. Now, what is the result of all this? I have said that
+there are forty-nine struggling against every one; and it amounts to
+this, that the smallest possible start given to any one seed may give
+it an advantage which will enable it to get ahead of all the others;
+anything that will enable any one of these seeds to germinate six hours
+before any of the others will, other things being alike, enable it to
+choke them out altogether. I have shown you that there is no
+particular in which plants will not vary from each other; it is quite
+possible that one of our imaginary plants may vary in such a character
+as the thickness of the integument of its seeds; it might happen that
+one of the plants might produce seeds having a thinner integument, and
+that would enable the seeds of that plant to germinate a little quicker
+than those of any of the others, and those seeds would most inevitably
+extinguish the forty-nine times as many that were struggling with them.
+
+I have put it in this way, but you see the practical result of the
+process is the same as if some person had nurtured the one and
+destroyed the other seeds. It does not matter how the variation is
+produced, so long as it is once allowed to occur. The variation in the
+plant once fairly started tends to become hereditary and reproduce
+itself; the seeds would spread themselves in the same way and take part
+in the struggle with the forty-nine hundred, or forty-nine thousand,
+with which they might be exposed. Thus, by degrees, this variety, with
+some slight organic change or modification, must spread itself over the
+whole surface of the habitable globe, and extirpate or replace the
+other kinds. That is what is meant by NATURAL SELECTION; that is the
+kind of argument by which it is perfectly demonstrable that the
+conditions of existence may play exactly the same part for natural
+varieties as man does for domesticated varieties. No one doubts at all
+that particular circumstances may be more favourable for one plant and
+less so for another, and the moment you admit that, you admit the
+selective power of nature. Now, although I have been putting a
+hypothetical case, you must not suppose that I have been reasoning
+hypothetically. There are plenty of direct experiments which bear out
+what we may call the theory of natural selection; there is extremely
+good authority for the statement that if you take the seed of mixed
+varieties of wheat and sow it, collecting the seed next year and sowing
+it again, at length you will find that out of all your varieties only
+two or three have lived, or perhaps even only one. There were one or
+two varieties which were best fitted to get on, and they have killed
+out the other kinds in just the same way and with just the same
+certainty as if you had taken the trouble to remove them. As I have
+already said, the operation of nature is exactly the same as the
+artificial operation of man.
+
+But if this be true of that simple case, which I put before you, where
+there is nothing but the rivalry of one member of a species with
+others, what must be the operation of selective conditions, when you
+recollect as a matter of fact, that for every species of animal or
+plant there are fifty or a hundred species which might all, more or
+less, be comprehended in the same climate, food, and station;--that
+every plant has multitudinous animals which prey upon it, and which are
+its direct opponents; and that these have other animals preying upon
+them,--that every plant has its indirect helpers in the birds that
+scatter abroad its seed, and the animals that manure it with their
+dung;--I say, when these things are considered, it seems impossible
+that any variation which may arise in a species in nature should not
+tend in some way or other either to be a little better or worse than
+the previous stock; if it is a little better it will have an advantage
+over and tend to extirpate the latter in this crush and struggle; and if
+it is a little worse it will itself be extirpated.
+
+I know nothing that more appropriately expresses this, than the phrase,
+"the struggle for existence"; because it brings before your minds, in a
+vivid sort of way, some of the simplest possible circumstances
+connected with it. When a struggle is intense there must be some who
+are sure to be trodden down, crushed, and overpowered by others; and
+there will be some who just manage to get through only by the help of
+the slightest accident. I recollect reading an account of the famous
+retreat of the French troops, under Napoleon, from Moscow. Worn out,
+tired, and dejected, they at length came to a great river over which
+there was but one bridge for the passage of the vast army. Disorganised
+and demoralised as that army was, the struggle must certainly have been
+a terrible one--every one heeding only himself, and crushing through
+the ranks and treading down his fellows. The writer of the narrative,
+who was himself one of those who were fortunate enough to succeed in
+getting over, and not among the thousands who were left behind or
+forced into the river, ascribed his escape to the fact that he saw
+striding onward through the mass a great strong fellow,--one of the
+French Cuirassiers, who had on a large blue cloak--and he had enough
+presence of mind to catch and retain a hold of this strong man's
+cloak. He says, "I caught hold of his cloak, and although he swore at
+me and cut at and struck me by turns, and at last, when he found he
+could not shake me off, fell to entreating me to leave go or I should
+prevent him from escaping, besides not assisting myself, I still kept
+tight hold of him, and would not quit my grasp until he had at last
+dragged me through." Here you see was a case of selective saving--if
+we may so term it--depending for its success on the strength of the
+cloth of the Cuirassier's cloak. It is the same in nature; every
+species has its bridge of Beresina; it has to fight its way through and
+struggle with other species; and when well nigh overpowered, it may be
+that the smallest chance, something in its colour, perhaps--the
+minutest circumstance--will turn the scale one way or the other.
+
+Suppose that by a variation of the black race it had produced the white
+man at any time--you know that the Negroes are said to believe this to
+have been the case, and to imagine that Cain was the first white man,
+and that we are his descendants--suppose that this had ever happened,
+and that the first residence of this human being was on the West Coast
+of Africa. There is no great structural difference between the white
+man and the Negro, and yet there is something so singularly different
+in the constitution of the two, that the malarias of that country, which
+do not hurt the black at all, cut off and destroy the white. Then you
+see there would have been a selective operation performed; if the white
+man had risen in that way, he would have been selected out and removed
+by means of the malaria. Now there really is a very curious case of
+selection of this sort among pigs, and it is a case of selection of
+colour too. In the woods of Florida there are a great many pigs, and
+it is a very curious thing that they are all black, every one of them.
+Professor Wyman was there some years ago, and on noticing no pigs but
+these black ones, he asked some of the people how it was that they had
+no white pigs, and the reply was that in the woods of Florida there was
+a root which they called the Paint Root, and that if the white pigs
+were to eat any of it, it had the effect of making their hoofs crack,
+and they died, but if the black pigs eat any of it, it did not hurt
+them at all. Here was a very simple case of natural selection. A
+skilful breeder could not more carefully develope the black breed of
+pigs, and weed out all the white pigs, than the Paint Root does.
+
+To show you how remarkably indirect may be such natural selective
+agencies as I have referred to, I will conclude by noticing a case
+mentioned by Mr. Darwin, and which is certainly one of the most curious
+of its kind. It is that of the Humble Bee. It has been noticed that
+there are a great many more humble bees in the neighbourhood of towns,
+than out in the open country; and the explanation of the matter is
+this: the humble bees build nests, in which they store their honey and
+deposit the larvae and eggs. The field mice are amazingly fond of the
+honey and larvae; therefore, wherever there are plenty of field mice, as
+in the country, the humble bees are kept down; but in the neighbourhood
+of towns, the number of cats which prowl about the fields eat up the
+field mice, and of course the more mice they eat up the less there are
+to prey upon the larvae of the bees--the cats are therefore the INDIRECT
+HELPERS of the bees!* Coming back a step farther we may say that the
+old maids are also indirect friends of the humble bees, and indirect
+enemies of the field mice, as they keep the cats which eat up the
+latter! This is an illustration somewhat beneath the dignity of the
+subject, perhaps, but it occurs to me in passing, and with it I will
+conclude this lecture. ([Footnote] *The humble bees, on the other hand,
+are direct helpers of some plants, such as the heartsease and red clover,
+which are fertilized by the visits of the bees; and they are indirect
+helpers of the numerous insects which are more or less completely
+supported by the heartsease and red clover.
+
+End of The Conditions of Existence.
+
+***
+
+
+A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE POSITION OF MR. DARWIN'S WORK, "ON THE
+ORIGIN OF SPECIES," IN RELATION TO THE COMPLETE THEORY OF THE CAUSES OF
+THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+In the preceding five lectures I have endeavoured to give you an account
+of those facts, and of those reasonings from facts, which form the data
+upon which all theories regarding the causes of the phenomena of organic
+nature must be based. And, although I have had frequent occasion to
+quote Mr. Darwin--as all persons hereafter, in speaking upon these
+subjects, will have occasion to quote his famous book on the "Origin of
+Species,"--you must yet remember that, wherever I have quoted him, it
+has not been upon theoretical points, or for statements in any way
+connected with his particular speculations, but on matters of fact,
+brought forward by himself, or collected by himself, and which appear
+incidentally in his book. If a man WILL make a book, professing to
+discuss a single question, an encyclopaedia, I cannot help it.
+
+Now, having had an opportunity of considering in this sort of way the
+different statements bearing upon all theories whatsoever, I have to lay
+before you, as fairly as I can, what is Mr. Darwin's view of the matter
+and what position his theories hold, when judged by the principles which
+I have previously laid down, as deciding our judgments upon all theories
+and hypotheses.
+
+I have already stated to you that the inquiry respecting the causes of
+the phenomena of organic nature resolves itself into two problems--the
+first being the question of the origination of living or organic beings;
+and the second being the totally distinct problem of the modification
+and perpetuation of organic beings when they have already come into
+existence. The first question Mr. Darwin does not touch; he does not
+deal with it at all; but he says--given the origin of organic
+matter--supposing its creation to have already taken place, my object is
+to show in consequence of what laws and what demonstrable properties of
+organic matter, and of its environments, such states of organic nature
+as those with which we are acquainted must have come about. This, you
+will observe, is a perfectly legitimate proposition; every person has a
+right to define the limits of the inquiry which he sets before himself;
+and yet it is a most singular thing that in all the multifarious, and,
+not unfrequently, ignorant attacks which have been made upon the 'Origin
+of Species', there is nothing which has been more speciously criticised
+than this particular limitation. If people have nothing else to urge
+against the book, they say--"Well, after all, you see, Mr. Darwin's
+explanation of the 'Origin of Species' is not good for much, because, in
+the long run, he admits that he does not know how organic matter began
+to exist. But if you admit any special creation for the first particle
+of organic matter you may just as well admit it for all the rest; five
+hundred or five thousand distinct creations are just as intelligible,
+and just as little difficult to understand, as one." The answer to these
+cavils is two-fold. In the first place, all human inquiry must stop
+somewhere; all our knowledge and all our investigation cannot take us
+beyond the limits set by the finite and restricted character of our
+faculties, or destroy the endless unknown, which accompanies, like its
+shadow, the endless procession of phenomena. So far as I can venture to
+offer an opinion on such a matter, the purpose of our being in
+existence, the highest object that human beings can set before
+themselves, is not the pursuit of any such chimera as the annihilation
+of the unknown; but it is simply the unwearied endeavour to remove its
+boundaries a little further from our little sphere of action.
+
+I wonder if any historian would for a moment admit the objection, that
+it is preposterous to trouble ourselves about the history of the Roman
+Empire, because we do not know anything positive about the origin and
+first building of the city of Rome! Would it be a fair objection to
+urge, respecting the sublime discoveries of a Newton, or a Kepler, those
+great philosophers, whose discoveries have been of the profoundest
+benefit and service to all men,--to say to them--"After all that you
+have told us as to how the planets revolve, and how they are maintained
+in their orbits, you cannot tell us what is the cause of the origin of
+the sun, moon, and stars. So what is the use of what you have done?" Yet
+these objections would not be one whit more preposterous than the
+objections which have been made to the 'Origin of Species.' Mr. Darwin,
+then, had a perfect right to limit his inquiry as he pleased, and the
+only question for us--the inquiry being so limited--is to ascertain
+whether the method of his inquiry is sound or unsound; whether he has
+obeyed the canons which must guide and govern all investigation, or
+whether he has broken them; and it was because our inquiry this evening
+is essentially limited to that question, that I spent a good deal of
+time in a former lecture (which, perhaps, some of you thought might have
+been better employed), in endeavouring to illustrate the method and
+nature of scientific inquiry in general. We shall now have to put in
+practice the principles that I then laid down.
+
+I stated to you in substance, if not in words, that wherever there are
+complex masses of phenomena to be inquired into, whether they be
+phenomena of the affairs of daily life, or whether they belong to the
+more abstruse and difficult problems laid before the philosopher, our
+course of proceeding in unravelling that complex chain of phenomena with
+a view to get at its cause, is always the same; in all cases we must
+invent an hypothesis; we must place before ourselves some more or less
+likely supposition respecting that cause; and then, having assumed an
+hypothesis, having supposed cause for the phenomena in question, we must
+endeavour, on the one hand, to demonstrate our hypothesis, or, on the
+other, to upset and reject it altogether, by testing it in three ways.
+We must, in the first place, be prepared to prove that the supposed
+causes of the phenomena exist in nature; that they are what the
+logicians call 'vera causae'--true causes;--in the next place, we should
+be prepared to show that the assumed causes of the phenomena are
+competent to produce such phenomena as those which we wish to explain by
+them; and in the last place, we ought to be able to show that no other
+known causes are competent to produce those phenomena. If we can succeed
+in satisfying these three conditions we shall have demonstrated our
+hypothesis; or rather I ought to say we shall have proved it as far as
+certainty is possible for us; for, after all, there is no one of our
+surest convictions which may not be upset, or at any rate modified by a
+further accession of knowledge. It was because it satisfied these
+conditions that we accepted the hypothesis as to the disappearance of
+the tea-pot and spoons in the case I supposed in a previous lecture; we
+found that our hypothesis on that subject was tenable and valid, because
+the supposed cause existed in nature, because it was competent to
+account for the phenomena, and because no other known cause was
+competent to account for them; and it is upon similar grounds that any
+hypothesis you choose to name is accepted in science as tenable and
+valid.
+
+What is Mr. Darwin's hypothesis? As I apprehend it--for I have put it
+into a shape more convenient for common purposes than I could find
+'verbatim' in his book--as I apprehend it, I say, it is, that all the
+phenomena of organic nature, past and present, result from, or are
+caused by, the inter-action of those properties of organic matter, which
+we have called ATAVISM and VARIABILITY, with the CONDITIONS OF
+EXISTENCE; or, in other words,--given the existence of organic matter,
+its tendency to transmit its properties, and its tendency occasionally
+to vary; and, lastly, given the conditions of existence by which organic
+matter is surrounded--that these put together are the causes of the
+Present and of the Past conditions of ORGANIC NATURE.
+
+Such is the hypothesis as I understand it. Now let us see how it will
+stand the various tests which I laid down just now. In the first place,
+do these supposed causes of the phenomena exist in nature? Is it the
+fact that in nature these properties of organic matter--atavism and
+variability--and those phenomena which we have called the conditions of
+existence,--is it true that they exist? Well, of course, if they do not
+exist, all that I have told you in the last three or four lectures must
+be incorrect, because I have been attempting to prove that they do
+exist, and I take it that there is abundant evidence that they do exist;
+so far, therefore, the hypothesis does not break down.
+
+But in the next place comes a much more difficult inquiry:--Are the
+causes indicated competent to give rise to the phenomena of organic
+nature? I suspect that this is indubitable to a certain extent. It is
+demonstrable, I think, as I have endeavoured to show you, that they are
+perfectly competent to give rise to all the phenomena which are
+exhibited by RACES in nature. Furthermore, I believe that they are quite
+competent to account for all that we may call purely structural
+phenomena which are exhibited by SPECIES in nature. On that point also I
+have already enlarged somewhat. Again, I think that the causes assumed
+are competent to account for most of the physiological characteristics
+of species, and I not only think that they are competent to account for
+them, but I think that they account for many things which otherwise
+remain wholly unaccountable and inexplicable, and I may say
+incomprehensible. For a full exposition of the grounds on which this
+conviction is based, I must refer you to Mr. Darwin's work; all that I
+can do now is to illustrate what I have said by two or three cases taken
+almost at random.
+
+I drew your attention, on a previous evening, to the facts which are
+embodied in our systems of Classification, which are the results of the
+examination and comparison of the different members of the animal
+kingdom one with another. I mentioned that the whole of the animal
+kingdom is divisible into five sub-kingdoms; that each of these
+sub-kingdoms is again divisible into provinces; that each province may
+be divided into classes, and the classes into the successively smaller
+groups, orders, families, genera, and species.
+
+Now, in each of these groups, the resemblance in structure among the
+members of the group is closer in proportion as the group is smaller.
+Thus, a man and a worm are members of the animal kingdom in virtue of
+certain apparently slight though really fundamental resemblances which
+they present. But a man and a fish are members of the same sub-kingdom
+'Vertebrata', because they are much more like one another than either of
+them is to a worm, or a snail, or any member of the other sub-kingdoms.
+For similar reasons men and horses are arranged as members of the same
+Class, 'Mammalia'; men and apes as members of the same Order,
+'Primates'; and if there were any animals more like men than they were
+like any of the apes, and yet different from men in important and
+constant particulars of their organization, we should rank them as
+members of the same Family, or of the same Genus, but as of distinct
+Species.
+
+That it is possible to arrange all the varied forms of animals into
+groups, having this sort of singular subordination one to the other, is
+a very remarkable circumstance; but, as Mr. Darwin remarks, this is a
+result which is quite to be expected, if the principles which he lays
+down be correct. Take the case of the races which are known to be
+produced by the operation of atavism and variability, and the conditions
+of existence which check and modify these tendencies. Take the case of
+the pigeons that I brought before you; there it was shown that they
+might be all classed as belonging to some one of five principal
+divisions, and that within these divisions other subordinate groups
+might be formed. The members of these groups are related to one another
+in just the same way as the genera of a family, and the groups
+themselves as the families of an order, or the orders of a class; while
+all have the same sort of structural relations with the wild
+rock-pigeon, as the members of any great natural group have with a real
+or imaginary typical form. Now, we know that all varieties of pigeons of
+every kind have arisen by a process of selective breeding from a common
+stock, the rock-pigeon; hence, you see, that if all species of animals
+have proceeded from some common stock, the general character of their
+structural relations, and of our systems of classification, which
+express those relations, would be just what we find them to be. In other
+words, the hypothetical cause is, so far, competent to produce effects
+similar to those of the real cause.
+
+Take, again, another set of very remarkable facts,--the existence of
+what are called rudimentary organs, organs for which we can find no
+obvious use, in the particular animal economy in which they are found,
+and yet which are there.
+
+Such are the splint-like bones in the leg of the horse, which I here
+show you, and which correspond with bones which belong to certain toes
+and fingers in the human hand and foot. In the horse you see they are
+quite rudimentary, and bear neither toes nor fingers; so that the horse
+has only one "finger" in his fore-foot and one "toe" in his hind foot.
+But it is a very curious thing that the animals closely allied to the
+horse show more toes than he; as the rhinoceros, for instance: he has
+these extra toes well formed, and anatomical facts show very clearly
+that he is very closely related to the horse indeed. So we may say that
+animals, in an anatomical sense nearly related to the horse, have those
+parts which are rudimentary in him, fully developed.
+
+Again, the sheep and the cow have no cutting-teeth, but only a hard pad
+in the upper jaw. That is the common characteristic of ruminants in
+general. But the calf has in its upper jaw some rudiments of teeth which
+never are developed, and never play the part of teeth at all. Well, if
+you go back in time, you find some of the older, now extinct, allies of
+the ruminants have well-developed teeth in their upper jaws; and at the
+present day the pig (which is in structure closely connected with
+ruminants) has well-developed teeth in its upper jaw; so that here is
+another instance of organs well-developed and very useful, in one
+animal, represented by rudimentary organs, for which we can discover no
+purpose whatsoever, in another closely allied animal. The whalebone
+whale, again, has horny "whalebone" plates in its mouth, and no teeth;
+but the young foetal whale, before it is born, has teeth in its jaws;
+they, however, are never used, and they never come to anything. But
+other members of the group to which the whale belongs have
+well-developed teeth in both jaws.
+
+Upon any hypothesis of special creation, facts of this kind appear to me
+to be entirely unaccountable and inexplicable, but they cease to be so
+if you accept Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, and see reason for believing that
+the whalebone whale and the whale with teeth in its mouth both sprang
+from a whale that had teeth, and that the teeth of the foetal whale are
+merely remnants--recollections, if we may so say--of the extinct whale.
+So in the case of the horse and the rhinoceros: suppose that both have
+descended by modification from some earlier form which had the normal
+number of toes, and the persistence of the rudimentary bones which no
+longer support toes in the horse becomes comprehensible.
+
+In the language that we speak in England, and in the language of the
+Greeks, there are identical verbal roots, or elements entering into the
+composition of words. That fact remains unintelligible so long as we
+suppose English and Greek to be independently created tongues; but when
+it is shown that both languages are descended from one original, the
+Sanscrit, we give an explanation of that resemblance. In the same way
+the existence of identical structural roots, if I may so term them,
+entering into the composition of widely different animals, is striking
+evidence in favour of the descent of those animals from a common
+original.
+
+To turn to another kind of illustration:--If you regard the whole series
+of stratified rocks--that enormous thickness of sixty or seventy
+thousand feet that I have mentioned before, constituting the only record
+we have of a most prodigious lapse of time, that time being, in all
+probability, but a fraction of that of which we have no record;--if you
+observe in these successive strata of rocks successive groups of animals
+arising and dying out, a constant succession, giving you the same kind
+of impression, as you travel from one group of strata to another, as you
+would have in travelling from one country to another;--when you find
+this constant succession of forms, their traces obliterated except to
+the man of science,--when you look at this wonderful history, and ask
+what it means, it is only a paltering with words if you are offered the
+reply,--'They were so created.'
+
+But if, on the other hand, you look on all forms of organized beings as
+the results of the gradual modification of a primitive type, the facts
+receive a meaning, and you see that these older conditions are the
+necessary predecessors of the present. Viewed in this light the facts of
+palaeontology receive a meaning--upon any other hypothesis, I am unable
+to see, in the slightest degree, what knowledge or signification we are
+to draw out of them. Again, note as bearing upon the same point, the
+singular likeness which obtains between the successive Faunae and
+Florae, whose remains are preserved on the rocks: you never find any
+great and enormous difference between the immediately successive Faunae
+and Florae, unless you have reason to believe there has also been a
+great lapse of time or a great change of conditions. The animals, for
+instance, of the newest tertiary rocks, in any part of the world, are
+always, and without exception, found to be closely allied with those
+which now live in that part of the world. For example, in Europe, Asia,
+and Africa, the large mammals are at present rhinoceroses,
+hippopotamuses, elephants, lions, tigers, oxen, horses, etc.; and if you
+examine the newest tertiary deposits, which contain the animals and
+plants which immediately preceded those which now exist in the same
+country, you do not find gigantic specimens of ant-eaters and kangaroos,
+but you find rhinoceroses, elephants, lions, tigers, etc.,--of different
+species to those now living,--but still their close allies. If you turn
+to South America, where, at the present day, we have great sloths and
+armadilloes and creatures of that kind, what do you find in the newest
+tertiaries? You find the great sloth-like creature, the 'Megatherium',
+and the great armadillo, the 'Glyptodon', and so on. And if you go to
+Australia you find the same law holds good, namely, that that condition
+of organic nature which has preceded the one which now exists, presents
+differences perhaps of species, and of genera, but that the great types
+of organic structure are the same as those which now flourish.
+
+What meaning has this fact upon any other hypothesis or supposition than
+one of successive modification? But if the population of the world, in
+any age, is the result of the gradual modification of the forms which
+peopled it in the preceding age,--if that has been the case, it is
+intelligible enough; because we may expect that the creature that
+results from the modification of an elephantine mammal shall be
+something like an elephant, and the creature which is produced by the
+modification of an armadillo-like mammal shall be like an armadillo.
+Upon that supposition, I say, the facts are intelligible; upon any
+other, that I am aware of, they are not.
+
+So far, the facts of palaeontology are consistent with almost any form
+of the doctrine of progressive modification; they would not be
+absolutely inconsistent with the wild speculations of De Maillet, or
+with the less objectionable hypothesis of Lamarck. But Mr. Darwin's
+views have one peculiar merit; and that is, that they are perfectly
+consistent with an array of facts which are utterly inconsistent with
+and fatal to, any other hypothesis of progressive modification which has
+yet been advanced. It is one remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Darwin's
+hypothesis that it involves no necessary progression or incessant
+modification, and that it is perfectly consistent with the persistence
+for any length of time of a given primitive stock, contemporaneously
+with its modifications. To return to the case of the domestic breeds of
+pigeons, for example; you have the Dove-cot pigeon, which closely
+resembles the Rock pigeon, from which they all started, existing at the
+same time with the others. And if species are developed in the same way
+in nature, a primitive stock and its modifications may, occasionally,
+all find the conditions fitted for their existence; and though they come
+into competition, to a certain extent, with one another, the derivative
+species may not necessarily extirpate the primitive one, or 'vice
+versa'.
+
+Now palaeontology shows us many facts which are perfectly harmonious
+with these observed effects of the process by which Mr. Darwin supposes
+species to have originated, but which appear to me to be totally
+inconsistent with any other hypothesis which has been proposed. There
+are some groups of animals and plants, in the fossil world, which have
+been said to belong to "persistent types," because they have persisted,
+with very little change indeed, through a very great range of time,
+while everything about them has changed largely. There are families of
+fishes whose type of construction has persisted all the way from the
+carboniferous rock right up to the cretaceous; and others which have
+lasted through almost the whole range of the secondary rocks, and from
+the lias to the older tertiaries. It is something stupendous this--to
+consider a genus lasting without essential modifications through all
+this enormous lapse of time while almost everything else was changed and
+modified.
+
+Thus I have no doubt that Mr. Darwin's hypothesis will be found
+competent to explain the majority of the phenomena exhibited by species
+in nature; but in an earlier lecture I spoke cautiously with respect to
+its power of explaining all the physiological peculiarities of species.
+
+There is, in fact, one set of these peculiarities which the theory of
+selective modification, as it stands at present, is not wholly competent
+to explain, and that is the group of phenomena which I mentioned to you
+under the name of Hybridism, and which I explained to consist in the
+sterility of the offspring of certain species when crossed one with
+another. It matters not one whit whether this sterility is universal, or
+whether it exists only in a single case. Every hypothesis is bound to
+explain, or, at any rate, not be inconsistent with, the whole of the
+facts which it professes to account for; and if there is a single one of
+these facts which can be shown to be inconsistent with (I do not merely
+mean inexplicable by, but contrary to) the hypothesis, the hypothesis
+falls to the ground,--it is worth nothing. One fact with which it is
+positively inconsistent is worth as much, and as powerful in negativing
+the hypothesis, as five hundred. If I am right in thus defining the
+obligations of an hypothesis, Mr. Darwin, in order to place his views
+beyond the reach of all possible assault, ought to be able to
+demonstrate the possibility of developing from a particular stock by
+selective breeding, two forms, which should either be unable to cross
+one with another, or whose cross-bred offspring should be infertile with
+one another.
+
+For, you see, if you have not done that you have not strictly fulfilled
+all the conditions of the problem; you have not shown that you can
+produce, by the cause assumed, all the phenomena which you have in
+nature. Here are the phenomena of Hybridism staring you in the face, and
+you cannot say, 'I can, by selective modification, produce these same
+results.' Now, it is admitted on all hands that, at present, so far as
+experiments have gone, it has not been found possible to produce this
+complete physiological divergence by selective breeding. I stated this
+very clearly before, and I now refer to the point, because, if it could
+be proved, not only that this HAS not been done, but that it CANNOT be
+done; if it could be demonstrated that it is impossible to breed
+selectively, from any stock, a form which shall not breed with another,
+produced from the same stock; and if we were shown that this must be the
+necessary and inevitable results of all experiments, I hold that Mr.
+Darwin's hypothesis would be utterly shattered.
+
+But has this been done? or what is really the state of the case? It is
+simply that, so far as we have gone yet with our breeding, we have not
+produced from a common stock two breeds which are not more or less
+fertile with one another.
+
+I do not know that there is a single fact which would justify any one in
+saying that any degree of sterility has been observed between breeds
+absolutely known to have been produced by selective breeding from a
+common stock. On the other hand, I do not know that there is a single
+fact which can justify any one in asserting that such sterility cannot
+be produced by proper experimentation. For my own part, I see every
+reason to believe that it may, and will be so produced. For, as Mr.
+Darwin has very properly urged, when we consider the phenomena of
+sterility, we find they are most capricious; we do not know what it is
+that the sterility depends on. There are some animals which will not
+breed in captivity; whether it arises from the simple fact of their
+being shut up and deprived of their liberty, or not, we do not know, but
+they certainly will not breed. What an astounding thing this is, to find
+one of the most important of all functions annihilated by mere
+imprisonment!
+
+So, again, there are cases known of animals which have been thought by
+naturalists to be undoubted species, which have yielded perfectly
+fertile hybrids; while there are other species which present what
+everybody believes to be varieties* which are more or less infertile
+with one another. ([Footnote] *And as I conceive with very good reason;
+but if any objector urges that we cannot prove that they have been
+produced by artificial or natural selection, the objection must be
+admitted--ultrasceptical as it is. But in science, scepticism is a
+duty.) There are other cases which are truly extraordinary; there is
+one, for example, which has been carefully examined,--of two kinds of
+sea-weed, of which the male element of the one, which we may call A,
+fertilizes the female element of the other, B; while the male element of
+B will not fertilize the female element of A; so that, while the former
+experiment seems to show us that they are 'varieties', the latter leads
+to the conviction that they are 'species'.
+
+When we see how capricious and uncertain this sterility is, how unknown
+the conditions on which it depends, I say that we have no right to
+affirm that those conditions will not be better understood by and by,
+and we have no ground for supposing that we may not be able to
+experiment so as to obtain that crucial result which I mentioned just
+now. So that though Mr. Darwin's hypothesis does not completely
+extricate us from this difficulty at present, we have not the least
+right to say it will not do so.
+
+There is a wide gulf between the thing you cannot explain and the thing
+that upsets you altogether. There is hardly any hypothesis in this world
+which has not some fact in connection with it which has not been
+explained, but that is a very different affair to a fact that entirely
+opposes your hypothesis; in this case all you can say is, that your
+hypothesis is in the same position as a good many others.
+
+Now, as to the third test, that there are no other causes competent to
+explain the phenomena, I explained to you that one should be able to say
+of an hypothesis, that no other known causes than those supposed by it
+are competent to give rise to the phenomena. Here, I think, Mr. Darwin's
+view is pretty strong. I really believe that the alternative is either
+Darwinism or nothing, for I do not know of any rational conception or
+theory of the organic universe which has any scientific position at all
+beside Mr. Darwin's. I do not know of any proposition that has been put
+before us with the intention of explaining the phenomena of organic
+nature, which has in its favour a thousandth part of the evidence which
+may be adduced in favour of Mr. Darwin's views. Whatever may be the
+objections to his views, certainly all others are absolutely out of
+court.
+
+Take the Lamarckian hypothesis, for example. Lamarck was a great
+naturalist, and to a certain extent went the right way to work; he
+argued from what was undoubtedly a true cause of some of the phenomena
+of organic nature. He said it is a matter of experience that an animal
+may be modified more or less in consequence of its desires and
+consequent actions. Thus, if a man exercise himself as a blacksmith, his
+arms will become strong and muscular; such organic modification is a
+result of this particular action and exercise. Lamarck thought that by a
+very simple supposition based on this truth he could explain the origin
+of the various animal species: he said, for example, that the
+short-legged birds which live on fish had been converted into the
+long-legged waders by desiring to get the fish without wetting their
+bodies, and so stretching their legs more and more through successive
+generations. If Lamarck could have shown experimentally, that even races
+of animals could be produced in this way, there might have been some
+ground for his speculations. But he could show nothing of the kind, and
+his hypothesis has pretty well dropped into oblivion, as it deserved to
+do. I said in an earlier lecture that there are hypotheses and
+hypotheses, and when people tell you that Mr. Darwin's strongly-based
+hypothesis is nothing but a mere modification of Lamarck's, you will
+know what to think of their capacity for forming a judgment on this
+subject.
+
+But you must recollect that when I say I think it is either Mr. Darwin's
+hypothesis or nothing; that either we must take his view, or look upon
+the whole of organic nature as an enigma, the meaning of which is wholly
+hidden from us; you must understand that I mean that I accept it
+provisionally, in exactly the same way as I accept any other hypothesis.
+Men of science do not pledge themselves to creeds; they are bound by
+articles of no sort; there is not a single belief that it is not a
+bounden duty with them to hold with a light hand and to part with it
+cheerfully, the moment it is really proved to be contrary to any fact,
+great or small. And if, in course of time I see good reasons for such a
+proceeding, I shall have no hesitation in coming before you, and
+pointing out any change in my opinion without finding the slightest
+occasion to blush for so doing. So I say that we accept this view as we
+accept any other, so long as it will help us, and we feel bound to
+retain it only so long as it will serve our great purpose--the
+improvement of Man's estate and the widening of his knowledge. The
+moment this, or any other conception, ceases to be useful for these
+purposes, away with it to the four winds; we care not what becomes of
+it!
+
+But to say truth, although it has been my business to attend closely to
+the controversies roused by the publication of Mr. Darwin's book, I
+think that not one of the enormous mass of objections and obstacles
+which have been raised is of any very great value, except that sterility
+case which I brought before you just now. All the rest are
+misunderstandings of some sort, arising either from prejudice, or want
+of knowledge, or still more from want of patience and care in reading
+the work.
+
+For you must recollect that it is not a book to be read with as much
+ease as its pleasant style may lead you to imagine. You spin through it
+as if it were a novel the first time you read it, and think you know all
+about it; the second time you read it you think you know rather less
+about it; and the third time, you are amazed to find how little you have
+really apprehended its vast scope and objects. I can positively say that
+I never take it up without finding in it some new view, or light, or
+suggestion that I have not noticed before. That is the best
+characteristic of a thorough and profound book; and I believe this
+feature of the 'Origin of Species' explains why so many persons have
+ventured to pass judgment and criticisms upon it which are by no means
+worth the paper they are written on.
+
+Before concluding these lectures there is one point to which I must
+advert,--though, as Mr. Darwin has said nothing about man in his book,
+it concerns myself rather than him;--for I have strongly maintained on
+sundry occasions that if Mr. Darwin's views are sound, they apply as
+much to man as to the lower mammals, seeing that it is perfectly
+demonstrable that the structural differences which separate man from the
+apes are not greater than those which separate some apes from others.
+There cannot be the slightest doubt in the world that the argument which
+applies to the improvement of the horse from an earlier stock, or of ape
+from ape, applies to the improvement of man from some simpler and lower
+stock than man. There is not a single faculty--functional or structural,
+moral, intellectual, or instinctive,--there is no faculty whatever that
+is not capable of improvement; there is no faculty whatsoever which does
+not depend upon structure, and as structure tends to vary, it is capable
+of being improved.
+
+Well, I have taken a good deal of pains at various times to prove this,
+and I have endeavoured to meet the objections of those who maintain,
+that the structural differences between man and the lower animals are of
+so vast a character and enormous extent, that even if Mr. Darwin's views
+are correct, you cannot imagine this particular modification to take
+place. It is, in fact, easy matter to prove that, so far as structure is
+concerned, man differs to no greater extent from the animals which are
+immediately below him than these do from other members of the same
+order. Upon the other hand, there is no one who estimates more highly
+than I do the dignity of human nature, and the width of the gulf in
+intellectual and moral matters, which lies between man and the whole of
+the lower creation.
+
+But I find this very argument brought forward vehemently by some. "You
+say that man has proceeded from a modification of some lower animal, and
+you take pains to prove that the structural differences which are said
+to exist in his brain do not exist at all, and you teach that all
+functions, intellectual, moral, and others, are the expression or the
+result, in the long run, of structures, and of the molecular forces
+which they exert." It is quite true that I do so.
+
+"Well, but," I am told at once, somewhat triumphantly, "you say in the
+same breath that there is a great moral and intellectual chasm between
+man and the lower animals. How is this possible when you declare that
+moral and intellectual characteristics depend on structure, and yet tell
+us that there is no such gulf between the structure of man and that of
+the lower animals?"
+
+I think that objection is based upon a misconception of the real
+relations which exist between structure and function, between mechanism
+and work. Function is the expression of molecular forces and
+arrangements no doubt; but, does it follow from this, that variation in
+function so depends upon variation in structure that the former is
+always exactly proportioned to the latter? If there is no such relation,
+if the variation in function which follows on a variation in structure,
+may be enormously greater than the variation of the structure, then, you
+see, the objection falls to the ground.
+
+Take a couple of watches--made by the same maker, and as completely
+alike as possible; set them upon the table, and the function of
+each--which is its rate of going--will be performed in the same manner,
+and you shall be able to distinguish no difference between them; but let
+me take a pair of pincers, and if my hand is steady enough to do it, let
+me just lightly crush together the bearings of the balance-wheel, or
+force to a slightly different angle the teeth of the escapement of one
+of them, and of course you know the immediate result will be that the
+watch, so treated, from that moment will cease to go. But what
+proportion is there between the structural alteration and the functional
+result? Is it not perfectly obvious that the alteration is of the
+minutest kind, yet that slight as it is, it has produced an infinite
+difference in the performance of the functions of these two instruments?
+
+Well, now, apply that to the present question. What is it that
+constitutes and makes man what he is? What is it but his power of
+language--that language giving him the means of recording his
+experience--making every generation somewhat wiser than its
+predecessor,--more in accordance with the established order of the
+universe?
+
+What is it but this power of speech, of recording experience, which
+enables men to be men--looking before and after and, in some dim sense,
+understanding the working of this wondrous universe--and which
+distinguishes man from the whole of the brute world? I say that this
+functional difference is vast, unfathomable, and truly infinite in its
+consequences; and I say at the same time, that it may depend upon
+structural differences which shall be absolutely inappreciable to us
+with our present means of investigation. What is this very speech that
+we are talking about? I am speaking to you at this moment, but if you
+were to alter, in the minutest degree, the proportion of the nervous
+forces now active in the two nerves which supply the muscles of my
+glottis, I should become suddenly dumb. The voice is produced only so
+long as the vocal chords are parallel; and these are parallel only so
+long as certain muscles contract with exact equality; and that again
+depends on the equality of action of those two nerves I spoke of. So
+that a change of the minutest kind in the structure of one of these
+nerves, or in the structure of the part in which it originates, or of
+the supply of blood to that part, or of one of the muscles to which it
+is distributed, might render all of us dumb. But a race of dumb men,
+deprived of all communication with those who could speak, would be
+little indeed removed from the brutes. And the moral and intellectual
+difference between them and ourselves would be practically infinite,
+though the naturalist should not be able to find a single shadow of even
+specific structural difference.
+
+But let me dismiss this question now, and, in conclusion, let me say
+that you may go away with it as my mature conviction, that Mr. Darwin's
+work is the greatest contribution which has been made to biological
+science since the publication of the 'Regne Animal' of Cuvier, and since
+that of the 'History of Development' of Von Baer. I believe that if you
+strip it of its theoretical part it still remains one of the greatest
+encyclopaedias of biological doctrine that any one man ever brought
+forth; and I believe that, if you take it as the embodiment of an
+hypothesis, it is destined to be the guide of biological and
+psychological speculation for the next three or four generations.
+
+End of A Critical Examination of "On The Origin of Species".
+
+***
+
+
+THE DARWINIAN HYPOTHESIS.*
+
+([Footnote] *'Times', December 26th, 1850.)
+
+DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
+
+There is a growing immensity in the speculations of science to which no
+human thing or thought at this day is comparable. Apart from the results
+which science brings us home and securely harvests, there is an
+expansive force and latitude in its tentative efforts, which lifts us
+out of ourselves and transfigures our mortality. We may have a
+preference for moral themes, like the Homeric sage, who had seen and
+known much:--
+
+    "Cities of men
+    And manners, climates, councils, governments";
+
+yet we must end by confession that
+
+    "The windy ways of men
+    Are but dust which rises up
+    And is lightly laid again,"
+
+in comparison with the work of nature, to which science testifies, but
+which has no boundaries in time or space to which science can
+approximate.
+
+There is something altogether out of the reach of science, and yet the
+compass of science is practically illimitable. Hence it is that from
+time to time we are startled and perplexed by theories which have no
+parallel in the contracted moral world; for the generalizations of
+science sweep on in ever-widening circles, and more aspiring flights,
+through a limitless creation. While astronomy, with its telescope,
+ranges beyond the known stars, and physiology, with its microscope, is
+subdividing infinite minutiae, we may expect that our historic centuries
+may be treated as inadequate counters in the history of the planet on
+which we are placed. We must expect new conceptions of the nature and
+relations of its denizens, as science acquires the materials for fresh
+generalizations; nor have we occasion for alarms if a highly advanced
+knowledge, like that of the eminent Naturalist before us, confronts us
+with an hypothesis as vast as it is novel. This hypothesis may or may
+not be sustainable hereafter; it may give way to something else, and
+higher science may reverse what science has here built up with so much
+skill and patience, but its sufficiency must be tried by the tests of
+science alone, if we are to maintain our position as the heirs of Bacon
+and the acquitters of Galileo. We must weigh this hypothesis strictly in
+the controversy which is coming, by the only tests which are
+appropriate, and by no others whatsoever.
+
+The hypothesis to which we point, and of which the present work of Mr.
+Darwin is but the preliminary outline, may be stated in his own language
+as follows:--"Species originated by means of natural selection, or
+through the preservation of the favoured races in the struggle for
+life." To render this thesis intelligible, it is necessary to interpret
+its terms. In the first place, what is a species? The question is a
+simple one, but the right answer to it is hard to find, even if we
+appeal to those who should know most about it. It is all those animals
+or plants which have descended from a single pair of parents; it is the
+smallest distinctly definable group of living organisms; it is an
+eternal and immutable entity; it is a mere abstraction of the human
+intellect having no existence in nature. Such are a few of the
+significations attached to this simple word which may be culled from
+authoritative sources; and if, leaving terms and theoretical subtleties
+aside, we turn to facts and endeavour to gather a meaning for ourselves,
+by studying the things to which, in practice, the name of species is
+applied, it profits us little. For practice varies as much as theory.
+Let the botanist or the zoologist examine and describe the productions
+of a country, and one will pretty certainly disagree with the other as
+to the number, limits, and definitions of the species into which he
+groups the very same things. In these islands, we are in the habit of
+regarding mankind as of one species, but a fortnight's steam will land
+us in a country where divines and savants, for once in agreement, vie
+with one another in loudness of assertion, if not in cogency of proof,
+that men are of different species; and, more particularly, that the
+species negro is so distinct from our own that the Ten Commandments have
+actually no reference to him. Even in the calm region of entomology,
+where, if anywhere in this sinful world, passion and prejudice should
+fail to stir the mind, one learned coleopterist will fill ten attractive
+volumes with descriptions of species of beetles, nine-tenths of which
+are immediately declared by his brother beetle-mongers to be no species
+at all.
+
+The truth is that the number of distinguishable living creatures almost
+surpasses imagination. At least a hundred thousand such kinds of insects
+alone have been described and may be identified in collections, and the
+number of separable kinds of living things is under estimated at half a
+million. Seeing that most of these obvious kinds have their accidental
+varieties, and that they often shade into others by imperceptible
+degrees, it may well be imagined that the task of distinguishing between
+what is permanent and what fleeting, what is a species and what a mere
+variety, is sufficiently formidable.
+
+But is it not possible to apply a test whereby a true species may be
+known from a mere variety? Is there no criterion of species? Great
+authorities affirm that there is--that the unions of members of the same
+species are always fertile, while those of distinct species are either
+sterile, or their offspring, called hybrids, are so. It is affirmed not
+only that this is an experimental fact, but that it is a provision for
+the preservation of the purity of species. Such a criterion as this
+would be invaluable; but, unfortunately, not only is it not obvious how
+to apply it in the great majority of cases in which its aid is needed,
+but its general validity is stoutly denied. The Hon. and Rev. Mr.
+Herbert, a most trustworthy authority, not only asserts as the result of
+his own observations and experiments that many hybrids are quite as
+fertile as the parent species, but he goes so far as to assert that the
+particular plant 'Crinum capense' is much more fertile when crossed by a
+distinct species than when fertilised by its proper pollen! On the other
+hand, the famous Gaertner, though he took the greatest pains to cross
+the primrose and the cowslip, succeeded only once or twice in several
+years; and yet it is a well-established fact that the primrose and the
+cowslip are only varieties of the same kind of plant. Again, such cases
+as the following are well established. The female of species A, if
+crossed with the male of species B, is fertile; but, if the female of B
+is crossed with the male of A, she remains barren. Facts of this kind
+destroy the value of the supposed criterion.
+
+If, weary of the endless difficulties involved in the determination of
+species, the investigator, contenting himself with the rough practical
+distinction of separable kinds, endeavours to study them as they occur
+in nature--to ascertain their relations to the conditions which surround
+them, their mutual harmonies and discordances of structure, the bond of
+union of their parts and their past history, he finds himself, according
+to the received notions, in a mighty maze, and with, at most, the
+dimmest adumbration of a plan. If he starts with any one clear
+conviction, it is that every part of a living creature is cunningly
+adapted to some special use in its life. Has not his Paley told him that
+that seemingly useless organ, the spleen, is beautifully adjusted as so
+much packing between the other organs? And yet, at the outset of his
+studies, he finds that no adaptive reason whatsoever can be given for
+one-half of the peculiarities of vegetable structure; he also discovers
+rudimentary teeth, which are never used, in the gums of the young calf
+and in those of the foetal whale; insects which never bite have
+rudimental jaws, and others which never fly have rudimental wings;
+naturally blind creatures have rudimental eyes; and the halt have
+rudimentary limbs. So, again, no animal or plant puts on its perfect
+form at once, but all have to start from the same point, however various
+the course which each has to pursue. Not only men and horses, and cats
+and dogs, lobsters and beetles, periwinkles and mussels, but even the
+very sponges and animalcules commence their existence under forms which
+are essentially undistinguishable; and this is true of all the infinite
+variety of plants. Nay, more, all living beings march side by side along
+the high road of development, and separate the later the more like they
+are; like people leaving church, who all go down the aisle, but having
+reached the door some turn into the parsonage, others go down the
+village, and others part only in the next parish. A man in his
+development runs for a little while parallel with, though never passing
+through, the form of the meanest worm, then travels for a space beside
+the fish, then journeys along with the bird and the reptile for his
+fellow travellers; and only at last, after a brief companionship with
+the highest of the four-footed and four-handed world, rises into the
+dignity of pure manhood. No competent thinker of the present day dreams
+of explaining these indubitable facts by the notion of the existence of
+unknown and undiscoverable adaptations to purpose. And we would remind
+those who, ignorant of the facts, must be moved by authority, that no
+one has asserted the incompetence of the doctrine of final causes, in
+its application to physiology and anatomy, more strongly than our own
+eminent anatomist, Professor Owen, who, speaking of such cases, says
+('On the Nature of Limbs', pp. 39, 40): "I think it will be obvious that
+the principle of final adaptations fails to satisfy all the conditions
+of the problem."
+
+But, if the doctrine of final causes will not help us to comprehend the
+anomalies of living structure, the principle of adaptation must surely
+lead us to understand why certain living beings are found in certain
+regions of the world and not in others. The palm, as we know, will not
+grow in our climate, nor the oak in Greenland. The white bear cannot
+live where the tiger thrives, nor 'vice versa', and the more the natural
+habits of animal and vegetable species are examined, the more do they
+seem, on the whole, limited to particular provinces. But when we look
+into the facts established by the study of the geographical distribution
+of animals and plants it seems utterly hopeless to attempt to understand
+the strange and apparently capricious relations which they exhibit. One
+would be inclined to suppose 'a priori' that every country must be
+naturally peopled by those animals that are fittest to live and thrive
+in it. And yet how, on this hypothesis, are we to account for the
+absence of cattle in the Pampas of South America, when those parts of
+the New World were discovered? It is not that they were unfit for
+cattle, for millions of cattle now run wild there; and the like holds
+good of Australia and New Zealand. It is a curious circumstance, in
+fact, that the animals and plants of the Northern Hemisphere are not
+only as well adapted to live in the Southern Hemisphere as its own
+autochthones, but are in many cases absolutely better adapted, and so
+overrun and extirpate the aborigines. Clearly, therefore, the species
+which naturally inhabit a country are not necessarily the best adapted
+to its climate and other conditions. The inhabitants of islands are
+often distinct from any other known species of animal or plants (witness
+our recent examples from the work of Sir Emerson Tennent, on Ceylon),
+and yet they have almost always a sort of general family resemblance to
+the animals and plants of the nearest mainland. On the other hand, there
+is hardly a species of fish, shell, or crab common to the opposite sides
+of the narrow isthmus of Panama. Wherever we look, then, living nature
+offers us riddles of difficult solution, if we suppose that what we see
+is all that can be known of it.
+
+But our knowledge of life is not confined to the existing world.
+Whatever their minor differences, geologists are agreed as to the vast
+thickness of the accumulated strata which compose the visible part of
+our earth, and the inconceivable immensity of the time of whose lapse
+they are the imperfect, but the only accessible witnesses. Now,
+throughout the greater part of this long series of stratified rocks are
+scattered, sometimes very abundantly, multitudes of organic remains, the
+fossilized exuviae of animals and plants which lived and died while the
+mud of which the rocks are formed was yet soft ooze, and could receive
+and bury them. It would be a great error to suppose that these organic
+remains were fragmentary relics. Our museums exhibit fossil shells of
+immeasurable antiquity, as perfect as the day they were formed, whole
+skeletons without a limb disturbed--nay, the changed flesh, the
+developing embryos, and even the very footsteps of primeval organisms.
+Thus the naturalist finds in the bowels of the earth species as well
+defined as, and in some groups of animals more numerous than, those that
+breathe the upper air. But, singularly enough, the majority of these
+entombed species are wholly distinct from those that now live. Nor is
+this unlikeness without its rule and order. As a broad fact, the further
+we go back in time the less the buried species are like existing forms;
+and the further apart the sets of extinct creatures are the less they
+are like one another. In other words, there has been a regular
+succession of living beings, each younger set being in a very broad and
+general sense somewhat more like those which now live.
+
+It was once supposed that this succession had been the result of vast
+successive catastrophes, destructions, and re-creations en masse; but
+catastrophes are now almost eliminated from geological, or at least
+palaeontological speculation; and it is admitted on all hands that the
+seeming breaks in the chain of being are not absolute, but only relative
+to our imperfect knowledge; that species have replaced species, not in
+assemblages, but one by one; and that, if it were possible to have all
+the phenomena of the past presented to us, the convenient epochs and
+formations of the geologist, though having a certain distinctness, would
+fade into one another with limits as undefinable as those of the
+distinct and yet separable colours of the solar spectrum.
+
+Such is a brief summary of the main truths which have been established
+concerning species. Are these truths ultimate and irresolvable facts, or
+are their complexities and perplexities the mere expressions of a higher
+law?
+
+A large number of persons practically assume the former position to be
+correct. They believe that the writer of the Pentateuch was empowered
+and commissioned to teach us scientific as well as other truth, that the
+account we find there of the creation of living things is simply and
+literally correct, and that anything which seems to contradict it is, by
+the nature of the case, false. All the phenomena which have been
+detailed are, on this view, the immediate product of a creative fiat and
+consequently are out of the domain of science altogether.
+
+Whether this view prove ultimately to be true or false, it is, at any
+rate, not at present supported by what is commonly regarded as logical
+proof, even if it be capable of discussion by reason; and hence we
+consider ourselves at liberty to pass it by, and to turn to those views
+which profess to rest on a scientific basis only, and therefore admit of
+being argued to their consequences. And we do this with the less
+hesitation as it so happens that those persons who are practically
+conversant with the facts of the case (plainly a considerable advantage)
+have always thought fit to range themselves under the latter category.
+
+The majority of these competent persons have up to the present time
+maintained two positions,--the first, that every species is, within
+certain defined or definable limits, fixed and incapable of
+modification; the second, that every species was originally produced by
+a distinct creative act. The second position is obviously incapable of
+proof or disproof, the direct operations of the Creator not being
+subjects of science; and it must therefore be regarded as a corollary
+from the first, the truth or falsehood of which is a matter of evidence.
+Most persons imagine that the arguments in favour of it are
+overwhelming; but to some few minds, and these, it must be confessed,
+intellects of no small power and grasp of knowledge, they have not
+brought conviction. Among these minds, that of the famous naturalist
+Lamarck, who possessed a greater acquaintance with the lower forms of
+life than any man of his day, Cuvier not excepted, and was a good
+botanist to boot, occupies a prominent place.
+
+Two facts appear to have strongly affected the course of thought of this
+remarkable man--the one, that finer or stronger links of affinity
+connect all living beings with one another, and that thus the highest
+creature grades by multitudinous steps into the lowest; the other, that
+an organ may be developed in particular directions by exerting itself in
+particular ways, and that modifications once induced may be transmitted
+and become hereditary. Putting these facts together, Lamarck endeavoured
+to account for the first by the operation of the second. Place an animal
+in new circumstances, says he, and its needs will be altered; the new
+needs will create new desires, and the attempt to gratify such desires
+will result in an appropriate modification of the organs exerted. Make a
+man a blacksmith, and his brachial muscles will develop in accordance
+with the demands made upon them, and in like manner, says Lamarck, "the
+efforts of some short-necked bird to catch fish without wetting himself
+have, with time and perseverance, given rise to all our herons and
+long-necked waders."
+
+The Lamarckian hypothesis has long since been justly condemned, and it
+is the established practice for every tyro to raise his heel against the
+carcass of the dead lion. But it is rarely either wise or instructive to
+treat even the errors of a really great man with mere ridicule, and in
+the present case the logical form of the doctrine stands on a very
+different footing from its substance.
+
+If species have really arisen by the operation of natural conditions, we
+ought to be able to find those conditions now at work; we ought to be
+able to discover in nature some power adequate to modify any given kind
+of animal or plant in such a manner as to give rise to another kind,
+which would be admitted by naturalists as a distinct species. Lamarck
+imagined that he had discovered this 'vera causa' in the admitted facts
+that some organs may be modified by exercise; and that modifications,
+once produced, are capable of hereditary transmission. It does not seem
+to have occurred to him to inquire whether there is any reason to
+believe that there are any limits to the amount of modification
+producible, or to ask how long an animal is likely to endeavour to
+gratify an impossible desire. The bird, in our example, would surely
+have renounced fish dinners long before it had produced the least effect
+on leg or neck.
+
+Since Lamarck's time, almost all competent naturalists have left
+speculations on the origin of species to such dreamers as the author of
+the 'Vestiges', by whose well-intentioned efforts the Lamarckian theory
+received its final condemnation in the minds of all sound thinkers.
+Notwithstanding this silence, however, the transmutation theory, as it
+has been called, has been a "skeleton in the closet" to many an honest
+zoologist and botanist who had a soul above the mere naming of dried
+plants and skins. Surely, has such an one thought, nature is a mighty
+and consistent whole, and the providential order established in the
+world of life must, if we could only see it rightly, be consistent with
+that dominant over the multiform shapes of brute matter. But what is the
+history of astronomy, of all the branches of physics, of chemistry, of
+medicine, but a narration of the steps by which the human mind has been
+compelled, often sorely against its will, to recognize the operation of
+secondary causes in events where ignorance beheld an immediate
+intervention of a higher power? And when we know that living things are
+formed of the same elements as the inorganic world, that they act and
+react upon it, bound by a thousand ties of natural piety, is it
+probable, nay is it possible, that they, and they alone, should have no
+order in their seeming disorder, no unity in their seeming multiplicity,
+should suffer no explanation by the discovery of some central and
+sublime law of mutual connexion?
+
+Questions of this kind have assuredly often arisen, but it might have
+been long before they received such expression as would have commanded
+the respect and attention of the scientific world, had it not been for
+the publication of the work which prompted this article. Its author, Mr.
+Darwin, inheritor of a once celebrated name, won his spurs in science
+when most of those now distinguished were young men, and has for the
+last 20 years held a place in the front ranks of British philosophers.
+After a circumnavigatory voyage, undertaken solely for the love of his
+science, Mr. Darwin published a series of researches which at once
+arrested the attention of naturalists and geologists; his
+generalizations have since received ample confirmation, and now command
+universal assent, nor is it questionable that they have had the most
+important influence on the progress of science. More recently Mr.
+Darwin, with a versatility which is among the rarest of gifts, turned
+his attention to a most difficult question of zoology and minute
+anatomy; and no living naturalist and anatomist has published a better
+monograph than that which resulted from his labours. Such a man, at all
+events, has not entered the sanctuary with unwashed hands, and when he
+lays before us the results of 20 years' investigation and reflection we
+must listen even though we be disposed to strike. But, in reading his
+work it must be confessed that the attention which might at first be
+dutifully, soon becomes willingly, given, so clear is the author's
+thought, so outspoken his conviction, so honest and fair the candid
+expression of his doubts. Those who would judge the book must read it;
+we shall endeavour only to make its line of argument and its
+philosophical position intelligible to the general reader in our own
+way.
+
+The Baker-street Bazaar has just been exhibiting its familiar annual
+spectacle. Straight-backed, small-headed, big-barrelled oxen, as
+dissimilar from any wild species as can well be imagined, contended for
+attention and praise with sheep of half-a-dozen different breeds and
+styes of bloated preposterous pigs, no more like a wild boar or sow than
+a city alderman is like an ourang-outang. The cattle show has been, and
+perhaps may again be, succeeded by a poultry show, of whose crowing and
+clucking prodigies it can only be certainly predicated that they will be
+very unlike the aboriginal 'Phasianus gallus'. If the seeker after
+animal anomalies is not satisfied, a turn or two in Seven Dials will
+convince him that the breeds of pigeons are quite as extraordinary and
+unlike one another and their parent stock, while the Horticultural
+Society will provide him with any number of corresponding vegetable
+aberrations from nature's types. He will learn with no little surprise,
+too, in the course of his travels, that the proprietors and producers of
+these animal and vegetable anomalies regard them as distinct species,
+with a firm belief, the strength of which is exactly proportioned to
+their ignorance of scientific biology, and which is the more remarkable
+as they are all proud of their skill in ORIGINATING such "species."
+
+On careful inquiry it is found that all these, and the many other
+artificial breeds or races of animals and plants, have been produced by
+one method. The breeder--and a skilful one must be a person of much
+sagacity and natural or acquired perceptive faculty--notes some slight
+difference, arising he knows not how, in some individuals of his stock.
+If he wish to perpetuate the difference, to form a breed with the
+peculiarity in question strongly marked, he selects such male and female
+individuals as exhibit the desired character, and breeds from them.
+Their offspring are then carefully examined, and those which exhibit the
+peculiarity the most distinctly are selected for breeding, and this
+operation is repeated until the desired amount of divergence from the
+primitive stock is reached. It is then found that by continuing the
+process of selection--always breeding, that is, from well-marked forms,
+and allowing no impure crosses to interfere,--a race may be formed, the
+tendency of which to reproduce itself is exceedingly strong; nor is the
+limit to the amount of divergence which may be thus produced known, but
+one thing is certain, that, if certain breeds of dogs, or of pigeons, or
+of horses, were known only in a fossil state, no naturalist would
+hesitate in regarding them as distinct species.
+
+But, in all these cases we have HUMAN INTERFERENCE. Without the breeder
+there would be no selection, and without the selection no race. Before
+admitting the possibility of natural species having originated in any
+similar way, it must be proved that there is in nature some power which
+takes the place of man, and performs a selection sua sponte. It is the
+claim of Mr. Darwin that he professes to have discovered the existence
+and the modus operandi of this natural selection, as he terms it; and,
+if he be right, the process is perfectly simple and comprehensible, and
+irresistibly deducible from very familiar but well nigh forgotten facts.
+
+Who, for instance, has duly reflected upon all the consequences of the
+marvellous struggle for existence which is daily and hourly going on
+among living beings? Not only does every animal live at the expense of
+some other animal or plant, but the very plants are at war. The ground
+is full of seeds that cannot rise into seedlings; the seedlings rob one
+another of air, light and water, the strongest robber winning the day,
+and extinguishing his competitors. Year after year, the wild animals
+with which man never interferes are, on the average, neither more nor
+less numerous than they were; and yet we know that the annual produce of
+every pair is from one to perhaps a million young,--so that it is
+mathematically certain that, on the average, as many are killed by
+natural causes as are born every year, and those only escape which
+happen to be a little better fitted to resist destruction than those
+which die. The individuals of a species are like the crew of a foundered
+ship, and none but good swimmers have a chance of reaching the land.
+
+Such being unquestionably the necessary conditions under which living
+creatures exist, Mr. Darwin discovers in them the instrument of natural
+selection. Suppose that in the midst of this incessant competition some
+individuals of a species (A) present accidental variations which happen
+to fit them a little better than their fellows for the struggle in which
+they are engaged, then the chances are in favour, not only of these
+individuals being better nourished than the others, but of their
+predominating over their fellows in other ways, and of having a better
+chance of leaving offspring, which will of course tend to reproduce the
+peculiarities of their parents. Their offspring will, by a parity of
+reasoning, tend to predominate over their contemporaries, and there
+being (suppose) no room for more than one species such as A, the weaker
+variety will eventually be destroyed by the new destructive influence
+which is thrown into the scale, and the stronger will take its place.
+Surrounding conditions remaining unchanged, the new variety (which we
+may call B)--supposed, for argument's sake, to be the best adapted for
+these conditions which can be got out of the original stock--will remain
+unchanged, all accidental deviations from the type becoming at once
+extinguished, as less fit for their post than B itself. The tendency of
+B to persist will grow with its persistence through successive
+generations, and it will acquire all the characters of a new species.
+
+But, on the other hand, if the conditions of life change in any degree,
+however slight, B may no longer be that form which is best adapted to
+withstand their destructive, and profit by their sustaining, influence;
+in which case if it should give rise to a more competent variety (C),
+this will take its place and become a new species; and thus, by 'natural
+selection', the species B and C will be successively derived from A.
+
+That this most ingenious hypothesis enables us to give a reason for many
+apparent anomalies in the distribution of living beings in time and
+space, and that it is not contradicted by the main phenomena of life and
+organization appear to us to be unquestionable; and so far it must be
+admitted to have an immense advantage over any of its predecessors. But
+it is quite another matter to affirm absolutely either the truth or
+falsehood of Mr. Darwin's views at the present stage of the inquiry.
+Goethe has an excellent aphorism defining that state of mind which he
+calls 'Thatige Skepsis'--active doubt. It is doubt which so loves truth
+that it neither dares rest in doubting, nor extinguish itself by
+unjustified belief; and we commend this state of mind to students of
+species, with respect to Mr. Darwin's or any other hypothesis, as to
+their origin. The combined investigations of another 20 years may,
+perhaps, enable naturalists to say whether the modifying causes and the
+selective power, which Mr. Darwin has satisfactorily shown to exist in
+nature, are competent to produce all the effects he ascribes to them, or
+whether, on the other hand, he has been led to over-estimate the value
+of his principle of natural selection, as greatly as Lamarck
+overestimated his vera causa of modification by exercise.
+
+But there is, at all events, one advantage possessed by the more recent
+writer over his predecessor. Mr. Darwin abhors mere speculation as
+nature abhors a vacuum. He is as greedy of cases and precedents as any
+constitutional lawyer, and all the principles he lays down are capable
+of being brought to the test of observation and experiment. The path he
+bids us follow professes to be, not a mere airy track, fabricated of
+ideal cobwebs, but a solid and broad bridge of facts. If it be so, it
+will carry us safely over many a chasm in our knowledge, and lead us to
+a region free from the snares of those fascinating but barren Virgins,
+the Final Causes, against whom a high authority has so justly warned us.
+"My sons, dig in the vineyard," were the last words of the old man in
+the fable; and, though the sons found no treasure, they made their
+fortunes by the grapes.
+
+End of The Darwinian Hypothesis.
+
+***
+
+
+TIME AND LIFE.*
+
+([Footnote] *"Macmillan's Magazine", December 1859.)
+
+MR. DARWIN'S "ORIGIN OF SPECIES".
+
+Everyone knows that that superficial film of the earth's substance,
+hardly ten miles thick, which is accessible to human investigation, is
+composed for the most part of beds or strata of stone, the consolidated
+muds and sands of former seas and lakes, which have been deposited one
+upon the other, and hence are the older the deeper they lie. These
+multitudinous strata present such resemblances and differences among
+themselves that they are capable of classification into groups or
+formations, and these formations again are brigaded together into still
+larger assemblages, called by the older geologists, primary, secondary,
+and tertiary; by the moderns, palaeozoic, mesozoic, and cainozoic: the
+basis of the former nomenclature being the relative age of the groups of
+strata; that of the latter, the kinds of living forms contained in them.
+
+Though but a film if compared with the total diameter of our planet, the
+total series of formations is vast indeed when measured by any human
+standard, and, as all action implies time, so are we compelled to regard
+these mineral masses as a measure of the time which has elapsed during
+their accumulation. The amount of the time which they represent is, of
+course, in the inverse proportion of the intensity of the forces which
+have been in operation. If, in the ancient world, mud and sand
+accumulated on sea-bottoms at tenfold their present rate, it is clear
+that a bed of mud or sand ten feet thick would have been formed then in
+the same time as a stratum of similar materials one foot thick would be
+formed now, and 'vice versa'.
+
+At the outset of his studies, therefore, the physical geologist had to
+choose between two hypotheses; either, throughout the ages which are
+represented by the accumulated strata, and which we may call 'geologic
+time', the forces of nature have operated with much same average
+intensity as at present, and hence the lapse of time which they
+represent must be something prodigious and inconceivable, or, in the
+primeval epochs, the natural powers were infinitely more intense than
+now, and hence the time through which they acted to produce the effects
+we see was comparatively short.
+
+The earlier geologists adopted the latter view almost with one consent.
+For they had little knowledge of the present workings of nature, and
+they read the records of geologic time as a child reads the history of
+Rome or Greece, and fancies that antiquity was grand, heroic, and unlike
+the present because it is unlike his little experience of the present.
+
+Even so the earlier observers were moved with wonder at the seeming
+contrast between the ancient and the present order of nature. The
+elemental forces seemed to have been grander and more energetic in
+primeval times. Upheaved and contorted, rifted and fissured, pierced by
+dykes of molten matter or worn away over vast areas by aqueous action,
+the older rocks appeared to bear witness to a state of things far
+different from that exhibited by the peaceful epoch on which the lot of
+man has fallen.
+
+But by degrees thoughtful students of geology have been led to perceive
+that the earliest efforts of nature have been by no means the grandest.
+Alps and Andes are children of yesterday when compared with Snowdon and
+the Cumberland hills; and the so-called glacial epoch--that in which
+perhaps the most extensive physical changes of which any record
+remaining occurred--is the last and the newest of the revolutions of the
+globe. And in proportion as physical geography--which is the geology of
+our own epoch--has grown into a science, and the present order of nature
+has been ransacked to find what, hibernice, we may call precedents for
+the phenomena of the past, so the apparent necessity of supposing the
+past to be widely different from the present has diminished.
+
+The transporting power of the greatest deluge which can be imagined
+sinks into insignificance beside that of the slowly floating, slowly
+melting iceberg, or the glacier creeping along at its snail's pace of a
+yard a day. The study of the deltas of the Nile, the Ganges, and the
+Mississippi has taught us how slow is the wearing action of water, how
+vast its effects when time is allowed for its operation. The reefs of
+the Pacific, the deep-sea soundings of the Atlantic, show that it is to
+the slow-growing coral and to the imperceptible animalcule, which lives
+its brief space and then adds its tiny shell to the muddy cairn left by
+its brethren and ancestors, that we must look as the agents in the
+formation of limestone and chalk, and not to hypothetical oceans
+saturated with calcareous salts and suddenly depositing them.
+
+And while the inquirer has thus learnt that existing forces--GIVE THEM
+TIME--are competent to produce all the physical phenomena we meet with
+in the rocks, so, on the other side, the study of the marks left in the
+ancient strata by past physical actions shows that these were similar to
+those which now obtain. Ancient beaches are met with whose pebbles are
+like those found on modern shores; the hardened sea-sands of the oldest
+epochs show ripple-marks, such as may now be found on every sandy coast;
+nay, more, the pits left by ancient rain-drops prove that even in the
+very earliest ages, the "bow in the clouds" must have adorned the
+palaeozoic firmament. So that if we could reverse the legend of the
+Seven Sleepers,--if we could sleep back through the past, and awake a
+million ages before our own epoch, in the midst of the earliest geologic
+times,--there is no reason to believe that sea, or sky, or the aspect of
+the land would warn us of the marvellous retrospection.
+
+Such are the beliefs which modern physical geologists hold, or, at any
+rate, tend towards holding. But, in so doing, it is obvious that they by
+no means prejudge the question, as to what the physical condition of the
+globe may have been before our chapters of its history begin, in what
+may be called (with that licence which is implied in the often-used term
+"prehistoric epoch") "pre-geologic time." The views indicated, in fact,
+are not only quite consistent with the hypothesis, that, in the still
+earlier period referred to, the condition of our world was very
+different; but they may be held by some to necessitate that hypothesis.
+The physical philosopher who is accurately acquainted with the velocity
+of a cannon-ball, and the precise character of the line which it
+traverses for a yard of its course, is necessitated by what he knows of
+the laws of nature to conclude that it came from a certain spot, whence
+it was impelled by a certain force, and that it has followed a certain
+trajectory. In like manner, the student of physical geology, who fully
+believes in the uniformity of the general condition of the earth through
+geologic time, may feel compelled by what he knows of causation, and by
+the general analogy of nature, to suppose that our solar system was once
+a nebulous mass; that it gradually condensed, that it broke up into that
+wonderful group of harmoniously rolling balls we call planets and
+satellites, and that then each of these underwent its appointed
+metamorphosis, until at last our own share of the cosmic vapour passed
+into that condition in which we first meet with definite records of its
+state, and in which it has since, with comparatively little change,
+remained.
+
+The doctrine of uniformity and the doctrine of progression are,
+therefore, perfectly consistent; perhaps, indeed, they might be shown to
+be necessarily connected with one another.
+
+If, however, the condition of the world, which has obtained throughout
+geologic time, is but the sequel to a vast series of changes which took
+place in pre-geologic time, then it seems not unlikely that the duration
+of this latter is to that of the former as the vast extent of geologic
+time is to the length of the brief epoch we call the historical period;
+and that even the oldest rocks are records of an epoch almost infinitely
+remote from that which could have witnessed the first shaping of our
+globe.
+
+It is probable that no modern geologist would hesitate to admit the
+general validity of these reasonings when applied to the physics of his
+subject, whence it is the more remarkable that the moment the question
+changes from one of physics and chemistry to one of natural history,
+scientific opinions and the popular prejudices, which reflect them in a
+distorted form, undergo a sudden metamorphosis. Geologists and
+palaeontologists write about the "beginning of life" and the
+"first-created forms of living beings," as if they were the most
+familiar things in the world; and even cautious writers seem to be on
+quite friendly terms with the "archetype" whereby the Creator was guided
+"amidst the crash of falling worlds." Just as it used to be imagined
+that the ancient world was physically opposed to the present, so it is
+still widely assumed that the living population of our globe, whether
+animal or vegetable, in the older epochs, exhibited forms so strikingly
+contrasted with those which we see around us, that there is hardly
+anything in common between the two. It is constantly tacitly assumed
+that we have before us all the forms of life which have ever existed;
+and though the progress of knowledge, yearly and almost monthly, drives
+the defenders of that position from their ground, they entrench
+themselves in the new line of defences as if nothing had happened, and
+proclaim that the NEW beginning is the REAL beginning.
+
+Without for an instant denying or endeavouring to soften down the
+considerable positive differences (the negative ones are met by another
+line of argument) which undoubtedly obtain between the ancient and the
+modern worlds of life, we believe they have been vastly overstated and
+exaggerated, and this belief is based upon certain facts whose value
+does not seem to have been fully appreciated, though they have long been
+more or less completely known.
+
+The multitudinous kinds of animals and plants, both recent and fossil,
+are, as is well known, arranged by zoologists and botanists, in
+accordance with their natural relations, into groups which receive the
+names of sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera and species.
+Now it is a most remarkable circumstance that, viewed on the great
+scale, living beings have differed so little throughout all geologic
+time that there is no sub-kingdom and no class wholly extinct or without
+living representatives.
+
+If we descend to the smaller groups, we find that the number of orders
+of plants is about two hundred; and I have it on the best authority that
+not one of these is exclusively fossil; so that there is absolutely not
+a single extinct ordinal type of vegetable life; and it is not until we
+descend to the next group, or the families, that we find types which are
+wholly extinct. The number of orders of animals, on the other hand, may
+be reckoned at a hundred and twenty, or thereabouts, and of these, eight
+or nine have no living representatives. The proportion of extinct
+ordinal types of animals to the existing types, therefore, does not
+exceed seven per cent--a marvellously small proportion when we consider
+the vastness of geologic time.
+
+Another class of considerations--of a different kind, it is true, but
+tending in the same direction--seems to have been overlooked. Not only
+is it true that the general plan of construction of animals and plants
+has been the same in all recorded time as at present, but there are
+particular kinds of animals and plants which have existed throughout
+vast epochs, sometimes through the whole range of recorded time, with
+very little change. By reason of this persistency, the typical form of
+such a kind might be called a "persistent type," in contradistinction to
+those types which have appeared for but a short time in the course of
+the world's history. Examples of these persistent types are abundant
+enough in both the vegetable and the animal kingdoms. The oldest group
+of plants with which we are well acquainted is that of whose remains
+coal is constituted; and as far as they can be identified, the
+carboniferous plants are ferns, or club-mosses, or Coniferae, in many
+cases generically identical with those now living!
+
+Among animals, instances of the same kind may be found in every
+sub-kingdom. The 'Globigerina' of the Atlantic soundings is identical
+with that which occurs in the chalk; and the casts of lower silurian
+'Foraminifera', which Ehrenberg has recently described, seem to indicate
+the existence at that remote period of forms singularly like those which
+now exist. Among the corals, the palaeozoic 'Tabulata' are constructed
+on precisely the same type as the modern millepores; and if we turn to
+molluscs, the most competent malacologists fail to discover any generic
+distinction between the 'Craniae', 'Lingulae' and 'Discinae' of the
+silurian rocks and those which now live. Our existing 'Nautilus' has its
+representative species in every great formation, from the oldest to the
+newest; and 'Loligo', the squid of modern seas, appears in the lias, or
+at the bottom of the mesozoic series, in a form, at most, specifically
+different from its living congeners. In the great assemblage of annulose
+animals, the two highest classes, the insects and spider tribe, exhibit
+a wonderful persistency of type. The cockroaches of the carboniferous
+epoch are exceedingly similar to those which now run about our
+coal-cellars; and its locusts, termites and dragon-flies are closely
+allied to the members of the same groups which now chirrup about our
+fields, undermine our houses, or sail with swift grace about the banks
+of our sedgy pools. And, in like manner, the palaeozoic scorpions can
+only be distinguished by the eye of a naturalist from the modern ones.
+
+Finally, with respect to the 'Vertebrata', the same law holds good:
+certain types, such as those of the ganoid and placoid fishes, having
+persisted from the palaeozoic epoch to the present time without a
+greater amount of deviation from the normal standard than that which is
+seen within the limits of the group as it now exists. Even among the
+'Reptilia'--the class which exhibits the largest proportion of entirely
+extinct forms of any one type,--that of the 'Crocodilia', has persisted
+from at least the commencement of the Mesozoic epoch up to the present
+time with so much constancy, that the amount of change which it exhibits
+may fairly, in relation to the time which has elapsed, be called
+insignificant. And the imperfect knowledge we have of the ancient
+mammalian population of our earth leads to the belief that certain of
+its types, such as that of the 'Marsupialia', have persisted with
+correspondingly little change through a similar range of time.
+
+Thus it would appear to be demonstrable, that, notwithstanding the great
+change which is exhibited by the animal population of the world as a
+whole, certain types have persisted comparatively without alteration,
+and the question arises, What bearing have such facts as these on our
+notions of the history of life through geological time? The answer to
+this question would seem to depend on the view we take respecting the
+origin of species in general. If we assume that every species of animal
+and of plant was formed by a distinct act of creative power, and if the
+species which have incessantly succeeded one another were placed upon
+the globe by these separate acts, then the existence of persistent types
+is simply an unintelligible irregularity. Such assumption, however, is
+as unsupported by tradition or by Revelation as it is opposed by the
+analogy of the rest of the operations of nature; and those who imagine
+that, by adopting any such hypothesis, they are strengthening the hands
+of the advocates of the letter of the Mosaic account, are simply
+mistaken. If, on the other hand, we adopt that hypothesis to which alone
+the study of physiology lends any support--that hypothesis which, having
+struggled beyond the reach of those fatal supporters, the Telliameds and
+Vestigiarians, who so nearly caused its suffocation by wind in early
+infancy, is now winning at least the provisional assent of all the best
+thinkers of the day--the hypothesis that the forms or species of living
+beings, as we know them, have been produced by the gradual modification
+of pre-existing species--then the existence of persistent types seems to
+teach us much. Just as a small portion of a great curve appears
+straight, the apparent absence of change in direction of the line being
+the exponent of the vast extent of the whole, in proportion to the part
+we see; so, if it be true that all living species are the result of the
+modification of other and simpler forms, the existence of these little
+altered persistent types, ranging through all geological time, must
+indicate that they are but the final terms of an enormous series of
+modifications, which had their being in the great lapse of pregeologic
+time, and are now perhaps for ever lost.
+
+In other words, when rightly studied, the teachings of palaeontology are
+at one with those of physical geology. Our farthest explorations carry
+us back but a little way above the mouth of the great river of Life:
+where it arose, and by what channels the noble tide has reached the
+point when it first breaks upon our view, is hidden from us.
+
+The foregoing pages contain the substance of a lecture delivered before
+the Royal Institution of Great Britain many months ago, and of course
+long before the appearance of the remarkable work on the "Origin of
+Species" just published by Mr. Darwin, who arrives at very similar
+conclusions. Although, in one sense, I might fairly say that my own
+views have been arrived at independently, I do not know that I can claim
+any equitable right to property in them; for it has long been my
+privilege to enjoy Mr. Darwin's friendship, and to profit by
+corresponding with him, and by, to some extent, becoming acquainted with
+the workings of his singularly original and well-stored mind. It was in
+consequence of my knowledge of the general tenor of the researches in
+which Mr. Darwin had been so long engaged; because I had the most
+complete confidence in his perseverance, his knowledge, and, above all
+things, his high-minded love of truth; and, moreover, because I found
+that the better I became acquainted with the opinions of the best
+naturalists regarding the vexed question of species, the less fixed they
+seemed to be, and the more inclined they were to the hypothesis of
+gradual modification, that I ventured to speak as strongly as I have
+done in the final paragraphs of my discourse.
+
+Thus, my daw having so many borrowed plumes, I see no impropriety in
+making a tail to this brief paper by taking another handful of feathers
+from Mr. Darwin; endeavouring to point out in a few words, in fact,
+what, as I gather from the perusal of his book, his doctrines really
+are, and on what sort of basis they rest. And I do this the more
+willingly, as I observe that already the hastier sort of critics have
+begun, not to review my friend's book, but to howl over it in a manner
+which must tend greatly to distract the public mind.
+
+No one will be better satisfied than I to see Mr. Darwin's book refuted,
+if any person be competent to perform that feat; but I would suggest
+that refutation is retarded, not aided, by mere sarcastic
+misrepresentation. Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned
+pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck by the extreme
+modifiability or plasticity of those kinds of animals and plants which
+have been subjected to such artificial conditions as are imposed by
+domestication. Breeds of dogs are more different from one another than
+are the dog and the wolf; and the purely artificial races of pigeons, if
+their origin were unknown, would most assuredly be reckoned by
+naturalists as distinct species and even genera.
+
+These breeds are always produced in the same way. The breeder selects a
+pair, one or other, or both, of which present an indication of the
+peculiarity he wishes to perpetuate, and then selects from the offspring
+of them those which are most characteristic, rejecting the others. From
+the selected offspring he breeds again, and, taking the same precautions
+as before, repeats the process until he has obtained the precise degree
+of divergence from the primitive type at which he aimed.
+
+If he now breeds from the variety thus established for some generations,
+taking care always to keep the stock pure, the tendency to produce this
+particular variety becomes more and more strongly hereditary; and it
+does not appear that there is any limit to the persistency of the race
+thus developed.
+
+Men like Lamarck, apprehending these facts, and knowing that varieties
+comparable to those produced by the breeder are abundantly found in
+nature, and finding it impossible to discriminate in some cases between
+varieties and true species, could hardly fail to divine the possibility
+that species even the most distinct were, after all, only exceedingly
+persistent varieties, and that they had arisen by the modification of
+some common stock, just as it is with good reason believed that
+turnspits and greyhounds, carrier and tumbler pigeons, have arisen.
+
+But there was a link wanting to complete the parallel. Where in nature
+was the analogue of the breeder to be found? How could that operation of
+selection, which is his essential function, be carried out by mere
+natural agencies? Lamarck did not value this problem; neither did he
+admit his impotence to solve it; but he guessed a solution. Now,
+guessing in science is a very hazardous proceeding, and Lamarck's
+reputation has suffered woefully for the absurdities into which his
+baseless suppositions led him.
+
+Lamarck's conjectures, equipped with a new hat and stick, as Sir Walter
+Scott was wont to say of an old story renovated, formed the foundation
+of the biological speculations of the 'Vestiges', a work which has done
+more harm to the progress of sound thought on these matters than any
+that could be named; and, indeed, I mention it here simply for the
+purpose of denying that it has anything in common with what essentially
+characterises Mr. Darwin's work.
+
+The peculiar feature of the latter is, in fact, that it professes to
+tell us what in nature takes the place of the breeder; what it is that
+favours the development of one variety into which a species may run, and
+checks that of another; and, finally, shows how this natural selection,
+as it is termed, may be the physical cause of the production of species
+by modification.
+
+That which takes the place of the breeder and selector in nature is
+Death. In a most remarkable chapter, 'On the Struggle for Existence',
+Mr. Darwin draws attention to the marvellous destruction of life which
+is constantly going on in nature. For every species of living thing, as
+for man, "Eine Bresche ist ein jeder Tag."--Every species has its
+enemies; every species has to compete with others for the necessaries of
+existence; the weakest goes to the wall, and death is the penalty
+inflicted on all laggards and stragglers. Every variety to which a
+species may give rise is either worse or better adapted to surrounding
+circumstances than its parent. If worse, it cannot maintain itself
+against death, and speedily vanishes again. But if better adapted, it
+must, sooner or later, "improve" its progenitor from the face of the
+earth, and take its place. If circumstances change, the victor will be
+similarly supplanted by its own progeny; and thus, by the operation of
+natural causes, unlimited modification may in the lapse of long ages
+occur.
+
+For an explanation of what I have here called vaguely "surrounding
+circumstances," and of why they continually change--for ample proof that
+the "struggle for existence" is a very great reality, and assuredly
+'tends' to exert the influence ascribed to it--I must refer to Mr.
+Darwin's book. I believe I have stated fairly the position upon which
+his whole theory must stand or fall; and it is not my purpose to
+anticipate a full review of his work. If it can be proved that the
+process of natural selection, operating upon any species, can give rise
+to varieties of species so different from one another that none of our
+tests will distinguish them from true species, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis
+of the origin of species will take its place among the established
+theories of science, be its consequences whatever they may. If, on the
+other hand, Mr. Darwin has erred, either in fact or in reasoning, his
+fellow-workers will soon find out the weak points in his doctrines, and
+their extinction by some nearer approximation to the truth will
+exemplify his own principle of natural selection.
+
+In either case the question is one to be settled only by the
+painstaking, truth-loving investigation of skilled naturalists. It is
+the duty of the general public to await the result in patience; and,
+above all things, to discourage, as they would any other crimes, the
+attempt to enlist the prejudices of the ignorant, or the
+uncharitableness of the bigoted, on either side of the controversy.
+
+End of Time and Life.
+
+
+***
+
+THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.*
+
+([Footnote] *'The Westminster Review', April 1860.)
+
+Mr. Darwin's long-standing and well-earned scientific eminence probably
+renders him indifferent to that social notoriety which passes by the
+name of success; but if the calm spirit of the philosopher have not yet
+wholly superseded the ambition and the vanity of the carnal man within
+him, he must be well satisfied with the results of his venture in
+publishing the 'Origin of Species'. Overflowing the narrow bounds of
+purely scientific circles, the "species question" divides with Italy and
+the Volunteers the attention of general society. Everybody has read Mr.
+Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits or
+demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the mild
+railing which sounds so charitable; bigots denounce it with ignorant
+invective; old ladies of both sexes consider it a decidedly dangerous
+book, and even savants, who have no better mud to throw, quote
+antiquated writers to show that its author is no better than an ape
+himself; while every philosophical thinker hails it as a veritable
+Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism; and all competent
+naturalists and physiologists, whatever their opinions as to the
+ultimate fate of the doctrines put forth, acknowledge that the work in
+which they are embodied is a solid contribution to knowledge and
+inaugurates a new epoch in natural history.
+
+Nor has the discussion of the subject been restrained within the limits
+of conversation. When the public is eager and interested, reviewers must
+minister to its wants; and the genuine litterateur is too much in the
+habit of acquiring his knowledge from the book he judges--as the
+Abyssinian is said to provide himself with steaks from the ox which
+carries him--to be withheld from criticism of a profound scientific work
+by the mere want of the requisite preliminary scientific acquirement;
+while, on the other hand, the men of science who wish well to the new
+views, no less than those who dispute their validity, have naturally
+sought opportunities of expressing their opinions. Hence it is not
+surprising that almost all the critical journals have noticed Mr.
+Darwin's work at greater or less length; and so many disquisitions, of
+every degree of excellence, from the poor product of ignorance, too
+often stimulated by prejudice, to the fair and thoughtful essay of the
+candid student of Nature, have appeared, that it seems an almost
+hopeless task to attempt to say anything new upon the question.
+
+But it may be doubted if the knowledge and acumen of prejudged
+scientific opponents, or the subtlety of orthodox special pleaders, have
+yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real issues of the great
+controversy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly likely to
+be seen by this generation; so that, at this eleventh hour, and even
+failing anything new, it may be useful to state afresh that which is
+true, and to put the fundamental positions advocated by Mr. Darwin in
+such a form that they may be grasped by those whose special studies lie
+in other directions. And the adoption of this course may be the more
+advisable, because, notwithstanding its great deserts, and indeed partly
+on account of them, the 'Origin of Species' is by no means an easy book
+to read--if by reading is implied the full comprehension of an author's
+meaning.
+
+We do not speak jestingly in saying that it is Mr. Darwin's misfortune
+to know more about the question he has taken up than any man living.
+Personally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in
+geology; a student of geographical distribution, not on maps and in
+museums only, but by long voyages and laborious collection; having
+largely advanced each of these branches of science, 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.
+
+But this very superabundance of matter must have been embarrassing to a
+writer who, for the present, can only put forward an abstract of his
+views; and thence it arises, perhaps, that notwithstanding the clearness
+of the style, those who attempt fairly to digest the book find much of
+it a sort of intellectual pemmican--a mass of facts crushed and pounded
+into shape, rather than held together by the ordinary medium of an
+obvious logical bond; due attention will, without doubt, discover this
+bond, but it is often hard to find.
+
+Again, from sheer want of room, much has to be taken for granted which
+might readily enough be proved; and hence, while the adept, who can
+supply the missing links in the evidence from his own knowledge,
+discovers fresh proof of the singular thoroughness with which all
+difficulties have been considered and all unjustifiable suppositions
+avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. Darwin's pregnant paragraphs, the
+novice in biology is apt to complain of the frequency of what he fancies
+is gratuitous assumption.
+
+Thus while it may be doubted if, for some years, any one is likely to be
+competent to pronounce judgment on all the issues raised by Mr. Darwin,
+there is assuredly abundant room for him, who, assuming the humbler,
+though perhaps as useful, office of an interpreter between the 'Origin
+of Species' and the public, contents himself with endeavouring to point
+out the nature of the problems which it discusses; to distinguish
+between the ascertained facts and the theoretical views which it
+contains; and finally, to show the extent to which the explanation it
+offers satisfies the requirements of scientific logic. At any rate, it
+is this office which we purpose to undertake in the following pages.
+
+It may be safely assumed that our readers have a general conception of
+the nature of the objects to which the word "species" is applied; but it
+has, perhaps, occurred to a few, even to those who are naturalists ex
+professo, to reflect, that, as commonly employed, the term has a double
+sense and denotes two very different orders of relations. When we call a
+group of animals, or of plants, a species, we may imply thereby, either
+that all these animals or plants have some common peculiarity of form or
+structure; or, we may mean that they possess some common functional
+character. That part of biological science which deals with form and
+structure is called Morphology--that which concerns itself with
+function, Physiology--so that we may conveniently speak of these two
+senses, or aspects, of "species"--the one as morphological, the other as
+physiological. Regarded from the former point of view, a species is
+nothing more than a kind of animal or plant, which is distinctly
+definable from all others, by certain constant, and not merely sexual,
+morphological peculiarities. Thus horses form a species, because the
+group of animals to which that name is applied is distinguished from all
+others in the world by the following constantly associated characters.
+They have--1, A vertebral column; 2, Mammae; 3, A placental embryo; 4,
+Four legs; 5, A single well-developed toe in each foot provided with a
+hoof; 6, A bushy tail; and 7, Callosities on the inner sides of both the
+fore and the hind legs. The asses, again, form a distinct species,
+because, with the same characters, as far as the fifth in the above
+list, all asses have tufted tails, and have callosities only on the
+inner side of the fore-legs. If animals were discovered having the
+general characters of the horse, but sometimes with callosities only on
+the fore-legs, and more or less tufted tails; or animals having the
+general characters of the ass, but with more or less bushy tails, and
+sometimes with callosities on both pairs of legs, besides being
+intermediate in other respects--the two species would have to be merged
+into one. They could no longer be regarded as morphologically distinct
+species, for they would not be distinctly definable one from the other.
+
+However bare and simple this definition of species may appear to be, we
+confidently appeal to all practical naturalists, whether zoologists,
+botanists, or palaeontologists, to say if, in the vast majority of
+cases, they know, or mean to affirm anything more of the group of
+animals or plants they so denominate than what has just been stated.
+Even the most decided advocates of the received doctrines respecting
+species admit this.
+
+"I apprehend," says Professor Owen,* "that few naturalists nowadays, in
+describing and proposing a name for what they call 'a new species,' use
+that term to signify what was meant by it twenty or thirty years ago;
+that is, an originally distinct creation, maintaining its primitive
+distinction by obstructive generative peculiarities. The proposer of the
+new species now intends to state no more than he actually knows; as, for
+example, that the differences on which he founds the specific character
+are constant in individuals of both sexes, so far as observation has
+reached; and that they are not due to domestication or to artificially
+superinduced external circumstances, or to any outward influence within
+his cognizance; that the species is wild, or is such as it appears by
+Nature." ([Footnote] *On the Osteology of the Chimpanzees and Orangs:
+Transactions of the Zoological Society, 1858.)
+
+If we consider, in fact, that by far the largest proportion of recorded
+existing species are known only by the study of their skins, or bones,
+or other lifeless exuvia; that we are acquainted with none, or next to
+none, of their physiological peculiarities, beyond those which can be
+deduced from their structure, or are open to cursory observation; and
+that we cannot hope to learn more of any of those extinct forms of life
+which now constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the known Flora and
+Fauna of the world: it is obvious that the definitions of these species
+can be only of a purely structural, or morphological, character. It is
+probable that naturalists would have avoided much confusion of ideas if
+they had more frequently borne the necessary limitations of our
+knowledge in mind. But while it may safely be admitted that we are
+acquainted with only the morphological characters of the vast majority
+of species--the functional or physiological, peculiarities of a few have
+been carefully investigated, and the result of that study forms a large
+and most interesting portion of the physiology of reproduction.
+
+The student of Nature wonders the more and is astonished the less, the
+more conversant he becomes with her operations; but of all the perennial
+miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps the most worthy of
+admiration is the development of a plant or of an animal from its
+embryo. Examine the recently laid egg of some common animal, such as a
+salamander or newt. It is a minute spheroid in which the best microscope
+will reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing a glairy fluid,
+holding granules in suspension. But strange possibilities lie dormant in
+that semi-fluid globule. Let a moderate supply of warmth reach its
+watery cradle, and the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid, yet so
+steady and purposelike in their succession, that one can only compare
+them to those operated by a skilled modeller upon a formless lump of
+clay. As with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and subdivided
+into smaller and smaller portions, until it is reduced to an aggregation
+of granules not too large to build withal the finest fabrics of the
+nascent organism. And, then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out
+the line to be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the contour of
+the body; pinching up the head at one end, the tail at the other, and
+fashioning flank and limb into due salamandrine proportions, in so
+artistic a way, that, after watching the process hour by hour, one is
+almost involuntarily possessed by the notion, that some more subtle aid
+to vision than an achromatic, would show the hidden artist, with his
+plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work.
+
+As life advances, and the young amphibian ranges the waters, the terror
+of his insect contemporaries, not only are the nutritious particles
+supplied by its prey, by the addition of which to its frame, growth
+takes place, laid down, each in its proper spot, and in such due
+proportion to the rest, as to reproduce the form, the colour, and the
+size, characteristic of the parental stock; but even the wonderful
+powers of reproducing lost parts possessed by these animals are
+controlled by the same governing tendency. Cut off the legs, the tail,
+the jaws, separately or all together, and, as Spallanzani showed long
+ago, these parts not only grow again, but the reintegrated limb is
+formed on the same type as those which were lost. The new jaw, or leg,
+is a newt's, and never by any accident more like that of a frog. What is
+true of the newt is true of every animal and of every plant; the acorn
+tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant such as that from
+whose twig it fell; the spore of the humblest lichen reproduces the
+green or brown incrustation which gave it birth; and at the other end of
+the scale of life, the child that resembled neither the paternal nor the
+maternal side of the house would be regarded as a kind of monster.
+
+So that the one end to which, in all living beings, the formative
+impulse is tending--the one scheme which the Archaeus of the old
+speculators strives to carry out, seems to be to mould the offspring
+into the likeness of the parent. It is the first great law of
+reproduction, that the offspring tends to resemble its parent or
+parents, more closely than anything else.
+
+Science will some day show us how this law is a necessary consequence of
+the more general laws which govern matter; but, for the present, more
+can hardly be said than that it appears to be in harmony with them. We
+know that the phenomena of vitality are not something apart from other
+physical phenomena, but one with them; and matter and force are the two
+names of the one artist who fashions the living as well as the lifeless.
+Hence living bodies should obey the same great laws as other
+matter--nor, throughout Nature, is there a law of wider application than
+this, that a body impelled by two forces takes the direction of their
+resultant. But living bodies may be regarded as nothing but extremely
+complex bundles of forces held in a mass of matter, as the complex
+forces of a magnet are held in the steel by its coercive force; and,
+since the differences of sex are comparatively slight, or, in other
+words, the sum of the forces in each has a very similar tendency, their
+resultant, the offspring, may reasonably be expected to deviate but
+little from a course parallel to either, or to both.
+
+Represent the reason of the law to ourselves by what physical metaphor
+or analogy we will, however, the great matter is to apprehend its
+existence and the importance of the consequences deducible from it. For
+things which are like to the same are like to one another; and if; in a
+great series of generations, every offspring is like its parent, it
+follows that all the offspring and all the parents must be like one
+another; and that, given an original parental stock, with the
+opportunity of undisturbed multiplication, the law in question
+necessitates the production, in course of time, of an indefinitely large
+group, the whole of whose members are at once very similar and are blood
+relations, having descended from the same parent, or pair of parents.
+The proof that all the members of any given group of animals, or plants,
+had thus descended, would be ordinarily considered sufficient to entitle
+them to the rank of physiological species, for most physiologists
+consider species to be definable as "the offspring of a single primitive
+stock."
+
+But though it is quite true that all those groups we call species MAY,
+according to the known laws of reproduction, have descended from a
+single stock, and though it is very likely they really have done so, yet
+this conclusion rests on deduction and can hardly hope to establish
+itself upon a basis of observation. And the primitiveness of the
+supposed single stock, which, after all, is the essential part of the
+matter, is not only a hypothesis, but one which has not a shadow of
+foundation, if by "primitive" be meant "independent of any other living
+being." A scientific definition, of which an unwarrantable hypothesis
+forms an essential part, carries its condemnation within itself; but,
+even supposing such a definition were, in form, tenable, the
+physiologist who should attempt to apply it in Nature would soon find
+himself involved in great, if not inextricable, difficulties. As we have
+said, it is indubitable that offspring TEND to resemble the parental
+organism, but it is equally true that the similarity attained never
+amounts to identity, either in form or in structure. There is always a
+certain amount of deviation, not only from the precise characters of a
+single parent, but when, as in most animals and many plants, the sexes
+are lodged in distinct individuals, from an exact mean between the two
+parents. And indeed, on general principles, this slight deviation seems
+as intelligible as the general similarity, if we reflect how complex the
+co-operating "bundles of forces" are, and how improbable it is that, in
+any case, their true resultant shall coincide with any mean between the
+more obvious characters of the two parents. Whatever be its cause,
+however, the co-existence of this tendency to minor variation with the
+tendency to general similarity, is of vast importance in its bearing on
+the question of the origin of species.
+
+As a general rule, the extent to which an offspring differs from its
+parent is slight enough; but, occasionally, the amount of difference is
+much more strongly marked, and then the divergent offspring receives the
+name of a Variety. Multitudes, of what there is every reason to believe
+are such varieties, are known, but the origin of very few has been
+accurately recorded, and of these we will select two as more especially
+illustrative of the main features of variation. The first of them is
+that of the "Ancon," or "Otter" sheep, of which a careful account is
+given by Colonel David Humphreys, F.R.S., in a letter to Sir Joseph
+Banks, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1813. It appears
+that one Seth Wright, the proprietor of a farm on the banks of the
+Charles River, in Massachusetts, possessed a flock of fifteen ewes and a
+ram of the ordinary kind. In the year 1791, one of the ewes presented
+her owner with a male lamb, differing, for no assignable reason, from
+its parents by a proportionally long body and short bandy legs, whence
+it was unable to emulate its relatives in those sportive leaps over the
+neighbours' fences, in which they were in the habit of indulging, much
+to the good farmer's vexation.
+
+The second case is that detailed by a no less unexceptionable authority
+than Reaumur, in his 'Art de faire eclore les Poulets'. A Maltese
+couple, named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were constructed upon the
+ordinary human model, had born to them a son, Gratio, who possessed six
+perfectly movable fingers on each hand, and six toes, not quite so well
+formed, on each foot. No cause could be assigned for the appearance of
+this unusual variety of the human species.
+
+Two circumstances are well worthy of remark in both these cases. In
+each, the variety appears to have arisen in full force, and, as it were,
+per saltum; a wide and definite difference appearing, at once, between
+the Ancon ram and the ordinary sheep; between the six-fingered and
+six-toed Gratio Kelleia and ordinary men. In neither case is it possible
+to point out any obvious reason for the appearance of the variety.
+Doubtless there were determining causes for these as for all other
+phenomena; but they do not appear, and we can be tolerably certain that
+what are ordinarily understood as changes in physical conditions, as in
+climate, in food, or the like, did not take place and had nothing to do
+with the matter. It was no case of what is commonly called adaptation to
+circumstances; but, to use a conveniently erroneous phrase, the
+variations arose spontaneously. The fruitless search after final causes
+leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who
+are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their
+favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose
+could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright's ram or the
+hexadactyle members of Gratio Kelleia.
+
+Varieties then arise we know not why; and it is more than probable that
+the majority of varieties have arisen in this "spontaneous" manner,
+though we are, of course, far from denying that they may be traced, in
+some cases, to distinct external influences; which are assuredly
+competent to alter the character of the tegumentary covering, to change
+colour, to increase or diminish the size of muscles, to modify
+constitution, and, among plants, to give rise to the metamorphosis of
+stamens into petals, and so forth. But however they may have arisen,
+what especially interests us at present is, to remark that, once in
+existence, varieties obey the fundamental law of reproduction that like
+tends to produce like; and their offspring exemplify it by tending to
+exhibit the same deviation from the parental stock as themselves.
+Indeed, there seems to be, in many instances, a pre-potent influence
+about a newly-arisen variety which gives it what one may call an unfair
+advantage over the normal descendants from the same stock. This is
+strikingly exemplified by the case of Gratio Kelleia, who married a
+woman with the ordinary pentadactyle extremities, and had by her four
+children, Salvator, George, Andre, and Marie. Of these children
+Salvator, the eldest boy, had six fingers and six toes, like his father;
+the second and third, also boys, had five fingers and five toes, like
+their mother, though the hands and feet of George were slightly
+deformed. The last, a girl, had five fingers and five toes, but the
+thumbs were slightly deformed. The variety thus reproduced itself purely
+in the eldest, while the normal type reproduced itself purely in the
+third, and almost purely in the second and last: so that it would seem,
+at first, as if the normal type were more powerful than the variety. But
+all these children grew up and intermarried with normal wives and
+husband, and then, note what took place: Salvator had four children,
+three of whom exhibited the hexadactyle members of their grandfather and
+father, while the youngest had the pentadactyle limbs of the mother and
+grandmother; so that here, notwithstanding a double pentadactyle
+dilution of the blood, the hexadactyle variety had the best of it. The
+same pre-potency of the variety was still more markedly exemplified in
+the progeny of two of the other children, Marie and George. Marie (whose
+thumbs only were deformed) gave birth to a boy with six toes, and three
+other normally formed children; but George, who was not quite so pure a
+pentadactyle, begot, first, two girls, each of whom had six fingers and
+toes; then a girl with six fingers on each hand and six toes on the
+right foot, but only five toes on the left; and lastly, a boy with only
+five fingers and toes. In these instances, therefore, the variety, as it
+were, leaped over one generation to reproduce itself in full force in
+the next. Finally, the purely pentadactyle Andre was the father of many
+children, not one of whom departed from the normal parental type.
+
+If a variation which approaches the nature of a monstrosity can strive
+thus forcibly to reproduce itself, it is not wonderful that less
+aberrant modifications should tend to be preserved even more strongly;
+and the history of the Ancon sheep is, in this respect, particularly
+instructive. With the "'cuteness" characteristic of their nation, the
+neighbours of the Massachusetts farmer imagined it would be an excellent
+thing if all his sheep were imbued with the stay-at-home tendencies
+enforced by Nature upon the newly-arrived ram; and they advised Wright
+to kill the old patriarch of his fold, and install the Ancon ram in his
+place. The result justified their sagacious anticipations, and coincided
+very nearly with what occurred to the progeny of Gratio Kelleia. The
+young lambs were almost always either pure Ancons, or pure ordinary
+sheep.* ([Footnote] *Colonel Humphreys' statements are exceedingly
+explicit on this point:--"When an Ancon ewe is impregnated by a common
+ram, the increase resembles wholly either the ewe or the ram. The
+increase of the common ewe impregnated by an Ancon ram follows entirely
+the one or the other, without blending any of the distinguishing and
+essential peculiarities of both. Frequent instances have happened where
+common ewes have had twins by Ancon rams, when one exhibited the
+complete marks and features of the ewe, the other of the ram. The
+contrast has been rendered singularly striking, when one short-legged
+and one long-legged lamb, produced at a birth, have been seen sucking
+the dam at the same time."--'Philosophical Transactions', 1813, Pt. I.
+pp. 89, 90.) But when sufficient Ancon sheep were obtained to interbreed
+with one another, it was found that the offspring was always pure Ancon.
+Colonel Humphreys, in fact, states that he was acquainted with only "one
+questionable case of a contrary nature." Here, then, is a remarkable and
+well-established instance, not only of a very distinct race being
+established per saltum, but of that race breeding "true" at once, and
+showing no mixed forms, even when crossed with another breed.
+
+By taking care to select Ancons of both sexes, for breeding from, it
+thus became easy to establish an extremely well-marked race; so peculiar
+that, even when herded with other sheep, it was noted that the Ancons
+kept together. And there is every reason to believe that the existence
+of this breed might have been indefinitely protracted; but the
+introduction of the Merino sheep, which were not only very superior to
+the Ancons in wool and meat, but quite as quiet and orderly, led to the
+complete neglect of the new breed, so that, in 1813, Colonel Humphreys
+found it difficult to obtain the specimen, whose skeleton was presented
+to Sir Joseph Banks. We believe that, for many years, no remnant of it
+has existed in the United States.
+
+Gratio Kelleia was not the progenitor of a race of six-fingered men, as
+Seth Wright's ram became a nation of Ancon sheep, though the tendency of
+the variety to perpetuate itself appears to have been fully as strong in
+the one case as in the other. And the reason of the difference is not
+far to seek. Seth Wright took care not to weaken the Ancon blood by
+matching his Ancon ewes with any but males of the same variety, while
+Gratio Kelleia's sons were too far removed from the patriarchal times to
+intermarry with their sisters; and his grandchildren seem not to have
+been attracted by their six-fingered cousins. In other words, in the one
+example a race was produced, because, for several generations, care was
+taken to 'select' both parents of the breeding stock from animals
+exhibiting a tendency to vary in the same condition; while, in the
+other, no race was evolved, because no such selection was exercised. A
+race is a propagated variety; and as, by the laws of reproduction,
+offspring tend to assume the parental forms, they will be more likely to
+propagate a variation exhibited by both parents than that possessed by
+only one.
+
+There is no organ of the body of an animal which may not, and does not,
+occasionally, vary more or less from the normal type; and there is no
+variation which may not be transmitted and which, if selectively
+transmitted, may not become the foundation of a race. This great truth,
+sometimes forgotten by philosophers, has long been familiar to practical
+agriculturists and breeders; and upon it rest all the methods of
+improving the breeds of domestic animals, which, for the last century,
+have been followed with so much success in England. Colour, form, size,
+texture of hair or wool, proportions of various parts, strength or
+weakness of constitution, tendency to fatten or to remain lean, to give
+much or little milk, speed, strength, temper, intelligence, special
+instincts; there is not one of these characters whose transmission is
+not an every-day occurrence within the experience of cattle-breeders,
+stock-farmers, horse-dealers, and dog and poultry fanciers. Nay, it is
+only the other day that an eminent physiologist, Dr. Brown-Sequard,
+communicated to the Royal Society his discovery that epilepsy,
+artificially produced in guinea-pigs, by a means which he has
+discovered, is transmitted to their offspring.
+
+But a race, once produced, is no more a fixed and immutable entity than
+the stock whence it sprang; variations arise among its members, and as
+these variations are transmitted like any others, new races may be
+developed out of the pre-existing one ad infinitum, or, at least, within
+any limit at present determined. Given sufficient time and sufficiently
+careful selection, and the multitude of races which may arise from a
+common stock is as astonishing as are the extreme structural differences
+which they may present. A remarkable example of this is to be found in
+the rock-pigeon, which Dr. Darwin has, in our opinion, satisfactorily
+demonstrated to be the progenitor of all our domestic pigeons, of which
+there are certainly more than a hundred well-marked races. The most
+noteworthy of these races are, the four great stocks known to the
+"fancy" as tumblers, pouters, carriers, and fantails; birds which not
+only differ most singularly in size, colour, and habits, but in the form
+of the beak and of the skull: in the proportions of the beak to the
+skull; in the number of tail-feathers; in the absolute and relative size
+of the feet; in the presence or absence of the uropygial gland; in the
+number of vertebrae in the back; in short, in precisely those characters
+in which the genera and species of birds differ from one another.
+
+And it is most remarkable and instructive to observe, that none of these
+races can be shown to have been originated by the action of changes in
+what are commonly called external circumstances, upon the wild
+rock-pigeon. On the contrary, from time immemorial, pigeon-fanciers have
+had essentially similar methods of treating their pets, which have been
+housed, fed, protected and cared for in much the same way in all
+pigeonries. In fact, there is no case better adapted than that of the
+pigeons to refute the doctrine which one sees put forth on high
+authority, that "no other characters than those founded on the
+development of bone for the attachment of muscles" are capable of
+variation. In precise contradiction of this hasty assertion, Mr.
+Darwin's researches prove that the skeleton of the wings in domestic
+pigeons has hardly varied at all from that of the wild type; while, on
+the other hand, it is in exactly those respects, such as the relative
+length of the beak and skull, the number of the vertebrae, and the
+number of the tail-feathers, in which muscular exertion can have no
+important influence, that the utmost amount of variation has taken
+place.
+
+We have said that the following out of the properties exhibited by
+physiological species would lead us into difficulties, and at this point
+they begin to be obvious; for if, as the result of spontaneous variation
+and of selective breeding, the progeny of a common stock may become
+separated into groups distinguished from one another by constant, not
+sexual, morphological characters, it is clear that the physiological
+definition of species is likely to clash with the morphological
+definition. No one would hesitate to describe the pouter and the tumbler
+as distinct species, if they were found fossil, or if their skins and
+skeletons were imported, as those of exotic wild birds commonly are--and
+without doubt, if considered alone, they are good and distinct
+morphological species. On the other hand, they are not physiological
+species, for they are descended from a common stock, the rock-pigeon.
+
+Under these circumstances, as it is admitted on all sides that races
+occur in Nature, how are we to know whether any apparently distinct
+animals are really of different physiological species, or not, seeing
+that the amount of morphological difference is no safe guide? Is there
+any test of a physiological species? The usual answer of physiologists
+is in the affirmative. It is said that such a test is to be found in the
+phenomena of hybridization--in the results of crossing races, as
+compared with the results of crossing species.
+
+So far as the evidence goes at present, individuals, of what are
+certainly known to be mere races produced by selection, however distinct
+they may appear to be, not only breed freely together, but the offspring
+of such crossed races are only perfectly fertile with one another. Thus,
+the spaniel and the greyhound, the dray-horse and the Arab, the pouter
+and the tumbler, breed together with perfect freedom, and their
+mongrels, if matched with other mongrels of the same kind, are equally
+fertile.
+
+On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the individuals of many
+natural species are either absolutely infertile if crossed with
+individuals of other species, or, if they give rise to hybrid offspring,
+the hybrids so produced are infertile when paired together. The horse
+and the ass, for instance, if so crossed, give rise to the mule, and
+there is no certain evidence of offspring ever having been produced by a
+male and female mule. The unions of the rock-pigeon and the ring-pigeon
+appear to be equally barren of result. Here, then, says the
+physiologist, we have a means of distinguishing any two true species
+from any two varieties. If a male and a female, selected from each
+group, produce offspring, and that offspring is fertile with others
+produced in the same way, the groups are races and not species. If, on
+the other hand, no result ensues, or if the offspring are infertile with
+others produced in the same way, they are true physiological species.
+The test would be an admirable one, if, in the first place, it were
+always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always yielded
+results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfortunately, in the
+great majority of cases, this touchstone for species is wholly
+inapplicable.
+
+The constitution of many wild animals is so altered by confinement that
+they will not breed even with their own females, so that the negative
+results obtained from crosses are of no value; and the antipathy of wild
+animals of the same species for one another, or even of wild and tame
+members of the same species, is ordinarily so great, that it is hopeless
+to look for such unions in Nature. The hermaphrodism of most plants, the
+difficulty in the way of insuring the absence of their own, or the
+proper working of other pollen, are obstacles of no less magnitude in
+applying the test to them. And, in both animals and plants, is
+superadded the further difficulty, that experiments must be continued
+over a long time for the purpose of ascertaining the fertility of the
+mongrel or hybrid progeny, as well as of the first crosses from which
+they spring.
+
+Not only do these great practical difficulties lie in the way of
+applying the hybridization test, but even when this oracle can be
+questioned, its replies are sometimes as doubtful as those of Delphi.
+For example, cases are cited by Mr. Darwin, of plants which are more
+fertile with the pollen of another species than with their own; and
+there are others, such as certain fuci, whose male element will
+fertilize the ovule of a plant of distinct species, while the males of
+the latter species are ineffective with the females of the first. So
+that, in the last-named instance, a physiologist, who should cross the
+two species in one way, would decide that they were true species; while
+another, who should cross them in the reverse way, would, with equal
+justice, according to the rule, pronounce them to be mere races. Several
+plants, which there is great reason to believe are mere varieties, are
+almost sterile when crossed; while both animals and plants, which have
+always been regarded by naturalists as of distinct species, turn out,
+when the test is applied, to be perfectly fertile. Again, the sterility
+or fertility of crosses seems to bear no relation to the structural
+resemblances or differences of the members of any two groups.
+
+Mr. Darwin has discussed this question with singular ability and
+circumspection, and his conclusions are summed up as follows, at page
+276 of his work:--
+
+"First crosses between forms sufficiently distinct to be ranked as
+species, and their hybrids, are very generally, but not universally,
+sterile. The sterility is of all degrees, and is often so slight that
+the two most careful experimentalists who have ever lived have come to
+diametrically opposite conclusions in ranking forms by this test. The
+sterility is innately variable in individuals of the same species, and
+is eminently susceptible of favourable and unfavourable conditions. The
+degree of sterility does not strictly follow systematic affinity, but is
+governed by several curious and complex laws. It is generally different
+and sometimes widely different, in reciprocal crosses between the same
+two species. It is not always equal in degree in a first cross, and in
+the hybrid produced from this cross.
+
+"In the same manner as in grafting trees, the capacity of one species or
+variety to take on another is incidental on generally unknown
+differences in their vegetative systems; so in crossing, the greater or
+less facility of one species to unite with another is incidental on
+unknown differences in their reproductive systems. There is no more
+reason to think that species have been specially endowed with various
+degrees of sterility to prevent them crossing and breeding in Nature,
+than to think that trees have been specially endowed with various and
+somewhat analogous degrees of difficulty in being grafted together, in
+order to prevent them becoming inarched in our forests.
+
+"The sterility of first crosses between pure species, which have their
+reproductive systems perfect, seems to depend on several circumstances;
+in some cases largely on the early death of the embryo. The sterility of
+hybrids which have their reproductive systems imperfect, and which have
+had this system and their whole organization disturbed by being
+compounded of two distinct species, seems closely allied to that
+sterility which so frequently affects pure species when their natural
+conditions of life have been disturbed. This view is supported by a
+parallelism of another kind: namely, that the crossing of forms, only
+slightly different, is favourable to the vigour and fertility of the
+offspring; and that slight changes in the conditions of life are
+apparently favourable to the vigour and fertility of all organic beings.
+It is not surprising that the degree of difficulty in uniting two
+species, and the degree of sterility of their hybrid offspring, should
+generally correspond, though due to distinct causes; for both depend on
+the amount of difference of some kind between the species which are
+crossed. Nor is it surprising that the facility of effecting a first
+cross, the fertility of hybrids produced from it, and the capacity of
+being grafted together--though this latter capacity evidently depends on
+widely different circumstances--should all run to a certain extent
+parallel with the systematic affinity of the forms which are subjected
+to experiment; for systematic affinity attempts to express all kinds of
+resemblance between all species.
+
+"First crosses between forms known to be varieties, or sufficiently
+alike to be considered as varieties, and their mongrel offspring, are
+very generally, but not quite universally, fertile. Nor is this nearly
+general and perfect fertility surprising, when we remember how liable we
+are to argue in a circle with respect to varieties in a state of Nature;
+and when we remember that the greater number of varieties have been
+produced under domestication by the selection of mere external
+differences, and not of differences in the reproductive system. In all
+other respects, excluding fertility, there is a close general
+resemblance between hybrids and mongrels."--Pp. 276-8.
+
+We fully agree with the general tenor of this weighty passage; but
+forcible as are these arguments, and little as the value of fertility or
+infertility as a test of species may be, it must not be forgotten that
+the really important fact, so far as the inquiry into the origin of
+species goes, is, that there are such things in Nature as groups of
+animals and of plants, whose members are incapable of fertile union with
+those of other groups; and that there are such things as hybrids, which
+are absolutely sterile when crossed with other hybrids. For, if such
+phenomena as these were exhibited by only two of those assemblages of
+living objects, to which the name of species (whether it be used in its
+physiological or in its morphological sense) is given, it would have to
+be accounted for by any theory of the origin of species, and every
+theory which could not account for it would be, so far, imperfect.
+
+Up to this point, we have been dealing with matters of fact, and the
+statements which we have laid before the reader would, to the best of
+our knowledge, be admitted to contain a fair exposition of what is at
+present known respecting the essential properties of species, by all who
+have studied the question. And whatever may be his theoretical views, no
+naturalist will probably be disposed to demur to the following summary
+of that exposition:--
+
+Living beings, whether animals or plants, are divisible into multitudes
+of distinctly definable kinds, which are morphological species. They are
+also divisible into groups of individuals, which breed freely together,
+tending to reproduce their like, and are physiological species. Normally
+resembling their parents, the offspring of members of these species are
+still liable to vary; and the variation may be perpetuated by selection,
+as a race, which race, in many cases, presents all the characteristics
+of a morphological species. But it is not as yet proved that a race ever
+exhibits, when crossed with another race of the same species, those
+phenomena of hybridization which are exhibited by many species when
+crossed with other species. On the other hand, not only is it not proved
+that all species give rise to hybrids infertile inter se, but there is
+much reason to believe that, in crossing, species exhibit every
+gradation from perfect sterility to perfect fertility.
+
+Such are the most essential characteristics of species. Even were man
+not one of them--a member of the same system and subject to the same
+laws--the question of their origin, their causal connexion, that is,
+with the other phenomena of the universe, must have attracted his
+attention, as soon as his intelligence had raised itself above the level
+of his daily wants.
+
+Indeed history relates that such was the case, and has embalmed for us
+the speculations upon the origin of living beings, which were among the
+earliest products of the dawning intellectual activity of man. In those
+early days positive knowledge was not to be had, but the craving after
+it needed, at all hazards, to be satisfied, and according to the
+country, or the turn of thought, of the speculator, the suggestion that
+all living things arose from the mud of the Nile, from a primeval egg,
+or from some more anthropomorphic agency, afforded a sufficient
+resting-place for his curiosity. The myths of Paganism are as dead as
+Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should revive them, in opposition to the
+knowledge of our time, would be justly laughed to scorn; but the coeval
+imaginations current among the rude inhabitants of Palestine, recorded
+by writers whose very name and age are admitted by every scholar to be
+unknown, have unfortunately not yet shared their fate, but, even at this
+day, are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilized world as the
+authoritative standard of fact and the criterion of the justice of
+scientific conclusions, in all that relates to the origin of things,
+and, among them, of species. In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn
+of modern physical science, the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew
+is the incubus of the philosopher and the opprobrium of the orthodox.
+Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers after truth, from the
+days of Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered and their
+good name blasted by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters? Who shall count
+the host of weaker men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the
+effort to harmonize impossibilities--whose life has been wasted in the
+attempt to force the generous new wine of Science into the old bottles
+of Judaism, compelled by the outcry of the same strong party?
+
+It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause has been
+amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every
+science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history
+records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed,
+the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and
+crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the
+Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget;
+and though, at present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing
+as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the
+beginning and the end of sound science; and to visit, with such petty
+thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those who refuse to
+degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism.
+
+Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive tendencies.
+With eyes fixed on the noble goal to which "per aspera et ardua" they
+tend, they may, now and then, be stirred to momentary wrath by the
+unnecessary obstacles with which the ignorant, or the malicious,
+encumber, if they cannot bar, the difficult path; but why should their
+souls be deeply vexed? The majesty of Fact is on their side, and the
+elemental forces of Nature are working for them. Not a star comes to the
+meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice of their
+methods--their beliefs are "one with falling rain and with the growing
+corn." By doubt they are established, and open inquiry is their bosom
+friend. Such men have no fear of traditions however venerable, and no
+respect for them when they become mischievous and obstructive; but they
+have better than mere antiquarian business in hand, and if dogmas, which
+ought to be fossil but are not, are not forced upon their notice, they
+are too happy to treat them as non-existent.
+
+The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which profess to stand
+upon a scientific basis, and, as such, alone demand serious attention,
+are of two kinds. The one, the "special creation" hypothesis, presumes
+every species to have originated from one or more stocks, these not
+being the result of the modification of any other form of living
+matter--or arising by natural agencies--but being produced, as such, by
+a supernatural creative act.
+
+The other, the so-called "transmutation" hypothesis, considers that all
+existing species are the result of the modification of pre-existing
+species, and those of their predecessors, by agencies similar to those
+which at the present day produce varieties and races, and therefore in
+an altogether natural way; and it is a probable, though not a necessary
+consequence of this hypothesis, that all living beings have arisen from
+a single stock. With respect to the origin of this primitive stock, or
+stocks, the doctrine of the origin of species is obviously not
+necessarily concerned. The transmutation hypothesis, for example, is
+perfectly consistent either with the conception of a special creation of
+the primitive germ, or with the supposition of its having arisen, as a
+modification of inorganic matter, by natural causes.
+
+The doctrine of special creation owes its existence very largely to the
+supposed necessity of making science accord with the Hebrew cosmogony;
+but it is curious to observe that, as the doctrine is at present
+maintained by men of science, it is as hopelessly inconsistent with the
+Hebrew view as any other hypothesis.
+
+If there be any result which has come more clearly out of geological
+investigation than another, it is, that the vast series of extinct
+animals and plants is not divisible, as it was once supposed to be, into
+distinct groups, separated by sharply-marked boundaries. There are no
+great gulfs between epochs and formations--no successive periods marked
+by the appearance of plants, of water animals, and of land animals, en
+masse. Every year adds to the list of links between what the older
+geologists supposed to be widely separated epochs: witness the crags
+linking the drift with older tertiaries; the Maestricht beds linking the
+tertiaries with the chalk; the St. Cassian beds exhibiting an abundant
+fauna of mixed mesozoic and palaeozoic types, in rocks of an epoch once
+supposed to be eminently poor in life; witness, lastly, the incessant
+disputes as to whether a given stratum shall be reckoned devonian or
+carboniferous, silurian or devonian, cambrian or silurian.
+
+This truth is further illustrated in a most interesting manner by the
+impartial and highly competent testimony of M. Pictet, from whose
+calculations of what percentage of the genera of animals, existing in
+any formation, lived during the preceding formation, it results that in
+no case is the proportion less than 'one-third', or 33 per cent. It is
+the triassic formation, or the commencement of the mesozoic epoch, which
+has received the smallest inheritance from preceding ages. The other
+formations not uncommonly exhibit 60, 80, or even 94 per cent. of genera
+in common with those whose remains are imbedded in their predecessor.
+Not only is this true, but the subdivisions of each formation exhibit
+new species characteristic of, and found only in, them; and, in many
+cases, as in the lias for example, the separate beds of these
+subdivisions are distinguished by well-marked and peculiar forms of
+life. A section, a hundred feet thick, will exhibit, at different
+heights, a dozen species of ammonite, none of which passes beyond its
+particular zone of limestone, or clay, into the zone below it or into
+that above it; so that those who adopt the doctrine of special creation
+must be prepared to admit, that at intervals of time, corresponding with
+the thickness of these beds, the Creator thought fit to interfere with
+the natural course of events for the purpose of making a new ammonite.
+It is not easy to transplant oneself into the frame of mind of those who
+can accept such a conclusion as this, on any evidence short of absolute
+demonstration; and it is difficult to see what is to be gained by so
+doing, since, as we have said, it is obvious that such a view of the
+origin of living beings is utterly opposed to the Hebrew cosmogony.
+Deserving no aid from the powerful arm of Bibliolatry, then, does the
+received form of the hypothesis of special creation derive any support
+from science or sound logic? Assuredly not much. The arguments brought
+forward in its favour all take one form: If species were not
+supernaturally created, we cannot understand the facts 'x' or 'y', or
+'z'; we cannot understand the structure of animals or plants, unless we
+suppose they were contrived for special ends; we cannot understand the
+structure of the eye, except by supposing it to have been made to see
+with; we cannot understand instincts, unless we suppose animals to have
+been miraculously endowed with them.
+
+As a question of dialectics, it must be admitted that this sort of
+reasoning is not very formidable to those who are not to be frightened
+by consequences. It is an argumentum ad ignorantiam--take this
+explanation or be ignorant.
+
+But suppose we prefer to admit our ignorance rather than adopt a
+hypothesis at variance with all the teachings of Nature? Or, suppose for
+a moment we admit the explanation, and then seriously ask ourselves how
+much the wiser are we; what does the explanation explain? Is it any more
+than a grandiloquent way of announcing the fact, that we really know
+nothing about the matter? A phenomenon is explained when it is shown to
+be a case of some general law of Nature; but the supernatural
+interposition of the Creator can, by the nature of the case, exemplify
+no law, and if species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to
+attempt to discuss their origin.
+
+Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount of evidence which
+the nature of our faculties permits us to attain, can justify us in
+asserting that any phenomenon is out of the reach of natural causation.
+To this end it is obviously necessary that we should know all the
+consequences to which all possible combinations, continued through
+unlimited time, can give rise. If we knew these, and found none
+competent to originate species, we should have good ground for denying
+their origin by natural causation. Till we know them, any hypothesis is
+better than one which involves us in such miserable presumption.
+
+But the hypothesis of special creation is not only a mere specious mask
+for our ignorance; its existence in Biology marks the youth and
+imperfection of the science. For what is the history of every science
+but the history of the elimination of the notion of creative, or other
+interferences, with the natural order of the phenomena which are the
+subject-matter of that science? When Astronomy was young "the morning
+stars sang together for joy," and the planets were guided in their
+courses by celestial hands. Now, the harmony of the stars has resolved
+itself into gravitation according to the inverse squares of the
+distances, and the orbits of the planets are deducible from the laws of
+the forces which allow a schoolboy's stone to break a window. The
+lightning was the angel of the Lord; but it has pleased Providence, in
+these modern times, that science should make it the humble messenger of
+man, and we know that every flash that shimmers about the horizon on a
+summer's evening is determined by ascertainable conditions, and that its
+direction and brightness might, if our knowledge of these were great
+enough, have been calculated.
+
+The solvency of great mercantile companies rests on the validity of the
+laws which have been ascertained to govern the seeming irregularity of
+that human life which the moralist bewails as the most uncertain of
+things; plague, pestilence, and famine are admitted, by all but fools,
+to be the natural result of causes for the most part fully within human
+control, and not the unavoidable tortures inflicted by wrathful
+Omnipotence upon His helpless handiwork.
+
+Harmonious order governing eternally continuous progress--the web and
+woof of matter and force interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken
+thread, that veil which lies between us and the Infinite--that universe
+which alone we know or can know; such is the picture which science draws
+of the world, and in proportion as any part of that picture is in unison
+with the rest, so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted. Shall
+Biology alone remain out of harmony with her sister sciences?
+
+Such arguments against the hypothesis of the direct creation of species
+as these are plainly enough deducible from general considerations; but
+there are, in addition, phenomena exhibited by species themselves, and
+yet not so much a part of their very essence as to have required earlier
+mention, which are in the highest degree perplexing, if we adopt the
+popularly accepted hypothesis. Such are the facts of distribution in
+space and in time; the singular phenomena brought to light by the study
+of development; the structural relations of species upon which our
+systems of classification are founded; the great doctrines of
+philosophical anatomy, such as that of homology, or of the community of
+structural plan exhibited by large groups of species differing very
+widely in their habits and functions.
+
+The species of animals which inhabit the sea on opposite sides of the
+isthmus of Panama are wholly distinct;* the animals and plants which
+inhabit islands are commonly distinct from those of the neighbouring
+mainlands, and yet have a similarity of aspect. ([Footnote] *Recent
+investigations tend to show that this statement is not strictly
+accurate.--1870.) The mammals of the latest tertiary epoch in the Old
+and New Worlds belong to the same genera, or family groups, as those
+which now inhabit the same great geographical area. The crocodilian
+reptiles which existed in the earliest secondary epoch were similar in
+general structure to those now living, but exhibit slight differences in
+their vertebrae, nasal passages, and one or two other points. The
+guinea-pig has teeth which are shed before it is born, and hence can
+never subserve the masticatory purpose for which they seem contrived,
+and, in like manner, the female dugong has tusks which never cut the
+gum. All the members of the same great group run through similar
+conditions in their development, and all their parts, in the adult
+state, are arranged according to the same plan. Man is more like a
+gorilla than a gorilla is like a lemur. Such are a few, taken at random,
+among the multitudes of similar facts which modern research has
+established; but when the student seeks for an explanation of them from
+the supporters of the received hypothesis of the origin of species, the
+reply he receives is, in substance, of Oriental simplicity and
+brevity--"Mashallah! it so pleases God!" There are different species on
+opposite sides of the isthmus of Panama, because they were created
+different on the two sides. The pliocene mammals are like the existing
+ones, because such was the plan of creation; and we find rudimental
+organs and similarity of plan, because it has pleased the Creator to set
+before Himself a "divine exemplar or archetype," and to copy it in His
+works; and somewhat ill, those who hold this view imply, in some of
+them. That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as science will
+one day be regarded as evidence of the low state of intelligence in the
+nineteenth century, just as we amuse ourselves with the phraseology
+about Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, wherewith Torricelli's
+compatriots were satisfied to explain the rise of water in a pump. And
+be it recollected that this sort of satisfaction works not only negative
+but positive ill, by discouraging inquiry, and so depriving man of the
+usufruct of one of the most fertile fields of his great patrimony,
+Nature.
+
+The objections to the doctrine of the origin of species by special
+creation which have been detailed, must have occurred, with more or less
+force, to the mind of every one who has seriously and independently
+considered the subject. It is therefore no wonder that, from time to
+time, this hypothesis should have been met by counter hypotheses, all as
+well, and some better founded than itself; and it is curious to remark
+that the inventors of the opposing views seem to have been led into them
+as much by their knowledge of geology, as by their acquaintance with
+biology. In fact, when the mind has once admitted the conception of the
+gradual production of the present physical state of our globe, by
+natural causes operating through long ages of time, it will be little
+disposed to allow that living beings have made their appearance in
+another way, and the speculations of De Maillet and his successors are
+the natural complement of Scilla's demonstration of the true nature of
+fossils.
+
+A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing therefore in the
+intellectual activity of the remarkable age which witnessed the birth of
+modern physical science, Benoit de Maillet spent a long life as a
+consular agent of the French Government in various Mediterranean ports.
+For sixteen years, in fact, he held the office of Consul-General in
+Egypt, and the wonderful phenomena offered by the valley of the Nile
+appear to have strongly impressed his mind, to have directed his
+attention to all facts of a similar order which came within his
+observation, and to have led him to speculate on the origin of the
+present condition of our globe and of its inhabitants. But, with all his
+ardour for science, De Maillet seems to have hesitated to publish views
+which, notwithstanding the ingenious attempts to reconcile them with the
+Hebrew hypothesis contained in the preface to "Telliamed," were hardly
+likely to be received with favour by his contemporaries.
+
+But a short time had elapsed since more than one of the great anatomists
+and physicists of the Italian school had paid dearly for their
+endeavours to dissipate some of the prevalent errors; and their
+illustrious pupil, Harvey, the founder of modern physiology, had not
+fared so well, in a country less oppressed by the benumbing influences
+of theology, as to tempt any man to follow his example. Probably not
+uninfluenced by these considerations, his Catholic majesty's
+Consul-General for Egypt kept his theories to himself throughout a long
+life, for 'Telliamed,' the only scientific work which is known to have
+proceeded from his pen, was not printed till 1735, when its author had
+reached the ripe age of seventy-nine; and though De Maillet lived three
+years longer, his book was not given to the world before 1748. Even then
+it was anonymous to those who were not in the secret of the anagrammatic
+character of its title; and the preface and dedication are so worded as,
+in case of necessity, to give the printer a fair chance of falling back
+on the excuse that the work was intended for a mere jeu d'esprit.
+
+The speculations of the supposititious Indian sage, though quite as
+sound as those of many a "Mosaic Geology," which sells exceedingly well,
+have no great value if we consider them by the light of modern science.
+The waters are supposed to have originally covered the whole globe; to
+have deposited the rocky masses which compose its mountains by processes
+comparable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and shingle; and
+then to have gradually lowered their level, leaving the spoils of their
+animal and vegetable inhabitants embedded in the strata. As the dry land
+appeared, certain of the aquatic animals are supposed to have taken to
+it, and to have become gradually adapted to terrestrial and aerial modes
+of existence. But if we regard the general tenor and style of the
+reasoning in relation to the state of knowledge of the day, two
+circumstances appear very well worthy of remark. The first, that De
+Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of living forms (though
+without any precise information on the subject), and how such
+modifiability might account for the origin of species; the second, that
+he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine, so
+strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively
+expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the
+explanation of past geological events. Indeed, the following passage of
+the preface, in which De Maillet is supposed to speak of the Indian
+philosopher Telliamed, his 'alter ego', might have been written by the
+most philosophical uniformitarian of the present day:--
+
+"Ce qu'il y a d'etonnant, est que pour arriver a ces connoissances il
+semble avoir perverti l'ordre naturel, puisqu'au lieu de s'attacher
+d'abord a rechercher l'origine de notre globe il a commence par
+travailler a s'instruire de la nature. Mais a l'entendre, ce
+renversement de l'ordre a ete pour lui l'effet d'un genie favorable qui
+l'a conduit pas a pas et comme par la main aux decouvertes les plus
+sublimes. C'est en decomposant la substance de ce globe par une anatomie
+exacte de toutes ses parties qu'il a premierement appris de quelles
+matieres il etait compose et quels arrangemens ces memes matieres
+observaient entre elles. Ces lumieres jointes a l'esprit de comparaison
+toujours necessaire a quiconque entreprend de percer les voiles dont la
+nature aime a se cacher, ont servi de guide a notre philosophe pour
+parvenir a des connoissances plus interessantes. Par la matiere et
+l'arrangement de ces compositions il pretend avoir reconnu quelle est la
+veritable origine de ce globe que nous habitons, comment et par qui il a
+ete forme."--Pp. xix. xx.
+
+But De Maillet was before his age, and as could hardly fail to happen to
+one who speculated on a zoological and botanical question before
+Linnaeus, and on a physiological problem before Haller, he fell into
+great errors here and there; and hence, perhaps, the general neglect of
+his work. Robinet's speculations are rather behind, than in advance of,
+those of De Maillet; and though Linnaeus may have played with the
+hypothesis of transmutation, it obtained no serious support until
+Lamarck adopted it, and advocated it with great ability in his
+'Philosophie Zoologique.'
+
+Impelled towards the hypothesis of the transmutation of species, partly
+by his general cosmological and geological views; partly by the
+conception of a graduated, though irregularly branching, scale of being,
+which had arisen out of his profound study of plants and of the lower
+forms of animal life, Lamarck, whose general line of thought often
+closely resembles that of De Maillet, made a great advance upon the
+crude and merely speculative manner in which that writer deals with the
+question of the origin of living beings, by endeavouring to find
+physical causes competent to effect that change of one species into
+another, which De Maillet had only supposed to occur. And Lamarck
+conceived that he had found in Nature such causes, amply sufficient for
+the purpose in view. It is a physiological fact, he says, that organs
+are increased in size by action, atrophied by inaction; it is another
+physiological fact that modifications produced are transmissible to
+offspring. Change the actions of an animal, therefore, and you will
+change its structure, by increasing the development of the parts newly
+brought into use and by the diminution of those less used; but by
+altering the circumstances which surround it you will alter its actions,
+and hence, in the long run, change of circumstance must produce change
+of organization. All the species of animals, therefore, are, in
+Lamarck's view, the result of the indirect action of changes of
+circumstance, upon those primitive germs which he considered to have
+originally arisen, by spontaneous generation, within the waters of the
+globe. It is curious, however, that Lamarck should insist so strongly*
+as he has done, that circumstances never in any degree directly modify
+the form or the organization of animals, but only operate by changing
+their wants and consequently their actions; for he thereby brings upon
+himself the obvious question, how, then, do plants, which cannot be said
+to have wants or actions, become modified? To this he replies, that they
+are modified by the changes in their nutritive processes, which are
+effected by changing circumstances; and it does not seem to have
+occurred to him that such changes might be as well supposed to take
+place among animals. ([Footnote] *See 'Phil. Zoologique,' vol. i. p.
+222, et seq.)
+
+When we have said that Lamarck felt that mere speculation was not the
+way to arrive at the origin of species, but that it was necessary, in
+order to the establishment of any sound theory on the subject, to
+discover by observation or otherwise, some 'vera causa', competent to
+give rise to them; that he affirmed the true order of classification to
+coincide with the order of their development one from another; that he
+insisted on the necessity of allowing sufficient time, very strongly;
+and that all the varieties of instinct and reason were traced back by
+him to the same cause as that which has given rise to species, we have
+enumerated his chief contributions to the advance of the question. On
+the other hand, from his ignorance of any power in Nature competent to
+modify the structure of animals, except the development of parts, or
+atrophy of them, in consequence of a change of needs, Lamarck was led to
+attach infinitely greater weight than it deserves to this agency, and
+the absurdities into which he was led have met with deserved
+condemnation. Of the struggle for existence, on which, as we shall see,
+Mr. Darwin lays such great stress, he had no conception; indeed, he
+doubts whether there really are such things as extinct species, unless
+they be such large animals as may have met their death at the hands of
+man; and so little does he dream of there being any other destructive
+causes at work, that, in discussing the possible existence of fossil
+shells, he asks, "Pourquoi d'ailleurs seroient-ils perdues des que
+l'homme n'a pu operer leur destruction?" ('Phil. Zool.,' vol. i. p. 77.)
+Of the influence of selection Lamarck has as little notion, and he makes
+no use of the wonderful phenomena which are exhibited by domesticated
+animals, and illustrate its powers. The vast influence of Cuvier was
+employed against the Lamarckian views, and, as the untenability of some
+of his conclusions was easily shown, his doctrines sank under the
+opprobrium of scientific, as well as of theological, heterodoxy. Nor
+have the efforts made of late years to revive them tended to
+re-establish their credit in the minds of sound thinkers acquainted with
+the facts of the case; indeed it may be doubted whether Lamarck has not
+suffered more from his friends than from his foes.
+
+Two years ago, in fact, though we venture to question if even the
+strongest supporters of the special creation hypothesis had not, now and
+then, an uneasy consciousness that all was not right, their position
+seemed more impregnable than ever, if not by its own inherent strength,
+at any rate by the obvious failure of all the attempts which had been
+made to carry it. On the other hand, however much the few, who thought
+deeply on the question of species, might be repelled by the generally
+received dogmas, they saw no way of escaping from them save by the
+adoption of suppositions so little justified by experiment or by
+observation as to be at least equally distasteful.
+
+The choice lay between two absurdities and a middle condition of uneasy
+scepticism; which last, however unpleasant and unsatisfactory, was
+obviously the only justifiable state of mind under the circumstances.
+
+Such being the general ferment in the minds of naturalists, it is no
+wonder that they mustered strong in the rooms of the Linnaean Society,
+on the 1st of July of the year 1858, to hear two papers by authors
+living on opposite sides of the globe, working out their results
+independently, and yet professing to have discovered one and the same
+solution of all the problems connected with species. The one of these
+authors was an able naturalist, Mr. Wallace, who had been employed for
+some years in studying the productions of the islands of the Indian
+Archipelago, and who had forwarded a memoir embodying his views to Mr.
+Darwin, for communication to the Linnaean Society. On perusing the
+essay, Mr. Darwin was not a little surprised to find that it embodied
+some of the leading ideas of a great work which he had been preparing
+for twenty years, and parts of which, containing a development of the
+very same views, had been perused by his private friends fifteen or
+sixteen years before. Perplexed in what manner to do full justice both
+to his friend and to himself, Mr. Darwin placed the matter in the hands
+of Dr. Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, by whose advice he communicated a
+brief abstract of his own views to the Linnaean Society, at the same
+time that Mr. Wallace's paper was read. Of that abstract, the work on
+the 'Origin of Species' is an enlargement; but a complete statement of
+Mr. Darwin's doctrine is looked for in the large and well-illustrated
+work which he is said to be preparing for publication.
+
+The Darwinian hypothesis has the merit of being eminently simple and
+comprehensible in principle, and its essential positions may be stated
+in a very few words: all species have been produced by the development
+of varieties from common stocks; by the conversion of these, first into
+permanent races and then into new species, by the process of NATURAL
+SELECTION, which process is essentially identical with that artificial
+selection by which man has originated the races of domestic animals--the
+STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE taking the place of man, and exerting, in the
+case of natural selection, that selective action which he performs in
+artificial selection.
+
+The evidence brought forward by Mr. Darwin in support of his hypothesis
+is of three kinds. First, he endeavours to prove that species may be
+originated by selection; secondly, he attempts to show that natural
+causes are competent to exert selection; and thirdly, he tries to prove
+that the most remarkable and apparently anomalous phenomena exhibited by
+the distribution, development, and mutual relations of species, can be
+shown to be deducible from the general doctrine of their origin, which
+he propounds, combined with the known facts of geological change; and
+that, even if all these phenomena are not at present explicable by it,
+none are necessarily inconsistent with it.
+
+There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry which Mr. Darwin has
+adopted is not only rigorously in accordance with the canons of
+scientific logic, but that it is the only adequate method. Critics
+exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never
+determined a scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment
+or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin's method, which is not
+inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth, for them. But even if
+practical acquaintance with the process of scientific investigation is
+denied them, they may learn, by the perusal of Mr. Mill's admirable
+chapter "On the Deductive Method," that there are multitudes of
+scientific inquiries in which the method of pure induction helps the
+investigator but a very little way.
+
+"The mode of investigation," says Mr. Mill, "which, from the proved
+inapplicability of direct methods of observation and experiment, remains
+to us as the main source of the knowledge we possess, or can acquire,
+respecting the conditions and laws of recurrence of the more complex
+phenomena, is called, in its most general expression, the deductive
+method, and consists of three operations: the first, one of direct
+induction; the second, of ratiocination; and the third, of
+verification."
+
+Now, the conditions which have determined the existence of species are
+not only exceedingly complex, but, so far as the great majority of them
+are concerned, are necessarily beyond our cognizance. But what Mr.
+Darwin has attempted to do is in exact accordance with the rule laid
+down by Mr. Mill; he has endeavoured to determine certain great facts
+inductively, by observation and experiment; he has then reasoned from
+the data thus furnished; and lastly, he has tested the validity of his
+ratiocination by comparing his deductions with the observed facts of
+Nature. Inductively, Mr. Darwin endeavours to prove that species arise
+in a given way. Deductively, he desires to show that, if they arise in
+that way, the facts of distribution, development, classification, etc.,
+may be accounted for, i.e. may be deduced from their mode of origin,
+combined with admitted changes in physical geography and climate, during
+an indefinite period. And this explanation, or coincidence of observed
+with deduced facts, is, so far as it extends, a verification of the
+Darwinian view.
+
+There is no fault to be found with Mr. Darwin's method, then; but it is
+another question whether he has fulfilled all the conditions imposed by
+that method. Is it satisfactorily proved, in fact, that species may be
+originated by selection? that there is such a thing as natural
+selection? that none of the phenomena exhibited by species are
+inconsistent with the origin of species in this way? If these questions
+can be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the
+rank of hypotheses into those of proved theories; but, so long as the
+evidence at present adduced falls short of enforcing that affirmation,
+so long, to our minds, must the new doctrine be content to remain among
+the former--an extremely valuable, and in the highest degree probable,
+doctrine, indeed the only extant hypothesis which is worth anything in a
+scientific point of view; but still a hypothesis, and not yet the theory
+of species.
+
+After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr.
+Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands,
+it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the
+characters exhibited by species in Nature, has ever been originate by
+selection, whether artificial or natural. Groups having the
+morphological character of species, distinct and permanent races in
+fact, have been so produced over and over again; but there is no
+positive evidence, at present, that any group of animals has, by
+variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which was,
+even in the least degree, infertile with the first. Mr. Darwin is
+perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings forward a multitude of
+ingenious and important arguments to diminish the force of the
+objection. We admit the value of these arguments to their fullest
+extent; nay, we will go so far as to express our belief that
+experiments, conducted by a skilful physiologist, would very probably
+obtain the desired production of mutually more or less infertile breeds
+from a common stock, in a comparatively few years; but still, as the
+case stands at present, this "little rift within the lute" is not to be
+disguised nor overlooked.
+
+In the remainder of Mr. Darwin's argument our own private ingenuity has
+not hitherto enabled us to pick holes of any great importance; and
+judging by what we hear and read, other adventurers in the same field do
+not seem to have been much more fortunate. It has been urged, for
+instance, that in his chapters on the struggle for existence and on
+natural selection, Mr. Darwin does not so much prove that natural
+selection does occur, as that it must occur; but, in fact, no other sort
+of demonstration is attainable. A race does not attract our attention in
+Nature until it has, in all probability, existed for a considerable
+time, and then it is too late to inquire into the conditions of its
+origin. Again, it is said that there is no real analogy between the
+selection which takes place under domestication, by human influence, and
+any operation which can be effected by Nature, for man interferes
+intelligently. Reduced to its elements, this argument implies that an
+effect produced with trouble by an intelligent agent must, a fortiori,
+be more troublesome, if not impossible, to an unintelligent agent. Even
+putting aside the question whether Nature, acting as she does according
+to definite and invariable laws, can be rightly called an unintelligent
+agent, such a position as this is wholly untenable. Mix salt and sand,
+and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances,
+to separate all the grains of sand from all the grains of salt; but a
+shower of rain will effect the same object in ten minutes. And so, while
+man may find it tax all his intelligence to separate any variety which
+arises, and to breed selectively from it, the destructive agencies
+incessantly at work in Nature, if they find one variety to be more
+soluble in circumstances than the other, will inevitably, in the long
+run, eliminate it.
+
+A frequent and a just objection to the Lamarckian hypothesis of the
+transmutation of species is based upon the absence of transitional forms
+between many species. But against the Darwinian hypothesis this argument
+has no force. Indeed, one of the most valuable and suggestive parts of
+Mr. Darwin's work is that in which he proves, that the frequent absence
+of transitions is a necessary consequence of his doctrine, and that the
+stock whence two or more species have sprung, need in no respect be
+intermediate between these species. If any two species have arisen from
+a common stock in the same way as the carrier and the pouter, say, have
+arisen from the rock-pigeon, then the common stock of these two species
+need be no more intermediate between the two than the rock-pigeon is
+between the carrier and pouter. Clearly appreciate the force of this
+analogy, and all the arguments against the origin of species by
+selection, based on the absence of transitional forms, fall to the
+ground. And Mr. Darwin's position might, we think, have been even
+stronger than it is if he had not embarrassed himself with the aphorism,
+"Natura non facit saltum," which turns up so often in his pages. We
+believe, as we have said above, that Nature does make jumps now and
+then, and a recognition of the fact is of no small importance in
+disposing of many minor objections to the doctrine of transmutation.
+
+But we must pause. The discussion of Mr. Darwin's arguments in detail
+would lead us far beyond the limits within which we proposed, at
+starting, to confine this article. Our object has been attained if we
+have given an intelligible, however brief, account of the established
+facts connected with species, and of the relation of the explanation of
+those facts offered by Mr. Darwin to the theoretical views held by his
+predecessors and his contemporaries, and, above all, to the requirements
+of scientific logic. We have ventured to point out that it does not, as
+yet, satisfy all those requirements; but we do not hesitate to assert
+that it is as superior to any preceding or contemporary hypothesis, in
+the extent of observational and experimental basis on which it rests, in
+its rigorously scientific method, and in its power of explaining
+biological phenomena, as was the hypothesis of Copernicus to the
+speculations of Ptolemy. But the planetary orbits turned out to be not
+quite circular after all, and, grand as was the service Copernicus
+rendered to science, Kepler and Newton had to come after him. What if
+the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species
+should offer residual phenomena, here and there, not explicable by
+natural selection? Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position
+to say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they
+will owe the author of 'The Origin of Species' an immense debt of
+gratitude. We should leave a very wrong impression on the reader's mind
+if we permitted him to suppose that the value of that work depends
+wholly on the ultimate justification of the theoretical views which it
+contains. On the contrary, if they were disproved to-morrow, the book
+would still be the best of its kind--the most compendious statement of
+well-sifted facts bearing on the doctrine of species that has ever
+appeared. The chapters on Variation, on the Struggle for Existence, on
+Instinct, on Hybridism, on the Imperfection of the Geological Record, on
+Geographical Distribution, have not only no equals, but, so far as our
+knowledge goes, no competitors, within the range of biological
+literature. And viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the
+publication of Von Baer's Researches on Development, thirty years ago,
+any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not
+only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of
+Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly
+penetrated.
+
+End of The Origin of Species.
+
+***
+
+
+CRITICISMS ON "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES".*
+
+([Footnote] *'The Natural History Review', 1864.)
+
+1. UEBER DIE DARWIN'SCHE SCHOPFUNGSTHEORIE; EIN VORTRAG, VON A.
+KOLLIKER. Leipzig, 1864.
+
+2. EXAMINATION DU LIVRE DE M. DARWIN SUR L'ORIGINE DES ESPECES. PAR P.
+FLOURENS. Paris, 1864.
+
+In the course of the present year several foreign commentaries upon Mr.
+Darwin's great work have made their appearance. Those who have perused
+that remarkable chapter of the 'Antiquity of Man,' in which Sir Charles
+Lyell draws a parallel between the development of species and that of
+languages, will be glad to hear that one of the most eminent philologers
+of Germany, Professor Schleicher, has, independently, published a most
+instructive and philosophical pamphlet (an excellent notice of which is
+to be found in the 'Reader', for February 27th of this year) supporting
+similar views with all the weight of his special knowledge and
+established authority as a linguist. Professor Haeckel, to whom
+Schleicher addresses himself, previously took occasion, in his splendid
+monograph on the 'Radiolaria',* to express his high appreciation of, and
+general concordance with, Mr. Darwin's views. ([Footnote] *'Die
+Radiolarien: eine Monographie', p. 231.)
+
+But the most elaborate criticisms of the 'Origin of Species' which have
+appeared are two works of very widely different merit, the one by
+Professor Kolliker, the well-known anatomist and histologist of
+Wurzburg; the other by M. Flourens, Perpetual Secretary of the French
+Academy of Sciences.
+
+Professor Kolliker's critical essay 'Upon the Darwinian Theory' is, like
+all that proceeds from the pen of that thoughtful and accomplished
+writer, worthy of the most careful consideration. It comprises a brief
+but clear sketch of Darwin's views, followed by an enumeration of the
+leading difficulties in the way of their acceptance; difficulties which
+would appear to be insurmountable to Professor Kolliker, inasmuch as he
+proposes to replace Mr. Darwin's Theory by one which he terms the
+'Theory of Heterogeneous Generation.' We shall proceed to consider first
+the destructive, and secondly, the constructive portion of the essay.
+
+We regret to find ourselves compelled to dissent very widely from many
+of Professor Kolliker's remarks; and from none more thoroughly than from
+those in which he seeks to define what we may term the philosophical
+position of Darwinism.
+
+"Darwin," says Professor Kolliker, "is, in the fullest sense of the
+word, a Teleologist. He says quite distinctly (First Edition, pp. 199,
+200) that every particular in the structure of an animal has been
+created for its benefit, and he regards the whole series of animal forms
+only from this point of view."
+
+And again:
+
+"7. The teleological general conception adopted by Darwin is a mistaken
+one.
+
+"Varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose, or of utility,
+according to general laws of Nature, and may be either useful, or
+hurtful, or indifferent.
+
+"The assumption that an organism exists only on account of some definite
+end in view, and represents something more than the incorporation of a
+general idea, or law, implies a one-sided conception of the universe.
+Assuredly, every organ has, and every organism fulfils, its end, but its
+purpose is not the condition of its existence. Every organism is also
+sufficiently perfect for the purpose it serves, and in that, at least,
+it is useless to seek for a cause of its improvement."
+
+It is singular how differently one and the same book will impress
+different minds. That which struck the present writer most forcibly on
+his first perusal of the 'Origin of Species' was the conviction that
+Teleology, as commonly understood, had received its deathblow at Mr.
+Darwin's hands. For the teleological argument runs thus: an organ or
+organism (A) is precisely fitted to perform a function or purpose (B);
+therefore it was specially constructed to perform that function. In
+Paley's famous illustration, the adaptation of all the parts of the
+watch to the function, or purpose, of showing the time, is held to be
+evidence that the watch was specially contrived to that end; on the
+ground, that the only cause we know of, competent to produce such an
+effect as a watch which shall keep time, is a contriving intelligence
+adapting the means directly to that end.
+
+Suppose, however, that any one had been able to show that the watch had
+not been made directly by any person, but that it was the result of the
+modification of another watch which kept time but poorly; and that this
+again had proceeded from a structure which could hardly be called a
+watch at all--seeing that it had no figures on the dial and the hands
+were rudimentary; and that going back and back in time we came at last
+to a revolving barrel as the earliest traceable rudiment of the whole
+fabric. And imagine that it had been possible to show that all these
+changes had resulted, first, from a tendency of the structure to vary
+indefinitely; and secondly, from something in the surrounding world
+which helped all variations in the direction of an accurate time-keeper,
+and checked all those in other directions; then it is obvious that the
+force of Paley's argument would be gone. For it would be demonstrated
+that an apparatus thoroughly well adapted to a particular purpose might
+be the result of a method of trial and error worked by unintelligent
+agents, as well as of the direct application of the means appropriate to
+that end, by an intelligent agent.
+
+Now it appears to us that what we have here, for illustration's sake,
+supposed to be done with the watch, is exactly what the establishment of
+Darwin's Theory will do for the organic world. For the notion that every
+organism has been created as it is and launched straight at a purpose,
+Mr. Darwin substitutes the conception of something which may fairly be
+termed a method of trial and error. Organisms vary incessantly; of these
+variations the few meet with surrounding conditions which suit them and
+thrive; the many are unsuited and become extinguished.
+
+According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet fired
+straight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshot of
+which one hits something and the rest fall wide.
+
+For the teleologist an organism exists because it was made for the
+conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists
+because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able
+to persist in the conditions in which it is found.
+
+Teleology implies that the organs of every organism are perfect and
+cannot be improved; the Darwinian theory simply affirms that they work
+well enough to enable the organism to hold its own against such
+competitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility of indefinite
+improvement. But an example may bring into clearer light the profound
+opposition between the ordinary teleological, and the Darwinian,
+conception.
+
+Cats catch mice, small birds and the like, very well. Teleology tells us
+that they do so because they were expressly constructed for so
+doing--that they are perfect mousing apparatuses, so perfect and so
+delicately adjusted that no one of their organs could be altered,
+without the change involving the alteration of all the rest. Darwinism
+affirms on the contrary, that there was no express construction
+concerned in the matter; but that among the multitudinous variations of
+the Feline stock, many of which died out from want of power to resist
+opposing influences, some, the cats, were better fitted to catch mice
+than others, whence they throve and persisted, in proportion to the
+advantage over their fellows thus offered to them.
+
+Far from imagining that cats exist IN ORDER to catch mice well,
+Darwinism supposes that cats exist BECAUSE they catch mice well--mousing
+being not the end, but the condition, of their existence. And if the cat
+type has long persisted as we know it, the interpretation of the fact
+upon Darwinian principles would be, not that the cats have remained
+invariable, but that such varieties as have incessantly occurred have
+been, on the whole, less fitted to get on in the world than the existing
+stock.
+
+If we apprehend the spirit of the 'Origin of Species' rightly, then,
+nothing can be more entirely and absolutely opposed to Teleology, as it
+is commonly understood, than the Darwinian Theory. So far from being a
+"Teleologist in the fullest sense of the word," we would deny that he is
+a Teleologist in the ordinary sense at all; and we should say that,
+apart from his merits as a naturalist, he has rendered a most remarkable
+service to philosophical thought by enabling the student of Nature to
+recognise, to their fullest extent, those adaptations to purpose which
+are so striking in the organic world, and which Teleology has done good
+service in keeping before our minds, without being false to the
+fundamental principles of a scientific conception of the universe. The
+apparently diverging teachings of the Teleologist and of the
+Morphologist are reconciled by the Darwinian hypothesis.
+
+But leaving our own impressions of the 'Origin of Species,' and turning
+to those passages especially cited by Professor Kolliker, we cannot
+admit that they bear the interpretation he puts upon them. Darwin, if we
+read him rightly, does 'not' affirm that every detail in the structure
+of an animal has been created for its benefit. His words are (p. 199):--
+
+"The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest lately
+made by some naturalists against the utilitarian doctrine that every
+detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor.
+They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in
+the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be
+absolutely fatal to my theory--yet I fully admit that many structures
+are of no direct use to their possessor."
+
+And after sundry illustrations and qualifications, he concludes (p.
+200):--
+
+"Hence every detail of structure in every living creature (making some
+little allowance for the direct action of physical conditions) may be
+viewed either as having been of special use to some ancestral form, or
+as being now of special use to the descendants of this form--either
+directly, or indirectly, through the complex laws of growth."
+
+But it is one thing to say, Darwinically, that every detail observed in
+an animal's structure is of use to it, or has been of use to its
+ancestors; and quite another to affirm, teleologically, that every
+detail of an animal's structure has been created for its benefit. On the
+former hypothesis, for example, the teeth of the foetal 'Balaena' have a
+meaning; on the latter, none. So far as we are aware, there is not a
+phrase in the 'Origin of Species', inconsistent with Professor
+Kolliker's position, that "varieties arise irrespectively of the notion
+of purpose, or of utility, according to general laws of Nature, and may
+be either useful, or hurtful, or indifferent."
+
+On the contrary, Mr. Darwin writes (Summary of Chap. V.):--
+
+"Our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound. Not in one case out
+of a hundred can we pretend to assign any reason why this or that part
+varies more or less from the same part in the parents...The external
+conditions of life, as climate and food, etc., seem to have induced some
+slight modifications. Habit, in producing constitutional differences,
+and use, in strengthening, and disuse, in weakening and diminishing
+organs, seem to have been more potent in their effects."
+
+And finally, as if to prevent all possible misconception, Mr. Darwin
+concludes his Chapter on Variation with these pregnant words:--
+
+"Whatever the cause may be of each slight difference in the offspring
+from their parents--and a cause for each must exist--it is the steady
+accumulation, through natural selection of such differences, when
+beneficial to the individual, that gives rise to all the more important
+modifications of structure which the innumerable beings on the face of
+the earth are enabled to struggle with each other, and the best adapted
+to survive."
+
+We have dwelt at length upon this subject, because of its great general
+importance, and because we believe that Professor Kolliker's criticisms
+on this head are based upon a misapprehension of Mr. Darwin's
+views--substantially they appear to us to coincide with his own. The
+other objections which Professor Kolliker enumerates and discusses are
+the following*:--([Footnote] *Space will not allow us to give Professor
+Kolliker's arguments in detail; our readers will find a full and
+accurate version of them in the 'Reader' for August 13th and 20th,
+1864.)
+
+"1. No transitional forms between existing species are known; and known
+varieties, whether selected or spontaneous, never go so far as to
+establish new species."
+
+To this Professor Kolliker appears to attach some weight. He makes the
+suggestion that the short-faced tumbler pigeon may be a pathological
+product.
+
+"2. No transitional forms of animals are met with among the organic
+remains of earlier epochs."
+
+Upon this, Professor Kolliker remarks that the absence of transitional
+forms in the fossil world, though not necessarily fatal to Darwin's
+views, weakens his case.
+
+"3. The struggle for existence does not take place."
+
+To this objection, urged by Pelzeln, Kolliker, very justly, attaches no
+weight.
+
+"4. A tendency of organisms to give rise to useful varieties, and a
+natural selection, do not exist.
+
+"The varieties which are found arise in consequence of manifold external
+influences, and it is not obvious why they all, or partially, should be
+particularly useful. Each animal suffices for its own ends, is perfect
+of its kind, and needs no further development. Should, however, a
+variety be useful and even maintain itself, there is no obvious reason
+why it should change any further. The whole conception of the
+imperfection of organisms and the necessity of their becoming perfected
+is plainly the weakest side of Darwin's Theory, and a pis aller
+(Nothbehelf) because Darwin could think of no other principle by which
+to explain the metamorphoses which, as I also believe, have occurred."
+
+Here again we must venture to dissent completely from Professor
+Kolliker's conception of Mr. Darwin's hypothesis. It appears to us to be
+one of the many peculiar merits of that hypothesis that it involves no
+belief in a necessary and continual progress of organisms.
+
+Again, Mr. Darwin, if we read him aright, assumes no special tendency of
+organisms to give rise to useful varieties, and knows nothing of needs
+of development, or necessity of perfection. What he says is, in
+substance: All organisms vary. It is in the highest degree improbable
+that any given variety should have exactly the same relations to
+surrounding conditions as the parent stock. In that case it is either
+better fitted (when the variation may be called useful), or worse
+fitted, to cope with them. If better, it will tend to supplant the
+parent stock; if worse, it will tend to be extinguished by the parent
+stock.
+
+If (as is hardly conceivable) the new variety is so perfectly adapted to
+the conditions that no improvement upon it is possible,--it will
+persist, because, though it does not cease to vary, the varieties will
+be inferior to itself.
+
+If, as is more probable, the new variety is by no means perfectly
+adapted to its conditions, but only fairly well adapted to them, it will
+persist, so long as none of the varieties which it throws off are better
+adapted than itself.
+
+On the other hand, as soon as it varies in a useful way, i.e. when the
+variation is such as to adapt it more perfectly to its conditions, the
+fresh variety will tend to supplant the former.
+
+So far from a gradual progress towards perfection forming any necessary
+part of the Darwinian creed, it appears to us that it is perfectly
+consistent with indefinite persistence in one estate, or with a gradual
+retrogression. Suppose, for example, a return of the glacial epoch and a
+spread of polar climatal conditions over the whole globe. The operation
+of natural selection under these circumstances would tend, on the whole,
+to the weeding out of the higher organisms and the cherishing of the
+lower forms of life. Cryptogamic vegetation would have the advantage
+over Phanerogamic; Hydrozoa over Corals; Crustacea over Insecta, and
+Amphipoda and Isopoda over the higher Crustacea; Cetaceans and Seals
+over the Primates; the civilization of the Esquimaux over that of the
+European.
+
+"5. Pelzeln has also objected that if the later organisms have proceeded
+from the earlier, the whole developmental series, from the simplest to
+the highest, could not now exist; in such a case the simpler organisms
+must have disappeared."
+
+To this Professor Kolliker replies, with perfect justice, that the
+conclusion drawn by Pelzeln does not really follow from Darwin's
+premisses, and that, if we take the facts of Palaeontology as they
+stand, they rather support than oppose Darwin's theory.
+
+"6. Great weight must be attached to the objection brought forward by
+Huxley, otherwise a warm supporter of Darwin's hypothesis, that we know
+of no varieties which are sterile with one another, as is the rule among
+sharply distinguished animal forms.
+
+"If Darwin is right, it must be demonstrated that forms may be produced
+by selection, which, like the present sharply distinguished animal
+forms, are infertile, when coupled with one another, and this has not
+been done."
+
+The weight of this objection is obvious; but our ignorance of the
+conditions of fertility and sterility, the want of carefully conducted
+experiments extending over long series of years, and the strange
+anomalies presented by the results of the cross-fertilization of many
+plants, should all, as Mr. Darwin has urged, be taken into account in
+considering it.
+
+The seventh objection is that we have already discussed (supra).
+
+The eighth and last stands as follows:--
+
+"8. The developmental theory of Darwin is not needed to enable us to
+understand the regular harmonious progress of the complete series of
+organic forms from the simpler to the more perfect.
+
+"The existence of general laws of Nature explains this harmony, even if
+we assume that all beings have arisen separately and independent of one
+another. Darwin forgets that inorganic nature, in which there can be no
+thought of genetic connexion of forms, exhibits the same regular plan,
+the same harmony, as the organic world; and that, to cite only one
+example, there is as much a natural system of minerals as of plants and
+animals."
+
+We do not feel quite sure that we seize Professor Kolliker's meaning
+here, but he appears to suggest that the observation of the general
+order and harmony which pervade inorganic nature, would lead us to
+anticipate a similar order and harmony in the organic world. And this is
+no doubt true, but it by no means follows that the particular order and
+harmony observed among them should be that which we see. Surely the
+stripes of dun horses, and the teeth of the foetal 'Balaena', are not
+explained by the "existence of general laws of Nature." Mr. Darwin
+endeavours to explain the exact order of organic nature which exists;
+not the mere fact that there is some order.
+
+And with regard to the existence of a natural system of minerals; the
+obvious reply is that there may be a natural classification of any
+objects--of stones on a sea-beach, or of works of art; a natural
+classification being simply an assemblage of objects in groups, so as to
+express their most important and fundamental resemblances and
+differences. No doubt Mr. Darwin believes that those resemblances and
+differences upon which our natural systems or classifications of animals
+and plants are based, are resemblances and differences which have been
+produced genetically, but we can discover no reason for supposing that
+he denies the existence of natural classifications of other kinds.
+
+And, after all, is it quite so certain that a genetic relation may not
+underlie the classification of minerals? The inorganic world has not
+always been what we see it. It has certainly had its metamorphoses, and,
+very probably, a long "Entwickelungsgeschichte" out of a nebular
+blastema. Who knows how far that amount of likeness among sets of
+minerals, in virtue of which they are now grouped into families and
+orders, may not be the expression of the common conditions to which that
+particular patch of nebulous fog, which may have been constituted by
+their atoms, and of which they may be, in the strictest sense, the
+descendants, was subjected?
+
+It will be obvious from what has preceded, that we do not agree with
+Professor Kolliker in thinking the objections which he brings forward so
+weighty as to be fatal to Darwin's view. But even if the case were
+otherwise, we should be unable to accept the "Theory of Heterogeneous
+Generation" which is offered as a substitute. That theory is thus
+stated:--
+
+"The fundamental conception of this hypothesis is, that, under the
+influence of a general law of development, the germs of organisms
+produce others different from themselves. This might happen (1) by the
+fecundated ova passing, in the course of their development, under
+particular circumstances, into higher forms; (2) by the primitive and
+later organisms producing other organisms without fecundation, out of
+germs or eggs (Parthenogenesis)."
+
+In favour of this hypothesis, Professor Kolliker adduces the well-known
+facts of Agamogenesis, or "alternate generation"; the extreme
+dissimilarity of the males and females of many animals; and of the
+males, females, and neuters of those insects which live in colonies: and
+he defines its relations to the Darwinian theory as follows:--"It is
+obvious that my hypothesis is apparently very similar to Darwin's,
+inasmuch as I also consider that the various forms of animals have
+proceeded directly from one another. My hypothesis of the creation of
+organisms by heterogeneous generation, however, is distinguished very
+essentially from Darwin's by the entire absence of the principle of
+useful variations and their natural selection: and my fundamental
+conception is this, that a great plan of development lies at the
+foundation of the origin of the whole organic world, impelling the
+simpler forms to more and more complex developments. How this law
+operates, what influences determine the development of the eggs and
+germs, and impel them to assume constantly new forms, I naturally cannot
+pretend to say; but I can at least adduce the great analogy of the
+alternation of generations. If a 'Bipinnaria', a 'Brachialaria', a
+'Pluteus', is competent to produce the Echinoderm, which is so widely
+different from it; if a hydroid polype can produce the higher Medusa; if
+the vermiform Trematode 'nurse' can develop within itself the very
+unlike 'Cercaria', it will not appear impossible that the egg, or
+ciliated embryo, of a sponge, for once, under special conditions, might
+become a hydroid polype, or the embryo of a Medusa, an Echinoderm."
+
+It is obvious, from these extracts, that Professor Kolliker's hypothesis
+is based upon the supposed existence of a close analogy between the
+phenomena of Agamogenesis and the production of new species from
+pre-existing ones. But is the analogy a real one? We think that it is
+not, and, by the hypothesis, cannot be.
+
+For what are the phenomena of Agamogenesis, stated generally? An
+impregnated egg develops into an asexual form, A; this gives rise,
+asexually, to a second form or forms, B, more or less different from A.
+B may multiply asexually again; in the simpler cases, however, it does
+not, but, acquiring sexual characters, produces impregnated eggs from
+whence A, once more, arises.
+
+No case of Agamogenesis is known in which, WHEN A DIFFERS WIDELY FROM B,
+it is itself capable of sexual propagation. No case whatever is known in
+which the progeny of B, by sexual generation, is other than a
+reproduction of A.
+
+But if this be a true statement of the nature of the process of
+Agamogenesis, how can it enable us to comprehend the production of new
+species from already existing ones? Let us suppose Hyaenas to have
+preceded Dogs, and to have produced the latter in this way. Then the
+Hyena will represent A, and the Dog, B. The first difficulty that
+presents itself is that the Hyena must be asexual, or the process will
+be wholly without analogy in the world of Agamogenesis. But passing over
+this difficulty, and supposing a male and female Dog to be produced at
+the same time from the Hyaena stock, the progeny of the pair, if the
+analogy of the simpler kinds of Agamogenesis* is to be followed, should
+be a litter, not of puppies, but of young Hyenas. ([Footnote] * If, on
+the contrary, we follow the analogy of the more complex forms of
+Agamogenesis, such as that exhibited by some 'Trematoda' and by the
+'Aphides', the Hyaena must produce, asexually, a brood of asexual Dogs,
+from which other sexless Dogs must proceed. At the end of a certain
+number of terms of the series, the Dogs would acquire sexes and generate
+young; but these young would be, not Dogs, but Hyaenas. In fact, we have
+DEMONSTRATED, in Agamogenetic phenomena, that inevitable recurrence to
+the original type, which is ASSERTED to be true of variations in
+general, by Mr. Darwin's opponents; and which, if the assertion could be
+changed into a demonstration would, in fact, be fatal to his
+hypothesis.) For the Agamogenetic series is always, as we have seen, A:
+B: A: B, etc.; whereas, for the production of a new species, the series
+must be A: B: B: B, etc. The production of new species, or genera, is
+the extreme permanent divergence from the primitive stock. All known
+Agamogenetic processes, on the other hand, end in a complete return to
+the primitive stock. How then is the production of new species to be
+rendered intelligible by the analogy of Agamogenesis?
+
+The other alternative put by Professor Kolliker--the passage of
+fecundated ova in the course of their development into higher
+forms--would, if it occurred, be merely an extreme case of variation in
+the Darwinian sense, greater in degree than, but perfectly similar in
+kind to, that which occurred when the well-known Ancon Ram was developed
+from an ordinary Ewe's ovum. Indeed we have always thought that Mr.
+Darwin has unnecessarily hampered himself by adhering so strictly to his
+favourite "Natura non facit saltum." We greatly suspect that she does
+make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that
+these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist in
+the series of known forms.
+
+Strongly and freely as we have ventured to disagree with Professor
+Kolliker, we have always done so with regret, and we trust without
+violating that respect which is due, not only to his scientific eminence
+and to the careful study which he has devoted to the subject, but to the
+perfect fairness of his argumentation, and the generous appreciation of
+the worth of Mr. Darwin's labours which he always displays. It would be
+satisfactory to be able to say as much for M. Flourens.
+
+But the Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences deals with
+Mr. Darwin as the first Napoleon would have treated an "ideologue;" and
+while displaying a painful weakness of logic and shallowness of
+information, assumes a tone of authority, which always touches upon the
+ludicrous, and sometimes passes the limits of good breeding.
+
+For example (p. 56):--
+
+"M. Darwin continue: 'Aucune distinction absolue n'a ete et ne pout etre
+etablie entre les especes et les varietes.' Je vous ai deja dit que vous
+vous trompiez; une distinction absolue separe les varietes d'avec les
+especes."
+
+"JE VOUS AI DEJA DIT; moi, M. le Secretaire perpetuel de l'Academie des
+Sciences: et vous
+
+    "'Qui n'etes rien,
+    Pas meme Academicien;'
+
+what do you mean by asserting the contrary?" Being devoid of the
+blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our
+ablest men treated in this fashion, even by a "Perpetual Secretary."
+
+Or again, considering that if there is any one quality of Mr. Darwin's
+work to which friends and foes have alike borne witness, it is his
+candour and fairness in admitting and discussing objections, what is to
+be thought of M. Flourens' assertion, that
+
+"M. Darwin ne cite que les auteurs qui partagent ses opinions." (P. 40.)
+
+Once more (p. 65):--
+
+"Enfin l'ouvrage de M. Darwin a paru. On ne peut qu'etre frappe du
+talent de l'auteur. Mais que d'idees obscures, que d'idees fausses! Quel
+jargon metaphysique jete mal a propos dans l'histoire naturelle, qui
+tombe dans le galimatias des qu'elle sort des idees claires, des idees
+justes! Quel langage pretentieux et vide! Quelles personifications
+pueriles et surannees! O lucidite! O solidite de l'esprit Francais, que
+devenez-vous?"
+
+"Obscure ideas," "metaphysical jargon," "pretentious and empty
+language," "puerile and superannuated personifications." Mr. Darwin has
+many and hot opponents on this side of the Channel and in Germany, but
+we do not recollect to have found precisely these sins in the long
+catalogue of those hitherto laid to his charge. It is worth while,
+therefore, to examine into these discoveries effected solely by the aid
+of the "lucidity and solidity" of the mind of M. Flourens.
+
+According to M. Flourens, Mr. Darwin's great error is that he has
+personified Nature (p. 10), and further that he has
+
+"imagined a natural selection: he imagines afterwards that this power of
+selection (pouvoir d'elire) which he gives to Nature is similar to the
+power of man. These two suppositions admitted, nothing stops him: he
+plays with Nature as he likes, and makes her do all he pleases." (P. 6.)
+
+And this is the way M. Flourens extinguishes natural selection:
+
+"Voyons donc encore une fois, ce qu'il peut y avoir de fonde dans ce
+qu'on nomme 'election naturelle'.
+
+"'L'election naturelle' n'est sous un autre nom que la nature. Pour un
+etre organise, la nature n'est que l'organisation, ni plus ni moins.
+
+"Il faudra donc aussi personnifier 'l'organisation', et dire que
+'l'organisation choisit l'organisation'. 'L'election naturelle' est
+cette 'forme substantielle' dont on jouait autrefois avec tant de
+facilite. Aristote disait que 'Si l'art de batir etait dans le bois, cet
+art agirait comme la nature.' A la place de 'l'art de batir' M. Darwin
+met 'l'election naturelle', et c'est tout un: l'un n'est pas plus
+chimerique que l'autre." (P.31.)
+
+And this is really all that M. Flourens can make of Natural Selection.
+We have given the original, in fear lest a translation should be
+regarded as a travesty; but with the original before the reader, we may
+try to analyse the passage. "For an organized being, Nature is only
+organization, neither more nor less."
+
+Organized beings then have absolutely no relation to inorganic nature: a
+plant does not, depend on soil or sunshine, climate, depth in the ocean,
+height above it; the quantity of saline matters in water have no
+influence upon animal life; the substitution of carbonic acid for oxygen
+in our atmosphere would hurt nobody! That these are absurdities no one
+should know better than M. Flourens; but they are logical deductions
+from the assertion just quoted, and from the further statement that
+natural selection means only that "organization chooses and selects
+organization."
+
+For if it be once admitted (what no sane man denies) that the chances of
+life of any given organism are increased by certain conditions (A) and
+diminished by their opposites (B), then it is mathematically certain
+that any change of conditions in the direction of (A) will exercise a
+selective influence in favour of that organism, tending to its increase
+and multiplication, while any change in the direction of (B) will
+exercise a selective influence against that organism, tending to its
+decrease and extinction.
+
+Or, on the other hand, conditions remaining the same, let a given
+organism vary (and no one doubts that they do vary) in two directions:
+into one form (a) better fitted to cope with these conditions than the
+original stock, and a second (b) less well adapted to them. Then it is
+no less certain that the conditions in question must exercise a
+selective influence in favour of (a) and against ( b), so that (a) will
+tend to predominance, and (b) to extirpation.
+
+That M. Flourens should be unable to perceive the logical necessity of
+these simple arguments, which lie at the foundation of all Mr. Darwin's
+reasoning; that he should confound an irrefragable deduction from the
+observed relations of organisms to the conditions which lie around them,
+with a metaphysical "forme substantielle," or a chimerical
+personification of the powers of Nature, would be incredible, were it
+not that other passages of his work leave no room for doubt upon the
+subject.
+
+"On imagine une 'election naturelle' que, pour plus de menagement, on me
+dit etre 'inconsciente', sans s'apercevoir que le contre-sens litteral
+est precisement la: 'election inconsciente'." (P. 52.)
+
+"J'ai deja dit ce qu'il faut penser de 'l'election naturelle'. Ou
+'l'election naturelle' n'est rien, ou c'est la nature: mais la nature
+douee 'd'election', mais la nature personnifiee: derniere erreur du
+dernier siecle: Le xixe fait plus de personnifications." (P. 53.)
+
+M. Flourens cannot imagine an unconscious selection--it is for him a
+contradiction in terms. Did M. Flourens ever visit one of the prettiest
+watering-places of "la belle France," the Baie d'Arcachon? If so, he
+will probably have passed through the district of the Landes, and will
+have had an opportunity of observing the formation of "dunes" on a grand
+scale. What are these "dunes"? The winds and waves of the Bay of Biscay
+have not much consciousness, and yet they have with great care
+"selected," from among an infinity of masses of silex of all shapes and
+sizes, which have been submitted to their action, all the grains of sand
+below a certain size, and have heaped them by themselves over a great
+area. This sand has been "unconsciously selected" from amidst the gravel
+in which it first lay with as much precision as if man had "consciously
+selected" it by the aid of a sieve. Physical Geology is full of such
+selections--of the picking out of the soft from the hard, of the soluble
+from the insoluble, of the fusible from the infusible, by natural
+agencies to which we are certainly not in the habit of ascribing
+consciousness.
+
+But that which wind and sea are to a sandy beach, the sum of influences,
+which we term the "conditions of existence," is to living organisms. The
+weak are sifted out from the strong. A frosty night "selects" the hardy
+plants in a plantation from among the tender ones as effectually as if
+it were the wind, and they, the sand and pebbles, of our illustration;
+or, on the other hand, as if the intelligence of a gardener had been
+operative in cutting the weaker organisms down. The thistle, which has
+spread over the Pampas, to the destruction of native plants, has been
+more effectually "selected" by the unconscious operation of natural
+conditions than if a thousand agriculturists had spent their time in
+sowing it.
+
+It is one of Mr. Darwin's many great services to Biological science that
+he has demonstrated the significance of these facts. He has shown
+that--given variation and given change of conditions--the inevitable
+result is the exercise of such an influence upon organisms that one is
+helped and another is impeded; one tends to predominate, another to
+disappear; and thus the living world bears within itself, and is
+surrounded by, impulses towards incessant change.
+
+But the truths just stated are as certain as any other physical laws,
+quite independently of the truth, or falsehood, of the hypothesis which
+Mr. Darwin has based upon them; and that M. Flourens, missing the
+substance and grasping at a shadow, should be blind to the admirable
+exposition of them, which Mr. Darwin has given, and see nothing there
+but a "derniere erreur du dernier siecle"--a personification of
+Nature--leads us indeed to cry with him: "O lucidite! O solidite de
+l'esprit Francais, que devenez-vous?"
+
+M. Flourens has, in fact, utterly failed to comprehend the first
+principles of the doctrine which he assails so rudely. His objections to
+details are of the old sort, so battered and hackneyed on this side of
+the Channel, that not even a Quarterly Reviewer could be induced to pick
+them up for the purpose of pelting Mr. Darwin over again. We have Cuvier
+and the mummies; M. Roulin and the domesticated animals of America; the
+difficulties presented by hybridism and by Palaeontology; Darwinism a
+'rifacciamento' of De Maillet and Lamarck; Darwinism a system without a
+commencement, and its author bound to believe in M. Pouchet, etc. etc.
+How one knows it all by heart, and with what relief one reads at p. 65--
+
+"Je laisse M. Darwin!"
+
+But we cannot leave M. Flourens without calling our readers' attention
+to his wonderful tenth chapter, "De la Preexistence des Germes et de
+l'Epigenese," which opens thus:--
+
+"Spontaneous generation is only a chimera. This point established, two
+hypotheses remain: that of 'pre-existence' and that of 'epigenesis'. The
+one of these hypotheses has as little foundation as the other." (P.
+163.)
+
+"The doctrine of 'epigenesis' is derived from Harvey: following by
+ocular inspection the development of the new being in the Windsor does,
+he saw each part appear successively, and taking the moment of
+'appearance' for the moment of 'formation' he imagined 'epigenesis'."
+(P. 165.)
+
+On the contrary, says M. Flourens (p. 167),
+
+"The new being is formed at a stroke (tout d'un coup) as a whole,
+instantaneously; it is not formed part by part, and at different times.
+It is formed at once at the single 'individual' moment at which the
+conjunction of the male and female elements takes place."
+
+It will be observed that M. Flourens uses language which cannot be
+mistaken. For him, the labours of von Baer, of Rathke, of Coste, and
+their contemporaries and successors in Germany, France, and England, are
+non-existent: and, as Darwin "imagina" natural selection, so Harvey
+"imagina" that doctrine which gives him an even greater claim to the
+veneration of posterity than his better known discovery of the
+circulation of the blood.
+
+Language such as that we have quoted is, in fact, so preposterous, so
+utterly incompatible with anything but absolute ignorance of some of the
+best established facts, that we should have passed it over in silence
+had it not appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens' unhesitating, a
+priori, repudiation of all forms of the doctrine of progressive
+modification of living beings. He whose mind remains uninfluenced by an
+acquaintance with the phenomena of development, must indeed lack one of
+the chief motives towards the endeavour to trace a genetic relation
+between the different existing forms of life. Those who are ignorant of
+Geology, find no difficulty in believing that the world was made as it
+is; and the shepherd, untutored in history, sees no reason to regard the
+green mounds which indicate the site of a Roman camp, as aught but part
+and parcel of the primeval hill-side. So M. Flourens, who believes that
+embryos are formed "tout d'un coup," naturally finds no difficulty in
+conceiving that species came into existence in the same way.
+
+End of Criticisms on "The Origin of Species".
+
+***
+
+
+EVIDENCE AS TO MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
+
+1863.
+
+(entire page is illustration with caption as follows:)
+
+Skeletons of the GIBBON. ORANG. CHIMPANZEE. GORILLA. MAN.
+Photographically reduced from Diagrams of the natural size (except that
+of the Gibbon, which was twice as large as nature), drawn by Mr.
+Waterhouse Hawkins from specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of
+Surgeons.
+
+
+ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES.
+
+Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern
+investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is
+singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one,
+presaging a reality. Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geologist:
+the Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a western world: and
+though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence only in
+the realms of art, creatures approaching man more nearly than they in
+essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal as the goat's or
+horse's half of the mythical compound, are now not only known, but
+notorious.
+
+I have not met with any notice of one of these MAN-LIKE APES of earlier
+date than that contained in Pigafetta's 'Description of the Kingdom of
+Congo,'* drawn up from the notes of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez,
+and published in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work is entitled "De
+Animalibus quae in hac provincia reperiuntur," and contains a brief
+passage to the effect that "in the Songan country, on the banks of the
+Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which afford great delight to the
+nobles by imitating human gestures." As this might apply to almost any
+kind of apes, I should have thought little of it, had not the brothers
+De Bry, whose engravings illustrate the work, thought fit, in their
+eleventh 'Argumentum,' to figure two of these "Simiae magnatum
+deliciae." So much of the plate as contains these apes is faithfully
+copied in the woodcut (Figure 1), and it will be observed that they are
+tail-less, long-armed, and large-eared; and about the size of
+Chimpanzees. It may be that these apes are as much figments of the
+imagination of the ingenious brothers as the winged, two-legged,
+crocodile-headed dragon which adorns the same plate; or, on the other
+hand, it may be that the artists have constructed their drawings from
+some essentially faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. And,
+in either case, though these figures are worth a passing notice, the
+oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of any animal of this kind date
+from the 17th century, and are due to an Englishman. ([Footnote] *
+REGNUM CONGO: hoc est VERA DESCRIPTIO REGNI AFRICANI QUOD TAM AB INCOLIS
+QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS APPELLATUR, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex
+Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone
+donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus rerum
+memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan.
+Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata. Francofurti, MDXCVIII.)
+
+(FIGURE 1.--SIMIAE MAGNATUM DELICIAE.--De Bry, 1598.)
+
+The first edition of that most amusing old book, 'Purchas his
+Pilgrimage,' was published in 1613, and therein are to be found many
+references to the statements of one whom Purchas terms "Andrew Battell
+(my neere neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under Manuel
+Silvera Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, at his city of Saint
+Paul, and with him went farre into the countrey of Angola"; and again,
+"my friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of Congo many
+yeares," and who, "upon some quarell betwixt the Portugals (among whom
+he was a sergeant of a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in the
+woodes." From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas was amazed to
+hear "of a kinde of Great Apes, if they might so bee termed, of the
+height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, with
+strength proportionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like men
+and women in their whole bodily shape.* They lived on such wilde fruits
+as the trees and woods yielded, and in the night time lodged on the
+trees." ([Footnote] *"Except this that their legges had no
+calves."--[Ed. 1626.] And in a marginal note, "These great apes are
+called Pongo's.")
+
+This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements than
+a passage in the third chapter of the second part of another
+work--'Purchas his Pilgrimes,' published in 1625, by the same
+author--which has been often, though hardly ever quite rightly, cited.
+The chapter is entitled, "The strange adventures of Andrew Battell, of
+Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who lived
+there and in the adjoining regions neere eighteene yeeres." And the
+sixth section of this chapter is headed--"Of the Provinces of Bongo,
+Calongo, Mayombe, Manikesocke, Motimbas: of the Ape Monster Pongo, their
+hunting: Idolatries; and divers other observations."
+
+"This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon Bongo, and
+toward the north upon Mayombe, which is nineteen leagues from Longo
+along the coast.
+
+"This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so over-growne that a
+man may travaile twentie days in the shadow without any sunne or heat.
+Here is no kind of corne nor graine, so that the people liveth onely
+upon plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good; and nuts; nor any
+kinde of tame cattell, nor hens.
+
+"But they have great store of elephant's flesh, which they greatly
+esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts; and great store of fish. Here is
+a great sandy bay, two leagues to the northward of Cape Negro,* which is
+the port of Mayombe. ([Footnote] *Purchas' note.--Cape Negro is in 16
+degrees south of the line.) Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood in this
+bay. Here is a great river, called Banna: in the winter it hath no
+barre, because the generall winds cause a great sea. But when the sunne
+hath his south declination, then a boat may goe in; for then it is
+smooth because of the raine. This river is very great, and hath many
+ilands and people dwelling in them. The woods are so covered with
+baboones, monkies, apes and parrots, that it will feare any man to
+travaile in them alone. Here are also two kinds of monsters, which are
+common in these woods, and very dangerous.
+
+"The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their language,
+and the lesser is called Engeco. This Pongo is in all proportion like a
+man; but that he is more like a giant in stature than a man; for he is
+very tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon his
+browes. His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. His
+bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke; and it is of a dunnish
+colour.
+
+"He differeth not from a man but in his legs; for they have no calfe.
+Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped in the
+nape of his necke when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the
+trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit that they
+find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. They
+cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast. The people
+of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods make fires where they
+sleepe in the night; and in the morning when they are gone, the Pongoes
+will come and sit about the fire till it goeth out; for they have no
+understanding to lay the wood together. They goe many together and kill
+many negroes that travaile in the woods. Many times they fall upon the
+elephants which come to feed where they be, and so beate them with their
+clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will runne roaring away
+from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive because they are so
+strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them; but yet they take many of
+their young ones with poisoned arrowes.
+
+"The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his hands fast
+clasped about her, so that when the countrie people kill any of the
+females they take the young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother.
+
+"When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great heaps of
+boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forest."* ([Footnote]
+*Purchas' marginal note, p. 982:--"The Pongo a giant ape. He told me in
+conference with him, that one of these pongoes tooke a negro boy of his
+which lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not those which they
+surprise at unawares, except they look on them; which he avoyded. He
+said their highth was like a man's, but their bignesse twice as great. I
+saw the negro boy. What the other monster should be he hath forgotten to
+relate; and these papers came to my hand since his death, which,
+otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned. Perhaps he
+meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned.")
+
+It does not appear difficult to identify the exact region of which
+Battell speaks. Longo is doubtless the name of the place usually spelled
+Loango on our maps. Mayombe still lies some nineteen leagues northward
+from Loango, along the coast; and Cilongo or Kilonga, Manikesocke, and
+Motimbas are yet registered by geographers. The Cape Negro of Battell,
+however, cannot be the modern Cape Negro in 16 degrees S., since Loango
+itself is in 4 degrees S. latitude. On the other hand, the "great river
+called Banna" corresponds very well with the "Camma" and "Fernand Vas,"
+of modern geographers, which form a great delta on this part of the
+African coast.
+
+Now this "Camma" country is situated about a degree and a-half south of
+the Equator, while a few miles to the north of the line lies the Gaboon,
+and a degree or so north of that, the Money River--both well known to
+modern naturalists as localities where the largest of man-like Apes has
+been obtained. Moreover, at the present day, the word Engeco, or
+N'schego, is applied by the natives of these regions to the smaller of
+the two great Apes which inhabit them; so that there can be no rational
+doubt that Andrew Battell spoke of that which he knew of his own
+knowledge, or, at any rate, by immediate report from the natives of
+Western Africa. The "Engeco," however, is that "other monster" whose
+nature Battell "forgot to relate," while the name "Pongo"--applied to
+the animal whose characters and habits are so fully and carefully
+described--seems to have died out, at least in its primitive form and
+signification. Indeed, there is evidence that not only in Battell's
+time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in a totally different
+sense from that in which he employs it.
+
+For example, the second chapter of Purchas' work, which I have just
+quoted, contains "A Description and Historicall Declaration of the
+Golden Kingdom of Guinea, etc. etc. Translated from the Dutch, and
+compared also with the Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that--"The
+River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de Angra, and
+eight miles northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalves (Cape Lopez), and is
+right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas,
+and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At the mouth of the
+river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, whereon it
+beateth mightily with the streame which runneth out of the river into
+the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof, is at least four miles broad;
+but when you are about the Iland called 'Pongo', it is not above two
+miles broad...On both sides the river there standeth many trees...The
+Iland called 'Pongo', which hath a monstrous high hill."
+
+(FIGURE 2.--"Homo Sylvestris. Orang Outang." The Orang of Tulpius,
+1641.)
+
+The French naval officers, whose letters are appended to the late M.
+Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's excellent essay on the Gorilla,*
+([Footnote] *'Archives du Museum', tome x.) note in similar terms the
+width of the Gaboon, the trees that line its banks down to the water's
+edge, and the strong current that sets out of it. They describe two
+islands in its estuary;--one low, called Perroquet; the other high,
+presenting three conical hills, called Coniquet; and one of them, M.
+Franquet, expressly states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was
+called 'Meni-Pongo', meaning thereby Lord of 'Pongo'; and that the
+'N'Pongues' (as, in agreement with Dr. Savage, he affirms the natives
+call themselves) term the estuary of the Gaboon itself 'N'Pongo'.
+
+It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their
+applications of words to things, that one is at first inclined to
+suspect Battell of having confounded the name of this region, where his
+"greater monster" still abounds, with the name of the animal itself. But
+he is so right about other matters (including the name of the "lesser
+monster") that one is loth to suspect the old traveller of error; and,
+on the other hand, we shall find that a voyager of a hundred years'
+later date speaks of the name "Boggoe," as applied to a great Ape, by
+the inhabitants of quite another part of Africa--Sierra Leone.
+
+But I must leave this question to be settled by philologers and
+travellers; and I should hardly have dwelt so long upon it except for
+the curious part played by this word 'Pongo' in the later history of the
+man-like Apes.
+
+The generation which succeeded Battell saw the first of the man-like
+Apes which was ever brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit
+found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius' 'Observationes
+Medicae', published in 1641, the 56th chapter or section is devoted to
+what he calls 'Satyrus indicus', "called by the Indians Orang-autang or
+Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans Quoias Morrou." He gives a very
+good figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of this animal,
+"nostra memoria ex Angola delatum," presented to Frederick Henry Prince
+of Orange. Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three years old, and
+as stout as one of six years: and that its back was covered with black
+hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee.
+
+In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic, man-like Apes became
+known, but at first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658)
+gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous account and figure of an
+animal which he calls "Orang-outang"; and though he says "vidi Ego cujus
+effigiem hic exhibeo," the said effigies (see Figure 6 for Hoppius' copy
+of it) is nothing but a very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and
+with proportions and feet wholly human. The judicious English anatomist,
+Tyson, was justified in saying of this description by Bontius, "I
+confess I do mistrust the whole representation."
+
+It is to the last mentioned writer, and his coadjutor Cowper, that we
+owe the first account of a man-like ape which has any pretensions to
+scientific accuracy and completeness. The treatise entitled,
+"'Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris'; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie
+compared with that of a 'Monkey', an 'Ape', and a 'Man'," published by
+the Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and
+has, in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers. This
+"Pygmie," Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in Africa; but was
+first taken a great deal higher up the country"; its hair "was of a
+coal-black colour and strait," and "when it went as a quadruped on all
+four, 'twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the hand flat to the
+ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when
+weak and had not strength enough to support its body."--"From the top of
+the head to the heel of the foot, in a strait line, it measured
+twenty-six inches."
+
+(FIGURES 3 AND 4.--The 'Pygmie' reduced from Tyson's figures 1 and 2,
+1699.)
+
+These characters, even without Tyson's good figures (Figs. 3 and 4),
+would have been sufficient to prove his "Pygmie" to be a young
+Chimpanzee. But the opportunity of examining the skeleton of the very
+animal Tyson anatomised having most unexpectedly presented itself to me,
+I am able to bear independent testimony to its being a veritable
+'Troglodytes niger',* though still very young. Although fully
+appreciating the resemblances between his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no
+means overlooked the differences between the two, and he concludes his
+memoir by summing up first, the points in which "the Ourang-outang or
+Pygmie more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys do," under forty-seven
+distinct heads; and then giving, in thirty-four similar brief
+paragraphs, the respects in which "the Ourang-outang or Pygmie differ'd
+from a Man and resembled more the Ape and Monkey kind."
+
+([Footnote] * I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose
+paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting
+relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr.
+Allardyce, a physician of repute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of
+her dowry, the skeleton of the 'Pygmie.' Dr. Allardyce presented it to
+the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr.
+Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what
+is, perhaps its most remarkable ornament.
+
+After a careful survey of the literature of the subject extant in his
+time, our author arrives at the conclusion that his "Pygmie" is
+identical neither with the Orangs of Tulpius and Bontius, nor with the
+Quoias Morrou of Dapper (or rather of Tulpius), the Barris of d'Arcos,
+nor with the Pongo of Battell; but that it is a species of ape probably
+identical with the Pygmies of the Ancients, and, says Tyson, though it
+"does so much resemble a 'Man' in many of its parts, more than any of
+the ape kind, or any other 'animal' in the world, that I know of: yet by
+no means do I look upon it as the product of a 'mixt' generation--'tis a
+'Brute-Animal sui generis', and a particular 'species of Ape'."
+
+The name of "Chimpanzee," by which one of the African Apes is now so
+well known, appears to have come into use in the first half of the
+eighteenth century, but the only important addition made, in that
+period, to our acquaintance with the man-like apes of Africa is
+contained in 'A New Voyage to Guinea', by William Smith, which bears the
+date 1744.
+
+In describing the animals of Sierra Leone, p. 51, this writer says:--
+
+"I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called by the white men
+in this country Mandrill,* but why it is so called I know not, nor did I
+ever hear the name before, neither can those who call them so tell,
+except it be for their near resemblance of a human creature, though
+nothing at all like an Ape. ([Footnote] *"Mandrill" seems to signify a
+"man-like ape," the word "Drill" or "Dril" having been anciently
+employed in England to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus in the fifth
+edition of Blount's "Glossographia, or a Dictionary interpreting the
+hard words of whatsoever language now used in our refined English
+tongue...very useful for all such as desire to understand what they
+read," published in 1681, I find, "Dril--a stone-cutter's tool wherewith
+he bores little holes in marble, etc. Also a large overgrown Ape and
+Baboon, so called." "Drill" is used in the same sense in Charleton's
+"Onomasticon Zoicon," 1668. The singular etymology of the word given by
+Buffon seems hardly a probable one.) Their bodies, when full grown, are
+as big in circumference as a middle-sized man's--their legs much
+shorter, and their feet larger; their arms and hands in proportion. The
+head is monstrously big, and the face broad and flat, without any other
+hair but the eyebrows; the nose very small, the mouth wide, and the lips
+thin. The face, which is covered by a white skin, is monstrously ugly,
+being all over wrinkled as with old age; the teeth broad and yellow; the
+hands have no more hair than the face, but the same white skin, though
+all the rest of the body is covered with long black hair, like a bear.
+They never go upon all fours, like apes; but cry, when vexed or teased,
+just like children...."
+
+(FIGURE 5.--"A Mandrill". Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the
+"Mandrill," 1744.)
+
+"When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom I shall have occasion
+hereafter to mention, made me a present of one of these strange animals,
+which are called by the natives Boggoe: it was a she-cub, of six months'
+age, but even then larger than a Baboon. I gave it in charge to one of
+the slaves, who knew how to feed and nurse it, being a very tender sort
+of animal; but whenever I went off the deck the sailors began to teaze
+it--some loved to see its tears and hear it cry; others hated its snotty
+nose; one who hurt it, being checked by the negro that took care of it,
+told the slave he was very fond of his country-woman, and asked him if
+he should not like her for a wife? To which the slave very readily
+replied, 'No, this no my wife; this a white woman--this fit wife for
+you.' This unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy, hastened its death, for
+next morning it was found dead under the windlass."
+
+William Smith's 'Mandrill,' or 'Boggoe,' as his description and figure
+testify, was, without doubt, a Chimpanzee.
+
+(FIGURE 6.--The Anthropomorpha of Linnaeus.)
+
+Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man-like Apes of
+either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the
+'Amoenitates Academicae' (VI. 'Anthropomorpha') may be regarded as
+embodying his views respecting these animals.
+
+The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of which the accompanying
+woodcut, Fig, 6, is a reduced copy, The figures are entitled (from left
+to right) 1. 'Troglodyta Bontii'; 2. 'Lucifer Aldrovandi'; 3. 'Satyrus
+Tulpii'; 4. 'Pygmaeus Edwardi'. The first is a bad copy of Bontius'
+fictitious 'Ourang-outang,' in whose existence, however, Linnaeus
+appears to have fully believed; for in the standard edition of the
+'Systema Naturae', it is enumerated as a second species of Homo; "H.
+nocturnus." 'Lucifer Aldrovandi' is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus,
+'De Quadrupedibus digitatis viviparis', Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645), entitled
+"Cercopithecus formae rarae 'Barbilius' vocatus et originem a china
+ducebat." Hoppius is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed
+people, of whom Nicolaus Koping affirms that they eat a boat's crew,
+"gubernator navis" and all! In the 'Systema Naturae' Linnaeus calls it
+in a note, 'Homo caudatus', and seems inclined to regard it as a third
+species of man. According to Temminck, 'Satyrus Tulpii' is a copy of the
+figure of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, which I have not
+seen. It is the 'Satyrus indicus' of the 'Systema Naturae', and is
+regarded by Linnaeus as possibly a distinct species from 'Satyrus
+sylvestris'. The last, named 'Pygmaeus Edwardi', is copied from the
+figure of a young "Man of the Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in
+Edwards' 'Gleanings of Natural History' (1758).
+
+Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. Not only had he the rare
+opportunity of examining a young Chimpanzee in the living state, but he
+became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape--the first and the
+last adult specimen of any of these animals brought to Europe for many
+years. With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an
+excellent description of this creature, which, from its singular
+proportions, he termed the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern
+'Hylobates lar'.
+
+Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the fourteenth volume of his great
+work, he was personally familiar with the young of one kind of African
+man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic species--while the
+Orang-Utan and the Mandrill of Smith were known to him by report.
+Furthermore, the Abbe Prevost had translated a good deal of Purchas'
+Pilgrims into French, in his 'Histoire generale des Voyages' (1748), and
+there Buffon found a version of Andrew Battell's account of the Pongo
+and the Engeco. All these data Buffon attempts to weld together into
+harmony in his chapter entitled "Les Orang-outangs ou le Pongo et le
+Jocko." To this title the following note is appended:--
+
+"Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales: Pongo nom de cet
+animal a Lowando Province de Congo.
+
+"Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous avons adopte. 'En'
+est l'article que nous avons retranche."
+
+Thus it was that Andrew Battell's "Engeco" became metamorphosed into
+"Jocko," and, in the latter shape, was spread all over the world, in
+consequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon's works. The Abbe
+Prevost and Buffon between them, however, did a good deal more
+disfigurement to Battell's sober account than 'cutting off an article.'
+Thus Battell's statement that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no
+understanding more than a beast," is rendered by Buffon "qu'il ne peut
+parler 'quoiqu'il ait plus d'entendement que les autres animaux'"; and
+again, Purchas' affirmation, "He told me in conference with him, that
+one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with
+them," stands in the French version, "un pongo lui enleva un petit negre
+qui passa un 'an' entier dans la societe de ces animaux."
+
+After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon justly remarks,
+that all the 'Jockos' and 'Orangs' hitherto brought to Europe were
+young; and he suggests that, in their adult condition, they might be as
+big as the Pongo or 'great Orang'; so that, provisionally, he regarded
+the Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And perhaps this
+was as much as the state of knowledge at the time warranted. But how it
+came about that Buffon failed to perceive the similarity of Smith's
+'Mandrill' to his own 'Jocko,' and confounded the former with so totally
+different a creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not so easily
+intelligible.
+
+Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,* and expressed his belief
+that the Orangs constituted a genus with two species,--a large one, the
+Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko: that the small one (Jocko)
+is the East Indian Orang; and that the young animals from Africa,
+observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply young Pongos. ([Footnote]
+*'Histoire Naturelle', Suppl. tome 7eme, 1789.)
+
+In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vosmaer, gave, in 1778, a very
+good account and figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, and
+his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter Camper, published (1779) an
+essay on the Orang-Utan of similar value to that of Tyson on the
+Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a male, all of which, from
+the state of their skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes to
+have been young. However, judging by the analogy of man, he concludes
+that they could not have exceeded four feet in height in the adult
+condition. Furthermore, he is very clear as to the specific distinctness
+of the true East Indian Orang.
+
+"The Orang," says he, "differs not only from the Pigmy of Tyson and from
+the Orang of Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, but also
+by its whole external form. Its arms, its hands, and its feet are
+longer, while the thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and the
+great toes much smaller in proportion."* ([Footnote] *Camper, 'Oeuvres',
+i. p. 56.) And again, "The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia,
+that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tailless Ape, which
+the Greeks, and especially Galen, have described. It is neither the
+Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of
+Tyson,--IT IS AN ANIMAL OF A PECULIAR SPECIES, as I shall prove in the
+clearest manner by the organs of voice and the skeleton in the following
+chapters" (l. c. p. 64).
+
+A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held a high office in the
+Government of the Dutch dominions in India, and was an active member of
+the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, published, in the second part
+of the Transactions of that Society,* a Description of the Island of
+Borneo, which was written between the years 1779 and 1781, and, among
+much other interesting matter, contains some notes upon the Orang.
+([Footnote] *Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede
+Deel. Derde Druk. 1826. The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of
+Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is found only in Borneo, and chiefly
+about Banjermassing, Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some
+fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none exceeded 2 1/2 feet
+in length. The larger sort, often regarded as a chimera, continues
+Radermacher, would perhaps long have remained so, had it not been for
+the exertions of the Resident at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on returning
+from Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded it to Batavia in
+spirit, for transmission to Europe.
+
+Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus:--"Herewith I send your
+Excellency, contrary to all expectation (since long ago I offered more
+than a hundred ducats to the natives for an Orang-Utan of four or five
+feet high) an Orang which I heard of this morning about eight o'clock.
+For a long time we did our best to take the frightful beast alive in the
+dense forest about half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious
+were we not to let him escape; but it was necessary to take care that he
+did not revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking off heavy
+pieces of wood and green branches, and dashing them at us. This game
+lasted till four o'clock in the afternoon, when we determined to shoot
+him; in which I succeeded very well, and indeed better than I ever shot
+from a boat before; for the bullet went just into the side of his chest,
+so that he was not much damaged. We got him into the prow still living,
+and bound him fast, and next morning he died of his wounds. All Pontiana
+came on board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives his height from
+the head to the heel as 49 inches.
+
+(FIGURE 7.--The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after
+Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucae.)
+
+A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von Wurmb, who at this time
+held a post in the Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of the
+Batavian Society, studied this animal, and his careful description of
+it, entitled "Beschrijving van der Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de
+Oost-Indische Pongo," is contained in the same volume of the Batavian
+Society's Transactions. After Von Wurmb had drawn up his description he
+states, in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,* ([Footnote] *"Briefe
+des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794." that
+the specimen was sent to Europe in brandy to be placed in the collection
+of the Prince of Orange; "unfortunately," he continues, "we hear that
+the ship has been wrecked." Von Wurmb died in the course of the year
+1781, the letter in which this passage occurs being the last he wrote;
+but in his posthumous papers, published in the fourth part of the
+Transactions of the Batavian Society, there is a brief description, with
+measurements, of a female Pongo four feet high.
+
+Did either of these original specimens, on which Von Wurmb's
+descriptions are based, ever reach Europe? It is commonly supposed that
+they did; but I doubt the fact. For, appended to the memoir 'De
+l'Ourang-outang,' in the collected edition of Camper's works, tome i.,
+pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb's papers,
+and continuing thus:--"Heretofore, this kind of ape had never been known
+in Europe. Radermacher has had the kindness to send me the skull of one
+of these animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or four feet five
+inches, in height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at
+Mayence, which are better calculated, however, to give an idea of the
+form than of the real size of the parts."
+
+These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and by Lucae, and bear
+date 1783, Soemmering having received them in 1784. Had either of Von
+Wurmb's specimens reached Holland, they would hardly have been unknown
+at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to say--"It appears that
+since this, some more of these monsters have been captured, for an
+entire skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent to the Museum of
+the Prince of Orange, and which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784,
+was more than four feet high. I examined this skeleton again on the 19th
+December, 1785, after it had been excellently put to rights by the
+ingenious Onymus."
+
+It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is doubtless that
+which has always gone by the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not that of the
+animal described by him, though unquestionably similar in all essential
+points.
+
+Camper proceeds to note some of the most important features of this
+skeleton; promises to describe it in detail by-and-bye; and is evidently
+in doubt as to the relation of this great 'Pongo' to his "petit Orang."
+
+The promised further investigations were never carried out; and so it
+happened that the Pongo of Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the
+Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and colossal species of
+man-like Ape. And indeed nothing could look much less like the
+Chimpanzees or the Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the
+specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which had been observed were small of
+stature, singularly human in aspect, gentle and docile; while Wurmb's
+Pongo was a monster almost twice their size, of vast strength and
+fierceness, and very brutal in expression; its great projecting muzzle,
+armed with strong teeth, being further disfigured by the outgrowth of
+the cheeks into fleshy lobes.
+
+Eventually, in accordance with the usual marauding habits of the
+Revolutionary armies, the 'Pongo' skeleton was carried away from Holland
+into France, and notices of it, expressly intended to demonstrate its
+entire distinctness from the Orang and its affinity with the baboons,
+were given, in 1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier.
+
+Even in Cuvier's 'Tableau Elementaire', and in the first edition of his
+great work, the 'Regne Animal', the 'Pongo' is classed as a species of
+Baboon. However, so early as 1818, it appears that Cuvier saw reason to
+alter this opinion, and to adopt the view suggested several years before
+by Blumenbach,* and after him by Tilesius, that the Bornean Pongo is
+simply an adult Orang. ([Footnote] *See Blumenbach, 'Abbildungen
+Naturhistorichen Gegenstande', No. 12, 1810; and Tilesius,
+'Naturhistoriche Fruchte der ersten Kaiserlich-Russischen
+Erdumsegelung', p. 115, 1813.) In 1824, Rudolphi demonstrated, by the
+condition of the dentition, more fully and completely than had been done
+by his predecessors, that the Orangs described up to that time were all
+young animals, and that the skull and teeth of the adult would probably
+be such as those seen in the Pongo of Wurmb. In the second edition of
+the 'Regne Animal' (1829), Cuvier infers, from the 'proportions of all
+the parts' and 'the arrangements of the foramina and sutures of the
+head,' that the Pongo is the adult of the Orang-Utan, 'at least of a
+very closely allied species,' and this conclusion was eventually placed
+beyond all doubt by Professor Owen's Memoir published in the 'Zoological
+Transactions' for 1835, and by Temminck in his 'Monographies de
+Mammalogie'. Temminck's memoir is remarkable for the completeness of the
+evidence which it affords as to the modification which the form of the
+Orang undergoes according to age and sex. Tiedemann first published an
+account of the brain of the young Orang, while Sandifort, Muller and
+Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera of the adult, and gave
+the earliest detailed and trustworthy history of the habits of the great
+Indian Ape in a state of nature; and as important additions have been
+made by later observers, we are at this moment better acquainted with
+the adult of the Orang-Utan, than with that of any of the other greater
+man-like Apes.
+
+It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb;* and it is as certainly not the
+Pongo of Battell, seeing that the Orang-Utan is entirely confined to the
+great Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra. ([Footnote] *Speaking
+broadly and without prejudice to the question, whether there be more
+than one species of Orang.)
+
+And while the progress of discovery thus cleared up the history of the
+Orang, it also became established that the only other man-like Apes in
+the eastern world were the various species of Gibbon--Apes of smaller
+stature, and therefore attracting less attention than the Orangs, though
+they are spread over a much wider range of country, and are hence more
+accessible to observation.
+
+Although the geographical area inhabited by the 'Pongo' and Engeco of
+Battell is so much nearer to Europe than that in which the Orang and
+Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the African Apes has been of
+slower growth; indeed, it is only within the last few years that the
+truthful story of the old English adventurer has been rendered fully
+intelligible. It was not until 1835 that the skeleton of the adult
+Chimpanzee became known, by the publication of Professor Owen's
+above-mentioned very excellent memoir 'On the osteology of the
+Chimpanzee and Orang', in the 'Zoological Transactions'--a memoir which,
+by the accuracy of its descriptions, the carefulness of its comparisons,
+and the excellence of its figures, made an epoch in the history of our
+knowledge of the bony framework, not only of the Chimpanzee, but of all
+the anthropoid Apes.
+
+By the investigations herein detailed, it became evident that the old
+Chimpanzee acquired a size and aspect as different from those of the
+young known to Tyson, to Buffon, and to Traill, as those of the old
+Orang from the young Orang; and the subsequent very important researches
+of Messrs. Savage and Wyman, the American missionary and anatomist, have
+not only confirmed this conclusion, but have added many new details.*
+([Footnote] *See "Observations on the external characters and habits of
+the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., and on its
+organization by Jeffries Wyman, M.D.," 'Boston Journal of Natural
+History', vol. iv., 1843-4; and "External characters, habits, and
+osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla," by the same authors, 'ibid'., vol.
+v., 1847.)
+
+One of the most interesting among the many valuable discoveries made by
+Dr. Thomas Savage is the fact, that the natives in the Gaboon country at
+the present day, apply to the Chimpanzee a name--"Enche-eko"--which is
+obviously identical with the "Engeko" of Battell; a discovery which has
+been confirmed by all later inquirers. Battell's "lesser monster" being
+thus proved to be a veritable existence, of course a strong presumption
+arose that his "greater monster," the 'Pongo,' would sooner or later be
+discovered. And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 1819,
+found strong evidence, among the natives, of the existence of a second
+great Ape, called the 'Ingena,' "five feet high, and four across the
+shoulders," the builder of a rude house, on the outside of which it
+slept.
+
+In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make another and most
+important addition to our knowledge of the man-like Apes; for, being
+unexpectedly detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in the house of the
+Rev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary resident there, "a skull represented by
+the natives to be a monkey-like animal, remarkable for its size,
+ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the skull, and the
+information derived from several intelligent natives, "I was induced,"
+says Dr. Savage (using the term Orang in its old general sense) "to
+believe that it belonged to a new species of Orang. I expressed this
+opinion to Mr. Wilson, with a desire for further investigation; and, if
+possible, to decide the point by the inspection of a specimen alive or
+dead." The result of the combined exertions of Messrs. Savage and Wilson
+was not only the obtaining of a very full account of the habits of this
+new creature, but a still more important service to science, the
+enabling the excellent American anatomist already mentioned, Professor
+Wyman, to describe, from ample materials, the distinctive osteological
+characters of the new form. This animal was called by the natives of the
+Gaboon "Enge-ena," a name obviously identical with the "Ingena" of
+Bowdich; and Dr. Savage arrived at the conviction that this last
+discovered of all the great Apes was the long-sought "Pongo" of Battell.
+
+The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond doubt--for not only
+does the 'Enge-ena' agree with Battell's "greater monster" in its hollow
+eyes, its great stature, and its dun or iron-grey colour, but the only
+other man-like Ape which inhabits these latitudes--the Chimpanzee--is at
+once identified, by its smaller size, as the "lesser monster," and is
+excluded from any possibility of being the 'Pongo,' by the fact that it
+is black and not dun, to say nothing of the important circumstance
+already mentioned that it still retains the name of 'Engeko,' or
+"Enche-eko," by which Battell knew it.
+
+In seeking for a specific name for the "Enge-ena," however, Dr. Savage
+wisely avoided the much misused 'Pongo'; but finding in the ancient
+Periplus of Hanno the word "Gorilla" applied to certain hairy savage
+people, discovered by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the
+African coast, he attached the specific name "Gorilla" to his new ape,
+whence arises its present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more
+cautious than some of his successors, by no means identifies his ape
+with Hanno's "wild men." He merely says that the latter were "probably
+one of the species of the Orang;" and I quite agree with M. Brulle, that
+there is no ground for identifying the modern 'Gorilla' with that of the
+Carthaginian admiral.
+
+Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was published, the skeleton of the
+Gorilla has been investigated by Professor Owen and by the late
+Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, the latter having further
+supplied a valuable account of the muscular system and of many of the
+other soft parts; while African missionaries and travellers have
+confirmed and expanded the account originally given of the habits of
+this great man-like Ape, which has had the singular fortune of being the
+first to be made known to the general world and the last to be
+scientifically investigated.
+
+Two centuries and a half have passed away since Battell told his stories
+about the 'greater' and the 'lesser monsters' to Purchas, and it has
+taken nearly that time to arrive at the clear result that there are four
+distinct kinds of Anthropoids--in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and the
+Orangs; in Western Africa, the Chimpanzees and the Gorilla.
+
+The man-like Apes, the history of whose discovery has just been
+detailed, have certain characters of structure and of distribution in
+common. Thus they all have the same number of teeth as man--possessing
+four incisors, two canines, four false molars, and six true molars in
+each jaw, or 32 teeth in all, in the adult condition; while the milk
+dentition consists of 20 teeth--or four incisors, two canines, and four
+molars in each jaw. They are what are called catarrhine Apes--that is,
+their nostrils have a narrow partition and look downwards; and,
+furthermore, their arms are always longer than their legs, the
+difference being sometimes greater and sometimes less; so that if the
+four were arranged in the order of the length of their arms in
+proportion to that of their legs, we should have this series--Orang (1
+4/9 : 1), Gibbon (1 1/4 : 1), Gorilla (1 1/5 : 1), Chimpanzee (1 1/16 :
+1). In all, the fore limbs are terminated by hands, provided with longer
+or shorter thumbs; while the great toe of the foot, always smaller than
+in Man, is far more movable than in him and can be opposed, like a
+thumb, to the rest of the foot. None of these apes have tails, and none
+of them possess the cheek pouches common among monkeys. Finally, they
+are all inhabitants of the old world.
+
+The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and longest-limbed of the
+man-like apes: their arms are longer in proportion to their bodies than
+those of any of the other man-like Apes, so that they can touch the
+ground when erect; their hands are longer than their feet, and they are
+the only Anthropoids which possess callosities like the lower monkeys.
+They are variously coloured. The Orangs have arms which reach to the
+ankles in the erect position of the animal; their thumbs and great toes
+are very short, and their feet are longer than their hands. They are
+covered with reddish brown hair, and the sides of the face, in adult
+males, are commonly produced into two crescentic, flexible excrescences,
+like fatty tumours. The Chimpanzees have arms which reach below the
+knees; they have large thumbs and great toes, their hands are longer
+than their feet; and their hair is black, while the skin of the face is
+pale. The Gorilla, lastly, has arms which reach to the middle of the
+leg, large thumbs and great toes, feet longer than the hands, a black
+face, and dark-grey or dun hair.
+
+For the purpose which I have at present in view, it is unnecessary that
+I should enter into any further minutiae respecting the distinctive
+characters of the genera and species into which these man-like Apes are
+divided by naturalists. Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the
+Gibbons constitute the distinct genera, 'Simia' and 'Hylobates'; while
+the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some regarded simply as distinct
+species of one genus, 'Troglodytes'; by others as distinct
+genera--'Troglodytes' being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and 'Gorilla'
+for the Enge-ena or Pongo.
+
+Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the man-like
+Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than correct information
+regarding their structure.
+
+Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and
+morally qualified to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of
+America and of Asia; to form magnificent collections as he wanders; and
+withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his
+collections: but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense
+forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favourite
+habitation of the Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present
+difficulties of no ordinary magnitude: and the man who risks his life by
+even a short visit to the malarious shores of those regions may well be
+excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of the interior; if he
+contents himself with stimulating the industry of the better seasoned
+natives, and collecting and collating the more or less mythical reports
+and traditions with which they are too ready to supply him.
+
+In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the habits of the
+man-like Apes originated; and even now a good deal of what passes
+current must be admitted to have no very safe foundation. The best
+information we possess is that, based almost wholly on direct European
+testimony respecting the Gibbons; the next best evidence relates to the
+Orangs; while our knowledge of the habits of the Chimpanzee and the
+Gorilla stands much in need of support and enlargement by additional
+testimony from instructed European eye-witnesses.
+
+It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring to form a notion of what
+we are justified in believing about these animals, to commence with the
+best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons and Orangs; and to make use of the
+perfectly reliable information respecting them as a sort of criterion of
+the probable truth or falsehood of assertions respecting the others.
+
+Of the GIBBONS, half a dozen species are found scattered over the
+Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam,
+Arracan, and an uncertain extent of Hindostan, on the main land of Asia.
+The largest attain a few inches above three feet in height, from the
+crown to the heel, so that they are shorter than the other man-like
+Apes; while the slenderness of their bodies renders their mass far
+smaller in proportion even to this diminished height.
+
+Dr. Salomon Muller, an accomplished Dutch naturalist, who lived for many
+years in the Eastern Archipelago, and to the results of whose personal
+experience I shall frequently have occasion to refer, states that the
+Gibbons are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills,
+though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the fig-trees. All day
+long they haunt the tops of the tall trees; and though, towards evening,
+they descend in small troops to the open ground, no sooner do they spy a
+man than they dart up the hill-sides, and disappear in the darker
+valleys.
+
+All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice possessed by
+these animals. According to the writer whom I have just cited, in one of
+them, the Siamang, "the voice is grave and penetrating, resembling the
+sounds goek, goek, goek, goek, goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may easily
+be heard at a distance of half a league." While the cry is being
+uttered, the great membranous bag under the throat which communicates
+with the organ of voice, the so-called "laryngeal sac," becomes greatly
+distended, diminishing again when the creature relapses into silence.
+
+M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the Siamang may be heard
+for miles--making the woods ring again. So Mr. Martin* describes the cry
+of the agile Gibbon as "overpowering and deafening" in a room, and "from
+its strength, well calculated for resounding through the vast forests."
+([Footnote] *'Man and Monkies', p. 423.) Mr. Waterhouse, an accomplished
+musician as well as zoologist, says, "The Gibbon's voice is certainly
+much more powerful than that of any singer I have ever heard." And yet
+it is to be recollected that this animal is not half the height of, and
+far less bulky in proportion than, a man.
+
+There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to
+the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett,* a very excellent observer, in
+describing the habits of a male 'Hylobates syndactylus' which remained
+for some time in his possession, says: "He invariably walks in the erect
+posture when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang down,
+enabling him to assist himself with his knuckles; or what is more usual,
+he keeps his arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands
+pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of danger or
+on the obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect
+posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run down if, whilst
+pursued, he has no opportunity of escaping by climbing...When he walks
+in the erect posture he turns the leg and foot outwards, which occasions
+him to have a waddling gait and to seem bow-legged." ([Footnote]
+*'Wanderings in New South Wales', vol. ii. chap. viii., 1834.)
+
+Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the Horlack or Hooluk: "They walk
+erect; and when placed on the floor, or in an open field, balance
+themselves very prettily, by raising their hands over their head and
+slightly bending the arm at the wrist and elbow, and then run tolerably
+fast, rocking from side to side; and, if urged to greater speed, they
+let fall their hands to the ground, and assist themselves forward,
+rather jumping than running, still keeping the body, however, nearly
+erect."
+
+Somewhat different evidence, however, is given by Dr. Winslow Lewis:*
+([Footnote] *'Boston Journal of Natural History', vol. i., 1834.)
+
+"Their only manner of walking was on their posterior or inferior
+extremities, the others being raised upwards to preserve their
+equilibrium, as rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs. Their
+progression was not by placing one foot before the other, but by
+simultaneously using both, as in jumping." Dr. Salomon Muller also
+states that the Gibbons progress along the ground by a short series of
+tottering jumps, effected only by the hind limbs, the body being held
+altogether upright.
+
+But Mr. Martin (l. c. p. 418), who also speaks from direct observation,
+says of the Gibbons generally:
+
+"Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and displaying among the
+branches amazing activity, the Gibbons are not so awkward or embarrassed
+on a level surface as might be imagined. They walk erect, with a
+waddling or unsteady gait, but at a quick pace; the equilibrium of the
+body requiring to be kept up, either by touching the ground with the
+knuckles, first on one side then on the other, or by uplifting the arms
+so as to poise it. As with the Chimpanzee, the whole of the narrow, long
+sole of the foot is placed upon the ground at once and raised at once,
+without any elasticity of step."
+
+(FIGURE 8.--Gibbon ('H. pileatus'), after Wolf.)
+
+After this mass of concurrent and independent testimony, it cannot
+reasonably be doubted that the Gibbons commonly and habitually assume
+the erect attitude.
+
+But level ground is not the place where these animals can display their
+very remarkable and peculiar locomotive powers, and that prodigious
+activity which almost tempts one to rank them among flying, rather than
+among ordinary climbing mammals.
+
+Mr. Martin (l.c. p. 430) has given so excellent and graphic an account
+of the movements of a 'Hylobates agilis', living in the Zoological
+Gardens, in 1840, that I will quote it in full:
+
+"It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness and
+graceful address of her movements: they may indeed be termed aerial, as
+she seems merely to touch in her progress the branches among which she
+exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms are the sole
+organs of locomotion; her body hanging as if suspended by a rope,
+sustained by one hand (the right for example) she launches herself, by
+an energetic movement, to a distant branch, which she catches with the
+left hand; but her hold is less than momentary: the impulse for the next
+launch is acquired: the branch then aimed at is attained by the right
+hand again, and quitted instantaneously, and so on, in alternate
+succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are
+cleared, with the greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together,
+without the slightest appearance of fatigue being manifested; and it is
+evident that, if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly
+exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's
+assertion that he has seen these animals launch themselves from one
+branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well
+credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw
+herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a
+revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue
+her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how
+suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus given by the rapidity
+and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual
+abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch is
+seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, quietly seated
+on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again throws herself
+into action.
+
+"The following facts will convey some notion of her dexterity and
+quickness. A live bird was let loose in her apartment; she marked its
+flight, made a long swing to a distant branch, caught the bird with one
+hand in her passage, and attained the branch with her other hand; her
+aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as successful as if one
+object only had engaged her attention. It may be added that she
+instantly bit off the head of the bird, picked its feathers, and then
+threw it down without attempting to eat it.
+
+"On another occasion this animal swung herself from a perch, across a
+passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was thought
+would be immediately broken: but not so; to the surprise of all, she
+caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in an
+instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to the cage
+she had left--a feat requiring not only great strength, but the nicest
+precision."
+
+The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but there is very good
+evidence that they will bite severely when irritated--a female
+'Hylobates agilis' having so severely lacerated one man with her long
+canines, that he died; while she had injured others so much that, by way
+of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down; but, if
+threatened, she would still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects,
+but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen
+by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live lizard. They commonly
+drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It
+is asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture.
+
+Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry their young to the
+waterside and there wash their faces, in spite of resistance and cries.
+They are gentle and affectionate in captivity--full of tricks and
+pettishness, like spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a certain
+conscience, as an anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett (l. c. p. 156), will
+show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar inclination for
+disarranging things in the cabin. Among these articles, a piece of soap
+would especially attract his notice, and for the removal of this he had
+been once or twice scolded. "One morning," says Mr. Bennett, "I was
+writing, the ape being present in the cabin, when casting my eyes
+towards him, I saw the little fellow taking the soap. I watched him
+without his perceiving that I did so: and he occasionally would cast a
+furtive glance towards the place where I sat. I pretended to write; he,
+seeing me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved away with it in his
+paw. When he had walked half the length of the cabin, I spoke quietly,
+without frightening him. The instant he found I saw him, he walked back
+again, and deposited the soap nearly in the same place from whence he
+had taken it. There was certainly something more than instinct in that
+action: he evidently betrayed a consciousness of having done wrong both
+by his first and last actions--and what is reason if that is not an
+exercise of it?"
+
+The most elaborate account of the natural history of the ORANG-UTAN
+extant, is that given in the "Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke
+Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche Bezittingen (1839-45)," by
+Dr. Salomon Muller and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to
+say, upon this subject almost entirely on their statements, adding, here
+and there, particulars of interest from the writings of Brooke, Wallace,
+and others.
+
+The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed four feet in height, but the
+body is very bulky, measuring two-thirds of the height in
+circumference.* ([Footnote] *The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck,
+measured, when standing upright, 4 ft.; but he mentions having just
+received news of the capture of an Orang 5 ft. 3 in. high. Schlegel and
+Muller say that their largest old male measured, upright, 1.25
+Netherlands "el"; and from the crown to the end of the toes, 1.5 el; the
+circumference of the body being about 1 el. The largest old female was
+1.09 el high, when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of
+Surgeons' Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown
+to sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of two Orangs.
+Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in.
+high, from the heel to the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John,
+however, in his 'Life in the Forests of the Far East', tells us of an
+Orang of "5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15
+in. across the face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear,
+however, that Mr. St. John measured this Orang himself.)
+
+The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and Borneo, and is common in
+neither of these islands--in both of which it occurs always in low, flat
+plains, never in the mountains. It loves the densest and most sombre of
+the forests, which extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus is found
+only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where alone such forests occur,
+though, occasionally, it strays over to the western side.
+
+On the other hand, it is generally distributed through Borneo, except in
+the mountains, or where the population is dense. In favourable places,
+the hunter may, by good fortune, see three or four in a day.
+
+(FIGURE 9.--An adult male Orang-utan, after Muller and Schlegel.)
+
+Except in the pairing time, the old males usually live by themselves.
+The old females, and the immature males, on the other hand, are often
+met with in twos and threes; and the former occasionally have young with
+them, though the pregnant females usually separate themselves, and
+sometimes remain apart after they have given birth to their offspring.
+The young Orangs seem to remain unusually long under their mother's
+protection, probably in consequence of their slow growth. While
+climbing, the mother always carries her young against her bosom, the
+young holding on by his mother's hair.* ([Footnote] *See Mr. Wallace's
+account of an infant "Orang-utan," in the 'Annals of Natural History'
+for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his interesting charge with an artificial
+mother of buffalo-skin, but the cheat was too successful. The infant's
+entire experience led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling the
+latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavours to discover the
+former.) At what time of life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of
+propagation, and how long the females go with young, is unknown, but it
+is probable that they are not adult until they arrive at ten or fifteen
+years of age. A female which lived for five years at Batavia, had not
+attained one-third the height of the wild females. It is probable that,
+after reaching adult years, they go on growing, though slowly, and that
+they live to forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs, which
+have not only lost all their teeth, but which find it so troublesome to
+climb, that they maintain themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage.
+
+The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvellous activity
+characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone seems to stir him to
+exertion, and when it is stilled, he relapses into repose. When the
+animal sits, it curves its back and bows its head, so as to look
+straight down on the ground; sometimes it holds on with its hands by a
+higher branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically down by its
+side--and in these positions the Orang will remain, for hours together,
+in the same spot, almost without stirring, and only now and then giving
+utterance to its deep, growling voice. By day, he usually climbs from
+one tree-top to another, and only at night descends to the ground, and
+if then threatened with danger, he seeks refuge among the underwood.
+When not hunted, he remains a long time in the same locality, and
+sometimes stops for many days on the same tree--a firm place among its
+branches serving him for a bed. It is rare for the Orang to pass the
+night in the summit of a large tree, probably because it is too windy
+and cold there for him; but, as soon as night draws on, he descends from
+the height and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker part, or in
+the leafy top of a small tree, among which he prefers Nibong Palms,
+Pandani, or one of those parasitic Orchids which give the primeval
+forests of Borneo so characteristic and striking an appearance. But
+wherever he determines to sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of
+nest: little boughs and leaves are drawn together round the selected
+spot, and bent crosswise over one another; while to make the bed soft,
+great leaves of Ferns, of Orchids, of 'Pandanus fascicularis', 'Nipa
+fruticans', etc., are laid over them. Those which Muller saw, many of
+them being very fresh, were situated at a height of ten to twenty-five
+feet above the ground, and had a circumference, on the average, of two
+or three feet. Some were packed many inches thick with 'Pandanus'
+leaves; others were remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which, united
+in a common centre, formed a regular platform. "The rude 'hut'," says
+Sir James Brooke, "which they are stated to build in the trees, would be
+more properly called a seat or nest, for it has no roof or cover of any
+sort. The facility with which they form this nest is curious, and I had
+an opportunity of seeing a wounded female weave the branches together
+and seat herself, within a minute."
+
+According to the Dyaks, the Orang rarely leaves his bed before the sun
+is well above the horizon and has dissipated the mists. He gets up about
+nine, and goes to bed again about five; but sometimes not till late in
+the twilight. He lies sometimes on his back; or, by way of change, turns
+on one side or the other, drawing his limbs up to his body, and resting
+his head on his hand. When the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he
+usually covers his body with a heap of 'Pandanus', 'Nipa', or Fern
+leaves, like those of which his bed is made, and he is especially
+careful to wrap up his head in them. It is this habit of covering
+himself up which has probably led to the fable that the Orang builds
+huts in the trees.
+
+Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs of great trees, during
+the daytime, he is very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as
+other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The Orang, on the
+contrary, confines himself to the slender leafy branches, so that he is
+seen right at the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely
+related to the constitution of his hinder limbs, and especially to that
+of his seat. For this is provided with no callosities, such as are
+possessed by many of the lower apes, and even by the Gibbons; and those
+bones of the pelvis, which are termed the ischia, and which form the
+solid framework of the surface on which the body rests in the sitting
+posture, are not expanded like those of the apes which possess
+callosities, but are more like those of man.
+
+An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,* as, in this act, to resemble
+a man more than an ape, taking great care of his feet, so that injury of
+them seems to affect him far more than it does other apes. ([Footnote] *
+"They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and
+their motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth."--Sir James Brooke,
+in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society', 1841.) Unlike the
+Gibbons, whose forearms do the greater part of the work, as they swing
+from branch to branch, the Orang never makes even the smallest jump. In
+climbing, he moves alternately one hand and one foot, or, after having
+laid fast hold with the hands, he draws up both feet together. In
+passing from one tree to another, he always seeks out a place where the
+twigs of both come close together, or interlace. Even when closely
+pursued, his circumspection is amazing: he shakes the branches to see if
+they will bear him, and then bending an overhanging bough down by
+throwing his weight gradually along it, he makes a bridge from the tree
+he wishes to quit to the next.* ([Footnote] *Mr. Wallace's account of
+the progression of the Orang almost exactly corresponds with this.)
+
+On the ground the Orang always goes laboriously and shakily, on all
+fours. At starting he will run faster than a man, though he may soon be
+overtaken. The very long arms which, when he runs, are but little bent,
+raise the body of the Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much the
+posture of a very old man bent down by age, and making his way along by
+the help of a stick. In walking, the body is usually directed straight
+forward, unlike the other apes, which run more or less obliquely; except
+the Gibbons, who in these, as in so many other respects, depart
+remarkably from their fellows.
+
+The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground, but is supported upon
+their outer edges, the heel resting more on the ground, while the curved
+toes partly rest upon the ground by the upper side of their first joint,
+the two outermost toes of each foot completely resting on this surface.
+The hands are held in the opposite manner, their inner edges serving as
+the chief support. The fingers are then bent out in such a manner that
+their foremost joints, especially those of the two innermost fingers,
+rest upon the ground by their upper sides, while the point of the free
+and straight thumb serves as an additional fulcrum.
+
+The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and all the pictures,
+representing it as so doing, are as false as the assertion that it
+defends itself with sticks, and the like.
+
+The long arms are of especial use, not only in climbing, but in the
+gathering of food from boughs to which the animal could not trust his
+weight. Figs, blossoms, and young leaves of various kinds, constitute
+the chief nutriment of the Orang; but strips of bamboo two or three feet
+long were found in the stomach of a male. They are not known to eat
+living animals.
+
+Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan soon becomes domesticated,
+and indeed seems to court human society, it is naturally a very wild and
+shy animal, though apparently sluggish and melancholy. The Dyaks affirm,
+that when the old males are wounded with arrows only, they will
+occasionally leave the trees and rush raging upon their enemies, whose
+sole safety lies in instant flight, as they are sure to be killed if
+caught.* ([Footnote] *Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse,
+published in the proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841,
+says:--"On the habits of the Orangs, as far as I have been able to
+observe them, I may remark that they are as dull and slothful as can
+well be conceived, and on no occasion, when pursuing them, did they move
+so fast as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily through a
+moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions below (such as
+wading up to the neck) allowed them to get away some distance, they were
+sure to stop and allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest
+attempt at defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our ears
+was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some persons represent.
+If pushed to extremity, however, the 'Pappan' could not be otherwise
+than formidable, and one unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying
+to catch a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being
+severely bitten on the face, whilst the animal finally beat off his
+pursuers and escaped." Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he
+has several times observed them throwing down branches when pursued. "It
+is true he does not throw them 'at' a person, but casts them down
+vertically; for it is evident that a bough cannot be thrown to any
+distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on a
+durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a continuous shower of
+branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, as large as 32-pounders, which
+most effectually kept us clear of the tree she was on. She could be seen
+breaking them off and throwing them down with every appearance of rage,
+uttering at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning
+mischief."--"On the Habits of the Orang-Utan," 'Annals of Nat. History,
+1856. This statement, it will be observed, is quite in accordance with
+that contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted above (p.
+210).)
+
+But, though possessed of immense strength, it is rare for the Orang to
+attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with fire-arms. On
+such occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to escape along the
+topmost branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs
+as he goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the highest attainable
+point of the tree, and emits a singular cry, consisting at first of high
+notes, which at length deepen into a low roar, not unlike that of a
+panther. While giving out the high notes the Orang thrusts out his lips
+into a funnel shape; but in uttering the low notes he holds his mouth
+wide open, and at the same time the great throat bag, or laryngeal sac,
+becomes distended.
+
+According to the Dyaks, the only animal the Orang measures his strength
+with is the crocodile, who occasionally seizes him on his visits to the
+water side. But they say that the Orang is more than a match for his
+enemy, and beats him to death, or rips up his throat by pulling the jaws
+asunder!
+
+Much of what has been here stated was probably derived by Dr. Muller
+from the reports of his Dyak hunters; but a large male, four feet high,
+lived in captivity, under his observation, for a month, and receives a
+very bad character.
+
+"He was a very wild beast," says Muller, "of prodigious strength, and
+false and wicked to the last degree. If any one approached he rose up
+slowly with a low growl, fixed his eyes in the direction in which he
+meant to make his attack, slowly passed his hand between the bars of his
+cage, and then extending his long arm, gave a sudden grip--usually at
+the face." He never tried to bite (though Orangs will bite one another),
+his great weapons of offence and defence being his hands.
+
+His intelligence was very great; and Muller remarks, that though the
+faculties of the Orang have been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had
+he seen this specimen, would not have considered its intelligence to be
+only a little higher than that of the dog.
+
+His hearing was very acute, but the sense of vision seemed to be less
+perfect. The under lip was the great organ of touch, and played a very
+important part in drinking, being thrust out like a trough, so as either
+to catch the falling rain, or to receive the contents of the half
+cocoa-nut shell full of water with which the Orang was supplied, and
+which, in drinking, he poured into the trough thus formed.
+
+In Borneo the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes by the name of "Mias" among
+the Dyaks, who distinguish several kinds as 'Mias Pappan', or 'Zimo',
+'Mias Kassu', and 'Mias Rambi'. Whether these are distinct species,
+however, or whether they are mere races, and how far any of them are
+identical with the Sumatran Orang, as Mr. Wallace thinks the Mias Pappan
+to be, are problems which are at present undecided; and the variability
+of these great apes is so extensive, that the settlement of the question
+is a matter of great difficulty. Of the form called "Mias Pappan," Mr.
+Wallace* observes, ([Footnote] *On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo,
+'Annals of Natural History', 1856.) "It is known by its large size, and
+by the lateral expansion of the face into fatty protuberances, or
+ridges, over the temporal muscles, which has been mis-termed
+'callosities', as they are perfectly soft, smooth, and flexible. Five of
+this form, measured by me, varied only from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2
+inches in height, from the heel to the crown of the head, the girth of
+the body from 3 feet to 3 feet 7 1/2 inches, and the extent of the
+outstretched arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches; the width of
+the face from 10 to 13 1/4 inches. The colour and length of the hair
+varied in different individuals, and in different parts of the same
+individual; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the great toe, others
+none at all; but they otherwise present no external differences on which
+to establish even varieties of a species.
+
+"Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals, we find
+remarkable differences of form, proportion, and dimension, no two being
+exactly alike. The slope of the profile, and the projection of the
+muzzle, together with the size of the cranium, offer differences as
+decided as those existing between the most strongly marked forms of the
+Caucasian and African crania in the human species. The orbits vary in
+width and height, the cranial ridge is either single or double, either
+much or little developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies considerably
+in size. This variation in the proportions of the crania enables us
+satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented by the
+single-crested and double-crested skulls, which have been thought to
+prove the existence of two large species of Orang. The external surface
+of the skull varies considerably in size, as do also the zygomatic
+aperture and the temporal muscle; but they bear no necessary relation to
+each other, a small muscle often existing with a large cranial surface,
+and 'vice versa'. Now, those skulls which have the largest and strongest
+jaws and the widest zygomatic aperture, have the muscles so large that
+they meet on the crown of the skull, and deposit the bony ridge which
+supports them, and which is the highest in that which has the smallest
+cranial surface. In those which combine a large surface with
+comparatively weak jaws, and small zygomatic aperture, the muscles, on
+each side, do not extend to the crown, a space of from l to 2 inches
+remaining between them, and along their margins small ridges are formed.
+Intermediate forms are found, in which the ridges meet only in the
+hinder part of the skull. The form and size of the ridges are therefore
+independent of age, being sometimes more strongly developed in the less
+aged animal. Professor Temminck states that the series of skulls in the
+Leyden Museum shows the same result."
+
+Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs (Mias Kassu of the Dyaks),
+however, so very different from any of these that he concludes them to
+be specifically distinct; they were respectively 3 feet 8 1/2 inches and
+3 feet 9 1/2 inches high, and possessed no sign of the cheek
+excrescences, but otherwise resembled the larger kinds. The skull has no
+crest, but two bony ridges, 1 3/4 inches to 2 inches apart, as in the
+'Simia morio' of Professor Owen. The teeth, however; are immense,
+equalling or surpassing those of the other species. The females of both
+these kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, are devoid of excrescences, and
+resemble the smaller males, but are shorter by 1 1/2 to 3 inches, and
+their canine teeth are comparatively small, subtruncated and dilated at
+the base, as in the so-called 'Simia morio', which is, in all
+probability, the skull of a female of the same species as the smaller
+males. Both males and females of this smaller species are
+distinguishable, according to Mr. Wallace, by the comparatively large
+size of the middle incisors of the upper jaw.
+
+So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to dispute the accuracy of
+the statements which I have just quoted regarding the habits of the two
+Asiatic man-like Apes; and if true, they must be admitted as evidence,
+that such an Ape--
+
+Firstly, May readily move along the ground in the erect, or semi-erect,
+position, and without direct support from its arms.
+
+Secondly, That it may possess an extremely loud voice, so loud as to be
+readily heard one or two miles.
+
+Thirdly, That it may be capable of great viciousness and violence when
+irritated: and this is especially true of adult males.
+
+Fourthly, That it may build a nest to sleep in.
+
+Such being well established facts respecting the Asiatic Anthropoids,
+analogy alone might justify us in expecting the African species to offer
+similar peculiarities, separately or combined; or, at any rate, would
+destroy the force of any attempted a priori argument against such direct
+testimony as might be adduced in favour of their existence. And, if the
+organization of any of the African Apes could be demonstrated to fit it
+better than either of its Asiatic allies for the erect position and for
+efficient attack, there would be still less reason for doubting its
+occasional adoption of the upright attitude or of aggressive
+proceedings.
+
+From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downwards, the habits of the young
+CHIMPANZEE in a state of captivity have been abundantly reported and
+commented upon. But trustworthy evidence as to the manners and customs
+of adult anthropoids of this species, in their native woods, was almost
+wanting up to the time of the publication of the paper by Dr. Savage, to
+which I have already referred; containing notes of the observations
+which he made, and of the information which he collected from sources
+which he considered trustworthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the
+north-western limit of the Bight of Benin.
+
+The adult Chimpanzees, measured by Dr. Savage, never exceeded, though
+the males may almost attain, five feet in height.
+
+"When at rest, the sitting posture is that generally assumed. They are
+sometimes seen standing and walking, but when thus detected, they
+immediately take to all fours, and flee from the presence of the
+observer. Such is their organization that they cannot stand erect, but
+lean forward. Hence they are seen, when standing, with the hands clasped
+over the occiput, or the lumbar region, which would seem necessary to
+balance or ease of posture.
+
+"The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned inwards, and
+cannot be perfectly straightened. In the attempt the skin gathers into
+thick folds on the back, shewing that the full expansion of the foot, as
+is necessary in walking, is unnatural. The natural position is on all
+fours, the body anteriorly resting upon the knuckles. These are greatly
+enlarged, with the skin protuberant and thickened like the sole of the
+foot.
+
+"They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from their organization.
+In their gambols they swing from limb to limb to a great distance, and
+leap with astonishing agility. It is not unusual to see the 'old folks'
+(in the language of an observer) sitting under a tree regaling
+themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their 'children' are
+leaping around them, and swinging from tree to tree with boisterous
+merriment.
+
+"As seen here, they cannot be called 'gregarious', seldom more than
+five, or ten at most, being found together. It has been said, on good
+authority, that they occasionally assemble in large numbers, in gambols.
+My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so engaged;
+hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is
+done in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities.
+They do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever
+really, on the defensive. When about to be captured, they resist by
+throwing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to draw him
+into contact with their teeth." (Savage, l. c. p. 384.)
+
+With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is very explicit in another
+place:
+
+"BITING is their principal art of defence. I have seen one man who had
+been thus severely wounded in the feet.
+
+"The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult would seem to
+indicate a carnivorous propensity; but in no state save that of
+domestication do they manifest it. At first they reject flesh, but
+easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and
+evidently designed to act the important part of weapons of defence. When
+in contact with man almost the first effort of the animal is--TO BITE.
+
+"They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations in trees.
+Their construction is more that of NESTS than HUTS, as they have been
+erroneously termed by some naturalists. They generally build not far
+above the ground. Branches or twigs are bent, or partly broken, and
+crossed, and the whole supported by the body of a limb or a crotch.
+Sometimes a nest will be found near the END of a STRONG LEAFY BRANCH
+twenty or thirty feet from the ground. One I have lately seen that could
+not be less than forty feet, and more probably it was fifty. But this is
+an unusual height.
+
+"Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in pursuit of food
+and solitude, according to the force of circumstances. We more often see
+them in elevated places; but this arises from the fact that the low
+grounds, being more favourable for the natives' rice-farms, are the
+oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in suitable trees
+for their nests...It is seldom that more than one or two nests are seen
+upon the same tree, or in the same neighbourhood: five have been found,
+but it was an unusual circumstance."...
+
+"They are very filthy in their habits...It is a tradition with the
+natives generally here, that they were once members of their own tribe;
+that for their depraved habits they were expelled from all human
+society, and, that through an obstinate indulgence of their vile
+propensities, they have degenerated into their present state and
+organization. They are, however, eaten by them, and when cooked with the
+oil and pulp of the palm-nut considered a highly palatable morsel.
+
+"They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their habits, and,
+on the part of the mother, much affection for their young. The second
+female described was upon a tree when first discovered, with her mate
+and two young ones (a male and a female). Her first impulse was to
+descend with great rapidity, and make off into the thicket, with her
+mate and female offspring. The young male remaining behind, she soon
+returned to the rescue. She ascended and took him in her arms, at which
+moment she was shot, the ball passing through the forearm of the young
+one, on its way to the heart of the mother....
+
+"In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, remained upon the tree
+with her offspring, watching intently the movements of the hunter. As he
+took aim, she motioned with her hand, precisely in the manner of a human
+being, to have him desist and go away. When the wound has not proved
+instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by
+pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to
+apply leaves and grass...When shot, they give a sudden screech, not
+unlike that of a human being in sudden and acute distress."
+
+The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however, is affirmed to be hoarse,
+guttural, and not very loud, somewhat like "whoo-whoo." (l. c. p. 365).
+
+The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, in its nest-building habit
+and in the mode of forming its nest, is exceedingly interesting; while,
+on the other hand, the activity of this ape, and its tendency to bite,
+are particulars in which it rather resembles the Gibbons. In extent of
+geographical range, again, the Chimpanzees--which are found from Sierra
+Leone to Congo--remind one of the Gibbons, rather than of either of the
+other man-like apes; and it seems not unlikely that, as is the case with
+the Gibbons, there may be several species spread over the geographical
+area of the genus.
+
+The same excellent observer, from whom I have borrowed the preceding
+account of the habits of the adult Chimpanzee, published fifteen years
+ago,* an account of the GORILLA, which has, in its most essential
+points, been confirmed by subsequent observers, and to which so very
+little has really been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage I give it
+almost in full. ([Footnote] *Notice of the external characters and
+habits of Troglodytes Gorilla. 'Boston Journal of Natural History',
+1847.)
+
+"It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon the statements
+of the aborigines of that region (the Gaboon). In this connection, it
+may also be proper for me to remark, that having been a missionary
+resident for several years, studying, from habitual intercourse, the
+African mind and character, I felt myself prepared to discriminate and
+decide upon the probability of their statements. Besides, being familiar
+with the history and habits of its interesting congener ('Trog. niger',
+Geoff.), I was able to separate their accounts of the two animals,
+which, having the same locality and a similarity of habit, are
+confounded in the minds of the mass, especially as but few--such as
+traders to the interior and huntsmen--have ever seen the animal in
+question.
+
+(FIGURE 10.--The Gorilla (after Wolff).)
+
+"The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, and whose
+territory forms its habitat, is the 'Mpongwe', occupying both banks of
+the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty or sixty miles upward....
+
+"If the word 'Pongo' be of African origin, it is probably a corruption
+of the word 'Mpongwe', the name of the tribe on the banks of the Gaboon,
+and hence applied to the region they inhabit. Their local name for the
+Chimpanzee is 'Enche-eko', as near as it can be Anglicized, from which
+the common term 'Jocko' probably comes. The Mpongwe appellation for its
+new congener is 'Enge-ena', prolonging the sound of the first vowel, and
+slightly sounding the second.
+
+"The habitat of the 'Enge-ena' is the interior of lower Guinea, whilst
+that of the 'Enche-eko' is nearer the sea-board.
+
+"Its height is about five feet; it is disproportionately broad across
+the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, which is said to
+be similar in its arrangement to that of the 'Enche-eko'; with age it
+becomes grey, which fact has given rise to the report that both animals
+are seen of different colours.
+
+"HEAD.--The prominent features of the head are, the great width and
+elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region, the branches of
+the lower jaw being very deep and extending far backward, and the
+comparative smallness of the cranial portion; the eyes are very large,
+and said to be like those of the Enche-eko, a bright hazel; nose broad
+and flat, slightly elevated towards the root; the muzzle broad, and
+prominent lips and chin, with scattered gray hairs; the under lip highly
+mobile, and capable of great elongation when the animal is enraged, then
+hanging over the chin; skin of the face and ears naked, and of a dark
+brown, approaching to black.
+
+"The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, or crest of
+hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which meets posteriorily
+with a transverse ridge of the same, but less prominent, running round
+from the back of one ear to the other. The animal has the power of
+moving the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged is said to
+contract it strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge
+and pointing the hair forward, so as to present an indescribably
+ferocious aspect.
+
+"Neck short, thick, and hairy; chest and shoulders very broad, said to
+be fully double the size of the Enche-ekos; arms very long, reaching
+some way below the knee--the fore-arm much the shortest; hands very
+large, the thumbs much larger than the fingers...
+
+(FIGURE 11.--Gorilla walking (after Wolff).)
+
+"The gait is shuffling; the motion of the body, which is never upright
+as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side.
+The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much in
+walking; like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting its arms
+forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then giving the body a
+half jumping half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said
+not to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its
+knuckles, but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand. When it
+assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to be much inclined, it
+balances its huge body by flexing its arms upward.
+
+"They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the Chimpanzees: the
+females generally exceed the other sex in number. My informants all
+agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in a band; that
+when the young males grow up, a contest takes place for mastery, and the
+strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as
+the head of the community."
+
+Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the Gorillas carrying off women
+and vanquishing elephants and then adds:
+
+"Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those of the
+Chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy branches,
+supported by the crotches and limbs of trees: they afford no shelter,
+and are occupied only at night.
+
+"They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits,
+never running from man, as does the Chimpanzee. They are objects of
+terror to the natives, and are never encountered by them except on the
+defensive. The few that have been captured were killed by elephant
+hunters and native traders, as they came suddenly upon them while
+passing through the forests.
+
+"It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell,
+that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh-ah!
+kh-ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at each
+expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and
+scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of
+indescribable ferocity.
+
+"The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He then
+approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in
+quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach with his gun extended:
+if his aim is not sure, he permits the animal to grasp the barrel, and
+as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he fires. Should the
+gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of the ordinary musket, which is
+thin) is crushed between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal
+to the hunter.
+
+"In the wild state, their habits are in general like those of the
+'Troglodytes niger', building their nests loosely in trees, living on
+similar fruits, and changing their place of resort from force of
+circumstances."
+
+Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and supplemented by those of
+Mr. Ford, who communicated an interesting paper on the Gorilla to the
+Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1852. With respect to the
+geographical distribution of this greatest of all the man-like Apes, Mr.
+Ford remarks:
+
+"This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse the interior
+of Guinea, from the Cameroon in the north, to Angola in the south, and
+about 100 miles inland, and called by the geographers Crystal Mountains.
+The limit to which this animal extends, either north or south, I am
+unable to define. But that limit is doubtless some distance north of
+this river (Gaboon). I was able to certify myself of this fact in a late
+excursion to the head-waters of the Mooney (Danger) River, which comes
+into the sea some sixty miles from this place. I was informed (credibly,
+I think) that they were numerous among the mountains in which that river
+rises, and far north of that.
+
+"In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am told by
+native traders who have visited the coast between the Gaboon and that
+river. Beyond that, I am not informed. This animal is only found at a
+distance from the coast in most cases, and, according to my best
+information, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the south side of
+this river, where they have been found within ten miles of the sea.
+This, however, is only of late occurrence. I am informed by some of the
+oldest Mpongwe men that formerly he was only found on the sources of the
+river, but that at present he may be found within half-a-day's walk of
+its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where Bushmen
+alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe plantations.
+This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of information in years
+past, as the opportunities for receiving a knowledge of the animal have
+not been wanting; traders having for one hundred years frequented this
+river, and specimens, such as have been brought here within a year,
+could not have been exhibited without having attracted the attention of
+the most stupid."
+
+One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed 170 1bs., without the thoracic,
+or pelvic, viscera, and measured four feet four inches round the chest.
+This writer describes so minutely and graphically the onslaught of the
+Gorilla--though he does not for a moment pretend to have witnessed the
+scene--that I am tempted to give this part of his paper in full, for
+comparison with other narratives:
+
+"He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though he approaches
+his antagonist in a stooping posture.
+
+"Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or scents a
+man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, prepares for an
+attack, and always acts on the offensive. The cry he utters resembles a
+grunt more than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee,
+when irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great
+distance. His preparation consists in attending the females and young
+ones, by whom he is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He,
+however, soon returns, with his crest erect and projecting forward, his
+nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down; at the same time
+uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify
+his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a well directed
+shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antagonist with the palm of
+his hands, or seizing him with a grasp from which there is no escape, he
+dashes him upon the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks.
+
+"He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel between
+his teeth...This animal's savage nature is very well shown by the
+implacable desperation of a young one that was brought here. It was
+taken very young, and kept four months, and many means were used to tame
+it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it died."
+
+Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and elephant-driving stories, and
+says that no well-informed natives believe them. They are tales told to
+children.
+
+I might quote other testimony to a similar effect, but, as it appears to
+me, less carefully weighed and sifted, from the letters of MM. Franquet
+and Gautier Laboullay, appended to the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire,
+which I have already cited.
+
+Bearing in mind what is known regarding the Orang and the Gibbon, the
+statements of Dr. Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear to me to be justly
+open to criticism on 'a priori' grounds. The Gibbons, as we have seen,
+readily assume the erect posture, but the Gorilla is far better fitted
+by its organization for that attitude than are the Gibbons: if the
+laryngeal pouches of the Gibbons, as is very likely, are important in
+giving volume to a voice which can be heard for half a league, the
+Gorilla, which has similar sacs, more largely developed, and whose bulk
+is fivefold that of a Gibbon, may well be audible for twice that
+distance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the Gibbons and
+Chimpanzees with their teeth, the Gorilla may, probably enough, do
+either or both; nor is there anything to be said against either
+Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is proved that the
+Orang-Utan habitually performs that feat.
+
+With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years old, before the world
+it is not a little surprising that the assertions of a recent traveller,
+who, so far as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very little more
+than repeat, on his own authority, the statements of Savage and of Ford,
+should have met with so much and such bitter opposition. If subtraction
+be made of what was known before, the sum and substance of what M. Du
+Chaillu has affirmed as a matter of his own observation respecting the
+Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the attack, the great brute beats his
+chest with his fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable, or very
+much worth disputing about, in this statement.
+
+With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells
+us absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the common
+Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species or variety, the
+'nschiego mbouve', which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare
+kind with a comparatively small face, large facial angle, and peculiar
+note, resembling "Kooloo."
+
+As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of leaves, and the
+common Chimpanzee, according to that eminently trustworthy observer Dr.
+Savage, makes a sound like "Whoo-whoo,"--the grounds of the summary
+repudiation with which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these matters have
+been met are not obvious.
+
+If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's work, then, it is not
+because I discern any inherent improbability in his assertions
+respecting the man-like Apes; nor from any wish to throw suspicion on
+his veracity; but because, in my opinion, so long as his narrative
+remains in its present state of unexplained and apparently inexplicable
+confusion, it has no claim to original authority respecting any subject
+whatsoever.
+
+It may be truth, but it is not evidence.
+
+End of Man-like apes.
+
+***
+
+
+ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.
+
+Multis videri poterit, majorem esso differentiam Simiae et Hominis, quam
+diei et noctis; verum tamen hi, comparatione instituta inter summos
+Europae Heroes et Hottentottos ad Caput bonae spei degentes,
+difficillime sibi persuadebunt, has eosdem habere natales; vel si
+virginem nobilem aulicam, maxime comtam et humanissimam, conferre
+vellent cum homine sylvestri et sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc
+et illam ejusdem esse speciei.--'Linnaei Amoenitates Acad.
+"Anthropomorpha."'
+
+The question of questions for mankind--the problem which underlies all
+others, and is more deeply interesting than any other--is the
+ascertainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his
+relations to the universe of things. Whence our race has come; what are
+the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power over us; to
+what goal we are tending; are the problems which present themselves anew
+and with undiminished interest to every man born into the world. Most of
+us, shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker
+after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them
+altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed
+of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two
+restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only
+build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of mere
+scepticism, are unable to follow in the well-worn and comfortable track
+of their forefathers and contemporaries, and unmindful of thorns and
+stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of their own. The sceptics end
+in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the
+atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and
+governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions which grow
+into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language
+which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an
+epoch.
+
+Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the
+followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and
+final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century,
+or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to
+have been a mere approximation to the truth--tolerable chiefly on
+account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly
+intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.
+
+In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn between the life of man and
+the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly; but the
+comparison may be more just as well as more novel, if for its former
+term we take the mental progress of the race. History shows that the
+human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows
+too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to
+appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at
+intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another, itself but
+temporary. Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant,
+but every moult is a step gained, and of such there have been many.
+
+Since the revival of learning, whereby the Western races of Europe were
+enabled to enter upon that progress towards true knowledge, which was
+commenced by the philosophers of Greece, but was almost arrested in
+subsequent long ages of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration,
+the human larva has been feeding vigorously, and moulting in proportion.
+A skin of some dimension was cast in the 16th century, and another
+towards the end of the 18th, while, within the last fifty years, the
+extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread
+among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a
+new ecdysis seems imminent. But this is a process not unusually
+accompanied by many throes and some sickness and debility, or, it may
+be, by graver disturbances; so that every good citizen must feel bound
+to facilitate the process, and even if he have nothing but a scalpel to
+work withal, to ease the cracking integument to the best of his ability.
+
+In this duty lies my excuse for the publication of these essays. For it
+will be admitted that some knowledge of man's position in the animate
+world is an indispensable preliminary to the proper understanding of his
+relations to the universe--and this again resolves itself, in the long
+run, into an inquiry into the nature and the closeness of the ties which
+connect him with those singular creatures whose history* has been
+sketched in the preceding pages. ([Footnote] * It will be understood
+that, in the preceding Essay, I have selected for notice from the vast
+mass of papers which have been written upon the man-like Apes, only
+those which seem to me to be of special moment.)
+
+The importance of such an inquiry is indeed intuitively manifest Brought
+face to face with these blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful
+of men is conscious of a certain shock, due perhaps, not so much to
+disgust at the aspect of what looks like an insulting caricature, as to
+the awakening of a sudden and profound mistrust of time-honoured
+theories and strongly-rooted prejudices regarding his own position in
+nature, and his relations to the under-world of life; while that which
+remains a dim suspicion for the unthinking, becomes a vast argument,
+fraught with the deepest consequences, for all who are acquainted with
+the recent progress of the anatomical and physiological sciences.
+
+I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, and to set forth, in a
+form intelligible to those who possess no special acquaintance with
+anatomical science, the chief facts upon which all conclusions
+respecting the nature and the extent of the bonds which connect man with
+the brute world must be based: I shall then indicate the one immediate
+conclusion which, in my judgment, is justified by those facts, and I
+shall finally discuss the bearing of that conclusion upon the hypotheses
+which have been entertained respecting the Origin of Man.
+
+The facts to which I would first direct the reader's attention, though
+ignored by many of the professed instructors of the public mind, are
+easy of demonstration and are universally agreed to by men of science;
+while their significance is so great, that whoso has duly pondered over
+them will, I think, find little to startle him in the other revelations
+of Biology. I refer to those facts which have been made known by the
+study of Development.
+
+It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, application, that every
+living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and
+simpler than, that which it eventually attains.
+
+(FIGURE 12.--A. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline membrane burst, so as
+to give exit to the yolk, the germinal vesicle (a), and its included
+spot (b). B. C. D. E F. Successive changes of the yolk indicated in the
+text. After Bischoff.)
+
+The oak is a more complex thing than the little rudimentary plant
+contained in the acorn; the caterpillar is more complex than the egg;
+the butterfly than the caterpillar; and each of these beings, in passing
+from its rudimentary to its perfect condition, runs through a series of
+changes, the sum of which is called its Development. In the higher
+animals these changes are extremely complicated; but, within the last
+half century, the labours of such men as Von Baer, Rathke, Reichert,
+Bischoff, and Remak, have almost completely unravelled them, so that the
+successive stages of development which are exhibited by a Dog, for
+example, are now as well known to the embryologist as are the steps of
+the metamorphosis of the silkworm moth to the school-boy. It will be
+useful to consider with attention the nature and the order of the stages
+of canine development, as an example of the process in the higher
+animals generally.
+
+The Dog, like all animals, save the very lowest (and further inquiries
+may not improbably remove the apparent exception), commences its
+existence as an egg: as a body which is, in every sense, as much an egg
+as that of a hen, but is devoid of that accumulation of nutritive matter
+which confers upon the bird's egg its exceptional size and domestic
+utility; and wants the shell, which would not only be useless to an
+animal incubated within the body of its parent, but would cut it off
+from access to the source of that nutriment which the young creature
+requires, but which the minute egg of the mammal does not contain within
+itself.
+
+The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag (Figure 12), formed
+of a delicate transparent membrane called the 'vitelline membrane', and
+about 1/130 to 1/120th of an inch in diameter. It contains a mass of
+viscid nutritive matter--the 'yelk'--within which is inclosed a second
+much more delicate spheroidal bag, called the 'germinal vesicle' (a). In
+this, lastly, lies a more solid rounded body, termed the 'germinal spot'
+(b).
+
+The egg, or 'Ovum,' is originally formed within a gland, from which, in
+due season, it becomes detached, and passes into the living chamber
+fitted for its protection and maintenance during the protracted process
+of gestation. Here, when subjected to the required conditions, this
+minute and apparently insignificant particle of living matter becomes
+animated by a new and mysterious activity. The germinal vesicle and spot
+cease to be discernible (their precise fate being one of the yet
+unsolved problems of embryology), but the yelk becomes circumferentially
+indented, as if an invisible knife had been drawn round it, and thus
+appears divided into two hemispheres (Figure 12, C).
+
+By the repetition of this process in various planes, these hemispheres
+become subdivided, so that four segments are produced (D); and these, in
+like manner, divide and subdivide again, until the whole yelk is
+converted into a mass of granules, each of which consists of a minute
+spheroid of yelk-substance, inclosing a central particle, the so-called
+'nucleus' (F). Nature, by this process, has attained much the same
+result as that at which a human artificer arrives by his operations in a
+brickfield. She takes the rough plastic material of the yelk and breaks
+it up into well-shaped tolerably even-sized masses, handy for building
+up into any part of the living edifice.
+
+(FIGURE 13.--Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Rudiment further advanced,
+showing the foundations of the head, tail, and vertebral column. C. The
+very young puppy, with attached ends of the yelk-sac and allantois, and
+invested in the amnion.)
+
+Next, the mass of organic bricks, or 'cells' as they are technically
+called, thus formed, acquires an orderly arrangement, becoming converted
+into a hollow spheroid with double walls. Then, upon one side of this
+spheroid, appears a thickening, and, by and bye, in the centre of the
+area of thickening, a straight shallow groove (Figure 13, A) marks the
+central line of the edifice which is to be raised, or, in other words,
+indicates the position of the middle line of the body of the future dog.
+The substance bounding the groove on each side next rises up into a
+fold, the rudiment of the side wall of that long cavity, which will
+eventually lodge the spinal marrow and the brain; and in the floor of
+this chamber appears a solid cellular cord, the so-called 'notochord.'
+One end of the inclosed cavity dilates to form the head (Figure 13, B),
+the other remains narrow, and eventually becomes the tail; the side
+walls of the body are fashioned out of the downward continuation of the
+walls of the groove; and from them, by and bye, grow out little buds
+which, by degrees, assume the shape of limbs. Watching the fashioning
+process stage by stage, one is forcibly reminded of the modeller in
+clay. Every part, every organ, is at first, as it were, pinched up
+rudely, and sketched out in the rough; then shaped more accurately; and
+only, at last, receives the touches which stamp its final character.
+
+Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes such a form as is shown in
+Figure 13, C. In this condition it has a disproportionately large head,
+as dissimilar to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs are unlike his
+legs.
+
+The remains of the yelk, which have not yet been applied to the
+nutrition and growth of the young animal, are contained in a sac
+attached to the rudimentary intestine, and termed the yelk sac, or
+'umbilical vesicle.' Two membranous bags, intended to subserve
+respectively the protection and nutrition of the young creature, have
+been developed from the skin and from the under and hinder surface of
+the body; the former, the so-called 'amnion,' is a sac filled with
+fluid, which invests the whole body of the embryo, and plays the part of
+a sort of water-bed for it; the other, termed the 'allantois,' grows
+out, loaded with blood-vessels, from the ventral region, and eventually
+applying itself to the walls of the cavity, in which the developing
+organism is contained, enables these vessels to become the channel by
+which the stream of nutriment, required to supply the wants of the
+offspring, is furnished to it by the parent.
+
+The structure which is developed by the interlacement of the vessels of
+the offspring with those of the parent, and by means of which the former
+is enabled to receive nourishment and to get rid of effete matters, is
+termed the 'Placenta.'
+
+It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for my present purpose, to
+trace the process of development further; suffice it to say, that, by a
+long and gradual series of changes, the rudiment here depicted and
+described becomes a puppy, is born, and then, by still slower and less
+perceptible steps, passes into the adult Dog.
+
+There is not much apparent resemblance between a barndoor Fowl and the
+Dog who protects the farm-yard. Nevertheless the student of development
+finds, not only that the chick commences its existence as an egg,
+primarily identical, in all essential respects, with that of the Dog,
+but that the yelk of this egg undergoes division--that the primitive
+groove arises, and that the contiguous parts of the germ are fashioned,
+by precisely similar methods, into a young chick, which, at one stage of
+its existence, is so like the nascent Dog, that ordinary inspection
+would hardly distinguish the two.
+
+The history of the development of any other vertebrate animal, Lizard,
+Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells the same story. There is always, to begin
+with, an egg having the same essential structure as that of the
+Dog:--the yelk of that egg always undergoes division, or 'segmentation'
+as it is often called: the ultimate products of that segmentation
+constitute the building materials for the body of the young animal; and
+this is built up round a primitive groove, in the floor of which a
+notochord is developed. Furthermore, there is a period in which the
+young of all these animals resemble one another, not merely in outward
+form, but in all essentials of structure, so closely, that the
+differences between them are inconsiderable, while, in their subsequent
+course, they diverge more and more widely from one another. And it is a
+general law, that, the more closely any animals resemble one another in
+adult structure, the longer and the more intimately do their embryos
+resemble one another: so that, for example, the embryos of a Snake and
+of a Lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a Snake and
+of a Bird; and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like one another
+for a far longer period than do those of a Dog and a Bird; or of a Dog
+and an Opossum; or even than those of a Dog and a Monkey.
+
+Thus the study of development affords a clear test of closeness of
+structural affinity, and one turns with impatience to inquire what
+results are yielded by the study of the development of Man. Is he
+something apart? Does he originate in a totally different way from Dog,
+Bird, Frog, and Fish, thus justifying those who assert him to have no
+place in nature and no real affinity with the lower world of animal
+life? Or does he originate in a similar germ, pass through the same slow
+and gradually progressive modifications,--depend on the same
+contrivances for protection and nutrition, and finally enter the world
+by the help of the same mechanism? The reply is not doubtful for a
+moment, and has not been doubtful any time these thirty years. Without
+question, the mode of origin and the early stages of the development of
+man are identical with those of the animals immediately below him in the
+scale:--without a doubt, in these respects, he is far nearer the Apes,
+than the Apes are to the Dog.
+
+The Human ovum is about l/125 of an inch in diameter, and might be
+described in the same terms as that of the Dog, so that I need only
+refer to the figure illustrative (14 A) of its structure. It leaves the
+organ in which it is formed in a similar fashion and enters the organic
+chamber prepared for its reception in the same way, the conditions of
+its development being in all respects the same. It has not yet been
+possible (and only by some rare chance can it ever be possible) to study
+the human ovum in so early a developmental stage as that of yelk
+division, but there is every reason to conclude that the changes it
+undergoes are identical with those exhibited by the ova of other
+vertebrated animals; for the formative materials of which the
+rudimentary human body is composed, in the earliest conditions in which
+it has been observed, are the same as those of other animals. Some of
+these earliest stages are figured below, and, as will be seen, they are
+strictly comparable to the very early states of the Dog; the marvellous
+correspondence between the two which is kept up, even for some time, as
+development advances, becoming apparent by the simple comparison of the
+figures with those on page 249.
+
+(FIGURE 14.--A. Human ovum (after Kolliker). a. germinal vesicle. b.
+germinal spot. B. A very early condition of Man, with yelk-sac,
+allantois, and amnion (original). C. A more advanced stage (after
+Kolliker), compare Figure 13, C.
+
+Indeed, it is very long before the body of the young human being can be
+readily discriminated from that of the young puppy; but, at a tolerably
+early period, the two become distinguishable by the different form of
+their adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois. The former, in the Dog,
+becomes long and spindle-shaped, while in Man it remains spherical; the
+latter, in the Dog, attains an extremely large size, and the vascular
+processes which are developed from it and eventually give rise to the
+formation of the placenta (taking root, as it were, in the parental
+organism, so as to draw nourishment therefrom, as the root of a tree
+extracts it from the soil) are arranged in an encircling zone, while in
+Man, the allantois remains comparatively small, and its vascular
+rootlets are eventually restricted to one disk-like spot. Hence, while
+the placenta of the Dog is like a girdle, that of Man has the cake-like
+form, indicated by the name of the organ.
+
+But, exactly in those respects in which the developing Man differs from
+the Dog, he resembles the ape, which, like man, has a spheroidal
+yelk-sac and a discoidal--sometimes partially lobed--placenta.
+
+So that it is only quite in the later stages of development that the
+young human being presents marked differences from the young ape, while
+the latter departs as much from the dog in its development, as the man
+does.
+
+Startling as the last assertion may appear to be, it is demonstrably
+true, and it alone appears to me sufficient to place beyond all doubt
+the structural unity of man with the rest of the animal world, and more
+particularly and closely with the apes.
+
+Thus, identical in the physical processes by which he
+originates--identical in the early stages of his formation--identical in
+the mode of his nutrition before and after birth, with the animals which
+lie immediately below him in the scale--Man, if his adult and perfect
+structure be compared with theirs, exhibits, as might be expected, a
+marvellous likeness of organization. He resembles them as they resemble
+one another--he differs from them as they differ from one another.--And,
+though these differences and resemblances cannot be weighed and
+measured, their value may be readily estimated; the scale or standard of
+judgment, touching that value, being afforded and expressed by the
+system of classification of animals now current among zoologists.
+
+A careful study of the resemblances and differences presented by animals
+has, in fact, led naturalists to arrange them into groups, or
+assemblages, all the members of each group presenting a certain amount
+of definable resemblance, and the number of points of similarity being
+smaller as the group is larger and 'vice versa'. Thus, all creatures
+which agree only in presenting the few distinctive marks of animality
+form the 'Kingdom' ANIMALIA. The numerous animals which agree only in
+possessing the special characters of Vertebrates form one 'Sub-Kingdom'
+of this Kingdom. Then the Sub-kingdom VERTEBRATA is subdivided into the
+five 'Classes,' Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, and
+these into smaller groups called 'Orders'; these into 'Families' and
+'Genera'; while the last are finally broken up into the smallest
+assemblages, which are distinguished by the possession of constant,
+not-sexual, characters. These ultimate groups are Species.
+
+Every year tends to bring about a greater uniformity of opinion
+throughout the zoological world as to the limits and characters of these
+groups, great and small. At present, for example, no one has the least
+doubt regarding the characters of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or
+Reptilia; nor does the question arise whether any thoroughly well-known
+animal should be placed in one class or the other. Again, there is a
+very general agreement respecting the characters and limits of the
+orders of Mammals, and as to the animals which are structurally
+necessitated to take a place in one or another order.
+
+No one doubts, for example, that the Sloth and the Ant-eater, the
+Kangaroo and the Opossum, the Tiger and the Badger, the Tapir and the
+Rhinoceros, are respectively members of the same orders. These
+successive pairs of animals may, and some do, differ from one another
+immensely, in such matters as the proportions and structure of their
+limbs; the number of their dorsal and lumbar vertebrae; the adaptation
+of their frames to climbing, leaping, or running; the number and form of
+their teeth; and the characters of their skulls and of the contained
+brain. But, with all these differences, they are so closely connected in
+all the more important and fundamental characters of their organization,
+and so distinctly separated by these same characters from other animals,
+that zoologists find it necessary to group them together as members of
+one order. And if any new animal were discovered, and were found to
+present no greater difference from the Kangaroo and the Opossum, for
+example, than these animals do from one another, the zoologist would not
+only be logically compelled to rank it in the same order with these, but
+he would not think of doing otherwise.
+
+Bearing this obvious course of zoological reasoning in mind, let us
+endeavour for a moment to disconnect our thinking selves from the mask
+of humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific Saturnians, if you
+will, fairly acquainted with such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and
+employed in discussing the relations they bear to a new and singular
+'erect and featherless biped,' which some enterprising traveller,
+overcoming the difficulties of space and gravitation, has brought from
+that distant planet for our inspection, well preserved, may be, in a
+cask of rum. We should all, at once, agree upon placing him among the
+mammalian vertebrates; and his lower jaw, his molars, and his brain,
+would leave no room for doubting the systematic position of the new
+genus among those mammals, whose young are nourished during gestation by
+means of a placenta, or what are called the 'placental mammals.'
+
+Further, the most superficial study would at once convince us that,
+among the orders of placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the
+hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, nor the carnivorous
+Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the
+Insectivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could claim our 'Homo',
+as one of themselves.
+
+There would remain then, but one order for comparison, that of the Apes
+(using that word in its broadest sense), and the question for discussion
+would narrow itself to this--is Man so different from any of these Apes
+that he must form an order by himself? Or does he differ less from them
+than they differ from one another, and hence must take his place in the
+same order with them?
+
+Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, personal interest in the
+results of the inquiry thus set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the
+arguments on one side and on the other, with as much judicial calmness
+as if the question related to a new Opossum. We should endeavour to
+ascertain, without seeking either to magnify or diminish them, all the
+characters by which our new Mammal differed from the Apes; and if we
+found that these were of less structural value, than those which
+distinguish certain members of the Ape order from others universally
+admitted to be of the same order, we should undoubtedly place the newly
+discovered tellurian genus with them.
+
+I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to me to leave us no choice
+but to adopt the last mentioned course.
+
+It is quite certain that the Ape which most nearly approaches man, in
+the totality of its organization, is either the Chimpanzee or the
+Gorilla; and as it makes no practical difference, for the purposes of my
+present argument, which is selected for comparison, on the one hand,
+with Man, and on the other hand, with the rest of the Primates,* I shall
+select the latter (so far as its organization is known)--as a brute now
+so celebrated in prose and verse, that all must have heard of him, and
+have formed some conception of his appearance. ([Footnote] *We are not
+at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain of the Gorilla, and
+therefore, in discussing cerebral characters, I shall take that of the
+Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes.) I shall take up as many
+of the most important points of difference between man and this
+remarkable creature, as the space at my disposal will allow me to
+discuss, and the necessities of the argument demand; and I shall inquire
+into the value and magnitude of these differences, when placed side by
+side with those which separate the Gorilla from other animals of the
+same order.
+
+In the general proportions of the body and limbs there is a remarkable
+difference between the Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the eye.
+The Gorilla's brain-case is smaller, its trunk larger, its lower limbs
+shorter, its upper limbs longer in proportion than those of Man.
+
+I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown Gorilla, in the Museum
+of the Royal College of Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior
+curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or first vertebra of the
+neck, to the lower extremity of the sacrum; that the arm, without the
+hand, is 31-1/2 inches long; that the leg, without the foot, is 26-1/2
+inches long; that the hand is 9-3/4 inches long; the foot 11-1/4 inches
+long.
+
+In other words, taking the length of the spinal column as 100, the arm
+equals 115, the leg 96, the hand 36, and the foot 41.
+
+In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the same collection, the
+proportions, by the same measurement, to the spinal column, taken as
+100, are--the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and the foot 32. In a
+woman of the same race the arm is 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot
+remaining the same. In a European skeleton I find the arm to be 80, the
+leg 117, the hand 26, the foot 35.
+
+Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at first sight, in its
+proportion to the spine in the Gorilla and in the Man--being very
+slightly shorter than the spine in the former, and between 1/10 and 1/5
+longer than the spine in the latter. The foot is longer and the hand
+much longer in the Gorilla; but the great difference is caused by the
+arms, which are very much longer than the spine in the Gorilla, very
+much shorter than the spine in the Man.
+
+The question now arises how are the other Apes related to the Gorilla in
+these respects--taking the length of the spine, measured in the same
+way, at 100. In an adult Chimpanzee, the arm is only 96, the leg 90, the
+hand 43, the foot 39--so that the hand and the leg depart more from the
+human proportion and the arm less, while the foot is about the same as
+in the Gorilla.
+
+In the Orang, the arms are very much longer than in the Gorilla (122),
+while the legs are shorter (88); the foot is longer than the hand (52
+and 48), and both are much longer in proportion to the spine.
+
+In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons, these proportions are
+still further altered; the length of the arms being to that of the
+spinal column as 19 to 11; while the legs are also a third longer than
+the spinal column, so as to be longer than in Man, instead of shorter.
+The hand is half as long as the spinal column, and the foot, shorter
+than the hand, is about 5/11ths of the length of the spinal column.
+
+Thus 'Hylobates' is as much longer in the arms than the Gorilla, as the
+Gorilla is longer in the arms than Man; while, on the other hand, it is
+as much longer in the legs than the Man, as the Man is longer in the
+legs than the Gorilla, so that it contains within itself the extremest
+deviations from the average length of both pairs of limbs (See the
+illustration on page 196).
+
+The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the arms and legs being nearly
+equal in length, and both being shorter than the spinal column; while
+hand and foot have nearly the same proportions to one another and to the
+spine, as in Man.
+
+In the Spider monkey ('Ateles') the leg is longer than the spine, and
+the arm than the leg; and, finally, in that remarkable Lemurine form,
+the Indri ('Lichanotus'), the leg is about as long as the spinal column,
+while the arm is not more than 11/18 of its length; the hand having
+rather less and the foot rather more, than one-third the length of the
+spinal column.
+
+These examples might be greatly multiplied, but they suffice to show
+that, in whatever proportion of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man,
+the other Apes depart still more widely from the Gorilla and that,
+consequently, such differences of proportion can have no ordinal value.
+
+We may next consider the differences presented by the trunk, consisting
+of the vertebral column, or backbone, and the ribs and pelvis, or bony
+hip-basin, which are connected with it, in Man and in the Gorilla
+respectively.
+
+In Man, in consequence partly of the disposition of the articular
+surfaces of the vertebrae, and largely of the elastic tension of some of
+the fibrous bands, or ligaments, which connect these vertebrae together,
+the spinal column, as a whole, has an elegant S-like curvature, being
+convex forwards in the neck, concave in the back, convex in the loins,
+or lumbar region, and concave again in the sacral region; an arrangement
+which gives much elasticity to the whole backbone, and diminishes the
+jar communicated to the spine, and through it to the head, by locomotion
+in the erect position.
+
+Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, Man has seven vertebrae in
+his neck, which are called 'cervical'; twelve succeed these, bearing
+ribs and forming the upper part of the back, whence they are termed
+'dorsal'; five lie in the loins, bearing no distinct, or free, ribs, and
+are called 'lumbar'; five, united together into a great bone, excavated
+in front, solidly wedged in between the hip bones, to form the back of
+the pelvis, and known by the name of the 'sacrum', succeed these; and
+finally, three or four little more or less movable bones, so small as to
+be insignificant, constitute the 'coccyx' or rudimentary tail.
+
+In the Gorilla, the vertebral column is similarly divided into cervical,
+dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal vertebrae, and the total number of
+cervical and dorsal vertebrae, taken together, is the same as in Man;
+but the development of a pair of ribs to the first lumbar vertebra,
+which is an exceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in the Gorilla;
+and hence, as lumbar are distinguished from dorsal vertebrae only by the
+presence or absence of free ribs, the seventeen "dorso-lumbar" vertebrae
+of the Gorilla are divided into thirteen dorsal and four lumbar, while
+in Man they are twelve dorsal and five lumbar.
+
+(FIGURE 15.--Front and side views of the bony pelvis of Man, the Gorilla
+and Gibbon: reduced from drawings made from nature, of the same absolute
+length, by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.)
+
+Not only, however, does Man occasionally possess thirteen pair of ribs,*
+but the Gorilla sometimes has fourteen pairs, while an Orang-Utan
+skeleton in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons has twelve
+dorsal and five lumbar vertebrae, as in Man. ([Footnote] *"More than
+once," says Peter Camper, "have I met with more than six lumbar
+vertebrae in man...Once I found thirteen ribs and four lumbar
+vertebrae." Fallopius noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four lumbar
+vertebrae; and Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebrae and six
+lumbar vertebrae.--'Oeuvres de Pierre Camper', T. 1, p. 42. As Tyson
+states, his 'Pygmie' had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar
+vertebrae. The question of the curves of the spinal column in the Apes
+requires further investigation.) Cuvier notes the same number in a
+'Hylobates'. On the other hand, among the lower Apes, many possess
+twelve dorsal and six or seven lumbar vertebrae; the Douroucouli has
+fourteen dorsal and eight lumbar, and a Lemur ('Stenops tardigradus')
+has fifteen dorsal and nine lumbar vertebrae.
+
+The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, differs from that of
+Man in the less marked character of its curves, especially in the
+slighter convexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, the curves are
+present, and are quite obvious in young skeletons of the Gorilla and
+Chimpanzee which have been prepared without removal of the ligaments. In
+young Orangs similarly preserved, on the other hand, the spinal column
+is either straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the lumbar
+region.
+
+Whether we take these characters then, or such minor ones as those which
+are derivable from the proportional length of the spines of the cervical
+vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt whatsoever as to the marked
+difference between Man and the Gorilla; but there is as little, that
+equally marked differences, of the very same order, obtain between the
+Gorilla and the lower Apes.
+
+The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man is a strikingly human
+part of his organization; the expanded haunch bones affording support
+for his viscera during his habitually erect posture, and giving space
+for the attachment of the great muscles which enable him to assume and
+to preserve that attitude. In these respects the pelvis of the Gorilla
+differs very considerably from his (Figure 15). But go no lower than the
+Gibbon, and see how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla than the
+latter does from Man, even in this structure. Look at the flat, narrow
+haunch bones--the long and narrow passage--the coarse, outwardly curved,
+ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon habitually rests, and which
+are coated by the so-called "callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly
+absent in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in the Orang, as in Man!
+
+In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the difference becomes more
+striking still, the pelvis acquiring an altogether quadrupedal
+character.
+
+But now let us turn to a nobler and more characteristic organ--that by
+which the human frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly
+distinguished from all others,--I mean the skull. The differences
+between a Gorilla's skull and a Man's are truly immense (Figure 16). In
+the former, the face, formed largely by the massive jaw-bones,
+predominates over the brain case, or cranium proper: in the latter, the
+proportions of the two are reversed. In the Man, the occipital foramen,
+through which passes the great nervous cord connecting the brain with
+the nerves of the body, is placed just behind the centre of the base of
+the skull, which thus becomes evenly balanced in the erect posture; in
+the Gorilla, it lies in the posterior third of that base. In the Man,
+the surface of the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supraciliary
+ridges or brow prominences usually project but little--while, in the
+Gorilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and the brow ridges
+overhang, the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses.
+
+Sections of the skulls, however, show that some of the apparent defects
+of the Gorilla's cranium arise, in fact, not so much from deficiency of
+brain case as from excessive development of the parts of the face. The
+cranial cavity is not ill-shaped, and the forehead is not truly
+flattened or very retreating, its really well-formed curve being simply
+disguised by the mass of bone which is built up against it (Figure 16).
+
+But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely into the cranial cavity,
+thus diminishing the space for the lower part of the anterior lobes of
+the brain, and the absolute capacity of the cranium is far less than
+that of Man. So far as I am aware, no human cranium belonging to an
+adult man has yet been observed with a less cubical capacity than 62
+cubic inches, the smallest cranium observed in any race of men by
+Morton, measuring 63 cubic inches; while, on the other hand, the most
+capacious Gorilla skull yet measured has a content of not more than
+34-1/2 cubic inches. Let us assume, for simplicity's sake, that the
+lowest Man's skull has twice the capacity of that of the highest
+Gorilla.* ([Footnote] *It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes
+contain as little as 27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity of
+about 46 cubic inches. The minimum capacity which I have assumed above,
+however, is based upon the valuable tables published by Professor R.
+Wagner in his "Vorstudien zu einer wissenschaftlichen Morphologie und
+Physiologie des menschlichen Gehirns." As the result of the careful
+weighing of more than 900 human brains, Professor Wagner states that
+one-half weighed between 1200 and 1400 grammes, and that about
+two-ninths, consisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400
+grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with sound mental
+faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes. As a gramme equals
+15.4 grains, and a cubic inch of water contains 252.4 grains, this is
+equivalent to 62 cubic inches of water; so that as brain is heavier than
+water, we are perfectly safe against erring on the side of diminution in
+taking this as the smallest capacity of any adult male human brain. The
+only adult male brain, weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of an
+idiot; but the brain of an adult woman, against the soundness of whose
+faculties nothing appears, weighed as little as 907 grammes (55.3 cubic
+inches of water); and Reid gives an adult female brain of still smaller
+capacity. The heaviest brain (1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic inches)
+was, however, that of a woman; next to it comes the brain of Cuvier
+(1861 grammes), then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person
+(1783 grammes). The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was that
+of an idiotic female. The brains of five children, four years old,
+weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes. So that it may be safely said,
+that an average European child of four years old has a brain twice as
+large as that of an adult Gorilla.)
+
+No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but it loses much of its
+apparent systematic value, when viewed by the light of certain other
+equally indubitable facts respecting cranial capacities.
+
+The first of these is, that the difference in the volume of the cranial
+cavity of different races of mankind is far greater, absolutely, than
+that between the lowest Man and the highest Ape, while, relatively, it
+is about the same. For the largest human skull measured by Morton
+contained 114 cubic inches, that is to say, had very nearly double the
+capacity of the smallest; while its absolute preponderance, of 52 cubic
+inches--is far greater than that by which the lowest adult male human
+cranium surpasses the largest of the Gorillas (62 - 34 1/2 = 27 1/2).
+Secondly, the adult crania of Gorillas which have as yet been measured
+differ among themselves by nearly one-third, the maximum capacity being
+34.5 cubic inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches; and, thirdly, after
+making all due allowance for difference of size, the cranial capacities
+of some of the lower Apes fall nearly as much, relatively, below those
+of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man.
+
+Thus, even in the important matter of cranial capacity, Men differ more
+widely from one another than they do from the Apes; while the lowest
+Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the highest, as the latter does
+from Man. The last proposition is still better illustrated by the study
+of the modifications which other parts of the cranium undergo in the
+Simian series.
+
+It is the large proportional size of the facial bones and the great
+projection of the jaws which confers upon the Gorilla's skull its small
+facial angle and brutal character.
+
+(FIGURE 16.--Sections of the skulls of Man and various Apes (Australian,
+Chrysothrix, Gorilla, Cynocephalus, Mycetes, Lemur), drawn so as to give
+the cerebral cavity the same length in each case, thereby displaying the
+varying proportions of the facial bones. The line 'b' indicates the
+plane of the tentorium, which separates the cerebrum from the
+cerebellum; 'd', the axis of the occipital outlet of the skull. The
+extent of cerebral cavity behind 'c', which is a perpendicular erected
+on 'b' at the point where the tentorium is attached posteriorly,
+indicates the degree to which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum--the
+space occupied by which is roughly indicated by the dark shading. In
+comparing these diagrams, it must be recollected, that figures on so
+small a scale as these simply exemplify the statements in the text, the
+proof of which is to be found in the objects themselves.)
+
+But if we consider the proportional size of the facial bones to the
+skull proper only, the little 'Chrysothrix' (Figure 16) differs very
+widely from the Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does; while the
+Baboons ('Cynocephalus', Figure 16) exaggerate the gross proportions of
+the muzzle of the great Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and
+human by comparison with theirs. The difference between the Gorilla and
+the Baboon is even greater than it appears at first sight; for the great
+facial mass of the former is largely due to a downward development of
+the jaws; an essentially human character, superadded upon that almost
+purely forward, essentially brutal, development of the same parts which
+characterizes the Baboon, and yet more remarkably distinguishes the
+Lemur.
+
+Similarly, the occipital foramen of 'Mycetes' (Figure 16), and still
+more of the Lemurs, is situated completely in the posterior face of the
+skull, or as much further back than that of the Gorilla, as that of the
+Gorilla is further back than that of Man; while, as if to render patent
+the futility of the attempt to base any broad classificatory distinction
+on such a character, the same group of Platyrhine, or American monkeys,
+to which the 'Mycetes' belongs, contains the 'Chrysothrix', whose
+occipital foramen is situated far more forward than in any other ape,
+and nearly approaches the position it holds in Man.
+
+Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of excessively developed
+supraciliary prominences as a Man's, though some varieties exhibit great
+crests elsewhere (See pp. 231, 232); and in some of the Cebine apes and
+in the 'Chrysothrix', the cranium is as smooth and rounded as that of
+Man himself.
+
+What is true of these leading characteristics of the skull, holds good,
+as may be imagined, of all minor features; so that for every constant
+difference between the Gorilla's skull and the Man's, a similar constant
+difference of the same order (that is to say, consisting in excess or
+defect of the same quality) may be found between the Gorilla's skull and
+that of some other ape. So that, for the skull, no less than for the
+skeleton in general, the proposition holds good, that the differences
+between Man and the Gorilla are of smaller value than those between the
+Gorilla and some other Apes.
+
+In connection with the skull, I may speak of the teeth--organs which
+have a peculiar classificatory value, and whose resemblances and
+differences of number, form, and succession, taken as a whole, are
+usually regarded as more trustworthy indicators of affinity than any
+others.
+
+(FIGURE 17.--Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper jaws of
+various Primates (Man, Gorilla, Cynocephalus, Cebus, Cheiromys). 'i',
+incisors; 'c', canines' 'pm', premolars; 'm', molars. A line is drawn
+through the first molar of Man, 'Gorilla', 'Cynocephalus', and 'Cebus',
+and the grinding surface of the second molar is shown in each, its
+anterior and internal angle being just above the 'm' of 'm2'.)
+
+Man is provided with two sets of teeth--milk teeth and permanent teeth.
+The former consist of four incisors, or cutting teeth; two canines, or
+eyeteeth; and four molars, or grinders, in each jaw--making twenty in
+all. The latter (Figure 17) comprise four incisors, two canines, four
+small grinders, called premolars or false molars, and six large
+grinders, or true molars, in each jaw--making thirty-two in all. The
+internal incisors are larger than the external pair, in the upper jaw,
+smaller than the external pair, in the lower jaw. The crowns of the
+upper molars exhibit four cusps, or blunt-pointed elevations, and a
+ridge crosses the crown obliquely, from the inner, anterior cusp to the
+outer, posterior cusp (Figure 17 m2). The anterior lower molars have
+five cusps, three external and two internal. The premolars have two
+cusps, one internal and one external, of which the outer is the higher.
+
+In all these respects the dentition of the Gorilla may be described in
+the same terms as that of Man; but in other matters it exhibits many and
+important differences (Figure 17).
+
+Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and even series--without any
+break and without any marked projection of one tooth above the level of
+the rest; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier long ago showed, is shared by
+no other mammal save one--as different a creature from man as can well
+be imagined--namely, the long extinct 'Anoplotherium'. The teeth of the
+Gorilla, on the contrary, exhibit a break, or interval, termed the
+'diastema', in both jaws: in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and
+the outer incisor, in the upper jaw; behind the eyetooth, or between it
+and the front false molar, in the lower jaw. Into this break in the
+series, in each jaw, fits the canine of the opposite jaw; the size of
+the eye-tooth in the Gorilla being so great that it projects, like a
+tusk, far beyond the general level of the other teeth. The roots of the
+false molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex than in Man,
+and the proportional size of the molars is different. The Gorilla has
+the crown of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw more complex, and the
+order of eruption of the permanent teeth is different; the permanent
+canines making their appearance before the second and third molars in
+Man, and after them in the Gorilla.
+
+Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely resemble those of Man in
+number, kind, and in the general pattern of their crowns, they exhibit
+marked differences from those of Man in secondary respects, such as
+relative size, number of fangs, and order of appearance.
+
+But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared with those of an Ape, no
+further removed from it than a 'Cynocephalus', or Baboon, it will be
+found that differences and resemblances of the same order are easily
+observable; but that many of the points in which the Gorilla resembles
+Man are those in which it differs from the Baboon; while various
+respects in which it differs from Man are exaggerated in the
+'Cynocephalus'. The number and the nature of the teeth remain the same
+in the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in Man. But the pattern of the
+Baboon's upper molars is quite different from that described above
+(Figure 17), the canines are proportionally longer and more knife-like;
+the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is specially modified; the
+posterior molar of the lower jaw is still larger and more complex than
+in the Gorilla.
+
+Passing from the old-world Apes to those of the new world, we meet with
+a change of much greater importance than any of these. In such a genus
+as 'Cebus', for example (Figure 17), it will be found that while in some
+secondary points, such as the projection of the canines and the
+diastema, the resemblance to the great ape is preserved; in other and
+most important respects, the dentition is extremely different. Instead
+of 20 teeth in the milk set, there are 24: instead of 32 teeth in the
+permanent set, there are 36, the false molars being increased from eight
+to twelve. And in form, the crowns of the molars are very unlike those
+of the Gorilla, and differ far more widely from the human pattern.
+
+The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the same number of teeth as
+Man and the Gorilla; but, notwithstanding this, their dentition is very
+different, for they have four more false molars, like the other American
+monkeys--but as they have four fewer true molars, the total remains the
+same. And passing from the American apes to the Lemurs, the dentition
+becomes still more completely and essentially different from that of the
+Gorilla. The incisors begin to vary both in number and in form. The
+molars acquire, more and more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character,
+and in one Genus, the Aye-Aye ('Cheiromys'), the canines disappear, and
+the teeth completely simulate those of a Rodent (Figure 17).
+
+Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the dentition of the highest Ape
+differs from that of Man, it differs far more widely from that of the
+lower and lowest Apes.
+
+Whatever part of the animal fabric--whatever series of muscles, whatever
+viscera might be selected for comparison--the result would be the
+same--the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla
+and the Man. I cannot attempt in this place to follow out all these
+comparisons in detail, and indeed it is unnecessary I should do so. But
+certain real, or supposed, structural distinctions between man and the
+apes remain, upon which so much stress has been laid, that they require
+careful consideration, in order that the true value may be assigned to
+those which are real, and the emptiness of those which are fictitious
+may be exposed. I refer to the characters of the hand, the foot, and the
+brain.
+
+Man has been defined as the only animal possessed of two hands
+terminating his fore limbs, and of two feet ending his hind limbs, while
+it has been said that all the apes possess four hands; and he has been
+affirmed to differ fundamentally from all the apes in the characters of
+his brain, which alone, it has been strangely asserted and re-asserted,
+exhibits the structures known to anatomists as the posterior lobe, the
+posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor.
+
+That the former proposition should have gained general acceptance is not
+surprising--indeed, at first sight, appearances are much in its favour:
+but, as for the second, one can only admire the surpassing courage of
+its enunciator, seeing that it is an innovation which is not only
+opposed to generally and justly accepted doctrines, but which is
+directly negatived by the testimony of all original inquirers, who have
+specially investigated the matter: and that it neither has been, nor can
+be, supported by a single anatomical preparation. It would, in fact, be
+unworthy of serious refutation, except for the general and natural
+belief that deliberate and reiterated assertions must have some
+foundation.
+
+Before we can discuss the first point with advantage we must consider
+with some attention, and compare together, the structure of the human
+hand and that of the human foot, so that we may have distinct and clear
+ideas of what constitutes a hand and what a foot.
+
+The external form of the human hand is familiar enough to every one. It
+consists of a stout wrist followed by a broad palm, formed of flesh, and
+tendons, and skin, binding together four bones, and dividing into four
+long and flexible digits, or fingers, each of which bears on the back of
+its last joint a broad and flattened nail. The longest cleft between any
+two digits is rather less than half as long as the hand. From the outer
+side of the base of the palm a stout digit goes off, having only two
+joints instead of three; so short, that it only reaches to a little
+beyond the middle of the first joint of the finger next it; and further
+remarkable by its great mobility, in consequence of which it can be
+directed outwards, almost at a right angle to the rest. This digit is
+called the 'pollex,' or thumb; and, like the others, it bears a flat
+nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In consequence of the
+proportions and mobility of the thumb, it is what is termed "opposable";
+in other words, its extremity can, with the greatest ease, be brought
+into contact with the extremities of any of the fingers; a property upon
+which the possibility of our carrying into effect the conceptions of the
+mind so largely depends.
+
+The external form of the foot differs widely from that of the hand; and
+yet, when closely compared, the two present some singular resemblances.
+Thus the ankle corresponds in a manner with the wrist; the sole with the
+palm; the toes with the fingers; the great toe with the thumb. But the
+toes, or digits of the foot, are far shorter in proportion than the
+digits of the hand, and are less moveable, the want of mobility being
+most striking in the great toe--which, again, is very much larger in
+proportion to the other toes than the thumb to the fingers. In
+considering this point, however, it must not be forgotten that the
+civilized great toe, confined and cramped from childhood upwards, is
+seen to a great disadvantage, and that in uncivilized and barefooted
+people it retains a great amount of mobility, and even some sort of
+opposability. The Chinese boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar;
+the artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to steal fishhooks, by
+its help; though, after all, it must be recollected that the structure
+of its joints and the arrangement of its bones, necessarily render its
+prehensile action far less perfect than that of the thumb.
+
+But to gain a precise conception of the resemblances and differences of
+the hand and foot, and of the distinctive characters of each, we must
+look below the skin, and compare the bony framework and its motor
+apparatus in each (Figure 18).
+
+(FIGURE 18.--The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man reduced from Dr.
+Carter's drawings in Gray's 'Anatomy.' The hand is drawn to a larger
+scale than the foot. The line 'a a' in the hand indicates the boundary
+between the carpus and the metacarpus; 'b b' that between the latter and
+the proximal phalanges; 'c c' marks the ends of the distal phalanges.
+The line "a' a'" in the foot indicates the boundary between the tarsus
+and metatarsus; "b' b'" marks that between the metatarsus and the
+proximal phalanges; and "c' c'" bounds the ends of the distal phalanges;
+'ca', the calcaneum; 'as', the astragalus; 'sc', the scaphoid bone in
+the tarsus.)
+
+The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which we term the
+wrist, and which is technically called the 'carpus'--two rows of closely
+fitted polygonal bones, four in each row, which are tolerably equal in
+size. The bones of the first row with the bones of the forearm, form the
+wrist joint, and are arranged side by side, no one greatly exceeding or
+overlapping the rest.
+
+The four bones of the second row of the carpus bear the four long bones
+which support the palm of the hand. The fifth bone of the same character
+is articulated in a much more free and moveable manner than the others,
+with its carpal bone, and forms the base of the thumb. These are called
+'metacarpal' bones, and they carry the 'phalanges', or bones of the
+digits, of which there are two in the thumb, and three in each of the
+fingers.
+
+The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the hand in some respects.
+Thus there are three phalanges in each of the lesser toes, and only two
+in the great toe, which answers to the thumb. There is a long bone,
+termed 'metatarsal', answering to the metacarpal, for each digit; and
+the 'tarsus', which corresponds with the carpus, presents four short
+polygonal bones in a row, which correspond very closely with the four
+carpal bones of the second row of the hand. In other respects the foot
+differs very widely from the hand. Thus the great toe is the longest
+digit but one; and its metatarsal is far less moveably articulated with
+the tarsus, than the metacarpal of the thumb with the carpus. But a far
+more important distinction lies in the fact that, instead of four more
+tarsal bones there are only three; and, that these three are not
+arranged side by side, or in one row. One of them, the 'os calcis' or
+heel bone ('ca'), lies externally, and sends back the large projecting
+heel; another, the 'astragalus' ('as'), rests on this by one face, and
+by another, forms, with the bones of the leg, the ankle joint; while a
+third face, directed forwards, is separated from the three inner tarsal
+bones of the row next the metatarsus by a bone called the 'scaphoid'
+('sc').
+
+Thus there is a fundamental difference in the structure of the foot and
+the hand, observable when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted; and
+there are differences of degree noticeable when the proportions and the
+mobility of the metacarpals and metatarsals, with their respective
+digits, are compared together.
+
+The same two classes of differences become obvious when the muscles of
+the hand are compared with those of the foot.
+
+Three principal sets of muscles, called "flexors," bend the fingers and
+thumb, as in clenching the fist, and three sets--the extensors--extend
+them, as in straightening the fingers. These muscles are all "long
+muscles"; that is to say, the fleshy part of each, lying in and being
+fixed to the bones of the arm, is, at the other end, continued into
+tendons, or rounded cords, which pass into the hand, and are ultimately
+fixed to the bones which are to be moved. Thus, when the fingers are
+bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of the fingers, placed in the arm,
+contract, in virtue of their peculiar endowment as muscles; and pulling
+the tendinous cords, connected with their ends, cause them to pull down
+the bones of the fingers towards the palm.
+
+Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers and of the thumb long
+muscles, but they remain quite distinct from one another through their
+whole length.
+
+In the foot, there are also three principal flexor muscles of the digits
+or toes, and three principal extensors; but one extensor and one flexor
+are short muscles; that is to say, their fleshy parts are not situated
+in the leg (which corresponds with the arm), but in the back and in the
+sole of the foot--regions which correspond with the back and the palm of
+the hand.
+
+Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and of the long
+flexor of the great toe, when they reach the sole of the foot, do not
+remain distinct from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the hand
+do, but they become united and commingled in a very curious
+manner--while their united tendons receive an accessory muscle connected
+with the heel-bone.
+
+But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive character about the muscles
+of the foot is the existence of what is termed the 'peronaeus longus', a
+long muscle fixed to the outer bone of the leg, and sending its tendon
+to the outer ankle, behind and below which it passes, and then crosses
+the foot obliquely to be attached to the base of the great toe. No
+muscle in the hand exactly corresponds with this, which is eminently a
+foot muscle.
+
+To resume--the foot of man is distinguished from his hand by the
+following absolute anatomical differences:--
+
+1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones.
+
+2. By having a short flexor and a short extensor muscle of the digits.
+
+3. By possessing the muscle termed 'peronaeus longus'. And if we desire
+to ascertain whether the terminal division of a limb, in other Primates,
+is to be called a foot or a hand, it is by the presence or absence of
+these characters that we must be guided, and not by the mere proportions
+and greater or lesser mobility of the great toe, which may vary
+indefinitely without any fundamental alteration in the structure of the
+foot.
+
+Keeping these considerations in mind, let us now turn to the limbs of
+the Gorilla. The terminal division of the fore limb presents no
+difficulty--bone for bone and muscle for muscle, are found to be
+arranged essentially as in man, or with such minor differences as are
+found as varieties in man. The Gorilla's hand is clumsier, heavier, and
+has a thumb somewhat shorter in proportion than that of man; but no one
+has ever doubted its being a true hand.
+
+(FIGURE 19.--Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the same absolute
+length, to show the differences in proportion of each. Letters as in
+Figure 18. Reduced from original drawings by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.
+
+At first sight, the termination of the hind limb of the Gorilla looks
+very hand-like, and as it is still more so in many of the lower apes, it
+is not wonderful that the appellation "Quadrumana," or four-handed
+creatures, adopted from the older anatomists* by Blumenbach, and
+unfortunately rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained such wide
+acceptance as a name for the Simian group. ([Footnote] *In speaking of
+the foot of his "Pygmie," Tyson remarks, p. 13:--"But this part in the
+formation and in its function too, being liker a Hand than a Foot: for
+the distinguishing this sort of animals from others, I have thought
+whether it might not be reckoned and called rather Quadru-manus than
+Quadrupes, 'i.e.' a four-handed rather than a four-footed animal." As
+this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. Hilaire is clearly in
+error in ascribing the invention of the term "quadrumanous" to Buffon,
+though "himanous" may belong to him. Tyson uses "Quadrumanus" in several
+places, as at p. 91... "Our 'Pygmie' is no Man, nor yet the 'common
+Ape', but a sort of 'Animal' between both; and though a 'Biped', yet of
+the 'Quadrumanus'-kind: though some 'Men' too have been observed to use
+their 'Feet' like 'Hands', as I have seen several.") But the most
+cursory anatomical investigation at once proves that the resemblance of
+the so-called "hind hand" to a true hand, is only skin deep, and that,
+in all essential respects, the hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly
+terminated by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones, in all important
+circumstances of number, disposition, and form, resemble those of man
+(Figure 19). The metatarsals and digits, on the other hand, are
+proportionally longer and more slender, while the great toe is not only
+proportionally shorter and weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united by
+a more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the same time, the foot is set
+more obliquely upon the leg than in man.
+
+As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a short extensor, and a
+'peronaeus longus', while the tendons of the long flexors of the great
+toe and of the other toes are united together and with an accessory
+fleshy bundle.
+
+The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends in a true foot, with a
+very moveable great toe. It is a prehensile foot, indeed, but is in no
+sense a hand: it is a foot which differs from that of man not in any
+fundamental character, but in mere proportions, in the degree of
+mobility, and in the secondary arrangement of its parts.
+
+It must not be supposed, however, because I speak of these differences
+as not fundamental, that I wish to underrate their value. They are
+important enough in their way, the structure of the foot being in strict
+correlation with that of the rest of the organism in each case. Nor can
+it be doubted that the greater division of physiological labour in Man,
+so that the function of support is thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is
+an advance in organization of very great moment to him; but, after all,
+regarded anatomically, the resemblances between the foot of Man and the
+foot of the Gorilla are far more striking and important than the
+differences.
+
+I have dwelt upon this point at length, because it is one regarding
+which much delusion prevails; but I might have passed it over without
+detriment to my argument, which only requires me to show that, be the
+differences between the hand and foot of Man and those of the Gorilla
+what they may--the differences between those of the Gorilla, and those
+of the lower Apes are much greater.
+
+It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale than the Orang for
+conclusive evidence on this head.
+
+The thumb of the Orang differs more from that of the Gorilla than the
+thumb of the Gorilla differs from that of Man, not only by its
+shortness, but by the absence of any special long flexor muscle. The
+carpus of the Orang, like that of most lower apes, contains nine bones,
+while in the Gorilla, as in Man and the Chimpanzee, there are only
+eight.
+
+The Orang's foot (Figure 19) is still more aberrant; its very long toes
+and short tarsus, short great toe, short and raised heel, great
+obliquity of articulation in the leg, and absence of a long flexor
+tendon to the great toe, separating it far more widely from the foot of
+the Gorilla than the latter is separated from that of Man.
+
+But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and foot diverge still more
+from those of the Gorilla, than they do in the Orang. The thumb ceases
+to be opposable in the American monkeys; is reduced to a mere rudiment
+covered by the skin in the Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and
+armed with a curved claw like the other digits, in the Marmosets--so
+that, in all these cases, there can be no doubt but that the hand is
+more different from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand is from
+Man's.
+
+And as to the foot, the great toe of the Marmoset is still more
+insignificant in proportion than that of the Orang--while in the Lemurs
+it is very large, and as completely thumb-like and opposable as in the
+Gorilla--but in these animals the second toe is often irregularly
+modified, and in some species the two principal bones of the tarsus, the
+'astragalus' and the 'os calcis', are so immensely elongated as to
+render the foot, so far, totally unlike that of any other mammal.
+
+So with regard to the muscles. The short flexor of the toes of the
+Gorilla differs from that of Man by the circumstance that one slip of
+the muscle is attached, not to the heel bone, but to the tendons of the
+long flexors. The lower Apes depart from the Gorilla by an exaggeration
+of the same character, two, three, or more, slips becoming fixed to the
+long flexor tendons--or by a multiplication of the slips.--Again, the
+Gorilla differs slightly from Man in the mode of interlacing of the long
+flexor tendons: and the lower apes differ from the Gorilla in exhibiting
+yet other, sometimes very complex, arrangements of the same parts, and
+occasionally in the absence of the accessory fleshy bundle.
+
+Throughout all these modifications it must be recollected that the foot
+loses no one of its essential characters. Every Monkey and Lemur
+exhibits the characteristic arrangement of tarsal bones, possesses a
+short flexor and short extensor muscle, and a 'peronaeus longus'. Varied
+as the proportions and appearance of the organ may be, the terminal
+division of the hind limb remains, in plan and principle of
+construction, a foot, and never, in those respects, can be confounded
+with a hand.
+
+Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, could be found better
+calculated to illustrate the truth that the structural differences
+between Man and the highest Ape are of less value than those between the
+highest and the lower Apes, than the hand or the foot, and yet, perhaps,
+there is one organ the study of which enforces the same conclusion in a
+still more striking manner--and that is the Brain.
+
+But before entering upon the precise question of the amount of
+difference between the Ape's brain and that of Man, it is necessary that
+we should clearly understand what constitutes a great, and what a small
+difference in cerebral structure; and we shall be best enabled to do
+this by a brief study of the chief modifications which the brain
+exhibits in the series of vertebrate animals.
+
+The brain of a fish is very small, compared with the spinal cord into
+which it is continued, and with the nerves which come off from it: of
+the segments of which it is composed--the olfactory lobes, the cerebral
+hemisphere, and the succeeding divisions--no one predominates so much
+over the rest as to obscure or cover them; and the so-called optic lobes
+are, frequently, the largest masses of all. In Reptiles, the mass of the
+brain, relatively to the spinal cord, increases and the cerebral
+hemispheres begin to predominate over the other parts; while in Birds
+this predominance is still more marked. The brain of the lowest Mammals,
+such as the duck-billed Platypus and the Opossums and Kangaroos,
+exhibits a still more definite advance in the same direction. The
+cerebral hemispheres have now so much increased in size as, more or
+less, to hide the representatives of the optic lobes, which remain
+comparatively small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is extremely
+different from that of a Bird, Reptile, or Fish. A step higher in the
+scale, among the placental Mammals, the structure of the brain acquires
+a vast modification--not that it appears much altered externally, in a
+Rat or in a Rabbit, from what it is in a Marsupial--nor that the
+proportions of its parts are much changed, but an apparently new
+structure is found between the cerebral hemispheres, connecting them
+together, as what is called the 'great commissure' or 'corpus callosum.'
+The subject requires careful re-investigation, but if the currently
+received statements are correct, the appearance of the 'corpus callosum'
+in the placental mammals is the greatest and most sudden modification
+exhibited by the brain in the whole series of vertebrated animals--it is
+the greatest leap anywhere made by Nature in her brain work. For the two
+halves of the brain being once thus knit together, the progress of
+cerebral complexity is traceable through a complete series of steps from
+the lowest Rodent, or Insectivore, to Man; and that complexity consists,
+chiefly, in the disproportionate development of the cerebral hemispheres
+and of the cerebellum, but especially of the former, in respect to the
+other parts of the brain.
+
+In the lower placental mammals, the cerebral hemispheres leave the
+proper upper and posterior face of the cerebellum completely visible,
+when the brain is viewed from above; but, in the higher forms, the
+hinder part of each hemisphere, separated only by the tentorium (p. 281)
+from the anterior face of the cerebellum, inclines backwards and
+downwards, and grows out, as the so-called "posterior lobe," so as at
+length to overlap and hide the cerebellum. In all Mammals, each cerebral
+hemisphere contains a cavity which is termed the 'ventricle,' and as
+this ventricle is prolonged, on the one hand, forwards, and on the other
+downwards, into the substance of the hemisphere, it is said to have two
+horns or 'cornua', an 'anterior cornu,' and a 'descending cornu.' When
+the posterior lobe is well developed, a third prolongation of the
+ventricular cavity extends into it, and is called the "posterior cornu."
+
+In the lower and smaller forms of placental Mammals the surface of the
+cerebral hemispheres is either smooth or evenly rounded, or exhibits a
+very few grooves, which are technically termed 'sulci,' separating
+ridges or 'convolutions' of the substance of the brain; and the smaller
+species of all orders tend to a similar smoothness of brain. But, in the
+higher orders, and especially the larger members of these orders, the
+grooves, or sulci, become extremely numerous, and the intermediate
+convolutions proportionately more complicated in their meanderings,
+until, in the Elephant, the Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man, the
+cerebral surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous foldings.
+
+Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its customary cavity--the
+posterior cornu--it commonly happens that a particular sulcus appears
+upon the inner and under surface of the lobe, parallel with and beneath
+the floor of the cornu--which is, as it were, arched over the roof of
+the sulcus. It is as if the groove had been formed by indenting the
+floor of the posterior horn from without with a blunt instrument, so
+that the floor should rise as a convex eminence. Now this eminence is
+what has been termed the 'Hippocampus minor;' the 'Hippocampus major'
+being a larger eminence in the floor of the descending cornu. What may
+be the functional importance of either of these structures we know not.
+
+As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the impossibility of
+erecting any cerebral barrier between man and the apes, Nature has
+provided us, in the latter animals, with an almost complete series of
+gradations from brains little higher than that of a Rodent, to brains
+little lower than that of Man. And it is a remarkable circumstance that
+though, so far as our present knowledge extends, there 'is' one true
+structural break in the series of forms of Simian brains, this hiatus
+does not lie between Man and the man-like apes, but between the lower
+and the lowest Simians; or, in other words, between the old and new
+world apes and monkeys, and the Lemurs. Every Lemur which has yet been
+examined, in fact, has its cerebellum partially visible from above, and
+its posterior lobe, with the contained posterior cornu and hippocampus
+minor, more or less rudimentary. Every Marmoset, American monkey,
+old-world monkey, Baboon, or Man-like ape, on the contrary, has its
+cerebellum entirely hidden, posteriorly, by the cerebral lobes, and
+possesses a large posterior cornu, with a well-developed hippocampus
+minor.
+
+(FIGURE 20.--Drawings of the internal casts of a Man's and of a
+Chimpanzee's skull, of the same absolute length, and placed in
+corresponding positions. 'A'. Cerebrum; 'B'. Cerebellum. The former
+drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the Royal College of
+Surgeons, the latter from the photograph of the cast of a Chimpanzee's
+skull, which illustrates the paper by Mr. Marshall 'On the Brain of the
+Chimpanzee' in the 'Natural History Review' for July, 1861. The sharper
+definition of the lower edge of the cast of the cerebral chamber in the
+Chimpanzee arises from the circumstance that the tentorium remained in
+that skull and not in the Man's. The cast more accurately represents the
+brain in Chimpanzee than in the Man; and the great backward projection
+of the posterior lobes of the cerebrum of the former, beyond the
+cerebellum, is conspicuous.)
+
+In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri ('Chrysothrix'), the
+cerebral lobes overlap and extend much further behind the cerebellum, in
+proportion, than they do in man (Figure 16)--and it is quite certain
+that, in all, the cerebellum is completely covered behind, by
+well-developed posterior lobes. The fact can be verified by every one
+who possesses the skull of any old or new world monkey. For, inasmuch as
+the brain in all mammals completely fills the cranial cavity, it is
+obvious that a cast of the interior of the skull will reproduce the
+general form of the brain, at any rate with such minute and, for the
+present purpose, utterly unimportant differences as may result from the
+absence of the enveloping membranes of the brain in the dry skull. But
+if such a cast be made in plaster, and compared with a similar cast of
+the interior of a human skull, it will be obvious that the cast of the
+cerebral chamber, representing the cerebrum of the ape, as completely
+covers over and overlaps the cast of the cerebellar chamber,
+representing the cerebellum, as it does in the man (Figure 20). A
+careless observer, forgetting that a soft structure like the brain loses
+its proper shape the moment it is taken out of the skull, may indeed
+mistake the uncovered condition of the cerebellum of an extracted and
+distorted brain for the natural relations of the parts; but his error
+must become patent even to himself if he try to replace the brain within
+the cranial chamber. To suppose that the cerebellum of an ape is
+naturally uncovered behind is a miscomprehension comparable only to that
+of one who should imagine that a man's lungs always occupy but a small
+portion of the thoracic cavity--because they do so when the chest is
+opened, and their elasticity is no longer neutralized by the pressure of
+the air.
+
+And the error is the less excusable, as it must become apparent to every
+one who examines a section of the skull of any ape above a Lemur,
+without taking the trouble to make a cast of it. For there is a very
+marked groove in every such skull, as in the human skull--which
+indicates the line of attachment of what is termed the 'tentorium'--a
+sort of parchment-like shelf, or partition, which, in the recent state,
+is interposed between the cerebrum and cerebellum, and prevents the
+former from pressing upon the latter. (See Figure 16.)
+
+This groove, therefore, indicates the line of separation between that
+part of the cranial cavity which contains the cerebrum, and that which
+contains the cerebellum; and as the brain exactly fills the cavity of
+the skull, it is obvious that the relations of these two parts of the
+cranial cavity at once informs us of the relations of their contents.
+Now in man, in all the old-world, and in all the new-world Simiae, with
+one exception, when the face is directed forwards, this line of
+attachment of the tentorium, or impression for the lateral sinus, as it
+is technically called, is nearly horizontal, and the cerebral chamber
+invariably overlaps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber. In the
+Howler Monkey or 'Mycetes' (see Figure 16), the line passes obliquely
+upwards and backwards, and the cerebral overlap is almost nil; while in
+the Lemurs, as in the lower mammals, the line is much more inclined in
+the same direction, and the cerebellar chamber projects considerably
+beyond the cerebral.
+
+When the gravest errors respecting points so easily settled as this
+question respecting the posterior lobes can be authoritatively
+propounded, it is no wonder that matters of observation, of no very
+complex character, but still requiring a certain amount of care, should
+have fared worse. Any one who cannot see the posterior lobe in an ape's
+brain is not likely to give a very valuable opinion respecting the
+posterior cornu or the hippocampus minor. If a man cannot see a church,
+it is preposterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece or painted
+window--so that I do not feel bound to enter upon any discussion of
+these points, but content myself with assuring the reader that the
+posterior cornu and the hippocampus minor, have now been seen--usually,
+at least as well developed as in man, and often better--not only in the
+Chimpanzee, the Orang, and the Gibbon, but in all the genera of the old
+world baboons and monkeys, and in most of the new world forms, including
+the Marmosets.* ([Footnote] *See the note at the end of this essay for a
+succinct history of the controversy to which allusion is here made.)
+
+(FIGURE 21.--Drawings of the cerebral hemispheres of a Man and of a
+Chimpanzee of the same length, in order to show the relative proportions
+of the parts: the former taken from a specimen, which Mr. Flower,
+Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was good
+enough to dissect for me; the latter, from the photograph of a similarly
+dissected Chimpanzee's brain, given in Mr. Marshall's paper above
+referred to. 'a', posterior lobe; 'b', lateral ventricle; 'c', posterior
+cornu; 'x', the hippocampus minor.)
+
+In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy evidence (consisting of the
+results of careful investigations directed to the determination of these
+very questions, by skilled anatomists) which we now possess, leads to
+the conviction that, so far from the posterior lobe, the posterior
+cornu, and the hippocampus minor, being structures peculiar to and
+characteristic of man, as they have been over and over again asserted to
+be, even after the publication of the clearest demonstration of the
+reverse, it is precisely these structures which are the most marked
+cerebral characters common to man with the apes. They are among the most
+distinctly Simian peculiarities which the human organism exhibits.
+
+As to the convolutions, the brains of the apes exhibit every stage of
+progress, from the almost smooth brain of the Marmoset, to the Orang and
+the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below Man. And it is most
+remarkable that, as soon as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern
+according to which they are arranged is identical with that of the
+corresponding sulci of man. The surface of the brain of a monkey
+exhibits a sort of skeleton map of man's, and in the man-like apes the
+details become more and more filled in, until it is only in minor
+characters, such as the greater excavation of the anterior lobes, the
+constant presence of fissures usually absent in man, and the different
+disposition and proportions of some convolutions, that the Chimpanzee's
+or the Orang's brain can be structurally distinguished from Man's.
+
+So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it is clear that Man
+differs less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang, than these do even from
+the Monkeys, and that the difference between the brains of the
+Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insignificant, when compared with that
+between the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.
+
+It must not be overlooked, however, that there is a very striking
+difference in absolute mass and weight between the lowest human brain
+and that of the highest ape--a difference which is all the more
+remarkable when we recollect that a full grown Gorilla is probably
+pretty nearly twice as heavy as a Bosjes man, or as many an European
+woman. It may be doubted whether a healthy human adult brain ever
+weighed less than thirty-one or two ounces, or that the heaviest Gorilla
+brain has exceeded twenty ounces.
+
+This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and doubtless will one day help
+to furnish an explanation of the great gulf which intervenes between the
+lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual power;* but it has little
+systematic value, for the simple reason that, as may be concluded from
+what has been already said respecting cranial capacity, the difference
+in weight of brain between the highest and the lowest men is far
+greater, both relatively and absolutely, than that between the lowest
+man and the highest ape. The latter, as has been seen, is represented
+by, say twelve ounces of cerebral substance absolutely, or by 32:20
+relatively; but as the largest recorded human brain weighed between 65
+and 66 ounces, the former difference is represented by more than 33
+ounces absolutely, or by 65:32 relatively. Regarded systematically, the
+cerebral differences of man and apes are not of more than generic value;
+his Family distinction resting chiefly on his dentition, his pelvis, and
+his lower limbs.
+
+([Footnote] * I say 'help' to furnish: for I by no means believe that it
+was any original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity which
+caused that divergence between the human and the pithecoid stirpes,
+which has ended in the present enormous gulf between them. It is no
+doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense, that all difference of
+function is a result of difference of structure; or, in other words, of
+difference in the combination of the primary molecular forces of living
+substance; and, starting from this undeniable axiom, objectors
+occasionally, and with much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast
+intellectual chasm between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding
+structural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions; so that,
+it is said, the non-discovery of such vast differences proves, not that
+they are absent, but that Science is incompetent to detect them. A very
+little consideration, however, will, I think, show the fallacy of this
+reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assumption, that intellectual
+power depends altogether on the brain--whereas the brain is only one
+condition out of many on which intellectual manifestations depend; the
+others being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor
+apparatuses, especially those which are concerned in prehension and in
+the production of articulate speech.
+
+A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass and his
+inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be capable of few
+higher intellectual manifestations than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he
+were confined to the society of dumb associates. And yet there might not
+be the slightest discernible difference between his brain and that of a
+highly intelligent and cultivated person. The dumbness might be the
+result of a defective structure of the mouth, or of the tongue, or a
+mere defective innervation of these parts; or it might result from
+congenital deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal ear,
+which only a careful anatomist could discover.
+
+The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a
+Man's intelligence and an Ape's, therefore, there must be an equally
+immense difference between their brains, appears to me to be about as
+well based as the reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that,
+because there is a "great gulf" between a watch that keeps accurate time
+and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great
+structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel,
+a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a
+something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can
+discover it, may be the source of all the difference.
+
+And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate
+speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be
+absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend,
+that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the
+primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of
+the Human from the Simian Stirps.)
+
+Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, the comparison of their
+modifications in the ape series leads to one and the same result--that
+the structural differences which separate Man from the Gorilla and the
+Chimpanzee are not so great as those which separate the Gorilla from the
+lower apes.
+
+But in enunciating this important truth I must guard myself against a
+form of misunderstanding, which is very prevalent. I find, in fact, that
+those who endeavour to teach what nature so clearly shows us in this
+matter, are liable to have their opinions misrepresented and their
+phraseology garbled, until they seem to say that the structural
+differences between man and even the highest apes are small and
+insignificant. Let me take this opportunity then of distinctly
+asserting, on the contrary, that they are great and significant; that
+every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by which it might be distinguished
+from the corresponding bone of a Man; and that, in the present creation,
+at any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the gap between 'Homo'
+and 'Troglodytes'.
+
+It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny the existence of this
+chasm; but it is at least equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its
+magnitude, and, resting on the admitted fact of its existence, to refuse
+to inquire whether it is wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, that
+there is no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, but do not forget
+that there is a no less sharp line of demarcation, a no less complete
+absence of any transitional form, between the Gorilla and the Orang, or
+the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not less sharp, though it is somewhat
+narrower. The structural differences between Man and the Man-like apes
+certainly justify our regarding him as constituting a family apart from
+them; though, inasmuch as he differs less from them than they do from
+other families of the same order, there can be no justification for
+placing him in a distinct order.
+
+And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver of systematic
+zoology, Linnaeus, becomes justified, and a century of anatomical
+research brings us back to his conclusion, that man is a member of the
+same order (for which the Linnaean term PRIMATES ought to be retained)
+as the Apes and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven families,
+of about equal systematic value: the first, the ANTHROPINI, contains Man
+alone; the second, the CATARHINI, embraces the old-world apes; the
+third, the PLATYRHINI, all new-world apes, except the Marmosets; the
+fourth, the ARCTOPITHECINI, contains the Marmosets; the fifth, the
+LEMURINI, the Lemurs--from which 'Cheiromys' should probably be excluded
+to form a sixth distinct family, the CHEIROMYINI; while the seventh, the
+GALEOPITHECINI, contains only the flying Lemur 'Galeopithecus',--a
+strange form which almost touches on the Bats, as the 'Cheiromys' puts
+on a rodent clothing, and the Lemurs simulate Insectivora.
+
+Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series
+of gradations as this--leading us insensibly from the crown and summit
+of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a
+step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the
+placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had foreseen the
+arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided that his
+intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the slaves,
+admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust.
+
+These are the chief facts, this the immediate conclusion from them to
+which I adverted in the commencement of this Essay. The facts, I
+believe, cannot be disputed; and if so, the conclusion appears to me to
+be inevitable.
+
+But if Man be separated by no greater structural barrier from the brutes
+than they are from one another--then it seems to follow that if any
+process of physical causation can be discovered by which the genera and
+families of ordinary animals have been produced, that process of
+causation is amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man. In other
+words, if it could be shown that the Marmosets, for example, have arisen
+by gradual modification of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both
+Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified ramifications of a primitive
+stock--then, there would be no rational ground for doubting that man
+might have originated, in the one case, by the gradual modification of a
+man-like ape; or, in the other case, as a ramification of the same
+primitive stock as those apes.
+
+At the present moment, but one such process of physical causation has
+any evidence in its favour; or, in other words, there is but one
+hypothesis regarding the origin of species of animals in general which
+has any scientific existence--that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For
+Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much
+that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his
+originality might have effected, had he been a more sober and cautious
+thinker; and though I have heard of the announcement of a formula
+touching "the ordained continuous becoming of organic forms," it is
+obvious that it is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible,
+and that a qua-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which may be read
+backwards, or forwards, or sideways, with exactly the same amount of
+signification, does not really exist, though it may seem to do so.
+
+At the present moment, therefore, the question of the relation of man to
+the lower animals resolves itself, in the end, into the larger question
+of the tenability, or untenability of Mr. Darwin's views. But here we
+enter upon difficult ground, and it behoves us to define our exact
+position with the greatest care.
+
+It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Darwin has satisfactorily proved
+that what he terms selection, or selective modification, must occur, and
+does occur, in nature; and he has also proved to superfluity that such
+selection is competent to produce forms as distinct, structurally, as
+some genera even are. If the animated world presented us with none but
+structural differences, I should have no hesitation in saying that Mr.
+Darwin had demonstrated the existence of a true physical cause, amply
+competent to account for the origin of living species, and of man among
+the rest.
+
+But, in addition to their structural distinctions, the species of
+animals and plants, or at least a great number of them, exhibit
+physiological characters--what are known as distinct species,
+structurally, being for the most part either altogether incompetent to
+breed one with another; or if they breed, the resulting mule, or hybrid,
+is unable to perpetuate its race with another hybrid of the same kind.
+
+A true physical cause is, however, admitted to be such only on one
+condition--that it shall account for all the phenomena which come within
+the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent with any one
+phenomenon, it must be rejected; if it fails to explain any one
+phenomenon, it is so far weak, so far to be suspected; though it may
+have a perfect right to claim provisional acceptance.
+
+Now, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as I am aware, inconsistent
+with any known biological fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts
+of Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geographical Distribution,
+and of Palaeontology, become connected together, and exhibit a meaning
+such as they never possessed before; and I, for one, am fully convinced,
+that if not precisely true, that hypothesis is as near an approximation
+to the truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true
+theory of the planetary motions.
+
+But, for all this, our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be
+provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting; and
+so long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by selective
+breeding from a common stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile
+with one another, that link will be wanting. For, so long, selective
+breeding will not be proved to be competent to do all that is required
+of it to produce natural species.
+
+I have put this conclusion as strongly as possible before the reader,
+because the last position in which I wish to find myself is that of an
+advocate for Mr. Darwin's, or any other views--if by an advocate is
+meant one whose business it is to smooth over real difficulties, and to
+persuade where he cannot convince.
+
+In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be admitted that the
+conditions of fertility and sterility are very ill understood, and that
+every day's advance in knowledge leads us to regard the hiatus in his
+evidence as of less and less importance, when set against the multitude
+of facts which harmonize with, or receive an explanation from, his
+doctrines.
+
+I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, subject to the production of
+proof that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding;
+just as a physical philosopher may accept the undulatory theory of
+light, subject to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether;
+or as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof of the
+existence of atoms; and for exactly the same reasons, namely, that it
+has an immense amount of prima facie probability: that it is the only
+means at present within reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to
+order; and lastly, that it is the most powerful instrument of
+investigation which has been presented to naturalists since the
+invention of the natural system of classification, and the commencement
+of the systematic study of embryology.
+
+But even leaving Mr. Darwin's views aside, the whole analogy of natural
+operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the
+intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the
+production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the
+intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world, and
+between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see
+no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great
+progression, from the formless to the formed--from the inorganic to the
+organic--from blind force to conscious intellect and will.
+
+Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and
+enunciated truth; and were these pages addressed to men of science only,
+I should now close this essay, knowing that my colleagues have learned
+to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty
+lies in submitting to it, however it may jar against their inclinations.
+
+But desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle of the intelligent
+public, it would be unworthy cowardice were I to ignore the repugnance
+with which the majority of my readers are likely to meet the conclusions
+to which the most careful and conscientious study I have been able to
+give to this matter, has led me.
+
+On all sides I shall hear the cry--"We are men and women, not a mere
+better sort of apes, a little longer in the leg, more compact in the
+foot, and bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and Gorillas. The
+power of knowledge--the conscience of good and evil--the pitiful
+tenderness of human affections, raise us out of all real fellowship with
+the brutes, however closely they may seem to approximate us."
+
+To this I can only reply that the exclamation would be most just and
+would have my own entire sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is
+not I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his great toe, or insinuate
+that we are lost if an Ape has a hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I
+have done my best to sweep away this vanity. I have endeavoured to show
+that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between
+the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn
+between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of
+my belief that the attempt to draw a psychical distinction is equally
+futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect
+begin to germinate in lower forms of life.* At the same time, no one is
+more strongly convinced than I am of the vastness of the gulf between
+civilized man and the brutes; or is more certain that whether FROM them
+or not, he is assuredly not OF them. No one is less disposed to think
+lightly of the present dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes, of
+the only consciously intelligent denizen of this world.
+
+([Footnote] * It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen's
+opinions in entire accordance with my own, that I cannot forbear from
+quoting a paragraph which appeared in his Essay "On the Characters,
+etc., of the Class Mammalia," in the 'Journal of the Proceedings of the
+Linnean Society of London' for 1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the
+"Reade Lecture" delivered before the University of Cambridge two years
+later, which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in question.
+Prof. Owen writes:
+
+"Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the distinction between the
+psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee, and of a Boschisman or of an Aztec,
+with arrested brain growth, as being of a nature so essential as to
+preclude a comparison between them, or as being other than a difference
+of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that
+all-pervading similitude of structure--every tooth, every bone, strictly
+homologous--which makes the determination of the difference between
+'Homo' and 'Pithecus' the anatomist's difficulty."
+
+Surely it is a little singular, that the 'anatomist,' who finds it
+'difficult' to 'determine the difference' between 'Homo' and 'Pithecus',
+should yet range them on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes!)
+
+We are indeed told by those who assume authority in these matters, that
+the two sets of opinions are incompatible, and that the belief in the
+unity of origin of man and brutes involves the brutalization and
+degradation of the former. But is this really so? Could not a sensible
+child confute by obvious arguments, the shallow rhetoricians who would
+force this conclusion upon us? Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or
+the Philosopher, or the Artist whose genius is the glory of his age, is
+degraded from his high estate by the undoubted historical probability,
+not to say certainty, that he is the direct descendant of some naked and
+bestial savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient to make him a
+little more cunning than the Fox, and by so much more dangerous than the
+Tiger? Or is he bound to howl and grovel on all fours because of the
+wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once an egg, which no ordinary
+power of discrimination could distinguish from that of a Dog? Or is the
+philanthropist or the saint to give up his endeavours to lead a noble
+life, because the simplest study of man's nature reveals, at its
+foundations, all the selfish passions and fierce appetites of the merest
+quadruped? Is mother-love vile because a hen shows it, or fidelity base
+because dogs possess it?
+
+The common sense of the mass of mankind will answer these questions
+without a moment's hesitation. Healthy humanity, finding itself hard
+pressed to escape from real sin and degradation, will leave the brooding
+over speculative pollution to the cynics and the 'righteous overmuch'
+who, disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind insensibility to the
+nobleness of the visible world, and in inability to appreciate the
+grandeur of the place Man occupies therein.
+
+Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from the blinding influences of
+traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly stock whence Man has
+sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will
+discern in his long progress through the Past, a reasonable ground of
+faith in his attainment of a nobler Future.
+
+They will remember that in comparing civilised man with the animal
+world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains soaring
+into the sky and can hardly discern where the deep shadowed crags and
+roseate peaks end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the
+awe-struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he refuses to believe
+the geologist, who tells him that these glorious masses are, after all,
+the hardened mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of subterranean
+furnaces--of one substance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward
+forces to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory.
+
+But the geologist is right; and due reflection on his teachings, instead
+of diminishing our reverence and our wonder, adds all the force of
+intellectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intuition of the
+uninstructed beholder.
+
+And after passion and prejudice have died away, the same result will
+attend the teachings of the naturalist respecting that great Alps and
+Andes of the living world--Man. Our reverence for the nobility of
+manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that Man is, in substance
+and in structure, one with the brutes; for, he alone possesses the
+marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational speech, whereby, in
+the secular period of his existence, he has slowly accumulated and
+organized the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation
+of every individual life in other animals; so that now he stands raised
+upon it as on a mountain top, far above the level of his humble fellows,
+and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there,
+a ray from the infinite source of truth.
+
+A SUCCINCT HISTORY OF THE CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE CEREBRAL STRUCTURE
+OF MAN AND THE APES.
+
+Up to the year 1857 all anatomists of authority, who had occupied
+themselves with the cerebral structure of the Apes--Cuvier, Tiedemann,
+Sandifort, Vrolik, Isidore G. St. Hilaire, Schroeder van der Kolk,
+Gratiolet--were agreed that the brain of the Apes possesses a POSTERIOR
+LOBE.
+
+Tiedemann, in 1825, figured and acknowledged in the text of his 'Icones'
+the existence of the POSTERIOR CORNU of the lateral ventricle in the
+Apes, not only under the title of 'Scrobiculus parvus loco cornu
+posterioris'--a fact which has been paraded--but as 'cornu posterius'
+('Icones', p. 54), a circumstance which has been, as sedulously, kept in
+the background.
+
+Cuvier ('Lecons', T. iii. p. 103) says, "the anterior or lateral
+ventricles possess a digital cavity (posterior cornu) only in Man and
+the Apes...its presence depends on that of the posterior lobes."
+
+Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, and Gratiolet, had also figured and
+described the posterior cornu in various Apes. As to the HIPPOCAMPUS
+MINOR Tiedemann had erroneously asserted its absence in the Apes; but
+Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik had pointed out the existence of what
+they considered a rudimentary one in the Chimpanzee, and Gratiolet had
+expressly affirmed its existence in these animals. Such was the state of
+our information on these subjects in the year 1856.
+
+In the year 1857, however, Professor Owen, either in ignorance of these
+well-known facts or else unjustifiably suppressing them, submitted to
+the Linnaean Society a paper "On the Characters, Principles of Division,
+and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia," which was printed in the
+Society's Journal, and contains the following passage:--"In Man, the
+brain presents an ascensive step in development, higher and more
+strongly marked than that by which the preceding sub-class was
+distinguished from the one below it. Not only do the cerebral
+hemispheres overlap and the olfactory lobes and cerebellum, but they
+extend in advance of the one and further back than the other. The
+posterior development is so marked, that anatomists have assigned to
+that part the character of a third lobe; 'it is peculiar to the genus
+Homo, and equally peculiar is the posterior horn of the lateral
+ventricle and the 'hippocampus minor,' which characterise the hind lobe
+of each hemisphere'."--'Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnaean
+Society, Vol. ii. p. 19.
+
+As the essay in which this passage stands had no less ambitious an aim
+than the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its author
+might be supposed to have written under a sense of peculiar
+responsibility, and to have tested, with especial care, the statements
+he ventured to promulgate. And even if this be expecting too much,
+hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, cannot now be
+pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings; for the propositions cited
+were repeated two years afterwards in the Reade Lecture, delivered
+before so grave a body as the University of Cambridge, in 1859.
+
+When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract, first
+came under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat a
+contradiction of the doctrines current among well-indormed anatomists;
+but, not unnaturally imagining that the deliberate statements of a
+responsible person must have some foundation in fact, I deemed it my
+duty to investigate the subject anew before the time at which it would
+be my business to lecture thereupon came round. The result of my
+inquiries was to prove that Mr. Owen's three assertions, that "the third
+lobe, the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus
+minor," are "peculiar to the genus 'Homo'," are contrary to the plainest
+facts. I communicated this conclusion to the students of my class; and
+then, having no desire to embark in a controversy which could not
+redound to the honour of British science, whatever its issue, I turned
+to more congenial occupations.
+
+The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this reticence
+would have involved me in an unworthy paltering with truth.
+
+At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860, Professor
+Owen repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of course, I
+immediately gave them a direct and unqualified contradiction, pledging
+myself to justify that unusual procedure elsewhere. I redeemed that
+pledge by publishing, in the January number of the 'Natural History
+Review' for 1861, an article wherein the truth of the three following
+propositions was fully demonstrated (l. c. p. 71):--
+
+"1. That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic of,
+man, seeing that it exists in all the higher quadrumana."
+
+"2. That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is neither
+peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man, inasmuch as it also exists in
+the higher quadrumana."
+
+"3. That the 'hippocampus minor' is neither peculiar to, nor
+characteristic of, man, as it is found in certain of the higher
+quadrumana."
+
+Furthermore, this paper contains the following paragraph (p. 76):
+
+"And lastly, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik (op. cit. p. 271), though
+they particularly note that 'the lateral ventricle is distinguished from
+that of Man by the very defective proportions of the posterior cornu,
+wherein only a stripe is visible as an indication of the hippocampus
+minor;' yet the Figure 4, in their second Plate, shows that this
+posterior cornu is a perfectly distinct and unmistakeable structure,
+quite as large as it often is in Man. It is the more remarkable that
+Professor Owen should have overlooked the explicit statement and figure
+of these authors, as it is quite obvious, on comparison of the figures,
+that his woodcut of the brain of a Chimpanzee (l. c. p. 19) is a reduced
+copy of the second figure of Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's
+first Plate.
+
+"As M. Gratiolet (l. c. p. 18), however is careful to remark,
+'unfortunately the brain which they have taken as a model was greatly
+altered (profondement affaisse), whence the general form of the brain is
+given in these plates in a manner which is altogether incorrect.'
+Indeed, it is perfectly obvious, from a comparison of a section of the
+skull of the Chimpanzee with these figures, that such is the case; and
+it is greatly to be regretted that so inadequate a figure should have
+been taken as a typical representation of the Chimpanzee's brain."
+
+From this time forth, the untenability of his position might have been
+as apparent to Professor Owen as it was to every one else; but, so far
+from retracting the grave errors into which he had fallen, Professor
+Owen has persisted in and reiterated them; first, in a lecture delivered
+before the Royal Institution on the 19th of March, 1861, which is
+admitted to have been accurately reproduced in the 'Athenaeum' for the
+23rd of the same month, in a letter addressed by Professor Owen to that
+journal on the 30th of March. The 'Athenaeum report was accompanied by a
+diagram purporting to represent a Gorilla's brain, but in reality so
+extraordinary a misrepresentation, that Professor Owen substantially,
+though not explicitly, withdraws it in the letter in question. In
+amending this error, however, Professor Owen fell into another of much
+graver import, as his communication concludes with the following
+paragraph: "For the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the
+cerebellum in the highest Apes, reference should be made to the figure
+of the undissected brain of the Chimpanzee in my 'Reade's Lecture on the
+Classification, etc., of the Mammalia', p. 25, Figure 7, 8 vo. 1859."
+
+It would not be credible, if it were not unfortunately true, that this
+figure, to which the trusting public is referred, without a word of
+qualification, "for the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the
+cerebellum in the highest Apes," is exactly that unacknowledged copy of
+Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's figure whose utter inaccuracy had
+been pointed out years before by Gratiolet, and had been brought to
+Professor Owen's knowledge by myself in the passage of my article in the
+'Natural History Review' above quoted.
+
+I drew public attention to this circumstance again in my reply to
+Professor Owen, published in the 'Athenaeum' for April 13th, 1861; but
+the exploded figure was reproduced once more by Professor Owen, without
+the slightest allusion to its inaccuracy, in the 'Annals of Natural
+History' for June 1861!
+
+This proved too much for the patience of the original authors of the
+figure, Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, who, in a note
+addressed to the Academy of Amsterdam, of which they were members,
+declared themselves to be, though decided opponents of all forms of the
+doctrine of progressive development, above all things, lovers of truth:
+and that, therefore, at whatever risk of seeming to lend support to
+views which they disliked, they felt it their duty to take the first
+opportunity of publicly repudiating Professor Owen's misuse of their
+authority.
+
+In this note they frankly admitted the justice of the criticisms of M.
+Gratiolet, quoted above, and they illustrated, by new and careful
+figures, the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus
+minor of the Orang. Furthermore, having demonstrated the parts, at one
+of the sittings of the Academy, they add, "la presence des parties
+contestees y a ete universellement reconnue par les anatomistes presents
+a la seance. Le seul doute qui soit reste se rapporte au pes Hippocampi
+minor...A l'etat frais l'indice du petit pied d'Hippocampe etait plus
+prononce que maintenant."
+
+Professor Owen repeated his erroneous assertions at the meeting of the
+British Association in 1861, and again, without any obvious necessity,
+and without adducing a single new fact or new argument, or being able in
+any way to meet the crushing evidence from original dissections of
+numerous Apes' brains, which had in the meanwhile been brought forward
+by Prof. Rolleston,* ([Footnote] *On the Affinities of the Brain of the
+Orang. 'Nat. Hist. Review', April, 1861.) F.R.S., Mr. Marshall,*
+([Footnote] *On the Brain of a young Chimpanzee. 'Ibid.', July, 1861.)
+F.R.S., Mr. Flower,* ([Footnote] *On the Posterior lobes of the Cerebrum
+of the Quadrumana. 'Philosophical Transactions', 1862.) Mr. Turner,*
+([Footnote] *On the anatomical Relations of the Surfaces of the
+Tentorium to the Cerebrum and Cerebellum in Man and the lower Mammals.
+'Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh', March, 1862.) and
+myself,* ([Footnote] *On the Brain of Ateles. 'Proceedings of Zoological
+Society', 1861.) revived the subject at the Cambridge meeting of the
+same body in 1862. Not content with the tolerably vigorous repudiation
+which these unprecedented proceedings met with in Section D, Professor
+Owen sanctioned the publication of a version of his own statements,
+accompanied by a strange misrepresentation of mine (as may be seen by
+comparison of the 'Times' report of the discussion), in the 'Medical
+Times' for October 11th, 1862. I subjoin the conclusion of my reply in
+the same journal for October 25th.
+
+"If this were a question of opinion, or a question of interpretation of
+parts or of terms,--were it even a question of observation in which the
+testimony of my own senses alone was pitted against that of another
+person, I should adopt a very different tone in discussing this matter.
+I should, in all humility, admit the likelihood of having myself erred
+in judgment, failed in knowledge, or been blinded by prejudice.
+
+"But no one pretends now, that the controversy is one of the terms or of
+opinions. Novel and devoid of authority as some of Professor Owen's
+proposed definitions may have been, they might be accepted without
+changing the great features of the case. Hence though special
+investigations into these matters have been undertaken during the last
+two years by Dr. Allen Thomson, by Dr. Rolleston, by Mr. Marshall, and
+by Mr. Flower, all, as you are aware, anatomists of repute in this
+country, and by Professors Schroeder Van der Kolk, and Vrolik (whom
+Professor Owen incautiously tried to press into his own service) on the
+Continent, all these able and conscientious observers have with one
+accord testified to the accuracy of my statements, and to the utter
+baselessness of the assertions of Professor Owen. Even the venerable
+Rudolph Wagner, whom no man will accuse of progressionist proclivities,
+has raised his voice on the same side; while not a single anatomist,
+great or small, has supported Professor Owen.
+
+"Now, I do not mean to suggest that scientific differences should be
+settled by universal suffrage, but I do conceive that solid proofs must
+be met by something more than empty and unsupported assertions. Yet
+during the two years through which this preposterous controversy has
+dragged its weary length, Professor Owen has not ventured to bring
+forward a single preparation in support of his often-repeated
+assertions.
+
+"The case stands thus, therefore:--Not only are the statements made by
+me in consonance with the doctrines of the best older authorities, and
+with those of all recent investigators, but I am quite ready to
+demonstrate them on the first monkey that comes to hand; while Professor
+Owen's assertions are not only in diametrical opposition to both old and
+new authorities, but he has not produced, and, I will add, cannot
+produce, a single preparation which justifies them."
+
+I now leave this subject, for the present.--For the credit of my calling
+I should be glad to be, hereafter, for ever silent upon it. But,
+unfortunately, this is a matter upon which, after all that has occurred,
+no mistake or confusion of terms is possible--and in affirming that the
+posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor exist in
+certain Apes, I am stating either that which is true, or that which I
+must know to be false. The question has thus become one of personal
+veracity. For myself, I will accept no other issue than this, grave as
+it is, to the present controversy.
+
+End of On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals.
+
+***
+
+
+ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
+
+I have endeavoured to show, in the preceding Essay, that the ANTHROPINI,
+or Man Family, form a very well defined group of the Primates, between
+which and the immediately following Family, the CATARHINI, there is, in
+the existing world, the same entire absence of any transitional form or
+connecting link, as between the CATARHINI and PLATYRHINI.
+
+It is a commonly received doctrine, however, that the structural
+intervals between the various existing modifications of organic beings
+may be diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into account the long
+and varied succession of animals and plants which have preceded those
+now living and which are known to us only by their fossilized remains.
+How far this doctrine is well based, how far, on the other hand, as our
+knowledge at present stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts of
+the case, and an exaggeration of the conclusions fairly deducible from
+them, are points of grave importance, but into the discussion of which I
+do not, at present, propose to enter. It is enough that such a view of
+the relations of extinct to living beings has been propounded, to lead
+us to inquire, with anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of human
+remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, that view.
+
+I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, to those
+fragmentary Human skulls from the caves of Engis in the valley of the
+Meuse, in Belgium, and of the Neanderthal near Dusseldorf, the
+geological relations of which have been examined with so much care by
+Sir Charles Lyell; upon whose high authority I shall take it for
+granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a contemporary of the Mammoth
+('Elephas primigenius') and of the woolly Rhinoceros ('Rhinoceros
+tichorhinus'), with the bones of which it was found associated; and that
+the Neanderthal skull is of great, though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever
+be the geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it is quite safe
+(on the ordinary principles of paleontological reasoning) to assume that
+the former takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague
+biological limit, which separates the present geological epoch from that
+which immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the
+physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the bones of
+Men and Mammoths, Hyaenas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell into
+the cave of Engis.
+
+The skull from the cave of Engis was originally discovered by Professor
+Schmerling, and was described by him, together with other human remains
+disinterred at the same time, in his valuable work, 'Recherches sur les
+ossemens fossiles decouverts dans les cavernes de la Province de Liege',
+published in 1833 (p. 59, et seq.), from which the following paragraphs
+are extracted, the precise expressions of the author being, as far as
+possible, preserved.
+
+"In the first place, I must remark that these human remains, which are
+in my possession, are characterized like thousands of bones which I have
+lately been disinterring, by the extent of the decomposition which they
+have undergone, which is precisely the same as that of the extinct
+species: all, with a few exceptions, are broken; some few are rounded,
+as is frequently found to be the case in fossil remains of other
+species. The fractures are vertical or oblique; none of them are eroded;
+their colour does not differ from that of other fossil bones, and varies
+from whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than recent bones, with
+the exception of those which have a calcareous incrustation, and the
+cavities of which are filled with such matter.
+
+"The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I., Figs. 1, 2, is
+that of an old person. The sutures are beginning to be effaced: all the
+facial bones are wanting, and of the temporal bones only a fragment of
+that of the right side is preserved.
+
+"The face and the base of the cranium had been detached before the skull
+was deposited in the cave, for we were unable to find those parts,
+though the whole cavern was regularly searched. The cranium was met with
+at a depth of a metre and a half (five feet nearly), hidden under an
+osseous breccia, composed of the remains of small animals, and
+containing one rhinoceros tusk, with several teeth of horses and of
+ruminants. This breccia, which has been spoken of above (p. 30), was a
+metre (3 1/4 feet about) wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a
+half above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it adhered
+strongly.
+
+"The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no trace of
+disturbance: teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyaena, and bear, surrounded it
+on all sides.
+
+(FIGURE 22.--The skull from the cave of Engis--viewed from the right
+side. 'a' glabella, 'b' occipital protuberance, ('a' to 'b'
+glabello-occipital line), 'c' auditory foramen.)
+
+"The famous Blumenbach* has directed attention to the differences
+presented by the form and the dimensions of human crania of different
+races. This important work would have assisted us greatly, if the face,
+a part essential for the determination of race, with more or less
+accuracy, had not been wanting in our fossil cranium.
+
+([Footnote] *Decas Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium
+illustrata. Gottingae, 1790-1820.
+
+"We are convinced that even if the skull had been complete, it would not
+have been possible to pronounce, with certainty, upon a single specimen;
+for individual variations are so numerous in the crania of one and the
+same race, that one cannot, without laying oneself open to large chances
+of error, draw any inference from a single fragment of a cranium to the
+general form of the head to which it belonged.
+
+"Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the form of this
+fossil skull, we may observe that, from the first, the elongated and
+narrow form of the forehead attracted our attention.
+
+"In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrowness, and the
+form of the orbit, approximate it more nearly to the cranium of an
+Ethiopian than to that of an European: the elongated form and the
+produced occiput are also characters which we believe to be observable
+in our fossil cranium; but to remove all doubt upon that subject I have
+caused the contours of the cranium of an European and of an Ethiopian to
+be drawn and the foreheads represented. Plate II., Figs. 1 and 2, and,
+in the same plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences easily
+distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures will be more
+instructive than a long and wearisome description.
+
+"At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of the man from
+whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may express an opinion without
+exposing ourselves to a fruitless controversy. Each may adopt the
+hypothesis which seems to him most probable: for my own part, I hold it
+to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person of limited
+intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence that it belonged to a man
+of a low degree of civilization: a deduction which is borne out by
+contrasting the capacity of the frontal with that of the occipital
+region.
+
+"Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in the floor of
+the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant; the skull was entire when
+found, but the moment it was lifted it fell into pieces, which I have
+not, as yet, been able to put together again. But I have represented the
+bones of the upper jaw, Plate I., Figure 5. The state of the alveoli and
+the teeth, shows that the molars had not yet pierced the gum. Detached
+milk molars and some fragments of a human skull proceed from this same
+place. The Figure 3 represents a human superior incisor tooth, the size
+of which is truly remarkable.* ([Footnote] *In a subsequent passage,
+Schmerling remarks upon the occurrence of an incisor tooth 'of enormous
+size' from the caverns of Engihoul. The tooth figured is somewhat long,
+but its dimensions do not appear to me to be otherwise remarkable.)
+
+"Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the molar teeth of
+which are worn down to the roots.
+
+"I possess two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal.
+
+"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III., Figure 1); although it
+belonged to a young individual, this bone shows that he must have been
+of great stature.* ([Footnote] *The figure of this clavicle measures 5
+inches from end to end in a straight line--so that the bone is rather a
+small than a large one.)
+
+"Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not indicate that the
+height of the man, to whom they belonged, exceeded five feet and a half.
+
+"As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which are in my
+possession consist merely of a fragment of an ulna and of a radius
+(Plate III., Figs. 5 and 6).
+
+"Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone, contained in the
+breccia, of which we have spoken; it was found in the lower part above
+the cranium: add to this some metacarpal bones, found at very different
+distances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the hand, and
+one of the foot.
+
+"This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones collected in
+the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for us the remains of three
+individuals, surrounded by those of the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and
+of Carnivora of species unknown in the present creation."
+
+From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of Engis, on the right bank of
+the Meuse, Schmerling obtained the remains of three other individuals of
+Man, among which were only two fragments of parietal bones, but many
+bones of the extremities. In one case a broken fragment of an ulna was
+soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalagmite, a condition
+frequently observed among the bones of the Cave Bear ('Ursus spelaeus'),
+found in the Belgian caverns.
+
+It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmerling found, incrusted
+with stalagmite and joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement, which
+he has figured in Figure 7 of his Plate XXXVI., and worked flints were
+found by him in all those Belgian caves, which contained an abundance of
+fossil bones.
+
+A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published in the 'Comptes
+Rendus' of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks
+of a visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the collection of
+Professor 'Schermidt' (which is presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at
+Liege. The writer briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate
+Schmerling's work, and affirms that the "human cranium is a little
+longer than it is represented" in Schmerling's figure. The only other
+remark worth quoting is this:--"The aspect of the human bones differs
+little from that of the cave bones, with which we are familiar, and of
+which there is a considerable collection in the same place. With respect
+to their special forms, compared with those of the varieties of recent
+human crania, few 'certain' conclusions can be put forward; for much
+greater differences exist between the different specimens of
+well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium of Liege
+and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of comparison."
+
+Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be observed, little but an
+echo of the philosophic doubts of the describer and discoverer of the
+remains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's figures, I find that the
+side view given by the latter is really about 3/10ths of an inch shorter
+than the original, and that the front view is diminished to about the
+same extent. Otherwise the representation is not, in any way,
+inaccurate, but corresponds very well with the cast which is in my
+possession.
+
+A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have missed,
+has since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by an accomplished
+anatomist, Dr. Spring, of Liege, under whose direction an excellent
+plaster cast was made for Sir Charles Lyell. It is upon and from a
+duplicate of that cast that my own observations and the accompanying
+figures, the outlines of which are copied from very accurate Camera
+lucida drawings, by my friend Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the
+natural size, are made.
+
+As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed,
+and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium,
+consisting of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the
+occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, is
+entire or nearly so. The left temporal bone is wanting. Of the right
+temporal, the parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the auditory
+foramen, the mastoid process, and a considerable portion of the squamous
+element of the temporal are well preserved (Figure 22).
+
+The lines of fracture which remain between the coadjusted pieces of the
+skull, and are faithfully displayed in Schmerling's figure, are readily
+traceable in the cast. The sutures are also discernible, but the complex
+disposition of their serrations, shown in the figure, is not obvious in
+the cast. Though the ridges which give attachment to muscles are not
+excessively prominent, they are well marked, and taken together with the
+apparently well developed frontal sinuses, and the condition of the
+sutures, leave no doubt on my mind that the skull is that of an adult,
+if not middle-aged man.
+
+The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme breadth,
+which corresponds very nearly with the interval between the parietal
+protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length
+to the breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn
+from the point at which the brow curves in towards the root of the nose,
+and which is called the 'glabella' ('a') (Figure 22), to the occipital
+protuberance ('b'), and the distance to the highest point of the arch of
+the skull be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be found
+to be 4.75 inches. Viewed from above, Figure 23, A, the forehead
+presents an evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the
+sides and back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular
+elliptical curve.
+
+The front view (Figure 23, B) shows that the roof of the skull was very
+regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, and that the
+transverse diameter was a little less below the parietal protuberances,
+than above them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the
+rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the
+contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so
+that the distance along that contour, from the nasal depression to the
+occipital protuberance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc
+of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across
+the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal
+suture itself is 5.5 inches long.
+
+The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each side of 'a', Figure
+22) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a
+median depression. Their principal elevation is disposed so obliquely
+that I judge them to be due to large frontal sinuses.
+
+If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance ('a', 'b',
+Figure 22) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects
+more than 1/10th of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line,
+and the upper edge of the auditory foramen ('c') is almost in contact
+with a line drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the
+skull.
+
+A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to the other
+traverses, as usual, the forepart of the occipital foramen. The capacity
+of the interior of this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained.
+
+The history of the Human remains from the cavern in the Neanderthal may
+best be given in the words of their original describer, Dr
+Schaaffhausen,* as translated by Mr. Busk. ([Footnote] *ON THE CRANIA OF
+THE MOST ANCIENT RACES OF MAN. By Professor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn.
+(From Muller's 'Archiv.', 1858, pp. 453.) With Remarks, and original
+Figures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk,
+F.R.S., etc. 'Natural History Review'. April, 1861.)
+
+"In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered in
+a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Dusseldorf
+and Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than a
+plaster cast of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up an
+account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in the first
+instance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower
+Rhine Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn.* ([Footnote]
+*'Verhandl. d. Naturhist.' Vereins der Preuss. Rheinlande und
+Westphalens., xiv. Bonn, 1857.)
+
+Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the
+preservation of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human,
+and into whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium from
+Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate anatomical
+examination. At the General Meeting of the Natural History Society of
+Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June, 1857,*
+Dr Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and of the
+circumstances under which the discovery was made. ([Footnote] *'Ib.
+Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.)
+
+He was of opinion that the bones might be regarded as fossil; and in
+coming to this conclusion, he laid especial stress upon the existence of
+dendritic deposits, with which their surface was covered, and which were
+first noticed upon them by Professor Meyer. To this communication I
+appended a brief report on the results of my anatomical examination of
+the bones. The conclusions at which I arrived were:--1st. That the
+extraordinary form of the skull was due to a natural conformation
+hitherto not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 2nd. That
+these remarkable human remains belonged to a period antecedent to the
+time of the Celts and Germans, and were in all probability derived from
+one of the wild races of North-western Europe, spoken of by Latin
+writers; and which were encountered as autochthones by the German
+immigrants. And 3rdly. That it was beyond doubt that these human relics
+were traceable to a period at which the latest animals of the diluvium
+still existed; but that no proof of this assumption, nor consequently of
+their so-termed 'fossil' condition, was afforded by the circumstances
+under which the bones were discovered.
+
+(FIGURE 23.--The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in front (B).)
+
+"As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these
+circumstances, I borrow the following account of them from one of his
+letters. 'A small cave or grotto, high enough to admit a man, and about
+15 feet deep from the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the
+southern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a
+distance of about 100 feet from the Dussel, and about 60 feet above the
+bottom of the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this
+cavern opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from which
+the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. It could
+be reached, though with difficulty, from above. The uneven floor was
+covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a deposit of mud, sparingly
+intermixed with rounded fragments of chert. In the removing of this
+deposit, the bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed
+nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the other bones,
+lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in the most
+positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to clear out the
+grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was
+entertained of the bones being human; and it was not till several weeks
+after their discovery that they were recognised as such by me, and
+placed in security. But, as the importance of the discovery was not at
+the time perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting,
+and secured chiefly only the larger bones; and to this circumstance it
+may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect skeleton
+came into my possession'
+
+"My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the following
+results:--
+
+"The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long elliptical form. A most
+remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the extraordinary
+development of the frontal sinuses, owing to which the superciliary
+ridges, which coalesce completely in the middle, are rendered so
+prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or
+depression above, or rather behind them, whilst a deep depression is
+also formed in the situation of the root of the nose. The forehead is
+narrow and low, though the middle and hinder portions of the cranial
+arch are well developed. Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that
+has been preserved consists only of the portion situated above the roof
+of the orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which are greatly
+developed, and almost conjoined so as to form a horizontal eminence. It
+includes almost the whole of the frontal bone, both parietals, a small
+part of the squamous and the upper-third of the occipital. The recently
+fractured surfaces show that the skull was broken at the time of its
+disinterment. The cavity holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its
+cubical contents may be estimated at 57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic
+centimetres. In making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand
+on a level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest notch
+in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior
+semicircular ridges of the occipital. Estimated in dried millet-seed,
+the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The
+semicircular line indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of the
+temporal muscle, though not very strongly marked, ascends nevertheless
+to more than half the height of the parietal bone. On the right
+superciliary ridge is observable an oblique furrow or depression,
+indicative of an injury received during life.* ([Footnote] *This, Mr.
+Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for the frontal nerve.) The
+coronal and sagittal sutures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on
+the inside so completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever,
+whilst the lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for the
+Pacchionian glands are deep and numerous; and there is an unusually deep
+vascular groove immediately behind the coronal suture, which, as it
+terminates in the foramen, no doubt transmitted a 'vena emissaria'. The
+course of the frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight ridge;
+and where it joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a small
+protuberance. The course of the sagittal suture is grooved, and above
+the angle of the occipital bone the parietals are depressed.
+
+[Column 1 : Anatomical Feature, Column 2 : Measurement in] millimetres.*
+
+([Footnote] *The numbers in brackets are those which I should assign to
+the different measures, as taken from the plaster cast.--G. B.)
+
+The length of the skull from the nasal process of the frontal over the
+vertex to the superior semicircular lines of the occipital
+measures...303 (300) = 12.0".
+
+Circumference over the orbital ridges and the superior semicircular
+lines of the occipital...590 (590) = 23.37" or 23".
+
+Width of the frontal from the middle of the temporal line on one side to
+the same point on the opposite...104 (114) = 4.1"--4.5".
+
+Length of the frontal from the nasal. process to the coronal
+suture...133 (125) = 5.25"--5".
+
+Extreme width of the frontal sinuses...25 (23) = 1.0"--0.9".
+
+Vertical height above a line joining the deepest notches in the squamous
+border of the parietals...70 = 2.75".
+
+Width of hinder part of skull from one parietal protuberance to the
+other...138 (150) = 5.4"--5.9"
+
+Distance from the upper angle of the occipital to the superior
+semicircular lines...51 (60) = 1.9"--2.4".
+
+Thickness of the bone at the parietal protuberance...8.
+
+--at the angle of the occipital...9.
+
+--at the superior semicircular line of the occipital...10 = 0.3"
+
+"Besides the cranium, the following bones have been secured:--
+
+"1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, and all the other
+bones, are characterized by their unusual thickness, and the great
+development of all the elevations and depressions for the attachment of
+muscles. In the Anatomical Museum at Bonn, under the designation of
+'Giant's-bones,' are some recent thigh-bones, with which in thickness
+the foregoing pretty nearly correspond, although they are shorter.
+
+[First value =] Giant's bones, [Second value =] Fossil bones in mm.
+
+Length...542 = 21.4"...438 = 17.4".
+
+Diameter of head of femur...54 = 2.14"...53 = 2.0".
+
+Diameter of lower articular end, from one condyle to the other...89 =
+3.5"...87 = 3.4".
+
+Diameter of femur in the middle...33 = 1.2"...30 = 1.1".
+
+"2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it belongs to the
+thigh-bones.
+
+mm.
+
+Length...312 = 12.3".
+
+Thickness in the middle...26 = 1.0".
+
+Diameter of head...49 = 1.9".
+
+"Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimensions, and the
+upper-third of a right ulna corresponding to the humerus and radius.
+
+"3. A left humerus of which the upper-third is wanting, and which is so
+much slenderer than the right as apparently to belong to a distinct
+individual; a left 'ulna', which, though complete, is pathologically
+deformed, the coronoid process being so much enlarged by bony growth,
+that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle must have been
+impossible; the anterior fossa of the humerus for the reception of the
+coronoid process being also filled up with a similar bony growth. At the
+same time, the olecranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone
+presents no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an
+injury sustained during life was the cause of the anchylosis. When the
+left ulna is compared with the right radius, it might at first sight be
+concluded that the bones respectively belonged to different individuals,
+the ulna being more than half an inch too short for articulation with a
+corresponding radius. But it is clear that this shortening, as well as
+the attenuation of the left humerus, are both consequent upon the
+pathological condition above described.
+
+"4. A left 'ilium', almost perfect, and belonging to the femur: a
+fragment of the right 'scapula'; the anterior extremity of a rib of the
+right side; and the same part of a rib of the left side; the hinder part
+of a rib of the right side; and lastly, two hinder portions and one
+middle portion of ribs, which from their unusually rounded shape, and
+abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a carnivorous animal than
+those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer,
+will not venture to declare them to be ribs of any animal; and it only
+remains to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from an
+unusually powerful development of the thoracic muscles.
+
+"The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, as proved by the use
+of hydrochloric acid, the greater part of the cartilage is still
+retained in them, which appears, however, to have undergone that
+transformation into gelatine which has been observed by v. Bibra in
+fossil bones. The surface of all the bones is in many spots covered with
+minute black specks, which, more especially under a lens, are seen to be
+formed of very delicate 'dendrites'. These deposits, which were first
+observed on the bones by Dr. Meyer, are most distinct on the inner
+surface of the cranial bones. They consist of a ferruginous compound,
+and, from their black colour, may be supposed to contain manganese.
+Similar dendritic formations also occur, not unfrequently, on laminated
+rocks, and are usually found in minute fissures and cracks. At the
+meeting of the Lower Rhine Society at Bonn, on the 1st April, 1857,
+Prof. Meyer stated that he had noticed in the museum of Poppelsdorf
+similar dendritic crystallizations on several fossil bones of animals,
+and particularly on those of 'Ursus spelaeus', but still more abundantly
+and beautifully displayed on the fossil bones and teeth of 'Equus
+adamiticus', 'Elephas primigenius', etc., from the caves of Bolve and
+Sundwig. Faint indications of similar 'dendrites' were visible in a
+Roman skull from Siegburg; whilst other ancient skulls, which had lain
+for centuries in the earth, presented no trace of them.* ([Footnote]
+*'Verh. des Naturhist'. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857.)
+
+I am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on this
+subject:--
+
+'The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which were formerly
+regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condition, is interesting. It has
+even been supposed that in diluvial deposits the presence of 'dendrites'
+might be regarded as affording a certain mark of distinction between
+bones mixed with the diluvium at a somewhat later period and the true
+diluvial relics, to which alone it was supposed that these deposits were
+confined. But I have long been convinced that neither can the absence of
+'dendrites' be regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their presence
+as sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the objects upon which
+they occur. I have myself noticed upon paper, which could scarcely be
+more than a year old, dendritic deposits, which could not be
+distinguished from those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull
+from the Roman colony of the neighbouring Heddersheim, 'Castrum
+Hadrianum', which is in no way distinguishable from the fossil bones
+from the Frankish caves; it presents the same colour, and adheres to the
+tongue just as they do; so that this character also, which, at a former
+meeting of German naturalists at Bonn, gave rise to amusing scenes
+between Buckland and Schmerling, is no longer of any value. In disputed
+cases, therefore, the condition of the bone can scarcely afford the
+means for determining with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to
+say, whether it belong to geological antiquity or to the historical
+period.'
+
+"As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as representing a wholly
+different condition of things, from which no transition exists to the
+organic life of the present time, the designation of 'fossil', as
+applied to 'a bone', has no longer the sense it conveyed in the time of
+Cuvier. Sufficient grounds exist for the assumption that man coexisted
+with the animals found in the 'diluvium'; and many a barbarous race may,
+before all historical time, have disappeared, together with the animals
+of the ancient world, whilst the races whose organization is improved
+have continued the genus. The bones which form the subject of this paper
+present characters which, although not decisive as regards a geological
+epoch, are, nevertheless, such as indicate a very high antiquity. It may
+also be remarked that, common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal
+bones in the muddy deposits of caverns, such remains have not hitherto
+been met with in the caves of the Neanderthal; and that the bones, which
+were covered by a deposit of mud not more than four or five feet thick,
+and without any protective covering of stalagmite, have retained the
+greatest part of their organic substance.
+
+"These circumstances might be adduced against the probability of a
+geological antiquity. Nor should we be justified in regarding the
+cranial conformation as perhaps representing the most savage primitive
+type of the human race, since crania exist among living savages, which,
+though not exhibiting, such a remarkable conformation of the forehead,
+which gives the skull somewhat the aspect of that of the large apes,
+still in other respects, as for instance in the greater depth of the
+temporal fossae, the crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a
+generally less capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low stage of
+development. There is no reason for supposing that the deep frontal
+hollow is due to any artificial flattening, such as is practised in
+various modes by barbarous nations in the Old and New World. The skull
+is quite symmetrical, and shows no indication of counter-pressure at the
+occiput, whilst, according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Columbia,
+the frontal and parietal bones are always unsymmetrical. Its
+conformation exhibits the sparing development of the anterior part of
+the head which has been so often observed in very ancient crania, and
+affords one of the most striking proofs of the influence of culture and
+civilization on the form of the human skull."
+
+In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaffhausen remarks:
+
+"There is no reason whatever for regarding the unusual development of
+the frontal sinuses in the remarkable skull from the Neanderthal as an
+individual or pathological deformity; it is unquestionably a typical
+race-character, and is physiologically connected with the uncommon
+thickness of the other bones of the skeleton, which exceeds by about
+one-half the usual proportions. This expansion of the frontal sinuses,
+which are appendages of the air-passages, also indicates an unusual
+force and power of endurance in the movements of the body, as may be
+concluded from the size of all the ridges and processes for the
+attachment of the muscles or bones. That this conclusion may be drawn
+from the existence of large frontal sinuses, and a prominence of the
+lower frontal region, is confirmed in many ways by other observations.
+By the same characters, according to Pallas, the wild horse is
+distinguished from the domesticated, and, according to Cuvier, the
+fossil cave-bear from every recent species of bear, whilst, according to
+Roulin, the pig, which has become wild in America, and regained a
+resemblance to the wild boar, is thus distinguished from the same animal
+in the domesticated state, as is the chamois from the goat; and, lastly,
+the bull-dog, which is characterised by its large bones and
+strongly-developed muscles from every other kind of dog. The estimation
+of the facial angle, the determination of which, according to Professor
+Owen, is also difficult in the great apes, owing to the very prominent
+supra-orbital ridges, in the present case is rendered still more
+difficult from the absence both of the auditory opening and of the nasal
+spine. But if the proper horizontal position of the skull be taken from
+the remaining portions of the orbital plates, and the ascending line
+made to touch the surface of the frontal bone behind the prominent
+supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is not found to exceed 56
+degrees.* ([Footnote] *Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested,
+on the cast I should place it at 64 degrees to 67 degrees.--G. B.)
+Unfortunately, no portions of the facial bones, whose conformation is so
+decisive as regards the form and expression of the head, have been
+preserved. The cranial capacity, compared with the uncommon strength of
+the corporeal frame, would seem to indicate a small cerebral
+development. The skull, as it is, holds about 31 ounces of millet-seed;
+and as, from the proportionate size of the wanting bones, the whole
+cranial cavity should have about 6 ounces more added, the contents, were
+it perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann assigns, as the cranial
+contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 35 ounces. The cranium holds rather
+more than 36 ounces of water, which corresponds to a capacity of 1033.24
+cubic centimetres. Huschke estimates the cranial contents of a Negress
+at 1127 cubic centimetres; of an old Negro at 1146 cubic centimetres.
+The capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated by water, equalled 36, 33
+ounces, whilst in the diminutive Hindoos it falls to as little as 27
+ounces."
+
+After comparing the Neanderthal cranium with many others, ancient and
+modern, Professor Schaaffhausen concludes thus:--
+
+"But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal exceed all the
+rest in those peculiarities of conformation which lead to the conclusion
+of their belonging to a barbarous and savage race. Whether the cavern in
+which they were found, unaccompanied with any trace of human art, were
+the place of their interment, or whether, like the bones of extinct
+animals elsewhere, they had been washed into it, they may still be
+regarded as the most ancient memorial of the early inhabitants of
+Europe."
+
+Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffhausen's paper, has enabled us to
+form a very vivid conception of the degraded character of the
+Neanderthal skull, by placing side by side with its outline, that of the
+skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to the same absolute size.
+
+Some time after the publication of the translation of Professor
+Schaaffhausen's Memoir, I was led to study the cast of the Neanderthal
+cranium with more attention than I had previously bestowed upon it, in
+consequence of wishing to supply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram,
+exhibiting the special peculiarities of this skull, as compared with
+other human skulls. In order to do this it was necessary to identify,
+with precision, those points in the skulls compared which corresponded
+anatomically. Of these points, the glabella was obvious enough; but when
+I had distinguished another, defined by the occipital protuberance and
+superior semicircular line, and had placed the outline of the
+Neanderthal skull against that of the Engis skull, in such a position
+that the glabella and occipital protuberance of both were intersected by
+the same straight line, the difference was so vast and the flattening of
+the Neanderthal skull so prodigious (compare Figs. 22 and 24, A.), that
+I at first imagined I must have fallen into some error. And I was the
+more inclined to suspect this, as, in ordinary human skulls, the
+occipital protuberance and superior semicircular curved line on the
+exterior of the occiput correspond pretty closely with the 'lateral
+sinuses' and the line of attachment of the tentorium internally. But on
+the tentorium rests, as I have said in the preceding Essay, the
+posterior lobe of the brain; and hence, the occipital protuberance, and
+the curved line in question, indicate, approximately, the lower limits
+of that lobe. Was it possible for a human being to have the brain thus
+flattened and depressed; or, on the other hand, had the muscular ridges
+shifted their position? In order to solve these doubts, and to decide
+the question whether the great supraciliary projections did, or did not,
+arise from the development of the frontal sinuses, I requested Sir
+Charles Lyell to be so good as to obtain for me from Dr. Fuhlrott, the
+possessor of the skull, answers to certain queries, and if possible a
+cast, or at any rate drawings, or photographs, of the interior of the
+skull.
+
+(FIGURE 24.--The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A. side, B. front,
+and C. top view. One-third the natural size, by Mr. Busk: the details
+from the cast and from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs. 'a' glabella; 'b'
+occipital protuberance; 'd' lambdoidal suture.)
+
+Dr. Fuhlrott replied with a courtesy and readiness for which I am
+infinitely indebted to him, to my inquiries, and furthermore sent three
+excellent photographs. One of these gives a side view of the skull, and
+from it Figure 24, A. has been shaded. The second (Figure 25, A.)
+exhibits the wide openings of the frontal sinuses upon the inferior
+surface of the frontal part of the skull, into which, Dr. Fuhlrott
+writes, "a probe may be introduced to the depth of an inch," and
+demonstrates the great extension of the thickened supraciliary ridges
+beyond the cerebral cavity. The third, lastly (Figure 25, B.) exhibits
+the edge and the interior of the posterior, or occipital, part of the
+skull, and shows very clearly the two depressions for the lateral
+sinuses, sweeping inwards towards the middle line of the roof of the
+skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. It was clear, therefore, that I
+had not erred in my interpretation, and that the posterior lobe of the
+brain of the Neanderthal man must have been as much flattened as I
+suspected it to be.
+
+In truth, the Neanderthal cranium has most extraordinary characters. It
+has an extreme length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5.75
+inches, or, in other words, its length is to its breadth as 100:72. It
+is exceedingly depressed, measuring only about 3.4 inches from the
+glabello-occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc, measured in
+the same way as in the Engis skull, is 12 inches; the transverse arc
+cannot be exactly ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the
+temporal bones, but was probably about the same, and certainly exceeded
+10 1/4 inches. The horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great
+circumference arises largely from the vast development of the
+supraciliary ridges, though the perimeter of the brain case itself is
+not small. The large supraciliary ridges give the forehead a far more
+retreating appearance than its internal contour would bear out.
+
+To an anatomical eye the posterior part of the skull is even more
+striking than the anterior. The occipital protuberance occupies the
+extreme posterior end of the skull, when the glabello-occipital line is
+made horizontal, and so far from any part of the occipital region
+extending beyond it, this region of the skull slopes obliquely upward
+and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated well upon the
+upper surface of the cranium. At the same time, notwithstanding the
+great length of the skull, the sagittal suture is remarkably short (4
+1/2 inches), and the squamosal suture is very straight.
+
+(FIGURE 25.--Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs of parts of the
+interior of the Neanderthal cranium. A. view of the under and inner
+surface of the frontal region, showing the inferior apertures of the
+frontal sinuses ('a'). B. corresponding view of the occipital region of
+the skull, showing the impressions of the lateral sinuses ('a a').)
+
+In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes that the occipital bone "is
+in a state of perfect preservation as far as the upper semicircular
+line, which is a very strong ridge, linear at its extremities, but
+enlarging towards the middle, where it forms two ridges (bourrelets),
+united by a linear continuation, which is slightly depressed in the
+middle."
+
+"Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an obliquely inclined surface,
+six lines (French) long, and twelve lines wide."
+
+This last must be the surface, the contour of which is shown in Figure
+24, A., below 'b'. It is particularly interesting, as it suggests that,
+notwithstanding the flattened condition of the occiput, the posterior
+cerebral lobes must have projected considerably beyond the cerebellum,
+and as it constitutes one among several points of similarity between the
+Neanderthal cranium and certain Australian skulls.
+
+Such are the two best known forms of human cranium, which have been
+found in what may be fairly termed a fossil state. Can either be shown
+to fill up or diminish, to any appreciable extent, the structural
+interval which exists between Man and the man-like apes? Or, on the
+other hand, does neither depart more widely from the average structure
+of the human cranium, than normally formed skulls of men are known to do
+at the present day?
+
+It is impossible to form any opinion on these questions, without some
+preliminary acquaintance with the range of variation exhibited by human
+structure in general--a subject which has been but imperfectly studied,
+while even of what is known, my limits will necessarily allow me to give
+only a very imperfect sketch.
+
+The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware that there is not a
+single organ of the human body the structure of which does not vary, to
+a greater or less extent, in different individuals. The skeleton varies
+in the proportions, and even to a certain extent in the connexions, of
+its constituent bones. The muscles which move the bones vary largely in
+their attachments. The varieties in the mode of distribution of the
+arteries are carefully classified, on account of the practical
+importance of a knowledge of their shiftings to the surgeon. The
+characters of the brain vary immensely, nothing being less constant than
+the form and size of the cerebral hemispheres, and the richness of the
+convolutions upon their surface, while the most changeable structures of
+all in the human brain, are exactly those on which the unwise attempt
+has been made to base the distinctive characters of humanity, viz. the
+posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippocampus minor, and the
+degree of projection of the posterior lobe beyond the cerebellum.
+Finally, as all the world knows, the hair and skin of human beings may
+present the most extraordinary diversities in colour and in texture.
+
+So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority of the structural
+varieties to which allusion is here made, are individual. The ape-like
+arrangement of certain muscles which is occasionally met with* in the
+white races of mankind, is not known to be more common among Negroes or
+Australians: ([Footnote] *See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the
+Myology of the Orang, in the 'Natural History Review', for 1861.) nor
+because the brain of the Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to
+have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, and to be, so far,
+more ape-like than that of ordinary Europeans, are we justified in
+concluding a like condition of the brain to prevail universally among
+the lower races of mankind, however probable that conclusion may be.
+
+We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information respecting the disposition
+of the soft and destructible organs of every Race of Mankind but our
+own; and even of the skeleton, our Museums are lamentably deficient in
+every part but the cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the time
+when Blumenbach and Camper first called attention to the marked and
+singular differences which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull
+measuring has been a zealously pursued branch of Natural History, and
+the results obtained have been arranged and classified by various
+writers, among whom the late active and able Retzius must always be the
+first named.
+
+Human skulls have been found to differ from one another, not merely in
+their absolute size and in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but
+in the proportions which the diameters of the latter bear to one
+another; in the relative size of the bones of the face (and more
+particularly of the jaws and teeth) as compared with those of the skull;
+in the degree to which the upper jaw (which is of course followed by the
+lower) is thrown backwards and downwards under the fore-part of the
+brain case, or forwards and upward in front of and beyond it. They
+differ further in the relations of the transverse diameter of the face,
+taken through the cheek bones, to the transverse diameter of the skull;
+in the more rounded or more gable-like form of the roof of the skull,
+and in the degree to which the hinder part of the skull is flattened or
+projects beyond the ridge, into and below which, the muscles of the neck
+are inserted.
+
+In some skulls the brain case may be said to be 'round,' the extreme
+length not exceeding the extreme breadth by a greater proportion than
+100 to 80, while the difference may be much less.* ([Footnote] *In no
+normal human skull does the breadth of the brain-case exceed its
+length.) Men possessing such skulls were termed by Retzius
+'brachycephalic,' and the skull of a Calmuck, of which a front and side
+view (reduced outline copies of which are given in Figure 26) are
+depicted by Von Baer in his excellent, "Crania selecta," affords a very
+admirable example of that kind of skull. Other skulls, such as that of a
+Negro copied in Figure 27 from Mr. Busk's 'Crania typica,' have a very
+different, greatly elongated form, and may be termed 'oblong.' In this
+skull the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as 100 to not more
+than 67, and the transverse diameter of the human skull may fall below
+even this proportion. People having such skulls were called by Retzius
+'dolichocephalic.'
+
+The most cursory glance at the side views of these two skulls will
+suffice to prove that they differ, in another respect, to a very
+striking extent. The profile of the face of the Calmuck is almost
+vertical, the facial bones being thrown downwards and under the forepart
+of the skull. The profile of the face of the Negro, on the other hand,
+is singularly inclined, the front part of the jaws projecting far
+forward beyond the level of the fore part of the skull. In the former
+case the skull is said to be 'orthognathous' or straight-jawed; in the
+latter, it is called 'prognathous,' a term which has been rendered, with
+more force than elegance, by the Saxon equivalent,--'snouty.'
+
+Various methods have been devised in order to express with some accuracy
+the degree of prognathism or orthognathism of any given skull; most of
+these methods being essentially modifications of that devised by Peter
+Camper, in order to attain what he called the 'facial angle.'
+
+But a little consideration will show that any 'facial angle' that has
+been devised, can be competent to express the structural modifications
+involved in prognathism and orthognathism, only in a rough and general
+sort of way. For the lines, the intersection of which forms the facial
+angle, are drawn through points of the skull, the position of each of
+which is modified by a number of circumstances, so that the angle
+obtained is a complex resultant of all these circumstances, and is not
+the expression of any one definite organic relation of the parts of the
+skull.
+
+(FIGURE 26.--Side and front views of the round and orthognathous skull
+of a Calmuck, after Von Baer. One-third the natural size.)
+
+I have arrived at the conviction that no comparison of crania is worth
+very much, that is not founded upon the establishment of a relatively
+fixed base line, to which the measurements, in all cases, must be
+referred. Nor do I think it is a very difficult matter to decide what
+that base line should be. The parts of the skull, like those of the rest
+of the animal framework, are developed in succession the base of the
+skull is formed before its sides and roof; it is converted into
+cartilage earlier and more completely than the sides and roof: and the
+cartilaginous base ossifies, and becomes soldered into one piece long
+before the roof. I conceive then that the base of the skull may be
+demonstrated developmentally to be its relatively fixed part, the roof
+and sides being relatively moveable.
+
+(FIGURE 27.--Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro; side and front
+views. One-third of the natural size.)
+
+The same truth is exemplified by the study of the modifications which
+the skull undergoes in ascending from the lower animals up to man.
+
+(FIGURE 28.--Beaver, Lemur and Baboon. Longitudinal and vertical
+sections of the skulls of a Beaver ('Castor Canadensis'), a Lemur ('L.
+Catia'), and a Baboon ('Cynocephalus Papio'), 'a b', the basicranial
+axis; 'b c', the occipital plane; 'i T', the tentorial plane; 'a d', the
+olfactory plane; 'f e', the basifacial axis; 'c b a', occipital angle;
+'T i a', tentorial angle; 'd a b', olfactory angle; 'e f b',
+cranio-facial angle; 'g h', extreme length of the cavity which lodges
+the cerebral hemispheres or 'cerebral length.' The length of the
+basicranial axis as to this length, or, in other words, the proportional
+length of the line 'g h' to that of 'a b' taken as 100, in the three
+skulls, is as follows:--Beaver 70 to 100; Lemur 119 to 100; Baboon 144
+to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the cerebral length is as 170 to the
+basicranial axis taken as 100, in the Negro (Figure 29) as 236 to 100.
+In the Constantinople skull (Figure 29) as 266 to 100. The cranial
+difference between the highest Ape's skull and the lowest Man's is
+therefore very strikingly brought out by these measurements. In the
+diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines 'd1 d2', etc., give the
+angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, as laid down upon the
+basicranial axis of the Baboon. The line 'a b' has the same length in
+each diagram.)
+
+In such a mammal as a Beaver (Figure 28), a line ('a b'.) drawn through
+the bones, termed basioccipital, basisphenoid, and presphenoid, is very
+long in proportion to the extreme length of the cavity which contains
+the cerebral hemispheres ('g h'.). The plane of the occipital foramen
+('b c'.) forms a slightly acute angle with this 'basicranial axis,'
+while the plane of the tentorium ('i T'.) is inclined at rather more
+than 90 degrees to the 'basicranial axis'; and so is the plane of the
+perforated plate ('a d'.), by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve
+leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the axis of the face,
+between the bones called ethmoid and vomer--the "basifacial axis" ('f
+e'.) forms an exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, it cuts
+the 'basicranial axis.'
+
+If the angle made by the line 'b c'. with 'a b'., be called the
+'occipital angle,' and the angle made by the line 'a d'. with 'a b'. be
+termed the 'olfactory angle,' and that made by 'i T'. with 'a b'. the
+'tentorial angle,' then all these, in the mammal in question, are nearly
+right angles, varying between 80 degrees and 110 degrees. the angle 'e f
+b'., or that made by the cranial with the facial axis, and which may be
+termed the 'cranio-facial angle,' is extremely obtuse, amounting, in the
+case of the Beaver, to at least 150 degrees.
+
+But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, intermediate between a
+Rodent and a Man (Figure 28), be examined, it will be found that in the
+higher crania the basicranial axis becomes shorter relatively to the
+cerebral length; that the 'olfactory angle' and 'occipital angle' become
+more obtuse; and that the 'cranio-facial angle' becomes more acute by
+the bending down, as it were, of the facial axis upon the cranial axis.
+At the same time, the roof of the cranium becomes more and more arched,
+to allow of the increasing height of the cerebral hemispheres, which is
+eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that backward extension,
+beyond the cerebellum, which reaches its maximum in the South America
+Monkeys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Figure 29), the cerebral
+length is between twice and thrice as great as the length of the
+basicranial axis; the olfactory plane is 20 degrees or 30 degrees on the
+'under' side of that axis; the occipital angle, instead of being less
+than 90 degrees, is as much as 150 degrees or 160 degrees; the
+cranio-facial angle may be 90 degrees or less, and the vertical height
+of the skull may have a large proportion to its length.
+
+It will be obvious, from an inspection of the diagrams, that the
+basicranial axis is, in the ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively
+fixed line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of the cranial
+cavity, and of the face, may be said to revolve downwards and forwards
+or backwards, according to their position. The arc described by any one
+bone or plane, however, is not by any means always in proportion to the
+arc described by another.
+
+Now comes the important question, can we discern, between the lowest and
+the highest forms of the human cranium anything answering, in however
+slight a degree, to this revolution of the side and roof bones of the
+skull upon the basicranial axis observed upon so great a scale in the
+mammalian series? Numerous observations lead me to believe that we must
+answer this question in the affirmative.
+
+The diagrams in Figure 29 are reduced from very carefully made diagrams
+of sections of four skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and
+prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically, through the middle.
+The sectional diagrams have then been superimposed, in such a manner,
+that the basal axes of the skulls coincide by their anterior ends, and
+in their direction. The deviations of the rest of the contours (which
+represent the interior of the skulls only) show the differences of the
+skulls from one another, when these axes are regarded as relatively
+fixed lines.
+
+The dark contours are those of an Australian and of a Negro skull: the
+light contours are those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the Royal
+College of Surgeons; and of a well developed round skull from a cemetery
+in Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own possession.
+
+It appears, at once, from these views, that the prognathous skulls, so
+far as their jaws are concerned, do really differ from the orthognathous
+in much the same way as, though to a far less degree than, the skulls of
+the lower mammals differ from those of Man. Furthermore, the plane of
+the occipital foramen ('b c') forms a somewhat smaller angle with the
+axis in these particular prognathous skulls than in the orthognathous;
+and the like may be slightly true of the perforated plate of the
+ethmoid--though this point is not so clear. But it is singular to remark
+that, in another respect, the prognathous skulls are less ape-like than
+the orthognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting decidedly more beyond
+the anterior end of the axis in the prognathous, than in the
+orthognathous, skulls.
+
+It will be observed that these diagrams reveal an immense range of
+variation in the capacity and relative proportion to the cranial axis,
+of the different regions of the cavity which contains the brain, in the
+different skulls. Nor is the difference in the extent to which the
+cerebral overlaps the cerebellar cavity less singular. A round skull
+(Figure 29, 'Const'.) may have a greater posterior cerebral projection
+than a long one (Figure 29, 'Negro').
+
+Until human crania have been largely worked out in a manner similar to
+that here suggested--until it shall be an opprobrium to an ethnological
+collection to possess a single skull which is not bisected
+longitudinally--until the angles and measurements here mentioned,
+together with a number of others of which I cannot speak in this place,
+are determined, and tabulated with reference to the basicranial axis as
+unity, for large numbers of skulls of the different races of Mankind, I
+do not think we shall have any very safe basis for that ethnological
+craniology which aspires to give the anatomical characters of the crania
+of the different Races of Mankind.
+
+At present, I believe that the general outlines of what may be safely
+said upon that subject may be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line
+on a globe from the Gold Coast in Western Africa to the steppes of
+Tartary. At the southern and western end of that line there live the
+most dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, dark-skinned of
+men--the true Negroes. At the northern and eastern end of the same line
+there live the most brachycephalic, orthognathous, straight-haired,
+yellow-skinned of men--the Tartars and Calmucks. The two ends of this
+imaginary line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. A line
+drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this polar line through Europe
+and Southern Asia to Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator, around
+which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong-headed, prognathous and
+orthognathous, fair and dark races--but none possessing the excessively
+marked characters of Calmuck or Negro--group themselves.
+
+(FIGURE 29.--Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and prognathous
+(dark contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size. 'a b', Basicranial
+axis; 'b c, b1 c1', plane of the occipital foramen; 'd d1', hinder end
+of the palatine bone; 'e e1', front end of the upper jaw; 'T T1',
+insertion of the tentorium.)
+
+It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal races are
+antipodal in climate, the greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps,
+being that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial coast plains of the
+West Coast of Africa and the arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of
+Central Asia, bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as any
+part of the world can be.
+
+From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and subcontinents on
+the one hand, and to America on the other, brachycephaly and
+orthognathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by dolichocephaly and
+prognathism, less, however, on the American Continent (throughout the
+whole length of which a rounded type of skull prevails largely, but not
+exclusively)* than in the Pacific region, where, at length, on the
+Australian Continent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong skull, the
+projecting jaws, and the dark skin reappear; with so much departure, in
+other respects, from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to these
+people the special title of 'Negritoes.' ([Footnote] *See Dr. D.
+Wilson's valuable paper "On the supposed prevalence of one Cranial Type
+throughout the American aborigines."--'Canadian Journal', vol. ii.,
+1857.)
+
+The Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness and for the
+thickness of its walls, especially in the region of the supraciliary
+ridge, which is frequently, though not by any means invariably, solid
+throughout, the frontal sinuses remaining undeveloped. The nasal
+depression, again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows overhang and
+give the countenance a particularly lowering, threatening expression.
+The occipital region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes less
+prominent; so that it not only fails to project beyond a line drawn
+perpendicular to the hinder extremity of the glabello-occipital line,
+but even, in some cases, begins to shelve away from it, forwards, almost
+immediately. In consequence of this circumstance, the parts of the
+occipital bone which lie above and below the tuberosity make a much more
+acute angle with one another than is usual, whereby the hinder part of
+the base of the skull appears obliquely truncated. Many Australian
+skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to that of the average of
+any other race, but there are others in which the cranial roof becomes
+remarkably depressed, the skull, at the same time, elongating so much
+that, probably, its capacity is not diminished. The majority of skulls
+possessing these characters, which I have seen, are from the
+neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South Australia, and have been used by
+the natives as water vessels; to which end the face has been knocked
+away, and a string passed through the vacuity and the occipital foramen,
+so that the skull was suspended by the greater part of its basis.
+
+(FIGURE 30.--An Australian skull from Western Port, in the Museum of the
+Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour of the Neanderthal skull.
+Both reduced to one-third the natural size.)
+
+Figure 30 represents the contour of a skull of this kind from Western
+Port, with the jaw attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both reduced
+to one-third of the size of nature. A small additional amount of
+flattening and lengthening, with a corresponding increase of the
+supraciliary ridge, would convert the Australian brain case into a form
+identical with that of the aberrant fossil.
+
+And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank which they
+occupy among, or beyond, these existing varieties of cranial
+conformation. In the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor
+Schmerling well observed ('supra', p. 300) in commenting upon the Engis
+skull, the formation of a safe judgment upon the question is greatly
+hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the crania, so that there
+is no means of deciding with certainty, whether they were more or less
+prognathous than the lower existing races of mankind. And yet, as we
+have seen, it is more in this respect than any other, that human skulls
+vary, towards and from, the brutal type--the brain case of an average
+dolichocephalic European differing far less from that of a Negro, for
+example, than his jaws do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any
+judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races must be
+accepted with a certain reservation.
+
+But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first to the Engis
+skull, I confess I can find no character in the remains of that cranium
+which, if it were a recent skull, would give any trustworthy clue as to
+the Race to which it might appertain. Its contours and measurements
+agree very well with those of some Australian skulls which I have
+examined--and especially has it a tendency towards that occipital
+flattening, to the great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I
+have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not present this flattening,
+and the supraciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of
+the typical Australians.
+
+On the other hand, its measurements agree equally well with those of
+some European skulls. And assuredly, there is no mark of degradation
+about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human
+skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have
+contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.
+
+The case of the Neanderthal skull is very different. Under whatever
+aspect we view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression,
+the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloped occiput,
+or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like
+characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet
+discovered. But Professor Schaaffhausen states ('supra', p. 308), that
+the cranium, in its present condition, holds 1033.24 cubic centimetres
+of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly
+have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be
+estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given
+by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls.
+
+So large a mass of brain as this, would alone suggest that the pithecoid
+tendencies, indicated by this skull, did not extend deep into the
+organization; and this conclusion is borne out by the dimensions of the
+other bones of the skeleton given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which show
+that the absolute height and relative proportions of the limbs were
+quite those of an European of middle stature. The bones are indeed
+stouter, but this and the great development of the muscular ridges noted
+by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The
+Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate possibly
+not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which the
+Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb
+bones.
+
+(FIGURE 31.--Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby: one-third
+of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing by Mr. Busk.)
+
+In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains
+of a human being intermediate between Men and Apes. At most, they
+demonstrate the existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert
+somewhat towards the pithecoid type--just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or
+a Tumbler, may sometimes put on the plumage of its primitive stock, the
+'Columba livia'. And indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of known
+human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no means so isolated as it
+appears to be at first, but forms, in reality, the extreme term of a
+series leading gradually from it to the highest and best developed of
+human crania. On the one hand, it is closely approached by the flattened
+Australian skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other Australian
+forms lead us gradually up to skulls having very much the type of the
+Engis cranium. And, on the other hand, it is even more closely affined
+to the skulls of certain ancient people who inhabited Denmark during the
+'stone period,' and were probably either contemporaneous with, or later
+than, the makers of the 'refuse heaps,' or 'Kjokkenmoddings' of that
+country.
+
+The correspondence between the longitudinal contour of the Neanderthal
+skull and that of some of those skulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very
+accurate drawings of which have been made by Mr. Busk, is very close.
+The occiput is quite as retreating, the supraciliary ridges are nearly
+as prominent, and the skull is as low. Furthermore, the Borreby skull
+resembles the Neanderthal form more closely than any of the Australian
+skulls do, by the much more rapid retrocession of the forehead. On the
+other hand, the Borreby skulls are all somewhat broader, in proportion
+to their length, than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain that
+proportion of breadth to length (80:100) which constitutes
+brachycephaly.
+
+In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of Man hitherto
+discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower
+pithecoid form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become
+what he is. And considering what is now known of the most ancient races
+of men; seeing that they fashioned flint axes and flint knives and
+bone-skewers, of much the same pattern as those fabricated by the lowest
+savages at the present day, and that we have every reason to believe the
+habits and modes of living of such people to have remained the same from
+the time of the Mammoth and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do not
+know that this result is other than might be expected.
+
+Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man? Was the oldest 'Homo
+sapiens' pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient? In still older strata
+do the fossilized bones of an Ape more anthropoid, or a Man more
+pithecoid, than any yet known await the researches of some unborn
+paleontologist?
+
+Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any form of the doctrine of
+progressive development is correct, we must extend by long epochs the
+most liberal estimate that has yet been made of the antiquity of Man.
+
+End of On Some Fossil Remains of Man.
+
+***
+
+
+ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.*
+
+([Footnote] *A Lay Sermon delivered in St. Martin's Hall on Sunday,
+January 7th, 1866, and subsequently published in the 'Fortnightly
+Review'.)
+
+This time two hundred years ago--in the beginning of January,
+1666--those of our forefathers who inhabited this great and ancient
+city, took breath between the shocks of two fearful calamities: one not
+quite past, although its fury had abated; the other to come.
+
+Within a few yards of the very spot on which we are assembled, so the
+tradition runs, that painful and deadly malady, the plague, appeared in
+the latter months of 1664; and, though no new visitor, smote the people
+of England, and especially of her capital, with a violence unknown
+before, in the course of the following year. The hand of a master has
+pictured what happened in those dismal months; and in that truest of
+fictions, 'The History of the Plague Year', Defoe shows death, with
+every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the narrow
+streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence broken
+only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by the woful
+denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the madder yells of
+despairing profligates.
+
+But about this time in 1666, the death-rate had sunk to nearly its
+ordinary amount; a case of plague occurred only here and there, and the
+richer citizens who had flown from the pest had returned to their
+dwellings. The remnant of the people began to toil at the accustomed
+round of duty, or of pleasure; and the stream of city life bid fair to
+flow back along its old bed, with renewed and uninterrupted vigour.
+
+The newly kindled hope was deceitful. The great plague, indeed, returned
+no more; but what it had done for the Londoners, the great fire, which
+broke out in the autumn of 1666, did for London; and, in September of
+that year, a heap of ashes and the indestructible energy of the people
+were all that remained of the glory of five-sixths of the city within
+the walls.
+
+Our forefathers had their own ways of accounting for each of these
+calamities. They submitted to the plague in humility and in penitence,
+for they believed it to be the judgment of God. But, towards the fire
+they were furiously indignant, interpreting it as the effect of the
+malice of man,--as the work of the Republicans, or of the Papists,
+according as their prepossessions ran in favour of loyalty or of
+Puritanism.
+
+It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with one who, standing where I now
+stand, in what was then a thickly peopled and fashionable part of
+London, should have broached to our ancestors the doctrine which I now
+propound to you--that all their hypotheses were alike wrong; that the
+plague was no more, in their sense, Divine judgment, than the fire was
+the work of any political, or of any religious, sect; but that they were
+themselves the authors of both plague and fire, and that they must look
+to themselves to prevent the recurrence of calamities, to all appearance
+so peculiarly beyond the reach of human control--so evidently the result
+of the wrath of God, or of the craft and subtlety of an enemy.
+
+And one may picture to one's self how harmoniously the holy cursing of
+the Puritan of that day would have chimed in with the unholy cursing and
+the crackling wit of the Rochesters and Sedleys, and with the revilings
+of the political fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer had gone on to
+say that, if the return of such misfortunes were ever rendered
+impossible, it would not be in virtue of the victory of the faith of
+Laud, or of that of Milton; and, as little, by the triumph of
+republicanism, as by that of monarchy. But that the one thing needful
+for compassing this end was, that the people of England should second
+the effort of an insignificant corporation, the establishment of which,
+a few years before the epoch of the great plague and the great fire, had
+been as little noticed, as they were conspicuous.
+
+Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague a few calm and
+thoughtful students banded themselves together for the purpose, as they
+phrased it, of "improving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed to
+attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the words of one of the
+founders of the organization:--
+
+"Our business was (precluding matters of theology and state affairs) to
+discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries, and such as related
+thereunto:--as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation,
+Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments;
+with the state of these studies and their cultivation at home and
+abroad. We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves
+in the veins, the venae lacteae, the lymphatic vessels, the Copernican
+hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of
+Jupiter, the oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on
+the sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and
+selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the
+improvement of telescopes and grinding of glasses for that purpose, the
+weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities and
+nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver,
+the descent of heavy bodies and the degree of acceleration therein, with
+divers other things of like nature, some of which were then but new
+discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced as now they
+are; with other things appertaining to what hath been called the New
+Philosophy, which from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis
+Bacon (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy,
+France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in England."
+
+The learned Dr. Wallis, writing in 1696, narrates in these words, what
+happened half a century before, or about 1645. The associates met at
+Oxford, in the rooms of Dr. Wilkins, who was destined to become a
+bishop; and subsequently coming together in London, they attracted the
+notice of the king. And it is a strange evidence of the taste for
+knowledge which the most obviously worthless of the Stuarts shared with
+his father and grandfather, that Charles the Second was not content with
+saying witty things about his philosophers, but did wise things with
+regard to them. For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as he
+could spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but being in his usual
+state of impecuniosity, begged for them of the Duke of Ormond; and, that
+step being without effect, gave them Chelsea College, a charter, and a
+mace: crowning his favours in the best way they could be crowned, by
+burdening them no further with royal patronage or state interference.
+
+Thus it was that the half-dozen young men, studious of the "New
+Philosophy," who met in one another's lodgings in Oxford or in London,
+in the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in numerical and in real
+strength, until, in the latter part, the "Royal Society for the
+improvement of Natural Knowledge" had already become famous, and had
+acquired a claim upon the veneration of Englishmen, which it has ever
+since retained, as the principal focus of scientific activity in our
+islands, and the chief champion of the cause it was formed to support.
+
+It was by the aid of the Royal Society that Newton published his
+'Principia'. If all the books in the world, except the Philosophical
+Transactions, were destroyed, it is safe to say that the foundations of
+physical science would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual
+progress of the last two centuries would be largely, though
+incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs of halting or of decrepitude
+manifested themselves in our own times. As in Dr. Wallis's days, so in
+these, "our business is, precluding theology and state affairs, to
+discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries." But our
+"Mathematick" is one which Newton would have to go to school to learn;
+our "Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural
+Experiments" constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a
+glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the doings of a score of
+inquisitorial cardinals; our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such
+infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and
+space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems,
+that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of
+the tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard seed.
+
+The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too little, forced upon one's
+notice, nowadays, that all this marvellous intellectual growth has a no
+less wonderful expression in practical life; and that, in this respect,
+if in no other, the movement symbolized by the progress of the Royal
+Society stands without a parallel in the history of mankind.
+
+A series of volumes as bulky as the 'Transactions of the Royal Society'
+might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations of the Schoolmen;
+not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval
+thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of
+energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy"; but though such
+work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than has
+elapsed since the great fire, its effects were "writ in water," so far
+as our social state is concerned.
+
+On the other hand, if the noble first President of the Royal Society
+could revisit the upper air and once more gladden his eyes with a sight
+of the familiar mace, he would find himself in the midst of a material
+civilization more different from that of his day, than that of the
+seventeenth was from that of the first century. And if Lord Brouncker's
+native sagacity had not deserted his ghost, he would need no long
+reflection to discover that all these great ships, these railways, these
+telegraphs, these factories, these printing-presses, without which the
+whole fabric of modern English society would collapse into a mass of
+stagnant and starving pauperism,--that all these pillars of our State
+are but the ripples, and the bubbles upon the surface of that great
+spiritual stream, the springs of which, only, he and his fellows were
+privileged to see; and seeing, to recognise as that which it behoved
+them above all things to keep pure and undefiled.
+
+It may not be too great a flight of imagination to conceive our noble
+'revenant' not forgetful of the great troubles of his own day, and
+anxious to know how often London had been burned down since his time,
+and how often the plague had carried off its thousands. He would have to
+learn that, although London contains tenfold the inflammable matter that
+it did in 1666; though, not content with filling our rooms with woodwork
+and light draperies, we must needs lead inflammable and explosive gases
+into every corner of our streets and houses, we never allow even a
+street to burn down. And if he asked how this had come about, we should
+have to explain that the improvement of natural knowledge has furnished
+us with dozens of machines for throwing water upon fires, any one of
+which would have furnished the ingenious Mr. Hooke, the first "curator
+and experimenter" of the Royal Society, with ample materials for
+discourse before half a dozen meetings of that body; and that, to say
+truth, except for the progress of natural knowledge, we should not have
+been able to make even the tools by which these machines are
+constructed. And, further, it would be necessary to add, that although
+severe fires sometimes occur and inflict great damage, the loss is very
+generally compensated by societies, the operations of which have been
+rendered possible only by the progress of natural knowledge in the
+direction of mathematics, and the accumulation of wealth in virtue of
+other natural knowledge.
+
+But the plague? My Lord Brouncker's observation would not, I fear, lead
+him to think that Englishmen of the nineteenth century are purer in
+life, or more fervent in religious faith, than the generation which
+could produce a Boyle, an Evelyn, and a Milton. He might find the mud of
+society at the bottom, instead of at the top, but I fear that the sum
+total would be a deserving of swift judgment as at the time of the
+Restoration. And it would be our duty to explain once more, and this
+time not without shame, that we have no reason to believe that it is the
+improvement of our faith, nor that of our morals, which keeps the plague
+from our city; but, again, that it is the improvement of our natural
+knowledge.
+
+We have learned that pestilences will only take up their abode among
+those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished residences for them.
+Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated
+garbage. Their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated.
+Their subjects must be ill-washed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. The London of
+1665 was such a city. The cities of the East, where plague has an
+enduring dwelling, are such cities. We, in later times, have learned
+somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her. Because of this partial
+improvement of our natural knowledge and of that fractional obedience,
+we have no plague; because that knowledge is still very imperfect and
+that obedience yet incomplete, typhus is our companion and cholera our
+visitor. But it is not presumptuous to express the belief that, when our
+knowledge is more complete and our obedience the expression of our
+knowledge, London will count her centuries of freedom from typhus and
+cholera, as she now gratefully reckons her two hundred years of
+ignorance of that plague which swooped upon her thrice in the first half
+of the seventeenth century.
+
+Surely, there is nothing in these explanations which is not fully borne
+out by the facts? Surely, the principles involved in them are now
+admitted among the fixed beliefs of all thinking men? Surely, it is true
+that our countrymen are less subject to fire, famine, pestilence, and
+all the evils which result from a want of command over and due
+anticipation of the course of Nature, than were the countrymen of
+Milton; and health, wealth, and well-being are more abundant with us
+than with them? But no less certainly is the difference due to the
+improvement of our knowledge of Nature, and the extent to which that
+improved knowledge has been incorporated with the household words of
+men, and has supplied the springs of their daily actions.
+
+Granting for a moment, then, the truth of that which the depreciators of
+natural knowledge are so fond of urging, that its improvement can only
+add to the resources of our material civilization; admitting it to be
+possible that the founders of the Royal Society themselves looked for no
+other reward than this, I cannot confess that I was guilty of
+exaggeration when I hinted, that to him who had the gift of
+distinguishing between prominent events and important events, the origin
+of a combined effort on the part of mankind to improve natural knowledge
+might have loomed larger than the Plague and have outshone the glare of
+the Fire; as a something fraught with a wealth of beneficence to
+mankind, in comparison with which the damage done by those ghastly evils
+would shrink into insignificance.
+
+It is very certain that for every victim slain by the plague, hundreds
+of mankind exist and find a fair share of happiness in the world by the
+aid of the spinning jenny. And the great fire, at its worst, could not
+have burned the supply of coal, the daily working of which, in the
+bowels of the earth, made possible by the steam pump, gives rise to an
+amount of wealth to which the millions lost in old London are but as an
+old song.
+
+But spinning jenny and steam pump are, after all, but toys, possessing
+an accidental value; and natural knowledge creates multitudes of more
+subtle contrivances, the praises of which do not happen to be sung
+because they are not directly convertible into instruments of creating
+wealth. When I contemplate natural knowledge squandering such gifts
+among men, the only appropriate comparison I can find for her is, to
+liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever
+upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on her home; but yet,
+without effort and without thought, knitting for her children. Now
+stockings are good and comfortable things, and the children will
+undoubtedly be much the better for them; but surely it would be
+short-sighted, to say the least of it, to depreciate this toiling mother
+as a mere stocking-machine--a mere provider of physical comforts?
+
+However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and not a few of them,
+who take this view of natural knowledge, and can see nothing in the
+bountiful mother of humanity but a sort of comfort-grinding machine.
+According to them, the improvement of natural knowledge always has been,
+and always must be, synonymous with no more than the improvement of the
+material resources and the increase of the gratification of men.
+
+Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real mother of mankind, bringing
+them up with kindness, and if need be, with sternness, in the way they
+should go, and instructing them in all things needful for their welfare;
+but a sort of fairy godmother, ready to furnish her pets with shoes of
+swiftness, swords of sharpness, and omnipotent Aladdin's lamps, so that
+they may have telegraphs to Saturn, and see the other side of the moon,
+and thank God they are better than their benighted ancestors.
+
+If this talk were true, I, for one, should not greatly care to toil in
+the service of natural knowledge. I think I would just as soon be
+quietly chipping my own flint axe, after the manner of my forefathers a
+few thousand years back, as be troubled with the endless malady of
+thought which now infests us all, for such reward. But I venture to say
+that such views are contrary alike to reason and to fact. Those who
+discourse in such fashion seem to me to be so intent upon trying to see
+what is above Nature, or what is behind her, that they are blind to what
+stares them in the face, in her.
+
+I should not venture to speak thus strongly if my justification were not
+to be found in the simplest and most obvious facts,--if it needed more
+than an appeal to the most notorious truths to justify my assertion,
+that the improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direction it has
+taken, and however low the aims of those who may have commenced it--has
+not only conferred practical benefits on men, but, in so doing, has
+effected a revolution in their conceptions of the universe and of
+themselves, and has profoundly altered their modes of thinking and their
+views of right and wrong. I say that natural knowledge, seeking to
+satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still
+spiritual cravings. I way that natural knowledge, in desiring to
+ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of
+conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality.
+
+Let us take these points separately; and, first, what great ideas has
+natural knowledge introduced into men's minds?
+
+I cannot but think that the foundations of all natural knowledge were
+laid when the reason of man first came face to face with the facts of
+Nature; when the savage first learned that the fingers of one hand are
+fewer than those of both; that it is shorter to cross a stream than to
+head it; that a stone stops where it is unless it be moved, and that it
+drops from the hand which lets it go; that light and heat come and go
+with the sun; that sticks burn away to a fire; that plants and animals
+grow and die; that if he struck his fellow-savage a blow he would make
+him angry, and perhaps get a blow in return, while if he offered him a
+fruit he would please him, and perhaps receive a fish in exchange. When
+men had acquired this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though they
+were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of biology, of moral,
+economical, and political science, were sketched. Nor did the germ of
+religion fail when science began to bud. Listen to words which though
+new, are yet three thousand years old:--
+
+    "...When in heaven the stars about the moon
+    Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
+    And every height comes out, and jutting peak
+    And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
+    Break open to their highest, and all the stars
+    Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart."*
+
+([Footnote] *Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer's
+Greek?)
+
+If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, it is
+irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, as we do, that upon
+that brief gladness there follows a certain sorrow,--the little light of
+awakened human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss of
+the unknown and unknowable; seems so insufficient to do more than
+illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations
+that cannot be realized, of man's own nature. But in this sadness, this
+consciousness of the limitation of man, this sense of an open secret
+which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of all religion; and the
+attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by the intellect is the
+origin of the higher theologies.
+
+Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the foundations of all
+knowledge--secular or sacred--were laid when intelligence dawned, though
+the superstructure remained for long ages so slight and feeble as to be
+compatible with the existence of almost any general view respecting the
+mode of governance of the universe. No doubt, from the first, there were
+certain phenomena which, to the rudest mind, presented a constancy of
+occurrence, and suggested that a fixed order ruled, at any rate, among
+them. I doubt if the grossest of Fetish worshippers ever imagined that a
+stone must have a god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit had a
+god within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such matters as
+these, it is hardly questionable that mankind from the first took
+strictly positive and scientific views.
+
+But, with respect to all the less familiar occurrences which present
+themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has always taken himself as the
+standard of comparison, as the centre and measure of the world; nor
+could he well avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently uncaused
+will has a powerful effect in giving rise to many occurrences, he
+naturally enough ascribed other and greater events to other and greater
+volitions, and came to look upon the world and all that therein is, as
+the product of the volitions of persons like himself, but stronger, and
+capable of being appeased or angered, as he himself might be soothed or
+irritated. Through such conceptions of the plan and working of the
+universe all mankind have passed, or are passing. And we may now
+consider, what has been the effect of the improvement of natural
+knowledge on the views of men who have reached this stage, and who have
+begun to cultivate natural knowledge with no desire but that of
+"increasing God's honour and bettering man's estate."
+
+For example, what could seem wiser, from a mere material point of view,
+more innocent, from a theological one, to an ancient people, than that
+they should learn the exact succession of the seasons, as warnings for
+their husbandmen; or the position of the stars, as guides to their rude
+navigators? But what has grown out of this search for natural knowledge
+of so merely useful a character? You all know the reply.
+Astronomy,--which of all sciences has filled men's minds with general
+ideas of a character most foreign to their daily experience, and has,
+more than any other, rendered it impossible for them to accept the
+beliefs of their fathers. Astronomy,--which tells them that this so vast
+and seemingly solid earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling, no man
+knows whither, through illimitable space; which demonstrates that what
+we call the peaceful heaven above us, is but that space, filled by an
+infinitely subtle matter whose particles are seething and surging, like
+the waves of an angry sea; which opens up to us infinite regions where
+nothing is known, or ever seems to have been known, but matter and
+force, operating according to rigid rules; which leads us to contemplate
+phenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had
+a beginning, and that they must have an end, but the very nature of
+which also proves that the beginning was, to our conceptions of time,
+infinitely remote, and that the end is as immeasurably distant.
+
+But it is not alone those who pursue astronomy who ask for bread and
+receive ideas. What more harmless than the attempt to lift and
+distribute water by pumping it; what more absolutely and grossly
+utilitarian? But out of pumps grew the discussions about Nature's
+abhorrence of a vacuum; and then it was discovered that Nature does not
+abhor a vacuum, but that air has weight; and that notion paved the way
+for the doctrine that all matter has weight, and that the force which
+produces weight is co-extensive with the universe,--in short, to the
+theory of universal gravitation and endless force. While learning how to
+handle gases led to the discovery of oxygen, and to modern chemistry,
+and to the notion of the indestructibility of matter.
+
+Again, what simpler, or more absolutely practical, than the attempt to
+keep the axle of a wheel from heating when the wheel turns round very
+fast? How useful for carters and gig drivers to know something about
+this; and how good were it, if any ingenious person would find out the
+cause of such phenomena, and thence educe a general remedy for them.
+Such an ingenious person was Count Rumford; and he and his successors
+have landed us in the theory of the persistence, or indestructibility,
+of force. And in the infinitely minute, as in the infinitely great, the
+seekers after natural knowledge, of the kinds called physical and
+chemical, have everywhere found a definite order and succession of
+events which seem never to be infringed.
+
+And how has it fared with "Physick" and Anatomy? Have the anatomist, the
+physiologist, or the physician, whose business it has been to devote
+themselves assiduously to that eminently practical and direct end, the
+alleviation of the sufferings of mankind,--have they been able to
+confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly useful? I fear they
+are worst offenders of all. For if the astronomer has set before us the
+infinite magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the duration
+of the universe; if the physical and chemical philosophers have
+demonstrated the infinite minuteness of its constituent parts, and the
+practical eternity of matter and of force; and if both have alike
+proclaimed the universality of a definite and predicable order and
+succession of events, the workers in biology have not only accepted all
+these, but have added more startling theses of their own. For, as the
+astronomers discover in the earth no centre of the universe, but an
+eccentric speck, so the naturalists find man to be no centre of the
+living world, but one amidst endless modifications of life; and as the
+astronomer observes the mark of practically endless time set upon the
+arrangements of the solar system so the student of life finds the
+records of ancient forms of existence peopling the world for ages,
+which, in relation to human experience, are infinite.
+
+Furthermore, the physiologist finds life to be as dependent for its
+manifestation on particular molecular arrangements as any physical or
+chemical phenomenon; and, whenever he extends his researches, fixed
+order and unchanging causation reveal themselves, as plainly as in the
+rest of Nature.
+
+Nor can I find that any other fate has awaited the germ of Religion.
+Arising, like all other kinds of knowledge, and out of the action and
+interaction of man's mind, with that which is not man's mind, it has
+taken the intellectual coverings of Fetishism or Polytheism; of Theism
+or Atheism; of Superstition or Rationalism. With these, and their
+relative merits and demerits, I have nothing to do; but this it is
+needful for my purpose to say, that if the religion of the present
+differs from that of the past, it is because the theology of the present
+has become more scientific than that of the past; because it has not
+only renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see the
+necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of books and
+traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs: and of cherishing the
+noblest and most human of man's emotions, by worship "for the most part
+of the silent sort" at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable.
+
+Such are a few of the new conceptions implanted in our minds by the
+improvement of natural knowledge. Men have acquired the ideas of the
+practically infinite extent of the universe and of its practical
+eternity; they are familiar with the conception that our earth is but an
+infinitesimal fragment of that part of the universe which can be seen;
+and that, nevertheless, its duration is, as compared with our standards
+of time, infinite. They have further acquired the idea that man is but
+one of innumerable forms of life now existing in the globe, and that the
+present existences are but the last of an immeasurable series of
+predecessors. Moreover, every step they have made in natural knowledge
+has tended to extend and rivet in their minds the conception of a
+definite order of the universe--which is embodied in what are called, by
+an unhappy metaphor, the laws of Nature--and to narrow the range and
+loosen the force of men's belief in spontaneity, or in changes other
+than such as arise out of that definite order itself.
+
+Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is not the question. No one
+can deny that they exist, and have been the inevitable outgrowth of the
+improvement of natural knowledge. And if so, it cannot be doubted that
+they are changing the form of men's most cherished and most important
+convictions.
+
+And as regards the second point--the extent to which the improvement of
+natural knowledge has remodelled and altered what may be termed the
+intellectual ethics of men,--what are among the moral convictions most
+fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people.
+
+They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief;
+that merit attaches to a readiness to believe; that the doubting
+disposition is a bad one, and scepticism a sin; that when good authority
+has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason
+has no further duty. There are many excellent persons who yet hold by
+these principles, and it is not my present business, or intention, to
+discuss their views. All I wish to bring clearly before your minds is
+the unquestionable fact, that the improvement of natural knowledge is
+effected by methods which directly give the lie to all these
+convictions, and assume the exact reverse of each to be true.
+
+The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge
+authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind
+faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every
+great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection
+of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation
+of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science
+holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates
+hold them; not because their verity is testified by portents and
+wonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses
+to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source,
+Nature--whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment
+and to observation--Nature will confirm them. The man of science has
+learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.
+
+Thus, without for a moment pretending to despise the practical results
+of the improvement of natural knowledge, and its beneficial influence on
+material civilization, it must, I think, be admitted that the great
+ideas, some of which I have indicated, and the ethical spirit which I
+have endeavoured to sketch, in the few moments which remained at my
+disposal, constitute the real and permanent significance of natural
+knowledge.
+
+If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are, to be more and more
+firmly established as the world grows older; if that spirit be fated, as
+I believe it is, to extend itself into all departments of human thought,
+and to become co-extensive with the range of knowledge; if, as our race
+approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I believe it will, that there
+is but one kind of knowledge and but one method of acquiring it; then
+we, who are still children, may justly feel it our highest duty to
+recognise the advisableness of improving natural knowledge, and so to
+aid ourselves and our successors in their course towards the noble goal
+which lies before mankind.
+
+End of On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge.
+
+***
+
+
+ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY.*
+
+([Footnote] *A Lecture delivered at the South Kensington Museum in
+1861.)
+
+Natural History is the name familiarly applied to the study of the
+properties of such natural bodies as minerals, plants, and animals; the
+sciences which embody the knowledge man has acquired upon these subjects
+are commonly termed Natural Sciences, in contradistinction to other
+so-called "physical" sciences; and those who devote themselves
+especially to the pursuit of such sciences have been and are commonly
+termed "Naturalists."
+
+Linnaeus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his 'Systema Naturae'
+was a work upon natural history, in the broadest acceptation of the
+term; in it, that great methodising spirit embodied all that was known
+in his time of the distinctive characters of minerals, animals, and
+plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnaeus gave to the
+investigation of nature soon rendered it impossible that any one man
+should write another 'Systema Naturae,' and extremely difficult for any
+one to become even a naturalist such as Linnaeus was.
+
+Great as have been the advances made by all the three branches of
+science, of old included under the title of natural history, there can
+be no doubt that zoology and botany have grown in an enormously greater
+ratio than mineralogy; and hence, as I suppose, the name of "natural
+history" has gradually become more and more definitely attached to these
+prominent divisions of the subject, and by "naturalist" people have
+meant more and more distinctly to imply a student of the structure and
+function of living beings.
+
+However this may be, it is certain that the advance of knowledge has
+gradually widened the distance between mineralogy and its old
+associates, while it has drawn zoology and botany closer together; so
+that of late years it has been found convenient (and indeed necessary)
+to associate the sciences which deal with vitality and all its phenomena
+under the common head of "biology"; and the biologists have come to
+repudiate any blood-relationship with their foster-brothers, the
+mineralogists.
+
+Certain broad laws have a general application throughout both the animal
+and the vegetable worlds, but the ground common to these kingdoms of
+nature is not of very wide extent, and the multiplicity of details is so
+great, that the student of living beings finds himself obliged to devote
+his attention exclusively either to the one or the other. If he elects
+to study plants, under any aspect, we know at once what to call him. He
+is a botanist, and his science is botany. But if the investigation of
+animal life be his choice, the name generally applied to him will vary
+according to the kind of animals he studies, or the particular phenomena
+of animal life to which he confines his attention. If the study of man
+is his object, he is called an anatomist, or a physiologist, or an
+ethnologist; but if he dissects animals, or examines into the mode in
+which their functions are performed, he is a comparative anatomist or
+comparative physiologist. If he turns his attention to fossil animals,
+he is a palaeontologist. If his mind is more particularly directed to
+the specific description, discrimination, classification, and
+distribution of animals, he is termed a zoologist.
+
+For the purpose of the present discourse, however, I shall recognise
+none of these titles save the last, which I shall employ as the
+equivalent of botanist, and I shall use the term zoology as denoting the
+whole doctrine of animal life, in contradistinction to botany, which
+signifies the whole doctrine of vegetable life.
+
+Employed in this sense, zoology, like botany, is divisible into three
+great but subordinate sciences, morphology, physiology, and
+distribution, each of which may, to a very great extent, be studied
+independently of the other.
+
+Zoological morphology is the doctrine of animal form or structure.
+Anatomy is one of its branches; development is another; while
+classification is the expression of the relations which different
+animals bear to one another, in respect of their anatomy and their
+development.
+
+Zoological distribution is the study of animals in relation to the
+terrestrial conditions which obtain now, or have obtained at any
+previous epoch of the earth's history.
+
+Zoological physiology, lastly, is the doctrine of the functions or
+actions of animals. It regards animal bodies as machines impelled by
+certain forces, and performing an amount of work which can be expressed
+in terms of the ordinary forces of nature. The final object of
+physiology is to deduce the facts of morphology, on the one hand, and
+those of distribution on the other, from the laws of the molecular
+forces of matter.
+
+Such is the scope of zoology. But if I were to content myself with the
+enunciation of these dry definitions, I should ill exemplify that method
+of teaching this branch of physical science, which it is my chief
+business to-night to recommend. Let us turn away then from abstract
+definitions. Let us take some concrete living thing, some animal, the
+commoner the better, and let us see how the application of common sense
+and common logic to the obvious facts it presents, inevitably leads us
+into all these branches of zoological science.
+
+I have before me a lobster. When I examine it, what appears to be the
+most striking character it presents? Why, I observe that this part which
+we call the tail of the lobster, is made up of six distinct hard rings
+and a seventh terminal piece. If I separate one of the middle rings, say
+the third, I find it carries upon its under surface a pair of limbs or
+appendages, each of which consists of a stalk and two terminal pieces.
+So that I can represent a transverse section of the ring and its
+appendages upon the diagram board in this way.
+
+If I now take the fourth ring, I find it has the same structure, and so
+have the fifth and the second; so that, in each of these divisions of
+the tail, I find parts which correspond with one another, a ring and two
+appendages; and in each appendage a stalk and two end pieces. These
+corresponding parts are called, in the technical language of anatomy,
+"homologous parts." The ring of the third division is the "homologue" of
+the ring of the fifth, the appendage of the former is the homologue of
+the appendage of the latter. And, as each division exhibits
+corresponding parts in corresponding places, we say that all the
+divisions are constructed upon the same plan. But now let us consider
+the sixth division. It is similar to, and yet different from, the
+others. The ring is essentially the same as in the other divisions; but
+the appendages look at first as if they were very different; and yet
+when we regard them closely, what do we find? A stalk and two terminal
+divisions, exactly as in the others, but the stalk is very short and
+very thick, the terminal divisions are very broad and flat, and one of
+them is divided into two pieces.
+
+I may say, therefore, that the sixth segment is like the others in plan,
+but that it is modified in its details.
+
+The first segment is like the others, so far as its ring is concerned,
+and though its appendages differ from any of those yet examined in the
+simplicity of their structure, parts corresponding with the stem and one
+of the divisions of the appendages of the other segments can be readily
+discerned in them.
+
+Thus it appears that the lobster's tail is composed of a series of
+segments which are fundamentally similar, though each presents peculiar
+modifications of the plan common to all. But when I turn to the forepart
+of the body I see, at first, nothing but a great shield-like shell,
+called technically the "carapace," ending in front in a sharp spine, on
+either side of which are the curious compound eyes, set upon the ends of
+stout movable stalks. Behind these, on the under side of the body, are
+two pairs of long feelers, or antennae, followed by six pairs of jaws
+folded against one another over the mouth, and five pairs of legs, the
+foremost of these being the great pinchers, or claws, of the lobster.
+
+It looks, at first, a little hopeless to attempt to find in this complex
+mass a series of rings, each with its pair of appendages, such as I have
+shown you in the abdomen, and yet it is not difficult to demonstrate
+their existence. Strip off the legs, and you will find that each pair is
+attached to a very definite segment of the under wall of the body; but
+these segments, instead of being the lower parts of free rings, as in
+the tail, are such parts of rings which are all solidly united and bound
+together; and the like is true of the jaws, the feelers, and the
+eye-stalks, every pair of which is borne upon its own special segment.
+Thus the conclusion is gradually forced upon us, that the body of the
+lobster is composed of as many rings as there are pairs of appendages,
+namely, twenty in all, but that the six hindmost rings remain free and
+movable, while the fourteen front rings become firmly soldered together,
+their backs forming one continuous shield--the carapace.
+
+Unity of plan, diversity in execution, is the lesson taught by the study
+of the rings of the body, and the same instruction is given still more
+emphatically by the appendages. If I examine the outermost jaw I find it
+consists of three distinct portions, an inner, a middle, and an outer,
+mounted upon a common stem; and if I compare this jaw with the legs
+behind it, or the jaws in front of it, I find it quite easy to see,
+that, in the legs, it is the part of the appendage which corresponds
+with the inner division, which becomes modified into what we know
+familiarly as the "leg," while the middle division disappears, and the
+outer division is hidden under the carapace. Nor is it more difficult to
+discern that, in the appendages of the tail, the middle division appears
+again and the outer vanishes; while, on the other hand, in the foremost
+jaw, the so-called mandible, the inner division only is left; and, in
+the same way, the parts of the feelers and of the eye-stalks can be
+identified with those of the legs and jaws.
+
+But whither does all this tend? To the very remarkable conclusion that a
+unity of plan, of the same kind as that discoverable in the tail or
+abdomen of the lobster, pervades the whole organization of its skeleton,
+so that I can return to the diagram representing any one of the rings of
+the tail, which I drew upon the board, and by adding a third division to
+each appendage, I can use it as a sort of scheme or plan of any ring of
+the body. I can give names to all the parts of that figure, and then if
+I take any segment of the body of the lobster, I can point out to you
+exactly, what modification the general plan has undergone in that
+particular segment; what part has remained movable, and what has become
+fixed to another; what has been excessively developed and metamorphosed
+and what has been suppressed.
+
+But I imagine I hear the question, How is all this to be tested? No
+doubt it is a pretty and ingenious way of looking at the structure of
+any animal; but is it anything more? Does Nature acknowledge, in any
+deeper way, this unity of plan we seem to trace?
+
+The objection suggested by these questions is a very valid and important
+one, and morphology was in an unsound state so long as it rested upon
+the mere perception of the analogies which obtain between fully formed
+parts. The unchecked ingenuity of speculative anatomists proved itself
+fully competent to spin any number of contradictory hypotheses out of
+the same facts, and endless morphological dreams threatened to supplant
+scientific theory.
+
+Happily, however, there is a criterion of morphological truth, and a
+sure test of all homologies. Our lobster has not always been what we see
+it; it was once an egg, a semifluid mass of yolk, not so big as a pin's
+head, contained in a transparent membrane, and exhibiting not the least
+trace of any one of those organs, whose multiplicity and complexity, in
+the adult, are so surprising. After a time a delicate patch of cellular
+membrane appeared upon one face of this yolk, and that patch was the
+foundation of the whole creature, the clay out of which it would be
+moulded. Gradually investing the yolk, it became subdivided by
+transverse constrictions into segments, the forerunners of the rings of
+the body. Upon the ventral surface of each of the rings thus sketched
+out, a pair of bud-like prominences made their appearance--the rudiments
+of the appendages of the ring. At first, all the appendages were alike,
+but, as they grew, most of them became distinguished into a stem and two
+terminal divisions, to which in the middle part of the body, was added a
+third outer division; and it was only at a later period, that by the
+modification, or absorption, of certain of these primitive constituents,
+the limbs acquired their perfect form.
+
+Thus the study of development proves that the doctrine of unity of plan
+is not merely a fancy, that it is not merely one way of looking at the
+matter, but that it is the expression of deep-seated natural facts. The
+legs and jaws of the lobster may not merely be regarded as modifications
+of a common type,--in fact and in nature they are so,--the leg and the
+jaw of the young animal being, at first, indistinguishable.
+
+These are wonderful truths, the more so because the zoologist finds them
+to be of universal application. The investigation of a polype, of a
+snail, of a fish, of a horse, or of a man, would have led us, though by
+a less easy path, perhaps, to exactly the same point. Unity of plan
+everywhere lies hidden under the mask of diversity of structure--the
+complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple. Every animal has at
+first the form of an egg, and every animal and every organic part, in
+reaching its adult state, passes through conditions common to other
+animals and other adult parts; and this leads me to another point. I
+have hitherto spoken as if the lobster were alone in the world, but, as
+I need hardly remind you, there are myriads of other animal organisms.
+Of these, some, such as men, horses, birds, fishes, snails, slugs,
+oysters, corals, and sponges, are not in the least like the lobster. But
+other animals, though they may differ a good deal from the lobster, are
+yet either very like it, or are like something that is like it. The cray
+fish, the rock lobster, and the prawn, and the shrimp, for example,
+however different, are yet so like lobsters, that a child would group
+them as of the lobster kind, in contradistinction to snails and slugs;
+and these last again would form a kind by themselves, in
+contradistinction to cows, horses, and sheep, the cattle kind.
+
+But this spontaneous grouping into "kinds" is the first essay of the
+human mind at classification, or the calling by a common name of those
+things that are alike, and the arranging them in such a manner as best
+to suggest the sum of their likenesses and unlikenesses to other things.
+
+Those kinds which include no other subdivisions than the sexes, or
+various breeds, are called, in technical language, species. The English
+lobster is a species, our cray fish is another, our prawn is another. In
+other countries, however, there are lobsters, cray fish, and prawns,
+very like ours, and yet presenting sufficient differences to deserve
+distinction. Naturalists, therefore, express this resemblance and this
+diversity by grouping them as distinct species of the same "genus." But
+the lobster and the cray fish, though belonging to distinct genera, have
+many features in common, and hence are grouped together in an assemblage
+which is called a family. More distant resemblances connect the lobster
+with the prawn and the crab, which are expressed by putting all these
+into the same order. Again, more remote, but still very definite,
+resemblances unite the lobster with the woodlouse, the king crab, the
+water flea, and the barnacle, and separate them from all other animals;
+whence they collectively constitute the larger group, or class,
+'Crustacea'. But the 'Crustacea' exhibit many peculiar features in
+common with insects, spiders, and centipedes, so that these are grouped
+into the still larger assemblage or "province" 'Articulata'; and,
+finally, the relations which these have to worms and other lower
+animals, are expressed by combining the whole vast aggregate into the
+sub-kingdom of 'Annulosa'.
+
+If I had worked my way from a sponge instead of a lobster, I should have
+found it associated, by like ties, with a great number of other animals
+into the sub-kingdom 'Protozoa'; if I had selected a fresh-water polype
+or a coral, the members of what naturalists term the sub-kingdom
+'Coelenterata', would have grouped themselves around my type; had a
+snail been chosen, the inhabitants of all univalve and bivalve, land and
+water, shells, the lamp shells, the squids, and the sea-mat would have
+gradually linked themselves on to it as members of the same sub-kingdom
+of 'Mollusca'; and finally, starting from man, I should have been
+compelled to admit first, the ape, the rat, the horse, the dog, into the
+same class; and then the bird, the crocodile, the turtle, the frog, and
+the fish, into the same sub-kingdom of 'Vertebrata'.
+
+And if I had followed out all these various lines of classification
+fully, I should discover in the end that there was no animal, either
+recent or fossil, which did not at once fall into one or other of these
+sub-kingdoms. In other words, every animal is organized upon one or
+other of the five, or more, plans, whose existence renders our
+classification possible. And so definitely and precisely marked is the
+structure of each animal, that, in the present state of our knowledge,
+there is not the least evidence to prove that a form, in the slightest
+degree transitional between any of the two groups 'Vertebrata',
+'Annulosa', 'Mollusca', and 'Coelenterata', either exists, or has
+existed, during that period of the earth's history which is recorded by
+the geologist. Nevertheless, you must not for a moment suppose, because
+no such transitional forms are known, that the members of the
+sub-kingdoms are disconnected from, or independent of, one another. On
+the contrary, in their earliest condition they are all alike, and the
+primordial germs of a man, a dog, a bird, a fish, a beetle, a snail, and
+a polype are, in no essential structural respects, distinguishable.
+
+In this broad sense, it may with truth be said, that all living animals,
+and all those dead creations which geology reveals, are bound together
+by an all-pervading unity of organization, of the same character, though
+not equal in degree, to that which enables us to discern one and the
+same plan amidst the twenty different segments of a lobster's body.
+Truly it has been said, that to a clear eye the smallest fact is a
+window through which the Infinite may be seen.
+
+Turning from these purely morphological considerations, let us now
+examine into the manner in which the attentive study of the lobster
+impels us into other lines of research.
+
+Lobsters are found in all the European seas; but on the opposite shores
+of the Atlantic and in the seas of the southern hemisphere they do not
+exist. They are, however, represented in these regions by very closely
+allied, but distinct forms--the 'Homarus Americanus' and the 'Homarus
+Capensis': so that we may say that the European has one species of
+'Homarus'; the American, another; the African, another; and thus the
+remarkable facts of geographical distribution begin to dawn upon us.
+
+Again, if we examine the contents of the earth's crust, we shall find in
+the latter of those deposits, which have served as the great burying
+grounds of past ages, numberless lobster-like animals, but none so
+similar to our living lobster as to make zoologists sure that they
+belonged even to the same genus. If we go still further back in time, we
+discover, in the oldest rocks of all, the remains of animals,
+constructed on the same general plan as the lobster, and belonging to
+the same great group of 'Crustacea'; but for the most part totally
+different from the lobster, and indeed from any other living form of
+crustacean; and thus we gain a notion of that successive change of the
+animal population of the globe, in past ages, which is the most striking
+fact revealed by geology.
+
+Consider, now, where our inquiries have led us. We studied our type
+morphologically, when we determined its anatomy and its development, and
+when comparing it, in these respects, with other animals, we made out
+its place in a system of classification. If we were to examine every
+animal in a similar manner, we should establish a complete body of
+zoological morphology.
+
+Again, we investigated the distribution of our type in space and in
+time, and, if the like had been done with every animal, the sciences of
+geographical and geological distribution would have attained their
+limit.
+
+But you will observe one remarkable circumstance, that, up to this
+point, the question of the life of these organisms has not come under
+consideration. Morphology and distribution might be studied almost as
+well, if animals and plants were a peculiar kind of crystals, and
+possessed none of those functions which distinguish living beings so
+remarkably. But the facts of morphology and distribution have to be
+accounted for, and the science, whose aim it is to account for them, is
+Physiology.
+
+Let us return to our lobster once more. If we watched the creature in
+its native element, we should see it climbing actively the submerged
+rocks, among which it delights to live, by means of its strong legs; or
+swimming by powerful strokes of its great tail, the appendages of whose
+sixth joint are spread out into a broad fan-like propeller: seize it,
+and it will show you that its great claws are no mean weapons of
+offence; suspend a piece of carrion among its haunts, and it will
+greedily devour it, tearing and crushing the flesh by means of its
+multitudinous jaws.
+
+Suppose that we had known nothing of the lobster but as an inert mass,
+an organic crystal, if I may use the phrase, and that we could suddenly
+see it exerting all these powers, what wonderful new ideas and new
+questions would arise in our minds! The great new question would be,
+"How does all this take place?" the chief new idea would be, the idea of
+adaptation to purpose,--the notion, that the constituents of animal
+bodies are not mere unconnected parts, but organs working together to an
+end. Let us consider the tail of the lobster again from this point of
+view. Morphology has taught us that it is a series of segments composed
+of homologous parts, which undergo various modifications--beneath and
+through which a common plan of formation is discernible. But if I look
+at the same part physiologically, I see that it is a most beautifully
+constructed organ of locomotion, by means of which the animal can
+swiftly propel itself either backwards or forwards.
+
+But how is this remarkable propulsive machine made to perform its
+functions? If I were suddenly to kill one of these animals and to take
+out all the soft parts, I should find the shell to be perfectly inert,
+to have no more power of moving itself than is possessed by the
+machinery of a mill when disconnected from its steam-engine or
+water-wheel. But if I were to open it, and take out the viscera only,
+leaving the white flesh, I should perceive that the lobster could bend
+and extend its tail as well as before. If I were to cut off the tail, I
+should cease to find any spontaneous motion in it; but on pinching any
+portion of the flesh, I should observe that it underwent a very curious
+change--each fibre becoming shorter and thicker. By this act of
+contraction, as it is termed, the parts to which the ends of the fibre
+are attached are, of course, approximated; and according to the
+relations of their points of attachment to the centres of motions of the
+different rings, the bending or the extension of the tail results. Close
+observation of the newly-opened lobster would soon show that all its
+movements are due to the same cause--the shortening and thickening of
+these fleshy fibres, which are technically called muscles.
+
+Here, then, is a capital fact. The movements of the lobster are due to
+muscular contractility. But why does a muscle contract at one time and
+not at another? Why does one whole group of muscles contract when the
+lobster wishes to extend his tail, and another group when he desires to
+bend it? What is it originates, directs, and controls the motive power?
+
+Experiment, the great instrument for the ascertainment of truth in
+physical science, answers this question for us. In the head of the
+lobster there lies a small mass of that peculiar tissue which is known
+as nervous substance. Cords of similar matter connect this brain of the
+lobster, directly or indirectly, with the muscles. Now, if these
+communicating cords are cut, the brain remaining entire, the power of
+exerting what we call voluntary motion in the parts below the section is
+destroyed; and on the other hand, if, the cords remaining entire, the
+brain mass be destroyed, the same voluntary mobility is equally lost.
+Whence the inevitable conclusion is, that the power of originating these
+motions resides in the brain, and is propagated along the nervous cords.
+
+In the higher animals the phenomena which attend this transmission have
+been investigated, and the exertion of the peculiar energy which resides
+in the nerves has been found to be accompanied by a disturbance of the
+electrical state of their molecules.
+
+If we could exactly estimate the signification of this disturbance; if
+we could obtain the value of a given exertion of nerve force by
+determining the quantity of electricity, or of heat, of which it is the
+equivalent; if we could ascertain upon what arrangement, or other
+condition of the molecules of matter, the manifestation of the nervous
+and muscular energies depends (and doubtless science will some day or
+other ascertain these points), physiologists would have attained their
+ultimate goal in this direction; they would have determined the relation
+of the motive force of animals to the other forms of force found in
+nature; and if the same process had been successfully performed for all
+the operations which are carried on in, and by, the animal frame,
+physiology would be perfect, and the facts of morphology and
+distribution would be deducible from the laws which physiologists had
+established, combined with those determining the condition of the
+surrounding universe.
+
+There is not a fragment of the organism of this humble animal whose
+study would not lead us into regions of thought as large as those which
+I have briefly opened up to you; but what I have been saying, I trust,
+has not only enabled you to form a conception of the scope and purport
+of zoology, but has given you an imperfect example of the manner in
+which, in my opinion, that science, or indeed any physical science, may
+be best taught. The great matter is, to make teaching real and
+practical, by fixing the attention of the student on particular facts;
+but at the same time it should be rendered broad and comprehensive, by
+constant reference to the generalizations of which all particular facts
+are illustrations. The lobster has served as a type of the whole animal
+kingdom, and its anatomy and physiology have illustrated for us some of
+the greatest truths of biology. The student who has once seen for
+himself the facts which I have described, has had their relations
+explained to him, and has clearly comprehended them, has, so far, a
+knowledge of zoology, which is real and genuine, however limited it may
+be, and which is worth more than all the mere reading knowledge of the
+science he could ever acquire. His zoological information is, so far,
+knowledge and not mere hear-say.
+
+And if it were my business to fit you for the certificate in zoological
+science granted by this department, I should pursue a course precisely
+similar in principle to that which I have taken to-night. I should
+select a fresh-water sponge, a fresh-water polype or a 'Cyanaea', a
+fresh-water mussel, a lobster, a fowl, as types of the five primary
+divisions of the animal kingdom. I should explain their structure very
+fully, and show how each illustrated the great principles of zoology.
+Having gone very carefully and fully over this ground, I should feel
+that you had a safe foundation, and I should then take you in the same
+way, but less minutely, over similarly selected illustrative types of
+the classes; and then I should direct your attention to the special
+forms enumerated under the head of types, in this syllabus, and to the
+other facts there mentioned.
+
+That would, speaking generally, be my plan. But I have undertaken to
+explain to you the best mode of acquiring and communicating a knowledge
+of zoology, and you may therefore fairly ask me for a more detailed and
+precise account of the manner in which I should propose to furnish you
+with the information I refer to.
+
+My own impression is, that the best model for all kinds of training in
+physical science is that afforded by the method of teaching anatomy, in
+use in the medical schools. This method consists of three
+elements--lectures, demonstrations, and examinations.
+
+The object of lectures is, in the first place, to awaken the attention
+and excite the enthusiasm of the student; and this, I am sure, may be
+effected to a far greater extent by the oral discourse and by the
+personal influence of a respected teacher than in any other way.
+Secondly, lectures have the double use of guiding the student to the
+salient points of a subject, and at the same time forcing him to attend
+to the whole of it, and not merely to that part which takes his fancy.
+And lastly, lectures afford the student the opportunity of seeking
+explanations of those difficulties which will, and indeed ought to,
+arise in the course of his studies.
+
+But for a student to derive the utmost possible value from lectures,
+several precautions are needful.
+
+I have a strong impression that the better a discourse is, as an
+oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow of the discourse carries
+you on without proper attention to its sense; you drop a word or a
+phrase, you lose the exact meaning for a moment, and while you strive to
+recover yourself, the speaker has passed on to something else.
+
+The practice I have adopted of late years, in lecturing to students, is
+to condense the substance of the hour's discourse into a few dry
+propositions, which are read slowly and taken down from dictation; the
+reading of each being followed by a free commentary expanding and
+illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and removing any
+difficulties that may be attackable in that way, by diagrams made
+roughly, and seen to grow under the lecturer's hand. In this manner you,
+at any rate, insure the co-operation of the student to a certain extent.
+He cannot leave the lecture-room entirely empty if the taking of notes
+is enforced; and a student must be preternaturally dull and mechanical,
+if he can take notes and hear them properly explained, and yet learn
+nothing.
+
+What books shall I read? is a question constantly put by the student to
+the teacher. My reply usually is, "None: write your notes out carefully
+and fully; strive to understand them thoroughly; come to me for the
+explanation of anything you cannot understand; and I would rather you
+did not distract your mind by reading." A properly composed course of
+lectures ought to contain fully as much matter as a student can
+assimilate in the time occupied by its delivery; and the teacher should
+always recollect that his business is to feed, and not to cram the
+intellect. Indeed, I believe that a student who gains from a course of
+lectures the simple habit of concentrating his attention upon a
+definitely limited series of facts, until they are thoroughly mastered,
+has made a step of immeasurable importance.
+
+But, however good lectures may be, and however extensive the course of
+reading by which they are followed up, they are but accessories to the
+great instrument of scientific teaching--demonstration. If I insist
+unweariedly, nay fanatically, upon the importance of physical science as
+an educational agent, it is because the study of any branch of science,
+if properly conducted, appears to me to fill up a void left by all other
+means of education. I have the greatest respect and love for literature;
+nothing would grieve me more than to see literary training other than a
+very prominent branch of education: indeed, I wish that real literary
+discipline were far more attended to than it is; but I cannot shut my
+eyes to the fact, that there is a vast difference between men who have
+had a purely literary, and those who have had a sound scientific,
+training.
+
+Seeking for the cause of this difference, I imagine I can find it in the
+fact that, in the world of letters, learning and knowledge are one, and
+books are the source of both; whereas in science, as in life, learning
+and knowledge are distinct, and the study of things, and not of books,
+is the source of the latter.
+
+All that literature has to bestow may be obtained by reading and by
+practical exercise in writing and in speaking; but I do not exaggerate
+when I say, that none of the best gifts of science are to be won by
+these means. On the contrary, the great benefit which a scientific
+education bestows, whether as training or as knowledge, is dependent
+upon the extent to which the mind of the student is brought into
+immediate contact with facts--upon the degree to which he learns the
+habit of appealing directly to Nature, and of acquiring through his
+senses concrete images of those properties of things, which are, and
+always will be, but approximatively expressed in human language. Our way
+of looking at Nature, and of speaking about her, varies from year to
+year; but a fact once seen, a relation of cause and effect, once
+demonstratively apprehended, are possessions which neither change nor
+pass away, but, on the contrary, form fixed centres, about which other
+truths aggregate by natural affinity.
+
+Therefore, the great business of the scientific teacher is, to imprint
+the fundamental, irrefragable facts of his science, not only by words
+upon the mind, but by sensible impressions upon the eye, and ear, and
+touch of the student, in so complete a manner, that every term used, or
+law enunciated, should afterwards call up vivid images of the particular
+structural, or other, facts which furnished the demonstration of the
+law, or the illustration of the term.
+
+Now this important operation can only be achieved by constant
+demonstration, which may take place to a certain imperfect extent during
+a lecture, but which ought also to be carried on independently, and
+which should be addressed to each individual student, the teacher
+endeavouring, not so much to show a thing to the learner, as to make him
+see it for himself.
+
+I am well aware that there are great practical difficulties in the way
+of effectual zoological demonstrations. The dissection of animals is not
+altogether pleasant, and requires much time; nor is it easy to secure an
+adequate supply of the needful specimens. The botanist has here a great
+advantage; his specimens are easily obtained, are clean and wholesome,
+and can be dissected in a private house as well as anywhere else; and
+hence, I believe, the fact, that botany is so much more readily and
+better taught than its sister science. But, be it difficult or be it
+easy, if zoological science is to be properly studied, demonstration,
+and, consequently, dissection, must be had. Without it, no man can have
+a really sound knowledge of animal organization.
+
+A good deal may be done, however, without actual dissection on the
+student's part, by demonstration upon specimens and preparations; and in
+all probability it would not be very difficult, were the demand
+sufficient, to organize collections of such objects, sufficient for all
+the purposes of elementary teaching, at a comparatively cheap rate. Even
+without these, much might be effected, if the zoological collections,
+which are open to the public, were arranged according to what has been
+termed the "typical principle"; that is to say, if the specimens exposed
+to public view were so selected that the public could learn something
+from them, instead of being, as at present, merely confused by their
+multiplicity. For example, the grand ornithological gallery at the
+British Museum contains between two and three thousand species of birds,
+and sometimes five or six specimens of a species. They are very pretty
+to look at, and some of the cases are, indeed, splendid; but I will
+undertake to say, that no man but a professed ornithologist has ever
+gathered much information from the collection. Certainly, no one of the
+tens of thousands of the general public who have walked through that
+gallery ever knew more about the essential peculiarities of birds when
+he left the gallery than when he entered it. But if, somewhere in that
+vast hall, there were a few preparations, exemplifying the leading
+structural peculiarities and the mode of development of a common fowl;
+if the types of the genera, the leading modifications in the skeleton,
+in the plumage at various ages, in the mode of nidification, and the
+like, among birds, were displayed; and if the other specimens were put
+away in a place where the men of science, to whom they are alone useful,
+could have free access to them, I can conceive that this collection
+might become a great instrument of scientific education.
+
+The last implement of the teacher to which I have adverted is
+examination--a means of education now so thoroughly understood that I
+need hardly enlarge upon it. I hold that both written and oral
+examinations are indispensable, and, by requiring the description of
+specimens, they may be made to supplement demonstration.
+
+Such is the fullest reply the time at my disposal will allow me to give
+to the question--how may a knowledge of zoology be best acquired and
+communicated?
+
+But there is a previous question which may be moved, and which, in fact,
+I know many are inclined to move. It is the question, why should
+training masters be encouraged to acquire a knowledge of this, or any
+other branch of physical science? What is the use, it is said, of
+attempting to make physical science a branch of primary education? Is it
+not probable that teachers, in pursuing such studies, will be led astray
+from the acquirement of more important but less attractive knowledge?
+And, even if they can learn something of science without prejudice to
+their usefulness, what is the good of their attempting to instil that
+knowledge into boys whose real business is the acquisition of reading,
+writing, and arithmetic?
+
+These questions are, and will be, very commonly asked, for they arise
+from that profound ignorance of the value and true position of physical
+science, which infests the minds of the most highly educated and
+intelligent classes of the community. But if I did not feel well assured
+that they are capable of being easily and satisfactorily answered; that
+they have been answered over and over again; and that the time will come
+when men of liberal education will blush to raise such questions,--I
+should be ashamed of my position here to-night. Without doubt, it is
+your great and very important function to carry out elementary
+education; without question, anything that should interfere with the
+faithful fulfilment of that duty on your part would be a great evil; and
+if I thought that your acquirement of the elements of physical science,
+and your communication of those elements to your pupils, involved any
+sort of interference with your proper duties, I should be the first
+person to protest against your being encouraged to do anything of the
+kind.
+
+But is it true that the acquisition of such a knowledge of science as is
+proposed, and the communication of that knowledge, are calculated to
+weaken your usefulness? Or may I not rather ask, is it possible for you
+to discharge your functions properly without these aids?
+
+What is the purpose of primary intellectual education? I apprehend that
+its first object is to train the young in the use of those tools
+wherewith men extract knowledge from the ever-shifting succession of
+phenomena which pass before their eyes; and that its second object is to
+inform them of the fundamental laws which have been found by experience
+to govern the course of things, so that they may not be turned out into
+the world naked, defenceless, and a prey to the events they might
+control.
+
+A boy is taught to read his own and other languages, in order that he
+may have access to infinitely wider stores of knowledge than could ever
+be opened to him by oral intercourse with his fellow men; he learns to
+write, that his means of communication with the rest of mankind may be
+indefinitely enlarged, and that he may record and store up the knowledge
+he acquires. He is taught elementary mathematics, that he may understand
+all those relations of number and form, upon which the transactions of
+men, associated in complicated societies, are built, and that he may
+have some practice in deductive reasoning.
+
+All these operations of reading, writing, and ciphering, are
+intellectual tools, whose use should, before all things, be learned, and
+learned thoroughly; so that the youth may be enabled to make his life
+that which it ought to be, a continual progress in learning and in
+wisdom.
+
+But, in addition, primary education endeavours to fit a boy out with a
+certain equipment of positive knowledge. He is taught the great laws of
+morality; the religion of his sect; so much history and geography as
+will tell him where the great countries of the world are, what they are,
+and how they have become what they are.
+
+Without doubt all these are most fitting and excellent things to teach a
+boy; I should be very sorry to omit any of them from any scheme of
+primary intellectual education. The system is excellent, so far as it
+goes.
+
+But if I regard it closely, a curious reflection arises. I suppose that,
+fifteen hundred years ago, the child of any well-to-do Roman citizen was
+taught just these same things; reading and writing in his own, and,
+perhaps, the Greek tongue; the elements of mathematics; and the
+religion, morality, history, and geography current in his time.
+Furthermore, I do not think I err in affirming, that, if such a
+Christian Roman boy, who had finished his education, could be
+transplanted into one of our public schools, and pass through its course
+of instruction, he would not meet with a single unfamiliar line of
+thought; amidst all the new facts he would have to learn, not one would
+suggest a different mode of regarding the universe from that current in
+his own time.
+
+And yet surely there is some great difference between the civilization
+of the fourth century and that of the nineteenth, and still more between
+the intellectual habits and tone of thought of that day and this?
+
+And what has made this difference? I answer fearlessly--The prodigious
+development of physical science within the last two centuries.
+
+Modern civilization rests upon physical science; take away her gifts to
+our own country, and our position among the leading nations of the world
+is gone to-morrow; for it is physical science only, that makes
+intelligence and moral energy stronger than brute force.
+
+The whole of modern thought is steeped in science; it has made its way
+into the works of our best poets, and even the mere man of letters, who
+affects to ignore and despise science, is unconsciously impregnated with
+her spirit, and indebted for his best products to her methods. I believe
+that the greatest intellectual revolution mankind has yet seen is now
+slowly taking place by her agency. She is teaching the world that the
+ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment, and not
+authority; she is teaching it to estimate the value of evidence; she is
+creating a firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral and
+physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the highest possible aim of
+an intelligent being.
+
+But of all this your old stereotyped system of education takes no note.
+Physical science, its methods, its problems, and its difficulties, will
+meet the poorest boy at every turn, and yet we educate him in such a
+manner that he shall enter the world as ignorant of the existence of the
+methods and facts of science as the day he was born. The modern world is
+full of artillery; and we turn out our children to do battle in it,
+equipped with the shield and sword of an ancient gladiator.
+
+Posterity will cry shame on us if we do not remedy this deplorable state
+of things. Nay, if we live twenty years longer, our own consciences will
+cry shame on us.
+
+It is my firm conviction that the only way to remedy it is, to make the
+elements of physical science an integral part of primary education. I
+have endeavoured to show you how that may be done for that branch of
+science which it is my business to pursue; and I can but add, that I
+should look upon the day when every schoolmaster throughout this land
+was a centre of genuine, however rudimentary, scientific knowledge, as
+an epoch in the history of the country.
+
+But let me entreat you to remember my last words. Addressing myself to
+you, as teachers, I would say, mere book learning in physical science is
+a sham and a delusion--what you teach, unless you wish to be impostors,
+that you must first know; and real knowledge in science means personal
+acquaintance with the facts, be they few or many.* ([Footnote] *It has
+been suggested to me that these words may be taken to imply a
+discouragement on my part of any sort of scientific instruction which
+does not give an acquaintance with the facts at first hand. But this is
+not my meaning. The ideal of scientific teaching is, no doubt, a system
+by which the scholar sees every fact for himself, and the teacher
+supplies only the explanations. Circumstances, however, do not often
+allow of the attainment of that ideal, and we must put up with the next
+best system--one in which the scholar takes a good deal on trust from a
+teacher, who, knowing the facts by his own knowledge, can describe them
+with so much vividness as to enable his audience to form competent ideas
+concerning them. The system which I repudiate is that which allows
+teachers who have not come into direct contact with the leading facts of
+a science to pass their second-hand information on. The scientific
+virus, like vaccine lymph, if passed through too long a succession of
+organisms, will lose all its effect in protecting the young against the
+intellectual epidemics to which they are exposed.)
+
+End of On the Study of Zoology.
+
+***
+
+GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE.*
+
+([Footnote] *The Anniversary Address to the Geological Society for
+1862.)
+
+Merchants occasionally go through a wholesome, though troublesome and
+not always satisfactory, process which they term "taking stock." After
+all the excitement of speculation, the pleasure of gain, and the pain of
+loss, the trader makes up his mind to face facts and to learn the exact
+quantity and quality of his solid and reliable possessions.
+
+The man of science does well sometimes to imitate this procedure; and,
+forgetting for the time the importance of his own small winnings, to
+re-examine the common stock in trade, so that he may make sure how far
+the stock of bullion in the cellar--on the faith of whose existence so
+much paper has been circulating--is really the solid gold of truth.
+
+The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society seems to be an
+occasion well suited for an undertaking of this kind--for an inquiry, in
+fact, into the nature and value of the present results of
+paleontological investigation; and the more so, as all those who have
+paid close attention to the late multitudinous discussions in which
+paleontology is implicated, must have felt the urgent necessity of some
+such scrutiny.
+
+First in order, as the most definite and unquestionable of all the
+results of paleontology, must be mentioned the immense extension and
+impulse given to botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy, by the
+investigation of fossil remains. Indeed, the mass of biological facts
+has been so greatly increased, and the range of biological speculation
+has been so vastly widened, by the researches of the geologist and
+paleontologist, that it is to be feared there are naturalists in
+existence who look upon geology as Brindley regarded rivers. "Rivers,"
+said the great engineer, "were made to feed canals"; and geology, some
+seem to think, was solely created to advance comparative anatomy.
+
+Were such a thought justifiable, it could hardly expect to be received
+with favour by this assembly. But it is not justifiable. Your favourite
+science has her own great aims independent of all others; and if,
+notwithstanding her steady devotion to her own progress, she can scatter
+such rich alms among her sisters, it should be remembered that her
+charity is of the sort that does not impoverish, but "blesseth him that
+gives and him that takes."
+
+Regard the matter as we will, however, the facts remain. Nearly 40,000
+species of animals and plants have been added to the Systema Naturae by
+paleontologic research. This is a living population equivalent to that
+of a new continent in mere number; equivalent to that of a new
+hemisphere, if we take into account the small population of insects as
+yet found fossil, and the large proportion and peculiar organization of
+many of the Vertebrata.
+
+But, beyond this, it is perhaps not too much to say that, except for the
+necessity of interpreting paleontologic facts, the laws of distribution
+would have received less careful study; while few comparative anatomists
+(and those not of the first order) would have been induced by mere love
+of detail, as such, to study the minutiae of osteology, were it not that
+in such minutiae lie the only keys to the most interesting riddles
+offered by the extinct animal world.
+
+These assuredly are great and solid gains. Surely it is matter for no
+small congratulation that in half a century (for paleontology, though it
+dawned earlier, came into full day only with Cuvier) a subordinate
+branch of biology should have doubled the value and the interest of the
+whole group of sciences to which it belongs.
+
+But this is not all. Allied with geology, paleontology has established
+two laws of inestimable importance: the first, that one and the same
+area of the earth's surface has been successively occupied by very
+different kinds of living beings; the second, that the order of
+succession established in one locality holds good, approximately, in
+all.
+
+The first of these laws is universal and irreversible; the second is an
+induction from a vast number of observations, though it may possibly,
+and even probably, have to admit of exceptions. As a consequence of the
+second law, it follows that a peculiar relation frequently subsists
+between series of strata, containing organic remains, in different
+localities. The series resemble one another, not only in virtue of a
+general resemblance of the organic remains in the two, but also in
+virtue of a resemblance in the order and character of the serial
+succession in each. There is a resemblance of arrangement; so that the
+separate terms of each series, as well as the whole series, exhibit a
+correspondence.
+
+Succession implies time; the lower members of a series of sedimentary
+rocks are certainly older than the upper; and when the notion of age was
+once introduced as the equivalent of succession, it was no wonder that
+correspondence in succession came to be looked upon as a correspondence
+in age, or "contemporaneity." And, indeed, so long as relative age only
+is spoken of, correspondence in succession IS correspondence in age; it
+is RELATIVE contemporaneity.
+
+But it would have been very much better for geology if so loose and
+ambiguous a word as "contemporaneous" had been excluded from her
+terminology, and if, in its stead, some term expressing similarity of
+serial relation, and excluding the notion of time altogether, had been
+employed to denote correspondence in position in two or more series of
+strata.
+
+In anatomy, where such correspondence of position has constantly to be
+spoken of, it is denoted by the word "homology" and its derivatives; and
+for Geology (which after all is only the anatomy and physiology of the
+earth) it might be well to invent some single word, such as "homotaxis"
+(similarity of order), in order to express an essentially similar idea.
+This, however, has not been done, and most probably the inquiry will at
+once be made--To what end burden science with a new and strange term in
+place of one old, familiar, and part of our common language?
+
+The reply to this question will become obvious as the inquiry into the
+results of paleontology is pushed further.
+
+Those whose business it is to acquaint themselves specially with the
+works of paleontologists, in fact, will be fully aware that very few, if
+any, would rest satisfied with such a statement of the conclusions of
+their branch of biology as that which has just been given.
+
+Our standard repertories of paleontology profess to teach us far higher
+things--to disclose the entire succession of living forms upon the
+surface of the globe; to tell us of a wholly different distribution of
+climatic conditions in ancient times; to reveal the character of the
+first of all living existences; and to trace out the law of progress
+from them to us.
+
+It may not be unprofitable to bestow on these professions a somewhat
+more critical examination than they have hitherto received, in order to
+ascertain how far they rest on an irrefragable basis; or whether, after
+all, it might not be well for paleontologists to learn a little more
+carefully that scientific "ars artium," the art of saying "I don't
+know." And to this end let us define somewhat more exactly the extent of
+these pretensions of paleontology.
+
+Every one is aware that Professor Bronn's 'Untersuchungen' and Professor
+Pictet's 'Traite de Paleontologie' are works of standard authority,
+familiarly consulted by every working paleontologist. It is desirable to
+speak of these excellent books, and of their distinguished authors, with
+the utmost respect, and in a tone as far as possible removed from
+carping criticism; indeed, if they are specially cited in this place, it
+is merely in justification of the assertion that the following
+propositions, which may be found implicitly, or explicitly, in the works
+in question, are regarded by the mass of paleontologists and geologists,
+not only on the Continent but in this country, as expressing some of the
+best-established results of paleontology. Thus:--Animals and plants
+began their existence together, not long after the commencement of the
+deposition of the sedimentary rocks; and then succeeded one another, in
+such a manner, that totally distinct faunae and florae occupied the
+whole surface of the earth, one after the other, and during distinct
+epochs of time.
+
+A geological formation is the sum of all the strata deposited over the
+whole surface of the earth during one of these epochs: a geological
+fauna or flora is the sum of all the species of animals or plants which
+occupied the whole surface of the globe, during one of these epochs.
+
+The population of the earth's surface was at first very similar in all
+parts, and only from the middle of the Tertiary epoch onwards, began to
+show a distinct distribution in zones.
+
+The constitution of the original population, as well as the numerical
+proportions of its members, indicates a warmer and, on the whole,
+somewhat tropical climate, which remained tolerably equable throughout
+the year. The subsequent distribution of living beings in zones is the
+result of a gradual lowering of the general temperature, which first
+began to be felt at the poles.
+
+It is not now proposed to inquire whether these doctrines are true or
+false; but to direct your attention to a much simpler though very
+essential preliminary question--What is their logical basis? what are
+the fundamental assumptions upon which they all logically depend? and
+what is the evidence on which those fundamental propositions demand our
+assent?
+
+These assumptions are two: the first, that the commencement of the
+geological record is coeval with the commencement of life on the globe;
+the second, that geological contemporaneity is the same thing as
+chronological synchrony. Without the first of these assumptions there
+would of course be no ground for any statement respecting the
+commencement of life; without the second, all the other statements
+cited, every one of which implies a knowledge of the state of different
+parts of the earth at one and the same time, will be no less devoid of
+demonstration.
+
+The first assumption obviously rests entirely on negative evidence. This
+is, of course, the only evidence that ever can be available to prove the
+commencement of any series of phenomena; but, at the same time, it must
+be recollected that the value of negative evidence depends entirely on
+the amount of positive corroboration it receives. If A B wishes to prove
+an 'alibi', it is of no use for him to get a thousand witnesses simply
+to swear that they did not see him in such and such a place, unless the
+witnesses are prepared to prove that they must have seen him had he been
+there. But the evidence that animal life commenced with the
+Lingula-flags, 'e.g.', would seem to be exactly of this unsatisfactory
+uncorroborated sort. The Cambrian witnesses simply swear they "haven't
+seen anybody their way"; upon which the counsel for the other side
+immediately puts in ten or twelve thousand feet of Devonian sandstones
+to make oath they never saw a fish or a mollusk, though all the world
+knows there were plenty in their time.
+
+But then it is urged that, though the Devonian rocks in one part of the
+world exhibit no fossils, in another they do, while the lower Cambrian
+rocks nowhere exhibit fossils, and hence no living being could have
+existed in their epoch.
+
+To this there are two replies: the first, that the observational basis
+of the assertion that the lowest rocks are nowhere fossiliferous is an
+amazingly small one, seeing how very small an area, in comparison to
+that of the whole world, has yet been fully searched; the second, that
+the argument is good for nothing unless the unfossiliferous rocks in
+question were not only 'contemporaneous' in the geological sense, but
+'synchronous' in the chronological sense. To use the 'alibi'
+illustration again. If a man wishes to prove he was in neither of two
+places, A and B, on a given day, his witnesses for each place must be
+prepared to answer for the whole day. If they can only prove that he was
+not at A in the morning, and not at B in the afternoon, the evidence of
+his absence from both is 'nil', because he might have been at B in the
+morning and at A in the afternoon.
+
+Thus everything depends upon the validity of the second assumption. And
+we must proceed to inquire what is the real meaning of the word
+"contemporaneous" as employed by geologists. To this end a concrete
+example may be taken.
+
+The Lias of England and the Lias of Germany, the Cretaceous rocks of
+Britain and the Cretaceous rocks of Southern India, are termed by
+geologists "contemporaneous" formations; but whenever any thoughtful
+geologist is asked whether he means to say that they were deposited
+synchronously, he says, "No,--only within the same great epoch." And if,
+in pursuing the inquiry, he is asked what may be the approximate value
+in time of a "great epoch"--whether it means a hundred years, or a
+thousand, or a million, or ten million years--his reply is, "I cannot
+tell."
+
+If the further question be put, whether physical geology is in
+possession of any method by which the actual synchrony (or the reverse)
+of any two distant deposits can be ascertained, no such method can be
+heard of; it being admitted by all the best authorities that neither
+similarity of mineral composition, nor of physical character, nor even
+direct continuity of stratum, are 'absolute' proofs of the synchronism
+of even approximated sedimentary strata: while, for distant deposits,
+there seems to be no kind of physical evidence attainable of a nature
+competent to decide whether such deposits were formed simultaneously, or
+whether they possess any given difference of antiquity. To return to an
+example already given: All competent authorities will probably assent to
+the proposition that physical geology does not enable us in any way to
+reply to this question--Were the British Cretaceous rocks deposited at
+the same time as those of India, or are they a million of years younger
+or a million of years older?
+
+Is paleontology able to succeed where physical geology fails? Standard
+writers on paleontology, as has been seen, assume that she can. They
+take it for granted, that deposits containing similar organic remains
+are synchronous--at any rate in a broad sense; and yet, those who will
+study the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Sir Henry De La Beche's
+remarkable 'Researches in Theoretical Geology', published now nearly
+thirty years ago, and will carry out the arguments there most luminously
+stated, to their logical consequences, may very easily convince
+themselves that even absolute identity of organic contents is no proof
+of the synchrony of deposits, while absolute diversity is no proof of
+difference of date. Sir Henry De La Beche goes even further, and adduces
+conclusive evidence to show that the different parts of one and the same
+stratum, having a similar composition throughout, containing the same
+organic remains, and having similar beds above and below it, may yet
+differ to any conceivable extent in age.
+
+Edward Forbes was in the habit of asserting that the similarity of the
+organic contents of distant formations was 'prima facie' evidence, not
+of their similarity, but of their difference of age; and holding as he
+did the doctrine of single specific centres, the conclusion was as
+legitimate as any other; for the two districts must have been occupied
+by migration from one of the two, or from an intermediate spot, and the
+chances against exact coincidence of migration and of imbedding are
+infinite.
+
+In point of fact, however, whether the hypothesis of single or of
+multiple specific centres be adopted, similarity of organic contents
+cannot possibly afford any proof of the synchrony of the deposits which
+contain them; on the contrary, it is demonstrably compatible with the
+lapse of the most prodigious intervals of time, and with the
+interposition of vast changes in the organic and inorganic worlds,
+between the epochs in which such deposits were formed.
+
+On what amount of similarity of their faunae is the doctrine of the
+contemporaneity of the European and of the North American Silurians
+based? In the last edition of Sir Charles Lyell's 'Elementary Geology'
+it is stated, on the authority of a former President of this Society,
+the late Daniel Sharpe, that between 30 and 40 per cent. of the species
+of Silurian Mollusca are common to both sides of the Atlantic. By way of
+due allowance for further discovery, let us double the lesser number and
+suppose that 60 per cent. of the species are common to the North
+American and the British Silurians. Sixty per cent. of species in common
+is, then, proof of contemporaneity.
+
+Now suppose that, a million or two of years hence, when Britain has made
+another dip beneath the sea and has come up again, some geologist
+applies this doctrine, in comparing the strata laid bare by the upheaval
+of the bottom, say, of St. George's Channel with what may then remain of
+the Suffolk Crag. Reasoning in the same way, he will at once decide the
+Suffolk Crag and the St. George's Channel beds to be contemporaneous;
+although we happen to know that a vast period (even in the geological
+sense) of time, and physical changes of almost unprecedented extent,
+separate the two.
+
+But if it be a demonstrable fact that strata containing more than 60 or
+70 per cent. of species of Mollusca in common, and comparatively close
+together, may yet be separated by an amount of geological time
+sufficient to allow of some of the greatest physical changes the world
+has seen, what becomes of that sort of contemporaneity the sole evidence
+of which is a similarity of facies, or the identity of half a dozen
+species, or of a good many genera?
+
+And yet there is no better evidence for the contemporaneity assumed by
+all who adopt the hypothesis of universal faunae and florae, of a
+universally uniform climate, and of a sensible cooling of the globe
+during geological time.
+
+There seems, then, no escape from the admission that neither physical
+geology, nor paleontology, possesses any method by which the absolute
+synchronism of two strata can be demonstrated. All that geology can
+prove is local order of succession. It is mathematically certain that,
+in any given vertical linear section of an undisturbed series of
+sedimentary deposits, the bed which lies lowest is the oldest. In many
+other vertical linear sections of the same series, of course,
+corresponding beds will occur in a similar order; but, however great may
+be the probability, no man can say with absolute certainty that the beds
+in the two sections were synchronously deposited. For areas of moderate
+extent, it is doubtless true that no practical evil is likely to result
+from assuming the corresponding beds to be synchronous or strictly
+contemporaneous; and there are multitudes of accessory circumstances
+which may fully justify the assumption of such synchrony. But the moment
+the geologist has to deal with large areas, or with completely separated
+deposits, the mischief of confounding that "homotaxis" or "similarity of
+arrangement," which 'can' be demonstrated, with "synchrony" or "identity
+of date," for which there is not a shadow of proof, under the one common
+term of "contemporaneity" becomes incalculable, and proves the constant
+source of gratuitous speculations.
+
+For anything that geology or paleontology are able to show to the
+contrary, a Devonian fauna and flora in the British Islands may have
+been contemporaneous with Silurian life in North America, and with a
+Carboniferous fauna and flora in Africa. Geographical provinces and
+zones may have been as distinctly marked in the Paleozoic epoch as at
+present, and those seemingly sudden appearances of new genera and
+species, which we ascribe to new creation, may be simple results of
+migration.
+
+It may be so; it may be otherwise. In the present condition of our
+knowledge and of our methods, one verdict--"not proven, and not
+provable"--must be recorded against all the grand hypotheses of the
+paleontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe.
+The order and nature of terrestrial life, as a whole, are open
+questions. Geology at present provides us with most valuable
+topographical records, but she has not the means of working them into a
+universal history. Is such a universal history, then, to be regarded as
+unattainable? Are all the grandest and most interesting problems which
+offer themselves to the geological student essentially insoluble? Is he
+in the position of a scientific Tantalus--doomed always to thirst for a
+knowledge which he cannot obtain? The reverse is to be hoped; nay, it
+may not be impossible to indicate the source whence help will come.
+
+In commencing these remarks, mention was made of the great obligations
+under which the naturalist lies to the geologist and paleontologist.
+Assuredly the time will come when these obligations will be repaid
+tenfold, and when the maze of the world's past history, through which
+the pure geologist and the pure paleontologist find no guidance, will be
+securely threaded by the clue furnished by the naturalist.
+
+All who are competent to express an opinion on the subject are, at
+present, agreed that the manifold varieties of animal and vegetable form
+have not either come into existence by chance, nor result from
+capricious exertions of creative power; but that they have taken place
+in a definite order, the statement of which order is what men of science
+term a natural law. Whether such a law is to be regarded as an
+expression of the mode of operation of natural forces, or whether it is
+simply a statement of the manner in which a supernatural power has
+thought fit to act, is a secondary question, so long as the existence of
+the law and the possibility of its discovery by the human intellect are
+granted. But he must be a half-hearted philosopher who, believing in
+that possibility, and having watched the gigantic strides of the
+biological sciences during the last twenty years, doubts that science
+will sooner or later make this further step, so as to become possessed
+of the law of evolution of organic forms--of the unvarying order of that
+great chain of causes and effects of which all organic forms, ancient
+and modern, are the links. And then, if ever, we shall be able to begin
+to discuss, with profit, the questions respecting the commencement of
+life, and the nature of the successive populations of the globe, which
+so many seem to think are already answered.
+
+The preceding arguments make no particular claim to novelty; indeed they
+have been floating more or less distinctly before the minds of
+geologists for the last thirty years; and if, at the present time, it
+has seemed desirable to give them more definite and systematic
+expression, it is because paleontology is every day assuming a greater
+importance, and now requires to rest on a basis the firmness of which is
+thoroughly well assured. Among its fundamental conceptions, there must
+be no confusion between what is certain and what is more or less
+probable.* ([Footnote] *"le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre a la
+science est d'y faire place nette avant d'y rien construire."--CUVIER.)
+But, pending the construction of a surer foundation than paleontology
+now possesses, it may be instructive, assuming for the nonce the general
+correctness of the ordinary hypothesis of geological contemporaneity, to
+consider whether the deductions which are ordinarily drawn from the
+whole body of paleontologic facts are justifiable.
+
+The evidence on which such conclusions are based is of two kinds,
+negative and positive. The value of negative evidence, in connection
+with this inquiry, has been so fully and clearly discussed in an address
+from the chair of this Society,* ([Footnote] *Anniversary Address for
+1851, 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.' vol. vii.) which none of us have
+forgotten, that nothing need at present be said about it; the more, as
+the considerations which have been laid before you have certainly not
+tended to increase your estimation of such evidence. It will be
+preferable to turn to the positive facts of paleontology, and to inquire
+what they tell us.
+
+We are all accustomed to speak of the number and the extent of the
+changes in the living population of the globe during geological time as
+something enormous: and indeed they are so, if we regard only the
+negative differences which separate the older rocks from the more
+modern, and if we look upon specific and generic changes as great
+changes, which from one point of view, they truly are. But leaving the
+negative differences out of consideration, and looking only at the
+positive data furnished by the fossil world from a broader point of
+view--from that of the comparative anatomist who has made the study of
+the greater modifications of animal form his chief business--a surprise
+of another kind dawns upon the mind; and under 'this' aspect the
+smallness of the total change becomes as astonishing as was its
+greatness under the other.
+
+There are two hundred known orders of plants; of these not one is
+certainly known to exist exclusively in the fossil state. The whole
+lapse of geological time has as yet yielded not a single new ordinal
+type of vegetable structure.* ([Footnote] *See Hooker's 'Introductory
+Essay to the Flora of Tasmania', p. xxiii.)
+
+The positive change in passing from the recent to the ancient animal
+world is greater, but still singularly small. No fossil animal is so
+distinct from those now living as to require to be arranged even in a
+separate class from those which contain existing forms. It is only when
+we come to the orders, which may be roughly estimated at about a hundred
+and thirty, that we meet with fossil animals so distinct from those now
+living as to require orders for themselves; and these do not amount, on
+the most liberal estimate, to more than about 10 per cent of the whole.
+
+There is no certainly known extinct order of Protozoa; there is but one
+among the Coelenterata--that of the rugose corals; there is none among
+the Mollusca; there are three, the Cystidea, Blastoidea, and
+Edrioasterida, among the Echinoderms; and two, the Trilobita and
+Eurypterida, among the Crustacea; making altogether five for the great
+sub-kingdom of Annulosa. Among Vertebrates there is no ordinally
+distinct fossil fish: there is only one extinct order of Amphibia--the
+Labyrinthodonts; but there are at least four distinct orders of
+Reptilia, viz. the Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Pterosauria, Dinosauria,
+and perhaps another or two. There is no known extinct order of Birds,
+and no certainly known extinct order of Mammals, the ordinal
+distinctness of the "Toxodontia" being doubtful.
+
+The objection that broad statements of this kind, after all, rest
+largely on negative evidence is obvious, but it has less force than may
+at first be supposed; for, as might be expected from the circumstances
+of the case, we possess more abundant positive evidence regarding Fishes
+and marine Mollusks than respecting any other forms of animal life; and
+yet these offer us, through the whole range of geological time, no
+species ordinally distinct from those now living; while the far less
+numerous class of Echinoderms presents three; and the Crustacea two,
+such orders, though none of these come down later than the Paleozoic
+age. Lastly, the Reptilia present the extraordinary and exceptional
+phenomenon of as many extinct as existing orders, if not more; the four
+mentioned maintaining their existence from the Lias to the Chalk
+inclusive.
+
+Some years ago one of your Secretaries pointed out another kind of
+positive paleontologic evidence tending towards the same
+conclusion--afforded by the existence of what he termed "persistent
+types" of vegetable and of animal life.* ([Footnote] *See the abstract
+of a Lecture "On the Persistent Types of Animal Life," in the 'Notices
+of the Meetings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain'.--June 3,
+1859, vol. iii. p. 151.) He stated, on the authority of Dr. Hooker, that
+there are Carboniferous plants which appear to be generically identical
+with some now living; that the cone of the Oolitic 'Araucaria' is hardly
+distinguishable from that of an existing species; that a true 'Pinus'
+appears in the Purbecks, and a 'Juglans' in the Chalk; while, from the
+Bagshot Sands, a 'Banksia', the wood of which is not distinguishable
+from that of species now living in Australia, had been obtained.
+
+Turning to the animal kingdom, he affirmed the tabulate corals of the
+Silurian rocks to be wonderfully like those which now exist; while even
+the families of the Aporosa were all represented in the older Mesozoic
+rocks.
+
+Among the Molluska similar facts were adduced. Let it be borne in mind
+that 'Avicula', 'Mytalis', 'Chiton', 'Natica', 'Patella', 'Trochus',
+'Discina', 'Orbicula', 'Lingula', 'Rhynchonella', and 'Nautilus', all of
+which are existing 'genera', are given without a doubt as Silurian in
+the last edition of 'Siluria'; while the highest forms of the highest
+Cephalopods are represented in the Lias by a genus, 'Belemnoteuthis',
+which presents the closest relation to the existing 'Loligo'.
+
+The two highest groups of the Annulosa, the Insecta and the Arachnida,
+are represented in the Coal, either by existing genera, or by forms
+differing from existing genera in quite minor peculiarities.
+
+Turning to the Vertebrata, the only Paleozoic Elasmobranch Fish of which
+we have any complete knowledge is the Devonian and Carboniferous
+'Pleuracanthus', which differs no more from existing Sharks than these
+do from one another.
+
+Again, vast as is the number of undoubtedly Ganoid fossil Fishes, and
+great as is their range in time, a large mass of evidence has recently
+been adduced to show that almost all those respecting which we possess
+sufficient information, are referable to the same sub-ordinal groups as
+the existing 'Lepidosteus', 'Polypterus', and Sturgeon; and that a
+singular relation obtains between the older and the younger Fishes; the
+former, the Devonian Ganoids, being almost all members of the same
+sub-order as 'Polypterus', while the Mesozoic Ganoids are almost all
+similarly allied to 'Lepidosteus'.* ([Footnote] *"Memoirs of the
+Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.--Decade x. Preliminary Essay
+upon the Systematic Arrangement of the Fishes of the Devonian Epoch.")
+
+Again, what can be more remarkable than the singular constancy of
+structure preserved throughout a vast period of time by the family of
+the Pycnodonts and by that of the true Coelacanths; the former
+persisting, with but insignificant modifications, from the Carboniferous
+to the Tertiary rocks, inclusive; the latter existing, with still less
+change, from the Carboniferous rocks to the Chalk, inclusive?
+
+Among Reptiles, the highest living group, that of the Crocodilia, is
+represented, at the early part of the Mesozoic epoch, by species
+identical in the essential characters of their organization with those
+now living, and differing from the latter only in such matters as the
+form of the articular facets of the vertebral centra, in the extent to
+which the nasal passages are separated from the cavity of the mouth by
+bone, and in the proportions of the limbs.
+
+And even as regards the Mammalia, the scanty remains of Triassic and
+Oolitic species afford no foundation for the supposition that the
+organization of the oldest forms differed nearly so much from some of
+those which now live as these differ from one another.
+
+It is needless to multiply these instances; enough has been said to
+justify the statement that, in view of the immense diversity of known
+animal and vegetable forms, and the enormous lapse of time indicated by
+the accumulation of fossiliferous strata, the only circumstance to be
+wondered at is, not that the changes of life, as exhibited by positive
+evidence, have been so great, but that they have been so small.
+
+Be they great or small, however, it is desirable to attempt to estimate
+them. Let us, therefore, take each great division of the animal world in
+succession, and, whenever an order or a family can be shown to have had
+a prolonged existence, let us endeavour to ascertain how far the later
+members of the group differ from the earlier ones. If these later
+members, in all or in many cases, exhibit a certain amount of
+modification, the fact is, so far, evidence in favour of a general law
+of change; and, in a rough way, the rapidity of that change will be
+measured by the demonstrable amount of modification. On the other hand,
+it must be recollected that the absence of any modification, while it
+may leave the doctrine of the existence of a law of change without
+positive support, cannot possibly disprove all forms of that doctrine,
+though it may afford a sufficient refutation of any of them.
+
+The PROTOZOA.--The Protozoa are represented throughout the whole range
+of geological series, from the Lower Silurian formation to the present
+day. The most ancient forms recently made known by Ehrenberg are
+exceedingly like those which now exist: no one has ever pretended that
+the difference between any ancient and any modern Foraminifera is of
+more than generic value, nor are the oldest Foraminifera either simpler,
+more embryonic, or less differentiated, than the existing forms.
+
+The COELENTERATA.--The Tabulate Corals have existed from the Silurian
+epoch to the present day, but I am not aware that the ancient
+'Heliolites' possesses a single mark of a more embryonic or less
+differentiated character, or less high organization, than the existing
+'Heliopora'. As for the Aporose Corals, in what respect is the Silurian
+'Paleocyclus' less highly organized or more embryonic than the modern
+'Fungia', or the Liassic Aporosa than the existing members of the same
+families?
+
+The 'Mollusca'.--In what sense is the living 'Waldheimia' less
+embryonic, or more specialized; than the paleozoic 'Spirifer'; or the
+existing 'Rhynchonellae', 'Craniae', 'Discinae', 'Lingulae', than the
+Silurian species of the same genera? In what sense can 'Loligo' or
+'Spirula' be said to be more specialized, or less embryonic, than
+'Belemnites'; or the modern species of Lamellibranch and Gasteropod
+genera, than the Silurian species of the same genera?
+
+The ANNULOSA.--The Carboniferous Insecta and Arachnida are neither less
+specialized, nor more embryonic, than these that now live, nor are the
+Liassic Cirripedia and Macrura; while several of the Brachyura, which
+appear in the Chalk, belong to existing genera; and none exhibit either
+an intermediate, or an embryonic, character.
+
+The VERTEBRARA.--Among fishes I have referred to the Coelacanthini
+(comprising the genera 'Coelacanthus', 'Holophagus', 'Undina', and
+'Macropoma') as affording an example of a persistent type; and it is
+most remarkable to note the smallness of the differences between any of
+these fishes (affecting at most the proportions of the body and fins,
+and the character and sculpture of the scales), notwithstanding their
+enormous range in time. In all the essentials of its very peculiar
+structure, the 'Macropoma' of the Chalk is identical with the
+'Coelacanthus' of the Coal. Look at the genus 'Lepidotus', again,
+persisting without a modification of importance from the Liassic to the
+Eocene formations inclusive.
+
+Or among the Teleostei--in what respect is the 'Beryx' of the Chalk more
+embryonic, or less differentiated, than 'Beryx lineatus' of King
+George's Sound?
+
+Or to turn to the higher Vertebrata--in what sense are the Liassic
+Chelonia inferior to those which now exist? How are the Cretaceous
+Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, or Pterosauria less embryonic, or more
+differentiated, species than those of the Lias?
+
+Or lastly, in what circumstance is the 'Phascolotherium' more embryonic,
+or of a more generalized type, than the modern Opossum; or a
+'Lophiodon', or a 'Paleotherium', than a modern 'Tapirus' or 'Hyrax'?
+
+These examples might be almost indefinitely multiplied, but surely they
+are sufficient to prove that the only safe and unquestionable testimony
+we can procure--positive evidence--fails to demonstrate any sort of
+progressive modification towards a less embryonic, or less generalised,
+type in a great many groups of animals of long-continued geological
+existence. In these groups there is abundant evidence of variation--none
+of what is ordinarily understood as progression; and, if the known
+geological record is to be regarded as even any considerable fragment of
+the whole, it is inconceivable that any theory of a necessarily
+progressive development can stand, for the numerous orders and families
+cited afford no trace of such a process.
+
+But it is a most remarkable fact, that, while the groups which have been
+mentioned, and many besides, exhibit no sign of progressive
+modification, there are others, co-existing with them, under the same
+conditions, in which more or less distinct indications of such a process
+seems to be traceable. Among such indications I may remind you of the
+predominance of Holostome Gasteropoda in the older rocks as compared
+with that of Siphonostome Gasteropoda in the later. A case less open to
+the objection of negative evidence, however, is that afforded by the
+Tetrabranchiate Cephalopoda, the forms of the shells and of the septal
+sutures exhibiting a certain increase of complexity in the newer genera.
+Here, however, one is met at once with the occurrence of 'Orthoceras'
+and 'Baculites' at the two ends of the series, and of the fact that one
+of the simplest Genera, 'Nautilus', is that which now exists.
+
+The Crinoidea, in the abundance of stalked forms in the ancient
+formations as compared with their present rarity, seem to present us
+with a fair case of modification from a more embryonic towards a less
+embryonic condition. But then, on careful consideration of the facts,
+the objection arises that the stalk, calyx, and arms of the paleozoic
+Crinoid are exceedingly different from the corresponding organs of a
+larval 'Comatula'; and it might with perfect justice be argued that
+'Actinocrinus' and 'Eucalyptocrinus', for example, depart to the full as
+widely, in one direction, from the stalked embryo of 'Comatula', as
+'Comatula' itself does in the other.
+
+The Echinidea, again, are frequently quoted as exhibiting a gradual
+passage from a more generalized to a more specialized type, seeing that
+the elongated, or oval, Spatangoids appear after the spheroidal
+Echinoids. But here it might be argued, on the other hand, that the
+spheroidal Echinoids, in reality, depart further from the general plan
+and from the embryonic form than the elongated Spatangoids do; and that
+the peculiar dental apparatus and the pedicellariae of the former are
+marks of at least as great differentiation as the petaloid ambulacra and
+semitae of the latter.
+
+Once more, the prevalence of Macrurous before Brachyurous Podophthalmia
+is, apparently, a fair piece of evidence in favour of progressive
+modification in the same order of Crustacea; and yet the case will not
+stand much sifting, seeing that the Macrurous Podophthalmia depart as
+far in one direction from the common type of Podophthalmia, or from any
+embryonic condition of the Brachyura, as the Brachyura do in the other;
+and that the middle terms between Macrura and Brachyura--the
+Anomura--are little better represented in the older Mesozoic rocks than
+the Brachyura are.
+
+None of the cases of progressive modification which are cited from among
+the Invertebrata appear to me to have a foundation less open to
+criticism than these; and if this be so, no careful reasoner would, I
+think, be inclined to lay very great stress upon them. Among the
+Vertebrata, however, there are a few examples which appear to be far
+less open to objection.
+
+It is, in fact, true of several groups of Vertebrata which have lived
+through a considerable range of time, that the endoskeleton (more
+particularly the spinal column) of the older genera presents a less
+ossified, and, so far, less differentiated, condition than that of the
+younger genera. Thus the Devonian Ganoids, though almost all members of
+the same sub-order as 'Polypterus', and presenting numerous important
+resemblances to the existing genus, which possesses biconcave vertebrae,
+are, for the most part, wholly devoid of ossified vertebral centra. The
+Mesozoic Lepidosteidae, again, have, at most, biconcave vertebrae, while
+the existing 'Lepidosteus' has Salamandroid, opisthocoelous, vertebrae.
+So, none of the Paleozoic Sharks have shown themselves to be possessed
+of ossified vertebrae, while the majority of modern Sharks possess such
+vertebrae. Again, the more ancient Crocodilia and Lacertilia have
+vertebrae with the articular facets of their centra flattened or
+biconcave, while the modern members of the same group have them
+procoelous. But the most remarkable examples of progressive modification
+of the vertebral column, in correspondence with geological age, are
+those afforded by the Pycnodonts among fish, and the Labyrinthodonts
+among Amphibia.
+
+The late able ichthyologist Heckel pointed out the fact, that, while the
+Pycnodonts never possess true vertebral centra, they differ in the
+degree of expansion and extension of the ends of the bony arches of the
+vertebrae upon the sheath of the notochord; the Carboniferous forms
+exhibiting hardly any such expansion, while the Mesozoic genera present
+a greater and greater development, until, in the Tertiary forms, the
+expanded ends become suturally united so as to form a sort of false
+vertebra. Hermann von Meyer, again, to whose luminous researches we are
+indebted for our present large knowledge of the organization of the
+older Labyrinthodonts, has proved that the Carboniferous 'Archegosaurus'
+had very imperfectly developed vertebral centra, while the Triassic
+'Mastodonsaurus' had the same parts completely ossified.* ([Footnote]
+*As the Address is passing through the press (March 7, 1862), evidence
+lies before me of the existence of a new Labyrinthodont
+('Pholidogaster'), from the Edinburgh coal-field, with well-ossified
+vertebral centra.)
+
+The regularity and evenness of the dentition of the 'Anoplotherium', as
+contrasted with that of existing Artiodactyles, and the assumed nearer
+approach of the dentition of certain ancient Carnivores to the typical
+arrangement, have also been cited as exemplifications of a law of
+progressive development, but I know of no other cases based on positive
+evidence which are worthy of particular notice.
+
+What then does an impartial survey of the positively ascertained truths
+of paleontology testify in relation to the common doctrines of
+progressive modification, which suppose that modification to have taken
+place by a necessary progress from more to less embryonic forms, or from
+more to less generalized types, within the limits of the period
+represented by the fossiliferous rocks?
+
+It negatives those doctrines; for it either shows us no evidence of any
+such modification, or demonstrates it to have been very slight; and as
+to the nature of that modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever
+that the earlier members of any long-continued group were more
+generalized in structure than the later ones. To a certain extent,
+indeed, it may be said that imperfect ossification of the vertebral
+column is an embryonic character; but, on the other hand, it would be
+extremely incorrect to suppose that the vertebral columns of the older
+Vertebrata are in any sense embryonic in their whole structure.
+
+Obviously, if the earliest fossiliferous rocks now known are coeval with
+the commencement of life, and if their contents give us any just
+conception of the nature and the extent of the earliest fauna and flora,
+the insignificant amount of modification which can be demonstrated to
+have taken place in any one group of animals, or plants, is quite
+incompatible with the hypothesis that all living forms are the results
+of a necessary process of progressive development, entirely comprised
+within the time represented by the fossiliferous rocks.
+
+Contrariwise, any admissible hypothesis of progressive modification must
+be compatible with persistence without progression, through indefinite
+periods. And should such an hypothesis eventually be proved to be true,
+in the only way in which it can be demonstrated, viz. by observation and
+experiment upon the existing forms of life, the conclusion will
+inevitably present itself, that the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic
+faunae and florae, taken together, bear somewhat the same proportion to
+the whole series of living beings which have occupied this globe, as the
+existing fauna and flora do to them.
+
+Such are the results of paleontology as they appear, and have for some
+years appeared, to the mind of an inquirer who regards that study simply
+as one of the applications of the great biological sciences, and who
+desires to see it placed upon the same sound basis as other branches of
+physical inquiry. If the arguments which have been brought forward are
+valid, probably no one, in view of the present state of opinion, will be
+inclined to think the time wasted which has been spent upon their
+elaboration.
+
+End of Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life.
+
+***
+
+
+CORAL AND CORAL REEFS.*
+
+([Footnote] *A Lecture delivered in Manchester, November 4th, 1870.)
+
+The subject upon which I wish to address you to-night is the structure
+and origin of Coral and Coral Reefs. Under the head of "coral" there are
+included two very different things; one of them is that substance which
+I imagine a great number of us have champed when we were very much
+younger than we are now,--the common red coral, which is used so much,
+as you know, for the edification and the delectation of children of
+tender years, and is also employed for the purposes of ornament for
+those who are much older, and as some think might know better. The other
+kind of coral is a very different substance; it may for distinction's
+sake be called the white coral; it is a material which most assuredly
+not the hardest-hearted of baby farmers would give to a baby to chew,
+and it is a substance which is to be seen only in the cabinets of
+curious persons, or in museums, or, may be, over the mantelpieces of
+sea-faring men. But although the red coral, as I have mentioned to you,
+has access to the very best society; and although the white coral is
+comparatively a despised product, yet in this, as in many other cases,
+the humbler thing is in reality the greater; the amount of work which is
+done in the world by the white coral being absolutely infinite compared
+with that effected by its delicate and pampered namesake. Each of these
+substances, the white coral and the red, however, has a relationship to
+the other. They are, in a zoological sense, cousins, each of them being
+formed by the same kind of animals in what is substantially the same
+way. Each of these bodies is, in fact, the hard skeleton of a very
+curious and a very simple animal, more comparable to the bones of such
+animals as ourselves than to the shells of oysters or creatures of that
+kind; for it is the hardening of the internal tissue of the creature, of
+its internal substance, by the deposit in the body of a material which
+is exceedingly common, not only in fresh but in sea water, and which is
+specially abundant in those waters which we know as "hard," those
+waters, for example, which leave a "fur" upon the bottom of a
+tea-kettle. This "fur" is carbonate of lime, the same sort of substance
+as limestone and chalk. That material is contained in solution in sea
+water, and it is out of the sea water in which these coral creatures
+live that they get the lime which is needed for the forming of their
+hard skeleton.
+
+But now what manner of creatures are these which form these hard
+skeletons? I dare say that in these days of keeping aquaria, of
+locomotion to the sea-side, most of those whom I am addressing may have
+seen one of those creatures which used to be known as the "sea anemone,"
+receiving that name on account of its general resemblance, in a rough
+sort of way, to the flower which is known as the "anemone"; but being a
+thing which lives in the sea, it was qualified as the "sea anemone."
+Well, then, you must suppose a body shaped like a short cylinder, the
+top cut off, and in the top a hole rather oval than round. All round
+this aperture, which is the mouth, imagine that there are placed a
+number of feelers forming a circle. The cavity of the mouth leads into a
+sort of stomach, which is very unlike those of the higher animals, in
+the circumstance that it opens at the lower end into a cavity of the
+body, and all the digested matter, converted into nourishment, is thus
+distributed through the rest of the body. That is the general structure
+of one of these sea anemones. If you touch it it contracts immediately
+into a heap. It looks at first quite like a flower in the sea, but if
+you touch it you find that it exhibits all the peculiarities of a living
+animal; and if anything which can serve as its prey comes near its
+tentacles, it closes them round it and sucks the material into its
+stomach and there digests it and turns it to the account of its own
+body.
+
+These creatures are very voracious, and not at all particular what they
+seize; and sometimes it may be that they lay hold of a shellfish which
+is far too big to be packed into that interior cavity, and, of course,
+in any ordinary animal a proceeding of this kind would give rise to a
+very severe fit of indigestion. But this is by no means the case in the
+sea anemone, because when digestive difficulties of this kind arise he
+gets out of them by splitting himself in two; and then each half builds
+itself up into a fresh creature, and you have two polypes where there
+was previously one, and the bone which stuck in the way lying between
+them! Not only can these creatures multiply in this fashion, but they
+can multiply by buds. A bud will grow out of the side of the body (I am
+not speaking of the common sea anemone, but of allied creatures) just
+like the bud of a plant, and that will fashion itself into a creature
+just like the parent. There are some of them in which these buds remain
+connected together, and you will soon see what would be the result of
+that. If I make a bud grow out here, and another on the opposite side,
+and each fashions itself into a new polype, the practical effect will be
+that before long you will see a single polype converted into a sort of
+tree or bush of polypes. And these will all remain associated together,
+like a kind of co-operative store, which is a thing I believe you
+understand very well here,--each mouth will help to feed the body and
+each part of the body help to support the multifarious mouths. I think
+that is as good an example of a zoological co-operative store as you can
+well have. Such are these wonderful creatures. But they are capable not
+only of multiplying in this way, but in other ways, by having a more
+ordinary and regular kind of offspring. Little eggs are hatched and the
+young are passed out by the way of the mouth, and they go swimming about
+as little oval bodies covered with a very curious kind of hairlike
+processes. Each of these processes is capable of striking water like an
+oar; and the consequence is that the young creature is propelled through
+the water. So that you have the young polype floating about in this
+fashion, covered by its 'vibratile cilia', as these long filaments,
+which are capable of vibration are termed. And thus, although the polype
+itself may be a fixed creature unable to move about, it is able to
+spread its offspring over great areas. For these creatures not only
+propel themselves, but while swimming about in the sea for many hours,
+or perhaps days, it will be obvious that they must be carried hither and
+thither by the currents of the sea, which not unfrequently move at the
+rate of one or two miles an hour. Thus, in the course of a few days, the
+offspring of this stationary creature may be carried to a very great
+distance from its parent; and having been so carried it loses these
+organs by which it is propelled, and settles down upon the bottom of the
+sea and grows up again into the form and condition of its parents. So
+that if you suppose a single polype of this kind settled upon the bottom
+of the sea, it may by these various methods--that is to say, by cutting
+itself in two, which we call "fission," or by budding; or by sending out
+these swimming embryos,--multiply itself to an enormous extent, and give
+rise to thousands, or millions, of progeny in a comparatively short
+time; and these thousands, or millions, of progeny may cover a very
+large surface of the sea bottom; in fact, you will readily perceive
+that, give them time, and there is no limit to the surface which they
+may cover.
+
+Having understood thus far the general nature of these polypes, which
+are the fabricators both of the red and white coral, let us consider a
+little more particularly how the skeletons of the red coral and of the
+white coral are formed. The red coral polype perches upon the sea
+bottom, it then grows up into a sort of stem, and out of that stem there
+grow branches, each of which has its own polypes; and thus you have a
+kind of tree formed, every branch of the tree terminated by its polype.
+It is a tree, but at the end of the branches there are open mouths of
+polypes instead of flowers. Thus there is a common soft body connecting
+the whole, and as it grows up the soft body deposits in its interior a
+quantity of carbonate of lime, which acquires a beautiful red or flesh
+colour, and forms a kind of stem running through the whole, and it is
+that stem which is the red coral. The red coral grows principally at the
+bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, at very great depths, and the coral
+fishers, who are very adventurous seamen, take their drag nets, of a
+peculiar kind, roughly made, but efficient for their purpose, and drag
+them along the bottom of the sea to catch the branches of the red coral,
+which become entangled and are thus brought up to the surface. They are
+then allowed to putrefy, in order to get rid of the animal matter, and
+the red coral is the skeleton that is left.
+
+In the case of the white coral, the skeleton is more complete. In the
+red coral, the skeleton belongs to the whole; in the white coral there
+is a special skeleton for every one of these polypes in addition to that
+for the whole body. There is a skeleton formed in the body of each of
+them, like a cup divided by a number of radiating partitions towards the
+outside; and that cup is formed of carbonate of lime, only not stained
+red, as in the case of the red coral. And all these cups are joined
+together into a common branch, the result of which is the formation of a
+beautiful coral tree. This is a great mass of madrepore, and in the
+living state every one of the ends of these branches was terminated by a
+beautiful little polype, like a sea anemone, and all the skeleton was
+covered by a soft body which united the polypes together. You must
+understand that all this skeleton has been formed in the interior of the
+body, to suit the branched body of the polype mass, and that it is as
+much its skeleton as our own bones are our skeleton. In this next coral
+the creature which has formed the skeleton has divided itself as it
+grew, and consequently has formed a great expansion; but scattered all
+over this surface there were polype bodies like those I previously
+described. Again, when this great cup was alive, the whole surface was
+covered with a beautiful body upon which were set innumerable small
+polype flowers, if we may so call them, often brilliantly coloured; and
+the whole cup was built up in the same fashion by the deposit of
+carbonate of lime in the interior of the combined polype body, formed by
+budding and by fission in the way I described. You will perceive that
+there is no necessary limit to this process. There is no reason why we
+should not have coral three or four times as big; and there are certain
+creatures of this kind that do fabricate very large masses, or half
+spheres several feet in diameter. Thus the activity of these animals in
+separating carbonate of lime from the sea and building it up into
+definite shapes is very considerable indeed.
+
+Now I think I have said sufficient--as much as I can without taking you
+into technical details, of the general nature of these creatures which
+form coral. The animals which form coral are scattered over the seas of
+all countries in the world. The red coral is comparatively limited, but
+the polypes which form the white coral are widely scattered. There are
+some of them which remain single, or which give rise to only small
+accumulations; and the skeletons of these, as they die, accumulate upon
+the bottom of the sea, but they do not come to much; they are washed
+about and do not adhere together, but become mixed up with the mud of
+the sea. But there are certain parts of the world in which the coral
+polypes which live and grow are of a kind which remain, adhere together,
+and form great masses. They differ from the ordinary polypes just in the
+same way as those plants which form a peat-bog or meadow-turf differ
+from ordinary plants. They have a habit of growing together in masses in
+the same place; they are what we call "gregarious" things; and the
+consequence of this is, that as they die and leave their skeletons,
+those skeletons form a considerable solid aggregation at the bottom of
+the sea, and other polypes perch upon them, and begin building upon
+them, and so by degrees a great mass is formed. And just as we know
+there are some ancient cities in which you have a British city, and over
+that the foundations of a Roman city; and over that a Saxon city, and
+over that again a modern city, so in these localities of which I am
+speaking, you have the accumulations of the foundations of the houses,
+if I may use the term, of nation after nation of these coral polypes;
+and these accumulations may cover a very considerable space, and may
+rise in the course of time from the bottom to the surface of the sea.
+
+Mariners have a name which they apply to all sorts of obstacles
+consisting of hard and rocky matter which comes in their way in the
+course of their navigation; they call such obstacles "reefs," and they
+have long been in the habit of calling the particular kind of reef,
+which is formed by the accumulation of the skeletons of dead corals, by
+the name of "coral reefs," therefore, those parts of the world in which
+these accumulations occur have been termed by them "coral reef areas,"
+or regions in which coral reefs are found. There is a very notable
+example of a simple coral reef about the island of Mauritius, which I
+dare say you all know, lies in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is a
+very considerable and beautiful island, and is surrounded on all sides
+by a mass of coral, which has been formed in the way I have described;
+so that if you could get upon the top of one of the peaks of the island,
+and look down upon the Indian Ocean, you would see that the beach round
+the Island was continued outward by a kind of shallow terrace, which is
+covered by the sea, and where the sea is quite shallow; and at a
+distance varying from three-quarters of a mile to a mile and a half from
+the proper beach, you would see a line of foam or surf which looks most
+beautiful in contrast with the bright green water in the inside, and the
+deep blue of the sea beyond. That line of surf indicates the point at
+which the waters of the ocean are breaking upon the coral reef which
+surrounds the island. You see it sweep round the island upon all sides,
+except where a river may chance to come down, and that always makes a
+gap in the shore.
+
+There are two or three points which I wish to bring clearly before your
+notice about such a reef as this. In the first place, you perceive it
+forms a kind of fringe round the island, and is therefore called a
+"fringing reef." In the next place, if you go out in a boat, and take
+soundings at the edge of the reef, you find that the depth of the water
+is not more than from 20 to 25 fathoms--that is about 120 to 150 feet.
+Outside that point you come to the natural sea bottom; but all inside
+that depth is coral, built up from the bottom by the accumulation of the
+skeletons of innumerable generations of coral polypes. So that you see
+the coral forms a very considerable rampart round the island. What the
+exact circumference may be I do not remember, but it cannot be less than
+100 miles, and the outward height of this wall of coral rock nowhere
+amounts to less than about 100 or 150 feet.
+
+When the outward face of the reef is examined, you find that the upper
+edge, which is exposed to the wash of the sea, and all the seaward face,
+is covered with those living plant-like flowers which I have described
+to you. They are the coral polypes which grow, flourish, and add to the
+mass of calcareous matter which already forms the reef. But towards the
+lower part of the reef, at a depth of about 120 feet, these creatures
+are less active, and fewer of them at work; and at greater depths than
+that you find no living coral polype at all; and it may be laid down as
+a rule, derived from very extensive observation, that these
+reef-building corals cannot live in a greater depth of water than about
+120 to 150 feet. I beg you to recollect that fact, because it is one I
+shall have to come back to by and by, and to show to what very curious
+consequences that rule leads. Well then, coming back to the margin of
+the reef, you find that part of it which lies just within the surf to be
+coated by a very curious plant, a sort of seaweed, which contains in its
+substance a very great deal of carbonate of lime, and looks almost like
+rock; this is what is called the nullipore. More towards the land, we
+come to the shallow water upon the inside of the reef, which has a
+particular name, derived from the Spanish or the Portuguese--it is
+called a "lagoon," or lake. In this lagoon there is comparatively little
+living coral; the bottom of it is formed of coral mud. If we pounded
+this coral in water, it would be converted into calcareous mud, and the
+waves during storms do for the coral skeletons exactly what we might do
+for this coral in a mortar; the waves tear off great fragments and crush
+them with prodigious force, until they are ground into the merest
+powder, and that powder is washed into the interior of the lagoon, and
+forms a muddy coating at the bottom. Beside that there are a great many
+animals that prey upon the coral--fishes, worms, and creatures of that
+kind, and all these, by their digestive processes, reduce the coral to
+the same state, and contribute a very important element to this fine
+mud. The living coral found in the lagoon, is not the reef building
+coral; it does not give rise to the same massive skeletons. As you go in
+a boat over these shallow pools, you see these beautiful things,
+coloured red, blue, green, and all colours, building their houses; but
+these are mere tenements, and not to be compared in magnitude and
+importance to the masses which are built by the reef-builders
+themselves. Now such a structure as this is what is termed a "fringing
+reef." You meet with fringing reefs of this kind not only in the
+Mauritius, but in a number of other parts of the world. If these were
+the only reefs to be seen anywhere, the problem of the formation of
+coral reefs would never have been a difficult one. Nothing can be easier
+than to understand how there must have been a time when the coral
+polypes came and settled on the shores of this island, everywhere within
+the 20 to 25 fathom line, and how, having perched there, they gradually
+grew until they built up the reef.
+
+But these are by no means the only sort of coral reefs in the world; on
+the contrary, there are very large areas, not only of the Indian ocean,
+but of the Pacific, in which many many thousands of square miles are
+covered either with a peculiar kind of reef, which is called the
+"encircling reef," or by a still more curious reef which goes by the
+name of the "atoll." There is a very good picture, which Professor
+Roscoe has been kind enough to prepare for me, of one of these atolls,
+which will enable you to form a notion of it as a landscape. You have in
+the foreground the waters of the Pacific. You must fancy yourself in the
+middle of the great ocean, and you will perceive that there is an almost
+circular island, with a low beach, which is formed entirely of coral
+sand; growing upon that beach you have vegetation, which takes, of
+course, the shape of the circular land; and then, in the interior of the
+circle, there is a pool of water, which is not very deep--probably in
+this case not more than eight or nine fathoms--and which forms a strange
+and beautiful contrast to the deep blue water outside. This circular
+island, or atoll, with a lagoon in the middle, is not a complete circle;
+upon one side of it there is a break, exactly like the entrance into a
+dock; and, as a matter of course, these circular islets, or atolls, form
+most efficient break-waters, for if you can only get inside your ship is
+in perfect safety, with admirable anchorage in the interior. If the ship
+were lying within a mile of that beach, the water would be one or two
+thousand feet deep; therefore, a section of that atoll, with the
+soundings as deep as this all round, would give you the notion of a
+great cone, cut off at the top, and with a shallow cup in the middle of
+it. Now, what a very singular fact this is, that we should have rising
+from the bottom of the deep ocean a great pyramid, beside which all
+human pyramids sink into the most utter insignificance! These singular
+coral limestone structures are very beautiful, especially when crowned
+with cocoa-nut trees. There you see the long line of land, covered with
+vegetation--cocoa-nut trees--and you have the sea upon the inner and
+outer sides, with a vessel very comfortably riding at anchor. That is
+one of the remarkable forms of reef in the Pacific. Another is a sort of
+half-way house, between the atoll and the fringing reef; it is what is
+called an "encircling reef." In this case you see an Island rising out
+of the sea, and at two or three miles distance, or more, and separated
+by a deep channel, which may be eight to twelve fathoms deep, there is a
+reef, which encircles it like a great girdle; and outside that again the
+water is one or two thousand feet deep. I spent three or four years of
+my life in cruising about a modification of one of these encircling
+reefs, called a "barrier reef," upon the east coast of Australia--one of
+the most wonderful accumulations of coral rock in the world. It is about
+1,100 miles long, and varies in width from one or two to many miles. It
+is separated from the coast of Australia by a channel of about 25
+fathoms deep; while outside, looking toward America, the water is two or
+three thousand feet deep at a mile from the edge of the reef. This is an
+accumulation of limestone rock, built up by corals, to which we have no
+parallel anywhere else. Imagine to yourself a heap of this material more
+than one thousand miles long, and several miles wide. That is a barrier
+reef; but a barrier reef is merely as it were a fragment of an
+encircling reef running parallel to the coast of a great continent.
+
+I told you that the polypes which built these reefs were not able to
+live at a greater depth than 20 to 25 fathoms of water; and that is the
+reason why the fringing reef goes no farther from the land than it does.
+And for the same reason, if the Pacific could be laid bare we should
+have a most singular spectacle. There would be a number of mountains
+with truncated tops scattered over it, and those mountains would have an
+appearance just the very reverse of that presented by the mountains we
+see on shore. You know that the mountains on shore are covered with
+vegetation at their bases, while their tops are barren or covered with
+snow; but these mountains would be perfectly bare at their bases, and
+all round their tops they would be covered with a beautiful vegetation
+of coral polypes. And not only would this be the case, but we should
+find that for a considerable distance down, all the material of these
+atoll and encircling reefs was built up of precisely the same coral rock
+as the fringing reef. That is to say, you have an enormous mass of coral
+rock at a depth below the surface of the water where we know perfectly
+well that the coral animals could not have lived to form it. When those
+two facts were first put together, naturalists were quite as much
+puzzled as I daresay you are, at present, to understand how these two
+seeming contradictions could be reconciled; and all sorts of odd
+hypotheses were resorted to. It was supposed that the coral did not
+extend so far down, but that there was a great chain of submarine
+mountains stretching through the Pacific, and that the coral had grown
+upon them. But only fancy what supposition that was, for you would have
+to imagine that there was a chain of mountains a thousand miles or more
+long, and that the top of every mountain came within 20 fathoms of the
+surface of the sea, and neither rose above nor sunk beneath that level.
+That is highly improbable: such a chain of mountains was never known.
+Then how can you possibly account for the curious circular form of the
+atolls by any supposition of this kind? I believe there was some one who
+imagined that all these mountains were volcanoes, and that the reefs had
+grown round the tops of the craters, so we all stuck fast. I may say
+"we," though it was rather before my time. And when we all stick fast,
+it is just the use of a man of genius that he comes and shows us the
+meaning of the thing. He generally gives an explanation which is so
+ridiculously simple that everybody is ashamed that he did not find it
+out before; and the way such a discoverer is often rewarded is by
+finding out that some one had made the discovery before him! I do not
+mean to say that it was so in this particular instance, because the
+great man who played the part of Columbus and the egg on this occasion
+had, I believe, always had the full credit which he so well deserves.
+The discoverer of the key to these problems was a man whose name you
+know very well in connection with other matters, and I should not wonder
+if some of you have heard it said that he was a superficial kind of
+person who did not know much about the subject on which he writes. He
+was Mr. Darwin, and this brilliant discovery of his was made public
+thirty years ago, long before he became the celebrated man he now is;
+and it was one of the most singular instances of that astonishing
+sagacity which he possesses of drawing consequences by way of deduction
+from simple principles of natural science--a power which has served him
+in good stead on other occasions. Well, Mr. Darwin, looking at these
+curious difficulties and having that sort of knowledge of natural
+phenomena in general, without which he could not have made a step
+towards the solution of the problem, said to himself--"It is perfectly
+clear that the coral which forms the base of the atolls and fringing
+reefs could not possibly have been formed there if the level of the sea
+has always been exactly where it is now, for we know for certain that
+these polypes cannot build at a greater depth than 20 to 25 fathoms, and
+here we find them at 50 to 100 fathoms."
+
+That was the first point to make clear. The second point to deal with
+was--if the polypes cannot have built there while the level of the sea
+has remained stationary, then one of two things must have
+happened--either the sea has gone up, or the land has gone down.
+
+There is no escape from one of these two alternatives. Now the
+objections to the notion of the sea having gone up are very considerable
+indeed; for you will readily perceive that the sea could not possibly
+have risen a thousand feet in the Pacific without rising pretty much the
+same distance everywhere else; and if it had risen that height
+everywhere else since the reefs began to be formed, the geography of the
+world in general must have been very different indeed, at that time,
+from what it is now. And we have very good means of knowing that any
+such rise as this certainly has not taken place in the level of the sea
+since the time that the corals have been building their houses. And so
+the only other alternative was to suppose that the land had gone down,
+and at so slow a rate that the corals were able to grow upward as fast
+as it went downward. You will see at once that this is the solution of
+the mystery, and nothing can be simpler or more obvious when you come to
+think about it. Suppose we start with a coral sea and put in the middle
+of it an island such as the Mauritius. Now let the coral polypes come
+and perch on the shore and build a fringing reef, which will stop when
+they come to 20 or 25 fathoms, and you will have a fringing reef like
+that round the island in the illustration. So long as the land remains
+stationary, so long as it does not descend so long will that reef be
+unable to get any further out, because the moment the polype embryos try
+to get below they die. But now suppose that the land sinks very
+gradually indeed. Let it subside by slow degrees, until the mountain
+peak, which we have in the middle of it, alone projects beyond the sea
+level. The fringing reef would be carried down also; but we suppose that
+the sinking is so slow that the coral polypes are able to grow up as
+fast as the land is carried down; consequently they will add layer upon
+layer until they form a deep cup, because the inner part of the reef
+grows much more slowly than the outer part. Thus you have the reef
+forming a bed thicker upon the flanks of the island; but the edge of the
+reef will be very much further out from the land, and the lagoon will be
+many times deeper; in short, your fringing reef will be converted into
+an encircling reef. And if, instead of this being an island, it were a
+great continent like Australia, then you will have the phenomenon of a
+barrier reef which I have described. The barrier reef of Australia was
+originally a fringing reef; the land has gone slowly down; the
+consequence is the lagoon has deepened until its depth is now 25 fathoms
+and the corals have grown up at the outer edge until you have that
+prodigious accumulation which forms the barrier reef at present. Now let
+this process go on further still; let us take the land a further step
+down, so as to submerge even the peak. The coral, still growing up, will
+cover the surface of the land, and you will have an atoll reef; that is
+to say, a more or less circular or oval ring of coral rock with a lagoon
+in the middle. Thus you see that every peculiarity and phenomenon of
+these different forms of coral reef was explained at once by the
+simplest of all possible suppositions, namely, by supposing that the
+land has gone down at a rate not greater than that at which the coral
+polypes have grown up. You explain a Fringing Reef as a reef which is
+formed round land comparatively stationary; an Encircling Reef as one
+which is formed round land going down; and an Atoll as a reef formed
+upon land gone down; and the thing is so simple that a child may
+understand it when it is once explained.
+
+But this would by no means satisfy the conditions of a scientific
+hypothesis. No man who is cautious would dream of trusting to an
+explanation of this kind simply because it explained one particular set
+of facts. Before you can possibly be safe in dealing with Nature--who is
+very properly made of the feminine gender, on account of the astonishing
+tricks which she plays upon her admirers!--I say before you can be safe
+in dealing with Nature, you must get two or three kinds of cross proofs,
+so as to make sure not only that your hypothesis fits that particular
+set of facts, but that it is not contradicted by some other set of facts
+which is just as clear and certain. And it so happens, that in this case
+Mr. Darwin supplied the cross proofs as well as the immediate evidence.
+You have all heard of volcanoes, those wonderful vents in the surface of
+the earth out of which pour masses of lava, cinders and ashes, and the
+like. Now, it is a matter of observation and experience that all
+volcanoes are placed in areas in which the surface of the earth is
+undergoing elevation, or at any rate is stationary; they are not placed
+in parts of the world in which the level of the land is being lowered.
+They are all indications of a great subterranean activity, of a
+something being pushed up, and therefore naturally the land either gives
+way and lets it come through, or else is raised up by its violence. And
+so Mr. Darwin, being desirous not to merely put out a flashy hypothesis,
+but to get at the truth of the matter, said to himself, "If my notion of
+this matter is right, then atolls and encircling reefs, inasmuch as they
+are dependent upon subsidence, ought not to be found in company with
+volcanoes; and, 'vice versa', volcanoes ought not to be found in company
+with atolls, but they ought to be found in company with fringing reefs."
+And if you turn to Mr. Darwin's great work upon the coral reefs, you
+will see a very beautiful chart of the world, which he prepared with
+great pains and labour, showing the distribution on the one hand of the
+reefs, and on the other of the volcanoes; you will find that in no case
+does the atoll accompany the volcano, or the volcano burst up among the
+atolls. It is most instructive to look at the great area of the Pacific
+on the map, and see the great masses of atolls forming in one region of
+it a most enormous belt, running from north-west to south-east; while
+the volcanoes, which are very numerous in that region, go round the
+margin, so that we can picture the Pacific to ourselves a section of a
+kind of very shallow basin--shallow in proportion to its width, with the
+atolls rising from the bottom of it, and at the margins the volcanoes.
+It is exactly as if you had taken a flat mass and lifted up the edges of
+it; the subterranean force which lifted up the edges shows itself in
+volcanoes, and as the edges have been raised, the middle part of the
+mass has gone down. In other words, the facts of physical geography
+precisely and exactly correspond with the hypothesis which accounts for
+the infinite varieties of coral reefs.
+
+One other point, before I conclude, about this matter. These reefs, as
+you have just perceived, are in a most singular and unexpected manner
+indications of physical changes of elevations and depressions going on
+upon the surface of the globe. I dare say it may have surprised you to
+hear me talk in this familiar sort of way of land going up and down; but
+it is one of the universal lessons of geology that the land is going
+down and going up, and has been going up and down, in all sorts of
+places and to all sorts of distances, through all recorded time.
+Geologists would be quite right in maintaining the seeming paradox that
+the stable thing in the world is the fluid sea and the shifting thing is
+the solid land. That may sound a very hard saying at first, but the more
+you look into geology, the more you will see ground for believing that
+it is not a mere paradox.
+
+In an unexpected manner, again, these reefs afford us not only an
+indication of change of place, but they afford an indication of lapse of
+time. The reef is a timekeeper of a very curious character; and you can
+easily understand why. The coral polype, like everything else, takes a
+certain time to grow to its full size; it does not do it in a minute;
+just as a child takes a certain time to grow into a man so does the
+embryo polype take time to grow into a perfect polype and form its
+skeleton. Consequently every particle of coral limestone is an
+expression of time. It must have taken a certain time to separate the
+lime from the sea water. It is not possible to arrive at an accurate
+computation of the time it must have taken to form these coral islands,
+because we lack the necessary data; but we can form a rough calculation,
+which leads to very curious and striking results. The computations of
+the rate at which corals grow are so exceedingly variable, that we must
+allow the widest possible margin for error; and it is better in this
+case to make the allowance upon the side of excess. I think that anybody
+who knows anything about the matter will tell you that I am making a
+computation far in excess of what is probable, if I say that an inch of
+coral limestone may be added to one of these reefs in the course of a
+year. I think most naturalists would be inclined to laugh at me for
+making such an assumption, and would put the growth at certainly not
+more than half that amount. But supposing it is so, what a very curious
+notion of the antiquity of some of these great living pyramids comes out
+by a very simple calculation. There is no doubt whatever that the sea
+faces of some of them are fully a thousand feet high, and if you take
+the reckoning of an inch a year, that will give you 12,000 years for the
+age of that particular pyramid or cone of coral limestone; 12,000 long
+years have these creatures been labouring in conditions which must have
+been substantially the same as they are now, otherwise the polypes could
+not have continued their work. But I believe I very much understate both
+the height of some of these masses, and overstate the amount which these
+animals can form in the course of a year; so that you might very safely
+double the period as the time during which the Pacific Ocean, the
+general state of the climate, and the sea, and the temperature has been
+substantially what it is now; and yet that state of things which now
+obtains in the Pacific Ocean is the yesterday of the history of the life
+of the globe. Those pyramids of coral rock are built upon a foundation
+which is itself formed by the deposits which the geologist has to deal
+with. If we go back in time and search through the series of the rocks,
+we find at every age of the world's history which has yet been examined,
+accumulations of limestone, many of which have certainly been built up
+in just the same way as those coral reefs which are now forming the
+bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And even if we turn to the oldest periods
+of geologic history, although the nature of the materials is changed,
+although we cannot apply to them the same reasonings that we can to the
+existing corals, yet still there are vast masses of limestone formed of
+nothing else than the accumulations of the skeletons of similar animals,
+and testifying that even in those remote periods of the world's history,
+as now, the order of things implies that the earth had already endured
+for a period of which our ordinary standards of chronology give us not
+the slightest conception. In other words, the history of these coral
+reefs, traced out honestly and carefully, and with the same sort of
+reasoning that you would use in the ordinary affairs of life, testifies,
+like every fact that I know of, to the prodigious antiquity of the earth
+since it existed in a condition in the main similar to that in which it
+now is.
+
+End of Coral and Coral Reefs.
+
+
+***
+
+
+YEAST.
+
+
+I have selected to-night the particular subject of Yeast for two
+reasons--or, rather, I should say for three. In the first place, because
+it is one of the simplest and the most familiar objects with which we
+are acquainted. In the second place, because the facts and phenomena
+which I have to describe are so simple that it is possible to put them
+before you without the help of any of those pictures or diagrams which
+are needed when matters are more complicated, and which, if I had to
+refer to them here, would involve the necessity of my turning away from
+you now and then, and thereby increasing very largely my difficulty
+(already sufficiently great) in making myself heard. And thirdly, I have
+chosen this subject because I know of no familiar substance forming part
+of our every-day knowledge and experience, the examination of which,
+with a little care, tends to open up such very considerable issues as
+does this substance--yeast.
+
+In the first place, I should like to call your attention to a fact with
+which the whole of you are, to begin with, perfectly acquainted, I mean
+the fact that any liquid containing sugar, any liquid which is formed by
+pressing out the succulent parts of the fruits of plants, or a mixture
+of honey and water, if left to itself for a short time, begins to
+undergo a peculiar change. No matter how clear it might be at starting,
+yet after a few hours, or at most a few days, if the temperature is
+high, this liquid begins to be turbid, and by-and-by bubbles make their
+appearance in it, and a sort of dirty-looking yellowish foam or scum
+collects at the surface; while at the same time, by degrees, a similar
+kind of matter, which we call the "lees," sinks to the bottom.
+
+The quantity of this dirty-looking stuff, that we call the scum and the
+lees, goes on increasing until it reaches a certain amount, and then it
+stops; and by the time it stops, you find the liquid in which this
+matter has been formed has become altered in its quality. To begin with
+it was a mere sweetish substance, having the flavour of whatever might
+be the plant from which it was expressed, or having merely the taste and
+the absence of smell of a solution of sugar; but by the time that this
+change that I have been briefly describing to you is accomplished the
+liquid has become completely altered, it has acquired a peculiar smell,
+and, what is still more remarkable, it has gained the property of
+intoxicating the person who drinks it. Nothing can be more innocent than
+a solution of sugar; nothing can be less innocent, if taken in excess,
+as you all know, than those fermented matters which are produced from
+sugar. Well, again, if you notice that bubbling, or, as it were,
+seething of the liquid, which has accompanied the whole of this process,
+you will find that it is produced by the evolution of little bubbles of
+air-like substance out of the liquid; and I dare say you all know this
+air-like substance is not like common air; it is not a substance which a
+man can breathe with impunity. You often hear of accidents which take
+place in brewers' vats when men go in carelessly, and get suffocated
+there without knowing that there was anything evil awaiting them. And if
+you tried the experiment with this liquid I am telling of while it was
+fermenting, you would find that any small animal let down into the
+vessel would be similarly stifled; and you would discover that a light
+lowered down into it would go out. Well, then, lastly, if after this
+liquid has been thus altered you expose it to that process which is
+called distillation; that is to say, if you put it into a still, and
+collect the matters which are sent over, you obtain, when you first heat
+it, a clear transparent liquid, which, however, is something totally
+different from water; it is much lighter; it has a strong smell, and it
+has an acrid taste; and it possesses the same intoxicating power as the
+original liquid, but in a much more intense degree. If you put a light
+to it, it burns with a bright flame, and it is that substance which we
+know as spirits of wine.
+
+Now these facts which I have just put before you--all but the last--have
+been known from extremely remote antiquity. It is, I hope one of the
+best evidences of the antiquity of the human race, that among the
+earliest records of all kinds of men, you find a time recorded when they
+got drunk. We may hope that that must have been a very late period in
+their history. Not only have we the record of what happened to Noah, but
+if we turn to the traditions of a different people, those forefathers of
+ours who lived in the high lands of Northern India, we find that they
+were not less addicted to intoxicating liquids; and I have no doubt that
+the knowledge of this process extends far beyond the limits of
+historically recorded time. And it is a very curious thing to observe
+that all the names we have of this process, and all that belongs to it,
+are names that have their roots not in our present language, but in
+those older languages which go back to the times at which this country
+was peopled. That word "fermentation" for example, which is the title we
+apply to the whole process, is a Latin term; and a term which is
+evidently based upon the fact of the effervescence of the liquid. Then
+the French, who are very fond of calling themselves a Latin race, have a
+particular word for ferment, which is 'levure'. And, in the same way, we
+have the word "leaven," those two words having reference to the heaving
+up, or to the raising of the substance which is fermented. Now those are
+words which we get from what I may call the Latin side of our parentage;
+but if we turn to the Saxon side, there are a number of names connected
+with this process of fermentation. For example, the Germans call
+fermentation--and the old Germans did so--"gahren;" and they call
+anything which is used as a ferment by such names, such as "gheist" and
+"geest," and finally in low German, "yest";" and that word you know is
+the word our Saxon forefathers used, and is almost the same as the word
+which is commonly employed in this country to denote the common ferment
+of which I have been speaking. So they have another name, the word
+"hefe," which is derived from their verb "heben," which signifies to
+raise up; and they have yet a third name, which is also one common in
+this country (I do not know whether it is common in Lancashire, but it
+is certainly very common in the Midland countries), the word "barm,"
+which is derived from a root which signifies to raise or to bear up.
+Barm is a something borne up; and thus there is much more real relation
+than is commonly supposed by those who make puns, between the beer which
+a man takes down his throat and the bier upon which that process, if
+carried to excess, generally lands him, for they are both derived from
+the root signifying bearing up; the one thing is borne upon men's
+shoulders, and the other is the fermented liquid which was borne up by
+the fermentation taking place in itself.
+
+Again, I spoke of the produce of fermentation as "spirit of wine." Now
+what a very curious phrase that is, if you come to think of it. The old
+alchemists talked of the finest essence of anything as if it had the
+same sort of relation to the thing itself as a man's spirit is supposed
+to have to his body; and so they spoke of this fine essence of the
+fermented liquid as being the spirit of the liquid. Thus came about that
+extraordinary ambiguity of language, in virtue of which you apply
+precisely the same substantive name to the soul of man and to a glass of
+gin! And then there is still yet one other most curious piece of
+nomenclature connected with this matter, and that is the word "alcohol"
+itself, which is now so familiar to everybody. Alcohol originally meant
+a very fine powder. The women of the Arabs and other Eastern people are
+in the habit of tingeing their eyelashes with a very fine black powder
+which is made of antimony, and they call that "kohol;" and the "al" is
+simply the article put in front of it, so as to say "the kohol." And up
+to the 17th century in this country the word alcohol was employed to
+signify any very fine powder; you find it in Robert Boyle's works that
+he uses "alcohol" for a very fine subtle powder. But then this name of
+anything very fine and very subtle came to be specially connected with
+the fine and subtle spirit obtained from the fermentation of sugar; and
+I believe that the first person who fairly fixed it as the proper name
+of what we now commonly call spirits of wine, was the great French
+chemist Lavoisier, so comparatively recent is the use of the word
+alcohol in this specialised sense.
+
+So much by way of general introduction to the subject on which I have to
+speak to-night. What I have hitherto stated is simply what we may call
+common knowledge, which everybody may acquaint himself with. And you
+know that what we call scientific knowledge is not any kind of
+conjuration, as people sometimes suppose, but it is simply the
+application of the same principles of common sense that we apply to
+common knowledge, carried out, if I may so speak, to knowledge which is
+uncommon. And all that we know now of this substance, yeast, and all the
+very strange issues to which that knowledge has led us, have simply come
+out of the inveterate habit, and a very fortunate habit for the human
+race it is, which scientific men have of not being content until they
+have routed out all the different chains and connections of apparently
+simple phenomena, until they have taken them to pieces and understood
+the conditions upon which they depend. I will try to point out to you
+now what has happened in consequence of endeavouring to apply this
+process of "analysis," as we call it, this teazing out of an apparently
+simple fact into all the little facts of which it is made up, to the
+ascertained facts relating to the barm or the yeast; secondly, what has
+come of the attempt to ascertain distinctly what is the nature of the
+products which are produced by fermentation; then what has come of the
+attempt to understand the relation between the yeast and the products;
+and lastly, what very curious side issues if I may so call them--have
+branched out in the course of this inquiry, which has now occupied
+somewhere about two centuries.
+
+The first thing was to make out precisely and clearly what was the
+nature of this substance, this apparently mere scum and mud that we call
+yeast. And that was first commenced seriously by a wonderful old
+Dutchman of the name of Leeuwenhoek, who lived some two hundred years
+ago, and who was the first person to invent thoroughly trustworthy
+microscopes of high powers. Now, Leeuwenhoek went to work upon this
+yeast mud, and by applying to it high powers of the microscope, he
+discovered that it was no mere mud such as you might at first suppose,
+but that it was a substance made up of an enormous multitude of minute
+grains, each of which had just as definite a form as if it were a grain
+of corn, although it was vastly smaller, the largest of these not being
+more than the two-thousandth of an inch in diameter; while, as you know,
+a grain of corn is a large thing, and the very smallest of these
+particles were not more than the seven-thousandth of an inch in
+diameter. Leeuwenhoek saw that this muddy stuff was in reality a liquid,
+in which there were floating this immense number of definitely shaped
+particles, all aggregated in heaps and lumps and some of them separate.
+That discovery remained, so to speak, dormant for fully a century, and
+then the question was taken up by a French discoverer, who, paying great
+attention and having the advantage of better instruments than
+Leeuwenhoek had, watched these things and made the astounding discovery
+that they were bodies which were constantly being reproduced and
+growing; than when one of these rounded bodies was once formed and had
+grown to its full size, it immediately began to give off a little bud
+from one side, and then that bud grew out until it had attained the full
+size of the first, and that, in this way, the yeast particle was
+undergoing a process of multiplication by budding, just as effectual and
+just as complete as the process of multiplication of a plant by budding;
+and thus this Frenchman, Cagniard de la Tour, arrived at the
+conclusion--very creditable to his sagacity, and which has been
+confirmed by every observation and reasoning since--that this apparently
+muddy refuse was neither more nor less than a mass of plants, of minute
+living plants, growing and multiplying in the sugary fluid in which the
+yeast is formed. And from that time forth we have known this substance
+which forms the scum and the lees as the yeast plant; and it has
+received a scientific name--which I may use without thinking of it, and
+which I will therefore give you--namely, "Torula." Well, this was a
+capital discovery. The next thing to do was to make out how this torula
+was related to the other plants. I won't weary you with the whole course
+of investigation, but I may sum up its results, and they are these--that
+the torula is a particular kind of a fungus, a particular state rather,
+of a fungus or mould. There are many moulds which under certain
+conditions give rise to this torula condition, to a substance which is
+not distinguishable from yeast, and which has the same properties as
+yeast--that is to say, which is able to decompose sugar in the curious
+way that we shall consider by-and-by. So that the yeast plant is a plant
+belonging to a group of the Fungi, multiplying and growing and living in
+this very remarkable manner in the sugary fluid which is, so to speak,
+the nidus or home of the yeast.
+
+That, in a few words, is, as far as investigation--by the help of one's
+eye and by the help of the microscope--has taken us. But now there is an
+observer whose methods of observation are more refined than those of men
+who use their eye, even though it be aided by the microscope; a man who
+sees indirectly further than we can see directly--that is, the chemist;
+and the chemist took up this question, and his discovery was not less
+remarkable than that of the microscopist. The chemist discovered that
+the yeast plant being composed of a sort of bag, like a bladder, inside
+which is a peculiar soft, semifluid material--the chemist found that
+this outer bladder has the same composition as the substance of wood,
+that material which is called "cellulose," and which consists of the
+elements carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, without any nitrogen. But then
+he also found (the first person to discover it was an Italian chemist,
+named Fabroni, in the end of the last century) that this inner matter
+which was contained in the bag, which constitutes the yeast plant, was a
+substance containing the elements carbon and hydrogen and oxygen and
+nitrogen; that it was what Fabroni called a vegeto-animal substance, and
+that it had the peculiarities of what are commonly called "animal
+products."
+
+This again was an exceedingly remarkable discovery. It lay neglected for
+a time, until it was subsequently taken up by the great chemists of
+modern times, and they, with their delicate methods of analysis, have
+finally decided that, in all essential respects, the substance which
+forms the chief part of the contents of the yeast plant is identical
+with the material which forms the chief part of our own muscles, which
+forms the chief part of our own blood, which forms the chief part of the
+white of the egg; that, in fact, although this little organism is a
+plant, and nothing but a plant, yet that its active living contents
+contain a substance which is called "protein," which is of the same
+nature as the substance which forms the foundation of every animal
+organism whatever.
+
+Now we come next to the question of the analysis of the products, of
+that which is produced during the process of fermentation. So far back
+as the beginning of the 16th century, in the times of transition between
+the old alchemy and the modern chemistry, there was a remarkable man,
+Von Helmont, a Dutchman, who saw the difference between the air which
+comes out of a vat where something is fermenting and common air. He was
+the man who invented the term "gas," and he called this kind of gas "gas
+silvestre"--so to speak gas that is wild, and lives in out of the way
+places--having in his mind the identity of this particular kind of air
+with that which is found in some caves and cellars. Then, the gradual
+process of investigation going on, it was discovered that this
+substance, then called "fixed air," was a poisonous gas, and it was
+finally identified with that kind of gas which is obtained by burning
+charcoal in the air, which is called "carbonic acid." Then the substance
+alcohol was subjected to examination, and it was found to be a
+combination of carbon, and hydrogen, and oxygen. Then the sugar which
+was contained in the fermenting liquid was examined and that was found
+to contain the three elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. So that it
+was clear there were in sugar the fundamental elements which are
+contained in the carbonic acid, and in the alcohol. And then came that
+great chemist Lavoisier, and he examined into the subject carefully, and
+possessed with that brilliant thought of his which happens to be
+propounded exactly apropos to this matter of fermentation--that no
+matter is ever lost, but that matter only changes its form and changes
+its combinations--he endeavoured to make out what became of the sugar
+which was subjected to fermentation. He thought he discovered that the
+whole weight of the sugar was represented by the carbonic acid produced;
+that in other words, supposing this tumbler to represent the sugar, that
+the action of fermentation was as it were the splitting of it, the one
+half going away in the shape of carbonic acid, and the other half going
+away in the shape of alcohol. Subsequent inquiry, careful research with
+the refinements of modern chemistry, have been applied to this problem,
+and they have shown that Lavoisier was not quite correct; that what he
+says is quite true for about 95 per cent. of the sugar, but that the
+other 5 per cent., or nearly so, is converted into two other things; one
+of them, matter which is called succinic acid, and the other matter
+which is called glycerine, which you all know now as one of the
+commonest of household matters. It may be that we have not got to the
+end of this refined analysis yet, but at any rate, I suppose I may
+say--and I speak with some little hesitation for fear my friend
+Professor Roscoe here may pick me up for trespassing upon his
+province--but I believe I may say that now we can account for 99 per
+cent. at least of the sugar, and that 99 per cent. is split up into
+these four things, carbonic acid, alcohol, succinic acid, and glycerine.
+So that it may be that none of the sugar whatever disappears, and that
+only its parts, so to speak, are re-arranged, and if any of it
+disappears, certainly it is a very small portion.
+
+Now these are the facts of the case. There is the fact of the growth of
+the yeast plant; and there is the fact of the splitting up of the sugar.
+What relation have these two facts to one another?
+
+For a very long time that was a great matter of dispute. The early
+French observers, to do them justice, discerned the real state of the
+case, namely, that there was a very close connection between the actual
+life of the yeast plant and this operation of the splitting up of the
+sugar; and that one was in some way or other connected with the other.
+All investigation subsequently has confirmed this original idea. It has
+been shown that if you take any measures by which other plants of like
+kind to the torula would be killed, and by which the yeast plant is
+killed, then the yeast loses its efficiency. But a capital experiment
+upon this subject was made by a very distinguished man, Helmholz, who
+performed an experiment of this kind. He had two vessels--one of them we
+will suppose full of yeast, but over the bottom of it, as this might be,
+was tied a thin film of bladder; consequently, through that thin film of
+bladder all the liquid parts of the yeast would go, but the solid parts
+would be stopped behind; the torula would be stopped, the liquid parts
+of the yeast would go. And then he took another vessel containing a
+fermentable solution of sugar, and he put one inside the other; and in
+this way you see the fluid parts of the yeast were able to pass through
+with the utmost ease into the sugar, but the solid parts could not get
+through at all. And he judged thus: if the fluid parts are those which
+excite fermentation, then, inasmuch as these are stopped, the sugar will
+not ferment; and the sugar did not ferment, showing quite clearly, that
+an immediate contact with the solid, living torula was absolutely
+necessary to excite this process of splitting up of the sugar. This
+experiment was quite conclusive as to this particular point, and has had
+very great fruits in other directions.
+
+Well, then, the yeast plant being essential to the production of
+fermentation, where does the yeast plant come from? Here, again, was
+another great problem opened up, for, as I said at starting, you have,
+under ordinary circumstances in warm weather, merely to expose some
+fluid containing a solution of sugar, or any form of syrup or vegetable
+juice to the air, in order, after a comparatively short time, to see all
+these phenomena of fermentation. Of course the first obvious suggestion
+is, that the torula has been generated within the fluid. In fact, it
+seems at first quite absurd to entertain any other conviction; but that
+belief would most assuredly be an erroneous one.
+
+Towards the beginning of this century, in the vigorous times of the old
+French wars, there was a Monsieur Appert, who had his attention directed
+to the preservation of things that ordinarily perish, such as meats and
+vegetables, and in fact he laid the foundation of our modern method of
+preserving meats; and he found that if he boiled any of these substances
+and then tied them so as to exclude the air, that they would be
+preserved for any time. He tried these experiments, particularly with
+the must of wine and with the wort of beer; and he found that if the
+wort of beer had been carefully boiled and was stopped in such a way
+that the air could not get at it, it would never ferment. What was the
+reason of this? That, again, became the subject of a long string of
+experiments, with this ultimate result, that if you take precautions to
+prevent any solid matters from getting into the must of wine or the wort
+of beer, under these circumstances--that is to say, if the fluid has
+been boiled and placed in a bottle, and if you stuff the neck of the
+bottle full of cotton wool, which allows the air to go through and stops
+anything of a solid character however fine, then you may let it be for
+ten years and it will not ferment. But if you take that plug out and
+give the air free access, then, sooner or later fermentation will set
+up. And there is no doubt whatever that fermentation is excited only by
+the presence of some torula or other, and that that torula proceeds in
+our present experience, from pre-existing torulae. These little bodies
+are excessively light. You can easily imagine what must be the weight of
+little particles, but slightly heavier than water, and not more than the
+two-thousandth or perhaps seven-thousandth of an inch in diameter. They
+are capable of floating about and dancing like motes in the sunbeam;
+they are carried about by all sorts of currents of air; the great
+majority of them perish; but one or two, which may chance to enter into
+a sugary solution, immediately enter into active life, find there the
+conditions of their nourishment, increase and multiply, and may give
+rise to any quantity whatever of this substance yeast. And, whatever may
+be true or not be true about this "spontaneous generation," as it is
+called in regard to all other kinds of living things, it is perfectly
+certain, as regards yeast, that it always owes its origin to this
+process of transportation or inoculation, if you like so to call it,
+from some other living yeast organism; and so far as yeast is concerned,
+the doctrine of spontaneous generation is absolutely out of court. And
+not only so, but the yeast must be alive in order to exert these
+peculiar properties. If it be crushed, if it be heated so far that its
+life is destroyed, that peculiar power of fermentation is not excited.
+Thus we have come to this conclusion, as the result of our inquiry, that
+the fermentation of sugar, the splitting of the sugar into alcohol and
+carbonic acid, glycerine, and succinic acid, is the result of nothing
+but the vital activity of this little fungus, the torula.
+
+And now comes the further exceedingly difficult inquiry--how is it that
+this plant, the torula, produces this singular operation of the
+splitting up of the sugar? Fabroni, to whom I referred some time ago,
+imagined that the effervescence of fermentation was produced in just the
+same way as the effervescence of a sedlitz powder, that the yeast was a
+kind of acid, and that the sugar was a combination of carbonic acid and
+some base to form the alcohol, and that the yeast combined with this
+substance, and set free the carbonic acid; just as when you add
+carbonate of soda to acid you turn out the carbonic acid. But of course
+the discovery of Lavoisier that the carbonic acid and the alcohol taken
+together are very nearly equal in weight to the sugar, completely upset
+this hypothesis. Another view was therefore taken by the French chemist,
+Thenard, and it is still held by a very eminent chemist, M. Pasteur, and
+their view is this, that the yeast, so to speak, eats a little of the
+sugar, turns a little of it to its own purposes, and by so doing gives
+such a shape to the sugar that the rest of it breaks up into carbonic
+acid and alcohol.
+
+Well, then, there is a third hypothesis, which is maintained by another
+very distinguished chemist, Liebig, which denies either of the other
+two, and which declares that the particles of the sugar are, as it were,
+shaken asunder by the forces at work in the yeast plant. Now I am not
+going to take you into these refinements of chemical theory, I cannot
+for a moment pretend to do so, but I may put the case before you by an
+analogy. Suppose you compare the sugar to a card house, and suppose you
+compare the yeast to a child coming near the card house, then Fabroni's
+hypothesis was that the child took half the cards away; Thenard's and
+Pasteur's hypothesis is that the child pulls out the bottom card and
+thus makes it tumble to pieces; and Liebig's hypothesis is that the
+child comes by and shakes the table and tumbles the house down. I appeal
+to my friend here (Professor Roscoe) whether that is not a fair
+statement of the case.
+
+Having thus, as far as I can, discussed the general state of the
+question, it remains only that I should speak of some of those
+collateral results which have come in a very remarkable way out of the
+investigation of yeast. I told you that it was very early observed that
+the yeast plant consisted of a bag made up of the same material as that
+which composes wood, and of an interior semifluid mass which contains a
+substance, identical in its composition, in a broad sense, with that
+which constitutes the flesh of animals. Subsequently, after the
+structure of the yeast plant had been carefully observed, it was
+discovered that all plants, high and low, are made up of separate bags
+or "cells," as they are called; these bags or cells having the
+composition of the pure matter of wood; having the same composition,
+broadly speaking, as the sac of the yeast plant, and having in their
+interior a more or less fluid substance containing a matter of the same
+nature as the protein substance of the yeast plant. And therefore this
+remarkable result came out--that however much a plant may differ from an
+animal, yet that the essential constituent of the contents of these
+various cells or sacs of which the plant is made up, the nitrogenous
+protein matter, is the same in the animal as in the plant. And not only
+was this gradually discovered, but it was found that these semifluid
+contents of the plant cell had, in many cases, a remarkable power of
+contractility quite like that of the substance of animals. And about 24
+or 25 years ago, namely, about the year 1846, to the best of my
+recollection, a very eminent German botanist, Hugo Von Mohl, conferred
+upon this substance which is found in the interior of the plant cell,
+and which is identical with the matter found in the inside of the yeast
+cell, and which again contains an animal substance similar to that of
+which we ourselves are made up--he conferred upon this that title of
+"protoplasm," which has brought other people a great deal of trouble
+since! I beg particularly to say that, because I find many people
+suppose that I was the inventor of that term, whereas it has been in
+existence for at least twenty-five years. And then other observers,
+taking the question up, came to this astonishing conclusion (working
+from this basis of the yeast), that the differences between animals and
+plants are not so much in the fundamental substances which compose them,
+not in the protoplasm, but in the manner in which the cells of which
+their bodies are built up have become modified. There is a sense in
+which it is true--and the analogy was pointed out very many years ago by
+some French botanists and chemists--there is a sense in which it is true
+that every plant is substantially an enormous aggregation of bodies
+similar to yeast cells, each having to a certain extent its own
+independent life. And there is a sense in which it is also perfectly
+true--although it would be impossible for me to give the statement to
+you with proper qualifications and limitations on an occasion like
+this--but there is also a sense in which it is true that every animal
+body is made up of an aggregation of minute particles of protoplasm,
+comparable each of them to the individual separate yeast plant. And
+those who are acquainted with the history of the wonderful revolution
+which has been worked in our whole conception of these matters in the
+last thirty years, will bear me out in saying that the first germ of
+them, to a very great extent, was made to grow and fructify by the study
+of the yeast plant, which presents us with living matter in almost its
+simplest condition.
+
+Then there is yet one last and most important bearing of this yeast
+question. There is one direction probably in which the effects of the
+careful study of the nature of fermentation will yield results more
+practically valuable to mankind than any other. Let me recall to your
+minds the fact which I stated at the beginning of this lecture. Suppose
+that I had here a solution of pure sugar with a little mineral matter in
+it; and suppose it were possible for me to take upon the point of a
+needle one single, solitary yeast cell, measuring no more perhaps than
+the three-thousandth of an inch in diameter--not bigger than one of
+those little coloured specks of matter in my own blood at this moment,
+the weight of which it would be difficult to express in the fraction of
+a grain--and put it into this solution. From that single one, if the
+solution were kept at a fair temperature in a warm summer's day, there
+would be generated, in the course of a week, enough torulae to form a
+scum at the top and to form lees at the bottom, and to change the
+perfectly tasteless and entirely harmless fluid, syrup, into a solution
+impregnated with the poisonous gas carbonic acid, impregnated with the
+poisonous substance alcohol; and that, in virtue of the changes worked
+upon the sugar by the vital activity of these infinitesimally small
+plants. Now you see that this is a case of infection. And from the time
+that the phenomenon of fermentation were first carefully studied, it has
+constantly been suggested to the minds of thoughtful physicians that
+there was a something astoundingly similar between this phenomena of the
+propagation of fermentation by infection and contagion, and the
+phenomena of the propagation of diseases by infection and contagion. Out
+of this suggestion has grown that remarkable theory of many diseases
+which has been called the "germ theory of disease," the idea, in fact,
+that we owe a great many diseases to particles having a certain life of
+their own, and which are capable of being transmitted from one living
+being to another, exactly as the yeast plant is capable of being
+transmitted from one tumbler of saccharine substance to another. And
+that is a perfectly tenable hypothesis, one which in the present state
+of medicine ought to be absolutely exhausted and shown not to be true,
+until we take to others which have less analogy in their favour. And
+there are some diseases most assuredly in which it turns out to be
+perfectly correct. There are some forms of what are called malignant
+carbuncle which have been shown to be actually effected by a sort of
+fermentation, if I may use the phrase, by a sort of disturbance and
+destruction of the fluids of the animal body, set up by minute organisms
+which are the cause of this destruction and of this disturbance; and
+only recently the study of the phenomena which accompany vaccination has
+thrown an immense light in this direction, tending to show by
+experiments of the same general character as that to which I referred as
+performed by Helmholz, that there is a most astonishing analogy between
+the contagion of that healing disease and the contagion of destructive
+diseases. For it has been made out quite clearly, by investigations
+carried on in France and in this country, that the only part of the
+vaccine matter which is contagious, which is capable of carrying on its
+influence in the organism of the child who is vaccinated, is the solid
+particles and not the fluid. By experiments of the most ingenious kind,
+the solid parts have been separated from the fluid parts, and it has
+then been discovered that you may vaccinate a child as much as you like
+with the fluid parts, but no effect takes place, though an excessively
+small portion of the solid particles, the most minute that can be
+separated, is amply sufficient to give rise to all the phenomena of the
+cow pock, by a process which we can compare to nothing but the
+transmission of fermentation from one vessel into another, by the
+transport to the one of the torula particles which exist in the other.
+And it has been shown to be true of some of the most destructive
+diseases which infect animals, such diseases as the sheep pox, such
+diseases as that most terrible and destructive disorder of horses,
+glanders, that in these, also, the active power is the living solid
+particle, and that the inert part is the fluid. However, do not suppose
+that I am pushing the analogy too far. I do not mean to say that the
+active, solid parts in these diseased matters are of the same nature as
+living yeast plants; but, so far as it goes, there is a most surprising
+analogy between the two; and the value of the analogy is this, that by
+following it out we may some time or other come to understand how these
+diseases are propagated, just as we understand, now, about fermentation;
+and that, in this way, some of the greatest scourges which afflict the
+human race may be, if not prevented, at least largely alleviated.
+
+This is the conclusion of the statements which I wished to put before
+you. You see we have not been able to have any accessories. If you will
+come in such numbers to hear a lecture of this kind, all I can say is,
+that diagrams cannot be made big enough for you, and that it is not
+possible to show any experiments illustrative of a lecture on such a
+subject as I have to deal with. Of course my friends the chemists and
+physicists are very much better off, because they can not only show you
+experiments, but you can smell them and hear them! But in my case such
+aids are not attainable, and therefore I have taken a simple subject and
+have dealt with it in such a way that I hope you all understand it, at
+least so far as I have been able to put it before you in words; and
+having once apprehended such of the ideas and simple facts of the case
+as it was possible to put before you, you can see for yourselves the
+great and wonderful issues of such an apparently homely subject.
+
+End of Yeast.
+
+***
+
+
+WILLIAM HARVEY AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
+
+
+THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.*
+
+([Footnote] *A Lecture delivered in the Free Trade Hall, November 2nd,
+1878.)
+
+I desire this evening to give you some account of the life and labours
+of a very noble Englishman--William Harvey.
+
+William Harvey was born in the year 1578, and as he lived until the year
+1657, he very nearly attained the age of 80. He was the son of a small
+landowner in Kent, who was sufficiently wealthy to send this, his eldest
+son, to the University of Cambridge; while he embarked the others in
+mercantile pursuits, in which they all, as time passed on, attained
+riches.
+
+William Harvey, after pursuing his education at Cambridge, and taking
+his degree there, thought it was advisable--and justly thought so, in
+the then state of University education--to proceed to Italy, which at
+that time was one of the great centres of intellectual activity in
+Europe, as all friends of freedom hope it will become again, sooner or
+later. In those days the University of Padua had a great renown; and
+Harvey went there and studied under a man who was then very
+famous--Fabricius of Aquapendente. On his return to England, Harvey
+became a member of the College of Physicians in London, and entered into
+practice; and, I suppose, as an indispensable step thereto, proceeded to
+marry. He very soon became one of the most eminent members of the
+profession in London; and, about the year 1616, he was elected by the
+College of Physicians their Professor of Anatomy. It was while Harvey
+held this office that he made public that great discovery of the
+circulation of the blood and the movements of the heart, the nature of
+which I shall endeavour by-and-by to explain to you at length. Shortly
+afterwards, Charles the First having succeeded to the throne in 1625,
+Harvey became one of the king's physicians; and it is much to the credit
+of the unfortunate monarch--who, whatever his faults may have been, was
+one of the few English monarchs who have shown a taste for art and
+science--that Harvey became his attached and devoted friend as well as
+servant; and that the king, on the other hand, did all he could to
+advance Harvey's investigations. But, as you know, evil times came on;
+and Harvey, after the fortunes of his royal master were broken, being
+then a man of somewhat advanced years--over 60 years of age, in
+fact--retired to the society of his brothers in and near London, and
+among them pursued his studies until the day of his death. Harvey's
+career is a life which offers no salient points of interest to the
+biographer. It was a life devoted to study and investigation; and it was
+a life the devotion of which was amply rewarded, as I shall have
+occasion to point out to you, by its results.
+
+Harvey, by the diversity, the variety, and the thoroughness of his
+investigations, was enabled to give an entirely new direction to at
+least two branches--and two of the most important branches--of what
+now-a-days we call Biological Science. On the one hand, he founded all
+our modern physiology by the discovery of the exact nature of the
+motions of the heart, and of the course in which the blood is propelled
+through the body; and, on the other, he laid the foundation of that
+study of development which has been so much advanced of late years, and
+which constitutes one of the great pillars of the doctrine of evolution.
+This doctrine, I need hardly tell you, is now tending to revolutionise
+our conceptions of the origin of living things, exactly in the same way
+as Harvey's discovery of the circulation in the seventeeth century
+revolutionised the conceptions which men had previously entertained with
+regard to physiological processes.
+
+It would, I regret, be quite impossible for me to attempt, in the course
+of the time I can presume to hold you here, to unfold the history of
+more than one of these great investigations of Harvey. I call them
+"great investigations," as distinguished from "large publications." I
+have in my hand a little book, which those of you who are at a great
+distance may have some difficulty in seeing, and which I value very
+much. It is, I am afraid, sadly thumbed and scratched with annotations
+by a very humble successor and follower of Harvey. This little book is
+the edition of 1651 of the 'Exercitationes de Generatione'; and if you
+were to add another little book, printed in the same small type, and
+about one-seventh of the thickness, you would have the sum total of the
+printed matter which Harvey contributed to our literature. And yet in
+that sum total was contained, I may say, the materials of two
+revolutions in as many of the main branches of biological science. If
+Harvey's published labours can be condensed into so small a compass, you
+must recollect that it is not because he did not do a great deal more.
+We know very well that he did accumulate a very considerable number of
+observations on the most varied topics of medicine, surgery, and natural
+history. But, as I mentioned to you just now, Harvey, for a time, took
+the royal side in the domestic quarrel of the Great Rebellion, as it is
+called; and the Parliament, not unnaturally resenting that action of
+his, sent soldiers to seize his papers. And while I imagine they found
+nothing treasonable among those papers, yet, in the process of rummaging
+through them, they destroyed all the materials which Harvey had spent a
+laborious life in accumulating; and hence it is that the man's work and
+labours are represented by so little in apparent bulk.
+
+What I chiefly propose to do to-night is to lay before you an account of
+the nature of the discovery which Harvey made, and which is termed the
+Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood. And I desire also, with some
+particularity, to draw your attention to the methods by which that
+discovery was achieved; for, in both these respects, I think, there will
+be much matter for profitable reflection.
+
+Let me point out to you, in the first place, with respect to this
+important matter of the movements of the heart and the course of the
+blood in the body, that there is a certain amount of knowledge which
+must have been obtained without men taking the trouble to seek
+it--knowledge which must have been taken in, in the course of time, by
+everybody who followed the trade of a butcher, and still more so by
+those people who, in ancient times, professed to divine the course of
+future events from the entrails of animals. It is quite obvious to all,
+from ordinary accidents, that the bodies of all the higher animals
+contain a hot red fluid--the blood. Everybody can see upon the surface
+of some part of the skin, underneath that skin, pulsating tubes, which
+we know as the arteries. Everybody can see under the surface of the skin
+more delicate and softer looking tubes, which do not pulsate, which are
+of a bluish colour, and are termed the veins. And every person who has
+seen a recently killed animal opened knows that these two kinds of tubes
+to which I have just referred, are connected with an apparatus which is
+placed in the chest, which apparatus, in recently killed animals, is
+still pulsating. And you know that in yourselves you can feel the
+pulsation of this organ, the heart, between the fifth and sixth ribs. I
+take it that this much of anatomy and physiology has been known from the
+oldest times, not only as a matter of curiosity, but because one of the
+great objects of men, from their earliest recorded existence, has been
+to kill one another, and it was a matter of considerable importance to
+know which was the best place for hitting an enemy. I can refer you to
+very ancient records for most precise and clear information that one of
+the best places is to smite him between the fifth and sixth ribs. Now
+that is a very good piece of regional anatomy, for that is the place
+where the heart strikes in its pulsations, and the use of smiting there
+is that you go straight to the heart. Well, all that must have been
+known from time immemorial--at least for 4,000 or 5,000 years before the
+commencement of our era--because we know that for as great a period as
+that the Egyptians, at any rate, whatever may have been the case with
+other people, were in the enjoyment of a highly developed civilisation.
+But of what knowledge they may have possessed beyond this we know
+nothing; and in tracing back the springs of the origin of everything
+that we call "modern science" (which is not merely knowing, but knowing
+systematically, and with the intention and endeavour to find out the
+causal connection of things)--I say that when we trace back the
+different lines of all the modern sciences we come at length to one
+epoch and to one country--the epoch being about the fourth and fifth
+centuries before Christ, and the country being ancient Greece. It is
+there that we find the commencement and the root of every branch of
+physical science and of scientific method. If we go back to that time we
+have in the works attributed to Aristotle, who flourished between 300
+and 400 years before Christ, a sort of encyclopaedia of the scientific
+knowledge of that day--and a very marvellous collection of, in many
+respects, accurate and precise knowledge it is. But, so far as regards
+this particular topic, Aristotle, it must be confessed, has not got very
+far beyond common knowledge. He knows a little about the structure of
+the heart. I do not think that his knowledge is so inaccurate as many
+people fancy, but it does not amount to much. A very few years after his
+time, however, there was a Greek philosopher, Erasistratus, who lived
+about three hundred years before Christ, and who must have pursued
+anatomy with much care, for he made the important discovery that there
+are membranous flaps, which are now called "valves," at the origins of
+the great vessels; and that there are certain other valves in the
+interior of the heart itself.
+
+(FIGURE 1.--The apparatus of the circulation, as at present known. The
+capillary vessels, which connect the arteries and veins, are omitted, on
+account of their small size. The shading of the "venous system" is given
+to all the vessels which contain venous blood; that of the "arterial
+system" to all the vessels which contain arterial blood.)
+
+I have here (Figure 1) a purposely rough, but, so far as it goes,
+accurate, diagram of the structure of the heart and the course of the
+blood. The heart is supposed to be divided into two portions. It would
+be possible, by very careful dissection, to split the heart down the
+middle of a partition, or so-called 'septum', which exists in it, and to
+divide it into the two portions which you see here represented; in which
+case we should have a left heart and a right heart, quite distinct from
+one another. You will observe that there is a portion of each heart
+which is what is called the ventricle. Now the ancients applied the term
+'heart' simply and solely to the ventricles. They did not count the rest
+of the heart--what we now speak of as the 'auricles'--as any part of the
+heart at all; but when they spoke of the heart they meant the left and
+the right ventricles; and they described those great vessels, which we
+now call the 'pulmonary veins' and the 'vena cava', as opening directly
+into the heart itself.
+
+What Erasistratus made out was that, at the roots of the aorta and the
+pulmonary artery (Figure 1) there were valves, which opened in the
+direction indicated by the arrows; and, on the other hand, that at the
+junction of what he called the veins with the heart there were other
+valves, which also opened again in the direction indicated by the
+arrows. This was a very capital discovery, because it proved that if the
+heart was full of fluid, and if there were any means of causing that
+fluid in the ventricles to move, then the fluid could move only in one
+direction; for you will observe that, as soon as the fluid is
+compressed, the two valves between the ventricles and the veins will be
+shut, and the fluid will be obliged to move into the arteries; and, if
+it tries to get back from them into the heart, it is prevented from
+doing so by the valves at the origin of the arteries, which we now call
+the semilunar valves (half-moon shaped valves); so that it is
+impossible, if the fluid move at all, that it should move in any other
+way than from the great veins into the arteries. Now that was a very
+remarkable and striking discovery.
+
+But it is not given to any man to be altogether right (that is a
+reflection which it is very desirable for every man who has had the good
+luck to be nearly right once, always to bear in mind); and Erasistratus,
+while he made this capital and important discovery, made a very capital
+and important error in another direction, although it was a very natural
+error. If, in any animal which is recently killed, you open one of those
+pulsating trunks which I referred to a short time ago, you will find, as
+a general rule, that it either contains no blood at all or next to none;
+but that, on the contrary, it is full of air. Very naturally, therefore,
+Erasistratus came to the conclusion that this was the normal and natural
+state of the arteries, and that they contained air. We are apt to think
+this a very gross blunder; but, to anybody who is acquainted with the
+facts of the case, it is, at first sight, an exceedingly natural
+conclusion. Not only so, but Erasistratus might have very justly
+imagined that he had seen his way to the meaning of the connection of
+the left side of the heart with the lungs; for we find that what we now
+call the pulmonary vein is connected with the lungs, and branches out in
+them (Figure 1). Finding that the greater part of this system of vessels
+was filled with air after death, this ancient thinker very shrewdly
+concluded that its real business was to receive air from the lungs, and
+to distribute that air all through the body, so as to get rid of the
+grosser humours and purify the blood. That was a very natural and very
+obvious suggestion, and a highly ingenious one, though it happened to be
+a great error. You will observe that the only way of correcting it was
+to experiment upon living animals, for there is no other way in which
+this point could be settled.
+
+(FIGURE 2. The Course of the Blood according to Galen (A.D. 170).)
+
+And hence we are indebted, for the correction of the error of
+Erasistratus, to one of the greatest experimenters of ancient or modern
+times, Claudius Galenus, who lived in the second century after Christ. I
+say it was to this man more than any one else, because he knew that the
+only way of solving physiological problems was to examine into the facts
+in the living animal. And because Galen was a skilful anatomist, and a
+skilful experimenter, he was able to show in what particulars
+Erasistratus had erred, and to build up a system of thought upon this
+subject which was not improved upon for fully 1,300 years. I have
+endeavoured, in Figure 2, to make clear to you exactly what it was he
+tried to establish. You will observe that this diagram is practically
+the same as that given in Figure 1, only simplified. The same facts may
+be looked upon by different people from different points of view. Galen
+looked upon these facts from a very different point of view from that
+which we ourselves occupy; but, so far as the facts are concerned, they
+were the same for him as for us. Well then, the first thing that Galen
+did was to make out experimentally that, during life, the arteries are
+not full of air, but that they are full of blood. And he describes a
+great variety of experiments which he made upon living animals with the
+view of proving this point, which he did prove effectually and for all
+time; and that you will observe was the only way of settling the matter.
+Furthermore, he demonstrated that the cavities of the left side of the
+heart--what we now call the left auricle and the left ventricle--are,
+like the arteries, full of blood during life, and that that blood was of
+the scarlet kind--arterialised, or as he called it "pneumatised," blood.
+It was known before, that the pulmonary artery, the right ventricle, and
+the veins, contain the darker kind of blood, which was thence called
+venous. Having proved that the whole of the left side of the heart,
+during life, is full of scarlet arterial blood, Galen's next point was
+to inquire into the mode of communication between the arteries and
+veins. It was known before his time that both arteries and veins
+branched out. Galen maintained, though he could not prove the fact, that
+the ultimate branches of the arteries and veins communicated together
+somehow or other, by what he called 'anastomoses', and that these
+'anastomoses' existed not only in the body in general but also in the
+lungs. In the next place, Galen maintained that all the veins of the
+body arise from the liver; that they draw the blood thence and
+distribute it over the body. People laugh at that notion now-a-days; but
+if anybody will look at the facts he will see that it is a very probable
+supposition. There is a great vein (hepatic vein--Figure 1) which rises
+out of the liver, and that vein goes straight into the 'vena cava'
+(Figure 1) which passes to the heart, being there joined by the other
+veins of the body. The liver itself is fed by a very large vein (portal
+vein--Figure 1), which comes from the alimentary canal. The way the
+ancients looked at this matter was, that the food, after being received
+into the alimentary canal, was then taken up by the branches of this
+great vein, which are called the 'vena portae', just as the roots of a
+plant suck up nourishment from the soil in which it lives; that then it
+was carried to the liver, there to be what was called "concocted," which
+was their phrase for its conversion into substances more fitted for
+nutrition than previously existed in it. They then supposed that the
+next thing to be done was to distribute this fluid through the body; and
+Galen like his predecessors, imagined that the "concocted" blood, having
+entered the great 'vena cava', was distributed by its ramifications all
+over the body. So that, in his view (Figure 2), the course of the blood
+was from the intestine to the liver, and from the liver into the great
+'vena cava', including what we now call the right auricle of the heart,
+whence it was distributed by the branches of the veins. But the whole of
+the blood was not thus disposed of. Part of the blood, it was supposed,
+went through what we now call the pulmonary arteries (Figure 1), and,
+branching out there, gave exit to certain "fuliginous" products, and at
+the same time took in from the air a something which Galen calls the
+'pneuma'. He does not know anything about what we call oxygen; but it is
+astonishing how very easy it would be to turn his language into the
+equivalent of modern chemical theory. The old philosopher had so just a
+suspicion of the real state of affairs that you could make use of his
+language in many cases, if you substituted the word "oxygen," which we
+now-a-days use, for the word 'pneuma'. Then he imagined that the blood,
+further concocted or altered by contact with the 'pneuma', passed to a
+certain extent to the left side of the heart. So that Galen believed
+that there was such a thing as what is now called the pulmonary
+circulation. He believed, as much as we do, that the blood passed
+through the right side of the heart, through the artery which goes to
+the lungs, through the lungs themselves, and back by what we call the
+pulmonary veins to the left side of the heart. But he thought it was
+only a very small portion of the blood which passes to the right side of
+the heart in this way; the rest of the blood, he thought, passed through
+the partition which separates the two ventricles of the heart. He
+describes a number of small pits, which really exist there, as holes,
+and he supposed that the greater part of the blood passed through these
+holes from the right to the left ventricle (Figure 2).
+
+It is of great importance you should clearly understand these teachings
+of Galen, because, as I said just now, they sum up all that anybody knew
+until the revival of learning; and they come to this--that the blood
+having passed from the stomach and intestines through the liver, and
+having entered the great veins, was by them distributed to every part of
+the body; that part of the blood, thus distributed, entered the arterial
+system by the 'anastomoses', as Galen called them, in the lungs; that a
+very small portion of it entered the arteries by the 'anastomoses' in
+the body generally; but that the greater part of it passed through the
+septum of the heart, and so entered the left side and mingled with the
+pneumatised blood, which had been subjected to the air in the lungs, and
+was then distributed by the arteries, and eventually mixed with the
+currents of blood, coming the other way, through the veins.
+
+Yet one other point about the views of Galen. He thought that both the
+contractions and dilatations of the heart--what we call the 'systole' or
+contraction of the heart, and the 'diastole' or dilatation--Galen
+thought that these were both active movements; that the heart actively
+dilated, so that it had a sort of sucking power upon the fluids which
+had access to it. And again, with respect to the movements of the pulse,
+which anybody can feel at the wrist and elsewhere, Galen was of opinion
+that the walls of the arteries partook of that which he supposed to be
+the nature of the walls of the heart, and that they had the power of
+alternately actively contracting and actively dilating, so that he is
+careful to say that the nature of the pulse is comparable, not to the
+movement of a bag, which we fill by blowing into it, and which we empty
+by drawing the air out of it, but to the action of a bellows, which is
+actively dilated and actively compressed.
+
+(FIGURE 3.--The course of the blood from the right to the left side of
+the heart (Realdus Columbus, 1559).)
+
+After Galen's time came the collapse of the Roman Empire, the extinction
+of physical knowledge, and the repression of every kind of scientific
+inquiry, by its powerful and consistent enemy, the Church; and that
+state of things lasted until the latter part of the Middle Ages saw the
+revival of learning. That revival of learning, so far as anatomy and
+physiology are concerned, is due to the renewed influence of the
+philosophers of ancient Greece, and indeed, of Galen. Arabic
+commentators had translated Galen, and portions of his works had got
+into the language of the learned in the Middle Ages, in that way; but,
+by the study of the classical languages, the original text became
+accessible to the men who were then endeavouring to learn for themselves
+something about the facts of nature. It was a century or more before
+these men, finding themselves in the presence of a master--finding that
+all their lives were occupied in attempting to ascertain for themselves
+that which was familiar to him--I say it took the best part of a hundred
+years before they could fairly see that their business was not to follow
+him, but to follow his example--namely, to look into the facts of nature
+for themselves, and to carry on, in his spirit, the work he had begun.
+That was first done by Vesalius, one of the greatest anatomists who ever
+lived; but his work does not specially bear upon the question we are now
+concerned with. So far as regards the motions of the heart and the
+course of the blood, the first man in the Middle Ages, and indeed the
+only man who did anything which was of real importance, was one Realdus
+Columbus, who was professor at Padua in the year 1559, and published a
+great anatomical treatise. What Realdus Columbus did was this; once more
+resorting to the method of Galen, turning to the living animal,
+experimenting, he came upon new facts, and one of these new facts was
+that there was not merely a subordinate communication between the blood
+of the right side of the heart and that of the left side of the heart,
+through the lungs, but that there was a constant steady current of
+blood, setting through the pulmonary artery on the right side, through
+the lungs, and back by the pulmonary veins to the left side of the heart
+(Figure 3). Such was the capital discovery and demonstration of Realdus
+Columbus. He is the man who discovered what is loosely called the
+'pulmonary circulation'; and it really is quite absurd, in the face of
+the fact, that twenty years afterwards we find Ambrose Pare, the great
+French surgeon, ascribing this discovery to him as a matter of common
+notoriety, to find that attempts are made to give the credit of it to
+other people. So far as I know, this discovery of the course of the
+blood through the lungs, which is called the pulmonary circulation, is
+the one step in real advance that was made between the time of Galen and
+the time of Harvey. And I would beg you to note that the word
+"circulation" is improperly employed when it is applied to the course of
+the blood through the lungs. The blood from the right side of the heart,
+in getting to the left side of the heart, only performs a
+half-circle--it does not perform a whole circle--it does not return to
+the place from whence it started; and hence the discovery of the
+so-called "pulmonary circulation" has nothing whatever to do with that
+greater discovery which I shall point out to you by-and-by was made by
+Harvey, and which is alone really entitled to the name of the
+circulation of the blood.
+
+If anybody wants to understand what Harvey's great desert really was, I
+would suggest to him that he devote himself to a course of reading,
+which I cannot promise shall be very entertaining, but which, in this
+respect at any rate, will be highly instructive--namely, the works of
+the anatomists of the latter part of the 16th century and the beginning
+of the 17th century. If anybody will take the trouble to do that which I
+have thought it my business to do, he will find that the doctrines
+respecting the action of the heart and the motion of the blood which
+were taught in every university in Europe, whether in Padua or in Paris,
+were essentially those put forward by Galen, 'plus' the discovery of the
+pulmonary course of the blood which had been made by Realdus Columbus.
+In every chair of anatomy and physiology (which studies were not then
+separated) in Europe, it was taught that the blood brought to the liver
+by the portal vein, and carried out of the liver to the 'vena cava' by
+the hepatic vein, is distributed from the right side of the heart,
+through the other veins, to all parts of the body; that the blood of the
+arteries takes a like course from the heart towards the periphery; and
+that it is there, by means of the 'anastomoses', more or less mixed up
+with the venous blood. It so happens, by a curious chance, that up to
+the year 1625 there was at Padua, which was Harvey's own university, a
+very distinguished professor, Spigelius, whose work is extant, and who
+teaches exactly what I am now telling you. It is perfectly true that,
+some time before, Harvey's master, Fabricius, had not only
+re-discovered, but had drawn much attention to certain pouch-like
+structures, which are called the valves of the veins, found in the
+muscular parts of the body, all of which are directed towards the heart,
+and consequently impede the flow of the blood in the opposite direction.
+And you will find it stated by people who have not thought much about
+the matter, that it was this discovery of the valves of the veins which
+led Harvey to imagine the course of the circulation of the blood. Now it
+did not lead Harvey to imagine anything of the kind. He had heard all
+about it from his master, Fabricius, who made a great point of these
+valves in the veins, and he had heard the theories which Fabricius
+entertained upon the subject, whose impression as to the use of the
+valves was simply this--that they tended to take off any excess of
+pressure of the blood in passing from the heart to the extremities; for
+Fabricius believed, with the rest of the world, that the blood in the
+veins flowed from the heart towards the extremities. This, under the
+circumstances, was as good a theory as any other, because the action of
+the valves depends altogether upon the form and nature of the walls of
+the structures in which they are attached; and without accurate
+experiment, it was impossible to say whether the theory of Fabricius was
+right or wrong. But we not only have the evidence of the facts
+themselves that these could tell Harvey nothing about the circulation,
+but we have his own distinct declaration as to the considerations which
+led him to the true theory of the circulation of the blood, and amongst
+these the valves of the veins are not mentioned.
+
+(FIGURE 4.--The circulation of the blood as demonstrated by Harvey (A.D.
+1628).)
+
+Now then we may come to Harvey himself. When you read Harvey's treatise,
+which is one of the most remarkable scientific monographs with which I
+am acquainted--it occupies between 50 and 60 pages of a small quarto in
+Latin, and is as terse and concise as it possibly can be--when you come
+to look at Harvey's work, you will find that he had long struggled with
+the difficulties of the accepted doctrine of the circulation. He had
+received from Fabricius, and from all the great authorities of the day,
+the current view of the circulation of the blood. But he was a man with
+that rarest of all qualities--intellectual honesty; and by dint of
+cultivating that great faculty, which is more moral than intellectual,
+it had become impossible for him to say he believed anything which he
+did not clearly believe. This is a most uncomfortable peculiarity--for
+it gets you into all sorts of difficulties with all sorts of
+people--but, for scientific purposes, it is absolutely invaluable.
+Harvey possessed this peculiarity in the highest degree, and so it was
+impossible for him to accept what all the authorities told him, and he
+looked into the matter for himself. But he was not hasty. He worked at
+his new views, and he lectured about them at the College of Physicians
+for nine years; he did not print them until he was a man of fifty years
+of age; and when he did print them he accompanied them with a
+demonstration which has never been shaken, and which will stand till the
+end of time. What Harvey proved, in short, was this (see Figure 4)--that
+everybody had made a mistake, for want of sufficiently accurate
+experimentation as to the actual existence of the fact which everybody
+assumed. To anybody who looks at the blood-vessels with an unprejudiced
+eye it seems so natural that the blood should all come out of the liver,
+and be distributed by the veins to the different parts of the body, that
+nothing can seem simpler or more plain; and consequently no one could
+make up his mind to dispute this apparently obvious assumption. But
+Harvey did dispute it; and when he came to investigate the matter he
+discovered that it was a profound mistake, and that, all this time, the
+blood had been moving in just the opposite direction, namely, from the
+small ramifications of the veins towards the right side of the heart.
+Harvey further found that, in the arteries, the blood, as had previously
+been known, was travelling from the greater trunks towards the
+ramifications. Moreover, referring to the ideas of Columbus and of Galen
+(for he was a great student of literature, and did justice to all his
+predecessors), Harvey accepts and strengthens their view of the course
+of the blood through the lungs, and he shows how it fitted into his
+general scheme. If you will follow the course of the arrows in Figure 4
+you will see at once that--in accordance with the views of Columbus--the
+blood passes from the right side of the heart, through the lungs, to the
+left side. Then, adds Harvey, with abundant proof, it passes through the
+arteries to all parts of the body; and then, at the extremities of their
+branches in the different parts of the body, it passes (in what way he
+could not tell, for his means of investigation did not allow him to say)
+into the roots of the vents--then from the roots of the veins it goes
+into the trunk and veins--then to the right side of the heart--and then
+to the lungs, and so on. That, you will observe, makes a complete
+circuit; and it was precisely here that the originality of Harvey lay.
+There never yet has been produced, and I do not believe there can be
+produced, a tittle of evidence to show that, before his time, any one
+had the slightest suspicion that a single drop of blood, starting in the
+left ventricle of the heart, passes through the whole arterial system,
+comes back through the venous system, goes through the lungs, and comes
+back to the place whence it started. But that is the circulation of the
+blood, and it was exactly this which Harvey was the first man to
+suspect, to discover, and to demonstrate.
+
+But this was by no means the only thing Harvey did. He was the first who
+discovered and who demonstrated the true mechanism of the heart's
+action. No one, before his time, conceived that the movement of the
+blood was entirely due to the mechanical action of the heart as a pump.
+There were all sorts of speculations about the matter, but nobody had
+formed this conception, and nobody understood that the so-called systole
+of the heart is a state of active contraction, and the so-called
+diastole is a mere passive dilatation. Even within our own age that
+matter had been discussed. Harvey is as clear as possible about it. He
+says the movement of the blood is entirely due to the contractions of
+the walls of the heart--that it is the propelling apparatus--and all
+recent investigation tends to show that he was perfectly right. And from
+this followed the true theory of the pulse. Galen said, as I pointed out
+just now, that the arteries dilate as bellows, which have an active
+power of dilatation and contraction, and not as bags which are blown out
+and collapse. Harvey said it was exactly the contrary--the arteries
+dilate as bags simply because the stroke of the heart propels the blood
+into them; and, when they relax again, they relax as bags which are no
+longer stretched, simply because the force of the blow of the heart is
+spent. Harvey has been demonstrated to be absolutely right in this
+statement of his; and yet, so slow is the progress of truth, that,
+within my time, the question of the active dilatation of the arteries
+has been discussed.
+
+Thus Harvey's contributions to physiology may be summed up as follows:
+In the first place, he was the first person who ever imagined, and still
+more who demonstrated, the true course of the circulation of the blood
+in the body; in the second place, he was the first person who ever
+understood the mechanism of the heart, and comprehended that its
+contraction was the cause of the motion of the blood; and thirdly, he
+was the first person who took a just view of the nature of the pulse.
+These are the three great contributions which he made to the science of
+physiology; and I shall not err in saying--I speak in the presence of
+distinguished physiologists, but I am perfectly certain that they will
+endorse what I say--that upon that foundation the whole of our knowledge
+of the human body, with the exception of the motor apparatus and the
+sense organs, has been gradually built up, and that upon that foundation
+the whole rests. And not only does scientific physiology rest upon it,
+but everything like scientific medicine also rests upon it. As you
+know--I hope it is now a matter of popular knowledge--it is the
+foundation of all rational speculation about morbid processes; it is the
+only key to the rational interpretation of that commonest of all
+indications of disease, the state of the pulse; so that, both
+theoretically and practically, this discovery, this demonstration of
+Harvey's, has had an effect which is absolutely incalculable, and the
+consequences of which will accumulate from age to age until they result
+in a complete body of physiological science.
+
+(FIGURE 5.--The junction of the arteries and veins by capillary tubes,
+discovered by Malpighi (A.D. 1664).)
+
+I regret that I am unable to pursue this subject much further; but there
+is one point I should mention. In Harvey's time, the microscope was
+hardly invented. It is quite true that in some of his embryological
+researches he speaks of having made use of a hand glass; but that was
+the most that he seems to have known anything about, or that was
+accessible to him at that day. And so it came about, that, although he
+examined the course of the blood in many of the lower animals--watched
+the pulsation of the heart in shrimps, and animals of that kind--he
+never could put the final coping-stone on his edifice. He did not know
+to the day of his death, although quite clear about the fact that the
+arteries and the veins do communicate, how it is that they
+communicate--how it was that the blood of the arteries passed into the
+veins. One is grieved to think that the grand old man should have gone
+down to his tomb without the vast satisfaction it would have given to
+him to see what the Italian naturalist Malpighi showed only seven years
+later, in 1664, when he demonstrated, in a living frog, the actual
+passage of the blood from the ultimate ramifications of the arteries
+into the veins. But that absolute ocular demonstration of the truth of
+the views he had maintained throughout his life it was not granted to
+Harvey to see. What he did experience was this: that on the publication
+of his doctrines, they were met with the greatest possible opposition;
+and I have no doubt savage things were uttered in those old
+controversies, and that a great many people said that these new-fangled
+doctrines, reducing living processes to mere mechanism, would sap the
+foundations of religion and morality. I do not know for certain that
+they did, but they said things very like it. The first point was to show
+that Harvey's views were absolutely untrue; and not being able to
+succeed in that, opponents said they were not new; and not being able to
+succeed in that, that they didn't matter. That is the usual course with
+all new discoveries. But Harvey troubled himself very little about these
+things. He remained perfectly quiet; for although reputed a hot-tempered
+man, he never would have anything to do with controversy if he could
+help it; and he only replied to one of his antagonists after twenty
+years' interval, and then in the most charming spirit of candour and
+moderation. But he had the great satisfaction of living to see his
+doctrine accepted upon all sides. At the time of his death, there was
+not an anatomical school in Europe in which the doctrine of the
+circulation of the blood was not taught in the way in which Harvey had
+laid it down. In that respect he had a happiness which is granted to
+very few men.
+
+I have said that the other great investigation of Harvey is not one
+which can be dealt with to a general audience. It is very complex, and
+therefore I must ask you to take my word for it that, although not so
+fortunate an investigation, not so entirely accordant with later results
+as the doctrine of the circulation; yet that still, this little treatise
+of Harvey's has in many directions exerted an influence hardly less
+remarkable than that exerted by the Essay upon the Circulation of the
+Blood.
+
+And now let me ask your attention to two or three closing remarks.
+
+If you look back upon that period of about 100 years which commences
+with Harvey's birth--I mean from the year 1578 to 1680 or thereabouts--I
+think you will agree with me, that it constitutes one of the most
+remarkable epochs in the whole of that thousand years which we may
+roughly reckon as constituting the history of Britain. In the
+commencement of that period, we may see, if not the setting, at any rate
+the declension of that system of personal rule which had existed under
+previous sovereigns, and which, after a brief and spasmodic revival in
+the time of George the Third, has now sunk, let us hope, into the limbo
+of forgotten things. The latter part of that 100 years saw the dawn of
+that system of free government which has grown and flourished, and
+which, if the men of the present day be the worthy descendants of Eliott
+and Pym, and Hampden and Milton, will go on growing as long as this
+realm lasts. Within that time, one of the strangest phenomena which I
+think I may say any nation has ever manifested arose to its height and
+fell--I mean that strange and altogether marvellous phenomenon, English
+Puritanism. Within that time, England had to show statesmen like
+Burleigh, Strafford, and Cromwell--I mean men who were real statesmen,
+and not intriguers, seeking to make a reputation at the expense of the
+nation. In the course of that time, the nation had begun to throw off
+those swarms of hardy colonists which, to the benefit of the world--and
+as I fancy, in the long run, to the benefit of England herself--have now
+become the United States of America; and, during the same epoch, the
+first foundations were laid of that Indian Empire which, it may be,
+future generations will not look upon as so happy a product of English
+enterprise and ingenuity. In that time we had poets such as Spenser,
+Shakespere, and Milton; we had a great philosopher, in Hobbes; and we
+had a clever talker about philosophy, in Bacon. In the beginning of the
+period, Harvey revolutionized the biological sciences, and at the end of
+it, Newton was preparing the revolution of the physical sciences. I know
+not any period of our history--I doubt if there be any period of the
+history of any nation--which has precisely such a record as this to show
+for a hundred years. But I do not recall these facts to your
+recollection for a mere vainglorious purpose. I myself am of opinion
+that the memory of the great men of a nation is one of its most precious
+possessions--not because we have any right to plume ourselves upon their
+having existed as a matter of national vanity, but because we have a
+just and rational ground of expectation that the race which has brought
+forth such products as these may, in good time and under fortunate
+circumstances, produce the like again. I am one of those people who do
+not believe in the natural decay of nations. I believe, to speak
+frankly, though perhaps not quite so politely as I could wish--but I am
+getting near the end of my lecture--that the whole theory is a
+speculation invented by cowards to excuse knaves. My belief is, that so
+far as this old English stock is concerned it has in it as much sap and
+vitality and power as it had two centuries ago; and that, with due
+pruning of rotten branches, and due hoeing up of weeds, which will grow
+about the roots, the like products will be yielded again. The "weeds" to
+which I refer are mainly three: the first of them is dishonesty, the
+second is sentimentality, and the third is luxury. If William Harvey had
+been a dishonest man--I mean in the high sense of the word--a man who
+failed in the ideal of honesty--he would have believed what it was
+easiest to believe--that which he received on the authority of his
+predecessors. He would not have felt that his highest duty was to know
+of his own knowledge that that which he said he believed was true, and
+we should never have had those investigations, pursued through good
+report and evil report, which ended in discoveries so fraught with
+magnificent results for science and for man. If Harvey had been a
+sentimentalist--by which I mean a person of false pity, a person who has
+not imagination enough to see that great, distant evils may be much
+worse than those which we can picture to ourselves, because they happen
+to be immediate and near (for that, I take it, is the essence of
+sentimentalism)--if Harvey had been a person of that kind, he, being one
+of the kindest men living, would never have pursued those researches
+which, as he tells us over and over again, he was obliged to pursue in
+order to the ascertainment of those facts which have turned out to be of
+such inestimable value to the human race; and I say, if on such grounds
+he had failed to do so, he would have failed in his duty to the human
+race. The third point is that Harvey was devoid of care either for
+wealth, or for riches, or for ambition. The man found a higher ideal
+than any of these things in the pursuit of truth and the benefit of his
+fellow-men. If we all go and do likewise, I think there is no fear for
+the decadence of England. I think that our children and our successors
+will find themselves in a commonwealth, different it may be from that
+for which Eliott, and Pym, and Hampden struggled, but one which will be
+identical in the substance of its aims--great, worthy, and well to live
+in.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lectures and Essays , by T.H. Huxley
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