The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer
Part III. MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN DURING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at Cardinal Newman's request, by ANNE MOZLEY. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
ADDRESSES TO CARDINAL NEWMAN, WITH HIS REPLIES, 1879-81. Edited by the Rev. W. P. NEVILLE (Cong. Orat.). With Portrait Group. Oblong crown 8vo. 6s. _net._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Collected Essays_, i. 35.
[2] _Lectures on Evolution_, Cheap Edition, p. 16.
[3] _Conservation of Energy_, § 210, p. 153.
[4] F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., _The Lesson of Evolution_ (1902), pp. 9-11.
[5] _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1889. p. 173.
[6] This term is now applied almost exclusively to _physical science_, or that whose province is the observation of phenomena and inferences directly deducible from them. To avoid confusion, this sense of the word "Science" will be here adopted: it is nevertheless objectionable inasmuch as it implies that--as Professor Huxley following Hume would have it--sound knowledge is restricted, outside the field of mathematics, to "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence." But although all premisses or data of inference come to us first through the gates of sense, there is much, beyond the limits within which sensible experience is confined, to a knowledge of which inference can lead us, and of which we become certain before experience can verify what we have thus learnt. Thus a chipped flint or a fragment of pottery is universally recognized as evidencing the work of man: a single page of Virgil would suffice--apart from all other information--to prove its author to have been both a poet and a scholar: the shipwrecked mariner cast on an unknown shore argued soundly from the sight of a gibbet that he had reached a civilized land ruled by law. But more than this, Science herself proceeds on this principle to the recognition not only of forces, the character of which is known by previous experience, but of others concerning which she knows nothing at all, except through the very effects from which she argues. Thus, as all bodies left free are found to draw towards one another in a certain mode, it is concluded with absolute confidence that there is a force making them do so, although this is in itself utterly imperceptible, and is known only by the way in which bodies behave under what must be its influence. Yet, who questions the existence of Gravitation? In like manner, the phenomena of light force us to admit the existence of the Ether, as the medium through which its waves are transmitted. Yet, we are compelled to attribute to this medium qualities apparently so incompatible that, as the late Lord Salisbury said, Ether remains, "a half discovered entity." But little as we can realize its nature, we have no doubt that such a medium exists.
[7] "Value of the Natural History Sciences" (_Lay Sermons_), p. 75.
[8] Italics his.
[9] _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_, English translation, 1903, Preface, p. vii.
[10] _Riddle of the Universe_, Cheap English Edition, p. 2.
[11] _ibid._, p. 85.
[12] And also, it should be added, travelling bodily through space with a movement of "translation."
[13] _Ibid._
[14] _Ibid._, p. 2.
[15] The 15th Chapter of Haeckel's _Natural History of Creation_ is devoted to this point.
[16] _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_, p. 32.
[17] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 5.
[18] _Ibid._, p. 78.
[19] _Ibid._, p. 86.
[20] _Ibid._, 134.
[21] _An Easy Outline of Evolution_, by Dennis Hird, M.A., Principal of Ruskin Hall, Oxford, p. 230.
[22] _Presidential Address_, _Section D_, _Zoology_, Leeds, 1890.
[23] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 2.
[24] _Ibid._, p. 83.
[25] "Pseudo-Scientific Realism," _Collected Essays_, i, 68, 74-78.
[26] Newman, _Grammar of Assent_, p. 72. A "Law of Nature," as has already been said, is simply a statement of what _de facto_ has always been found to occur under certain conditions, and may consequently be expected again. It is obvious however that such expectation is implicitly based on the existence of some cause capable of ensuring the result.
[27] "The Teaching of Natural Philosophy," _Contemporary Review_, Jan., 1878.
[28] _Lay Sermons_, p. 83.
[29] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 6.
[30] See Wasmann "Gedanken zur Entwicklungslehre," _Stimmen aus Maria-Laach_, vol. 63, p. 298.
[31] _Contemporary Review_, ut sup., p. 301.
[32] Professor Weldon, F.R.S., in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.
[33] _Collected Essays_, v. 41.
[34] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 75.
[35] Professor Garnett in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. By "Force" is understood "any cause which tends to alter a body's natural state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line." Of the nature of such causes science professes to know very little, and as Clerk-Maxwell, who knew as much as most men, sang apropos of a lecture of Professor Tait's:
... Tait writes in lucid symbols clear one small equation; And Force becomes of Energy a mere space-variation.
[36] Balfour Stewart, _Conservation of Energy_, § 115; by Clerk-Maxwell, _apud_ Garnett, _ut sup._
[37] Tyndall, _Fragments of Science_, 5th Edition, p. 23.
[38] _Conservation of Energy_, § 209.
[39] Sir William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin.
[40] March 29, 1888.
[41] So of another effort in the same direction Capt. Hutton tells us: "The last champion in the field is Professor A. W. Bickerton, who thinks he has found a way in which this dismal conclusion, as he considers it, may be averted. But he is not very sure about it, and has to assume: first, that space contains now and always will contain, a large quantity of cosmic dust scattered through it with some approach to uniformity; and secondly, that the Universe consists of an infinite number of what he calls 'cosmic systems,' travelling through space, constantly throwing off dust in all directions and occasionally colliding. As all this is pure assumption and highly improbable, I cannot think that Professor Bickerton has brought forward any serious objection to the theory of the dissipation of energy, and his hypothesis must be added to the list of failures." (_Lesson of Evolution_, p. 14, _n._)
[42] _Lesson of Evolution_, p. 14.
[43] _Darwin and after Darwin_, p. 17.
[44] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 64.
[45] _Über die Grenzen der Naturerkennens: Die Sieben Welträthsel_, Leipzic, 1882.
[46] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 64.
[47] Du Bois-Reymond does not say that they are soluble, but only that he cannot pronounce them "transcendental."
[48] Samuel Laing, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, Cheap Edition, p. 19.
[49] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 86.
[50] _Ibid._
[51] P. 78.
[52] P. 64.
[53] _Origin of the Laws of Nature_, p. 23.
[54] _Belfast Address_, 1874.
[55] _Lay Sermons._ "On the Physical Basis of Life," p. 143.
[56] Professor Tait, _Properties of Matter_, § 108.
[57] _Contemporary Review_, January, 1878, p. 301.
[58] _Story of Creation_, p. 11.
[59] _Edinburgh Review_, October, 1903, p. 399.
[60] Or "primal stuff." This looks remarkably like the old _Materia Prima_ of the Schoolmen translated into Greek.
[61] _Ibid._ _The Revelations of Radium._
[62] _Ibid._, p. 398.
{_Note._--It is often assumed that the composite character of the atom--if fully established--must upset the Atomic Theory. This is not so; all that the new hypothesis does is to go further back in accounting for the Atomic Theory, and for all practical purposes things remain exactly as they were; except, indeed, that the dissolution of matter does away with what was held as one of the most assured conclusions of science.}
[63] The Nebular Hypothesis itself is, of course, far from being an established certainty, and is not devoid of grave difficulties. Into these, however, it is not necessary now to enter.
[64] _Apud_ Gaynor, _The New Materialism_, p. 83.
[65] _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, "Biology."
[66] _Apud_ Gaynor, p. 84.
[67] Professor Marsh.
[68] Professor Dewar at Belfast, 1902.
[69] _Recent Advances in Physical Science_, 3rd Edition, p. 6.
[70] Gaynor, p. 102.
[71] _Lay Sermons_, p. 18.
[72] _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 305.
[73] Being the year in which this passage was written.
[74] Viz. that of the derivation of life from life alone, as opposed to _Abiogenesis_, or its production from lifeless matter.
[75] See _Fragments of Science_, "Spontaneous Generation," for a full account.
[76] March 18, 1863. _Life and Letters_, i. 352.
[77] April 30, 1870. _Ibid._ ii. 17.
[78] _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 238.
[79] _Lay Sermons_, p. 18.
[80] _Evolution and the Origin of Life_, 1874, p. 23.
[81] _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, "Biology."
[82] _Fragments of Science._ "Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address."
[83] _Ibid._ "Scientific use of the imagination."
[84] _Fragments of Science_, "Spontaneous Generation."
[85] _Ibid._ "Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address."
[86] _Ibid._ "Vitality."
[87] _Nineteenth Century_, May, 1886, p. 769.
[88] Italics mine.
[89] It has been established by Pasteur and others that the highest temperature at which organic life is possible is 45° _Centigrade_ (113° _Fahrenheit_). When the globe had cooled to this point from its primitive molten condition, the epoch of terrestrial life commenced.
According to what is perhaps the latest theory, that of M. Quinton, the temperature immediately below this, 44° _Centigrade_, remains always the best for living things, and those creatures are highest in the scale of life, and consequently the most developed, which have contrived means of keeping their internal heat at, or about, this level, despite the refrigeration of their surroundings. In their blood-heat M. Quinton therefore finds an absolute rule for fixing the relative rank of organic forms, and the date of their appearance; those whose blood is warmest being the most recently evolved. The results of this new system are sufficiently startling. Birds are to be classed as the highest and newest of all; while man, with the other _Primates_, has to take a much lower place, the ungulates, including the horse and donkey, and the carnivora, as dogs and cats, being his superiors. (_La Revue des Idées_, January 15, 1904, pp. 29 seq.)
[90] To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.
[91] To Sir J. D. Hooker, March 29, 1863.
[92] To V. Carus, November 21, 1866.
[93] To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.
[94] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 6.
[95] _As regards Protoplasm_, p. 21.
[96] _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, "Biology."
[97] Printed in _Lay Sermons_.
[98] _Nature_, June 5, 1902, p. 121.
[99] _Id. ibid._
[100] _Op. cit._ p. 27.
[101] _Presidential Address_, British Association, 1887.
[102] _Les Emules de Darwin_, ii. 66.
[103] _Op. cit._ ii. 63.
[104] _Darwinism_, p. 474.
[105] The other stages presenting similar difficulties are the 5th and 6th of Du Bois-Reymond's Enigmas, viz. the introduction of sensation or consciousness (animal life), and of rational thought and speech.
[106] _Contemporary Review_, January, 1878, p. 298.
[107] _Die sieben Welträthsel_, D. 82.
[108] Professor Huxley, it must be remarked, speaks of Homer as a "half savage Greek" (_Lay Sermons_, p. 12), and intimates a mild wonder that such a being could share our feelings in presence of nature to so large an extent as his poems testify. This is undoubtedly a fine example of the good conceit of ourselves which the pursuit of science is rather apt to produce.
[109] _Darwinism_, p. 475.
[110] _Descent of Man_, c. ii.
[111] _Ibid._ 54.
[112] In his paper read before the British Association at Oxford in 1847.
[113] _Lessons from Nature_, p. 89.
[114] See Mivart, _Origin of Human Reason_, p. 166.
[115] See Louis Arnould, _Une âme en prison_, and article "An imprisoned Soul," by the Ctesse. de Courson, _The Month_, January, 1902, p. 82.
[116] _Descent of Man_, i. 57.
[117] i.e. ape-like.
[118] Quoted by Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_.
[119] _Ibid._, p. 371.
[120] _Origin of Human Reason_, p. 385.
[121] _Op. cit._ p. 379.
[122] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 46.
[123] "Ontogeny" signifies the genesis of the individual, "Phylogeny" that of the race. Accordingly, when rendered into ordinary language, declarations such as these, unsupported as they are by any evidence, are found to mean that the development of the individual, tells us all about the development of the individual, and the development of the race all about that of the race. Is it really supposed, as it would seem to be, that such points are scientifically settled by translating terms into Greek?
[124] _Lavengro_, passim.
[125] _Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_, p. 38.
[126] _British Association Lecture_, 1873.
[127] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 93.
[128] _Origin of Species_ (5th Edition), p. 226.
[129] Afterwards (April 17, 1863) Mr. Darwin wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker, "I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant 'appeared' by some wholly unknown process."
[130] At a later period Mr. Darwin modified his views as to what he still termed "that wondrous organ the human eye," writing thus (_Descent of Man_, ii. 166): "We know what Helmholtz, the highest authority in Europe on the subject, has said about the human eye: that if an optician had sold him an instrument so carelessly made, he would have thought himself fully justified in returning it."
It is perfectly true that Helmholtz so expressed himself (_Vorträge und Reden_, i. 253, etc., English Edition, "_Popular Scientific Lectures_," pp. 219, etc.), adding that "the eye has every possible defect that can be found in an optical instrument, and some which are peculiar to itself." These utterances are frequently quoted, but Helmholtz says a good deal more of which we do not usually hear. He observes, in the first place, that in speaking as above he did so "from the narrow but legitimate point of view of an optician." Having then enumerated all the defects in question, he continues--"In an artificial camera, all these irregularities would be exceedingly troublesome. In the eye they are not so, so little troublesome, indeed, that it was occasionally a matter of extreme difficulty to detect them." He adds that men in general not only are unaware of the existence of such defects, but can hardly be induced to credit it. Also that they "almost always affect those portions of the field of vision to which at the moment we are not directing our attention." What is still more to the point, he observes, that the defects noted are all theoretical, while the purpose of the eye is practical, and that if theoretically more perfect as an optical instrument, it would be practically less serviceable. To complain that the eye is not adapted for the special purposes of a microscope or telescope is like condemning the boats of a sea-going ship because they lack some of the qualities found in racing outriggers or Rob Roy canoes. "As concerns the adaptation of the eye to its functions, [adds Helmholtz,] this is most thorough, and is manifest in the very limitations set to its defects.... A man of any sense would not chop firewood with a razor, and we may assume that any elaboration of the optical structure of the eye would have rendered it more liable to injury and slower in its development." Helmholtz therefore concludes that the eye is a product which "the wisest Wisdom may have pre-designed."
It thus comes very much to Pope's solution:
Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason: man is not a fly,--
and in view of his subsequent admissions, Helmholtz's flourish about returning the eye to its maker looks very like theatrical clap-trap, unworthy of such a man.
[131] _Life of C. Darwin_, ii. 234. Erasmus Darwin to C. Darwin, November 23, 1859.
[132] _Animal Locomotion_ (International Scientific Series), p. 180.
[133] _Origin of Laws of Nature_, p. 69.
[134] _Lectures on Evolution_ (Cheap Edition), p. 37.
[135] _Philosophical Basis of Evolution_, passim.
[136] By a _Final Cause_ is meant the predetermined result or end, towards which a work of intelligence is directed, the end being the ultimate cause of the whole act. Thus the obtaining a light is the _Final Cause_ of striking a match: while the striking of the match is the _Efficient Cause_ producing the light.
[137] _Grammar of Assent_, p. 69.
[138] _Familiar Lectures_, p. 458.
[139] "On the Reception of the 'Origin of Species,':" _Life of C. Darwin_, ii. p. 187.
[140] _Nineteenth Century_, No. 2. Reprinted in _Lectures and Essays_, p. 388 (2nd Edition).
[141] _Studies in the Theory of Descent_, vol. ii. p. 710; _vid. Edinburgh Review_, October, 1902, _The Rise and Influence of Darwinism_.
[142] _Ut sup._ p. 201.
[143] _Sic._ The sense evidently requires either that the "not" should be deleted, or "prove" be substituted for "disprove" in the preceding line. This erroneous reading occurs not only in the text from which I quote, but likewise in the _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 307, where this passage forms part of the Professor's review of Haeckel's _Natural History of Creation_, under the title of _The Genealogy of Animals_.
[144] _Life and Letters_, ii. 195.
[145] _Ibid._, p. 467.
[146] _De Natura Deorum_, ii. 4.
[147] _Principia, Schol. Gen._
[148] _Unseen Universe_, p. 47.
[149] _Burnett Lectures_, p. 327.
[150] See report of his words emended by himself, _Nineteenth Century and After_, June, 1903.
[151] Bradford, 1873.
[152] Montreal, 1884.
[153] _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_, 3rd Series, vol. v. p. 138.
[154] "Reception of 'Origin of Species,'" _ubi sup._ p. 199.
[155] November 26, 1860.
[156] May 22, 1860.
[157] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 92.
[158] _The Scientific Basis of Morality_, by George Gore, LL.D., F.R.S., p. 31.
[159] May 22, 1860.
[160] Bain, _De vi physica_, p. 76.
[161] _Origin of Laws of Nature_, p. 61.
[162] Lord Grimthorpe, _op. cit._ 85.
[163] Letter to the _Times_, June 2, 1903
[164] The term _Monism_, invented by Wolf, originally bore a different meaning from that in which Haeckel employs it. It was used to signify equally the materialistic denial of the substantiality of mind, and the idealistic denial of the substantiality of matter. Professor Haeckel, as will be seen, maintains that mind and matter are but two names for one thing.
[165] _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_ (English translation), p. 60.
[166] _Ibid._, p. 10.
[167] _Ibid._, p. 3.
[168] _Mind and Motion._
[169] _An Easy Outline of Evolution_, by Dennis Hird, M.A., Principal of Ruskin Hall, Oxford, p. 184.
[170] _Ibid._, p. 74.
[171] _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_, p. 51.
[172] _Presidential Address_, _Section A_, _British Association_, Norwich, 1868.
[173] "Mr. Darwin's Critics." (_Critiques and Addresses_, p. 283.)
[174] _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_, p. 19.
[175] To what extremes such doctrines must logically lead is illustrated by Mr. Edmund Selous in his very interesting _Bird Watching_, where he casually observes, as a matter of course, that the "life-part" of a tom-tit is as important in the sum of things as Napoleon's (p. 248), and declares elsewhere, more formally (p. 335)--"Surely, a beautiful butterfly, that, for all time, charms--and raises by charming--some number of those who see it, does more good on this earth than any single man or woman, who, 'departing,' leaves no 'foot-prints on the sands of time.' Homer, for instance, has left his _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, and these have been, and still are, mighty in their effects. But let them once perish, and Homer will be caught up and overtaken by almost any bird or butterfly--even a brown one."
[176] _First Principles._
[177] _Riddle of the Universe_, p. 92.
[178] As to the term "Chance" which he frequently used, Mr. Darwin wrote in one place (_Origin of Species_, Opening passage of c. v.): "I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations--so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree with those in a state of nature--had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation." It is obvious, however, that this explanation only serves to show that, as we have heard him confess, Mr. Darwin was anything but a clear thinker, for it is absolutely meaningless if applied to his mention of "Chance" quoted in the text above. He could not possibly mean that the mind refuses to regard the world as the outcome of a cause whereof we know nothing, for that is just what he thinks it is. Mr. Darwin, in fact, instinctively recognized, as every man of common-sense must do, that if not due to purpose, the order of Nature is due to chance, according to the true and legitimate use of the word, and thus he commonly employed it. Occasionally however he endeavoured, following Huxley and others, to defend himself against the reproach of relying upon such a factor.--_Vid. sup._, c. xii.
[179] Although at first Mr. Darwin appeared to restrict his system to _species_, very soon, as was but natural, it was extended to the production of new _genera_, and even of divisions of the organic kingdoms yet wider asunder. Thus--apart from the most famous instance of all, treated by Darwin himself in his _Descent of Man_--it is now a cardinal point with Evolutionists generally that all the higher forms of life are descended from the lowest, and that even far up the line of development, creatures apparently the most diverse have sprung from one identical ancestor. Thus amongst vertebrates it is considered certain that Birds and Reptiles are branches of the same stock,--and, still farther on, that at least all placental mammals--bats and whales, elephants and mice--trace their pedigree to some common progenitor.
[180] _Origin of Species_, v.
[181] _Ibid._, c. vii.
[182] _Ibid._, c. vi.
[183] "I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now some small trifling particulars of structure often make me feel very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick." (_C. Darwin to Asa Gray, April 3, 1860._)
[184] It will help to understand the nature of the task thus imposed upon Natural Selection, to consider what Lord Grimthorpe writes on this subject (_Origin of the Laws of Nature_, p. 103):
"We take pieces of glass of different kinds and grind them to particular shapes and set them in a frame and make a telescope, which refracts rays of light so as to produce an 'image' of a very distant object near our eye, and that appears much larger when seen through another glass of proper shape. But we have never yet been able to make one that can bring all the rays from a single distant point exactly to another point without confusion. Yet there are many millions of apparently self-made machines in the world that do it perfectly; and when we cut up one of them and examine it we find that instead of our large lumps of glass melted together into a coarse kind of uniformity, this machine has been built up of an innumerable quantity of particles arranged in peculiar and complicated ways, some of which have objects that we can understand, though we cannot imitate them, and others that we do not. Moreover they are persistently alike in every machine of the same class, and again some of them persistently unlike those belonging to any other class of animals. For a long time the retina of the eye used to be called a membrane, or a kind of thin sheet. Then it was found to be a kind of brush of which the hairs vibrate under the vibration of the rays of light; and now these hairs are found by further magnification to be divided into so many parts lengthwise that a picture of them has to be as long as the picture of a striped or spotted animal to distinguish them; and instead of being simply set fast by one end like hairs in a brush, they pass through several frames or membranes; and of the use of all these pieces we know nothing. Such is the 'simplicity of nature' in that organ which next to a stomach is the commonest in all living creatures; and such is our ignorance of nature yet."
[185] _Ibid._, c. vii.
[186] Although, as bee-keepers soon discover, Mr. Darwin supposed the workmanship of bees' cells to be considerably more exact and accurate than usually is the case,--there remains quite enough of architectural merit to justify his remarks. It may even be said to increase the mystery that the insects should thus appear to strive towards an ideal, which they frequently fail to satisfy.
[187] _Ranunculus ficaria._ It is remarkable that in the season of 1904 this plant has ripened fruit profusely in various districts in which such fruit had for many years been practically undiscoverable.
[188] _Origin of Species_, c. xiv.
[189] _Descent of Man_, Part I, c. i.
[190] _Biological Lectures and Addresses_, p. 202.
[191] _Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs Français_ (1870), p. 120.
[192] _North British Review_, June, 1867. Professor Huxley likewise declared this criticism to be of "real and permanent value." (_Critiques and Addresses_, 252.)
[193] _La vie des êtres animés_, p. 102.
[194] Presidential Address Geologists' Association (_Proceedings_, vol. v. 1875-6). Partly reprinted in _Contemporary Review_, February, 1877, under the title "Evolution and the Vegetable Kingdom."
[195] See APPENDIX A. p. 280a.
[196] _Variation in Animals and Plants_, p. 343. By H. M. Verney (International Scientific Series, 88).
[197] J. W. Barclay, _New Theory of Organic Evolution_, p. 90.
[198] Huxley, _Lectures and Essays_ (Popular Edition), pp. 28, seq.
[199] Since Professor Huxley wrote the idea has been completely discarded that these birds occupy such a place as he assigned them. The wing of _Hesperornis_, for example, is now declared to be an instance of _degeneration_ from one capable of flight. None of these fowls can be considered as the progenitors of any now existing, but all as the descendants of flying ancestors of arboreal habits, whereof no trace has yet been discovered. (See Pycraft's _Story of Bird Life_, p. 190.)
[200] _Philosophical Transactions Royal Society_, 1863, p. 36.
[201] This point is well handled by M. Paul Janet, _Final Causes_, 2nd English Edition, p. 245.
[202] _Descent of Man_, ii. 156.
[203] _Tablet_, May 26, 1888, p. 837.
[204] _Lessons from Nature_, p. 297.
[205] _Descent of Man_, _i._ p. 57.
[206] In later editions (e.g. that of 1888, i. 133) the suggestion is put in form of a question: "May not some unusually wise ape-like animal ...?"
[207] _Origin of Species_, c. vi.
[208] _Ibid._, c. viii.
[209] It is a grave aggravation of the problem, which need only be mentioned here, that the bees which make cells are neuters and have no descendants, while the queens and drones which are the progenitors of the whole race never do a stroke of work in the course of their existence.
[210] _Descent of Man_ (1st Edition), ii. 385.
[211] _Ibid._, i. 107.
[212] _Ibid._, ii. 386.
[213] _Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs Français_, p. 151
[214] _Ibid._, p. 167.
[215] _La vie des êtres animés_, p. 161.
[216] Saint-Hilaire.
[217] _Les Emules de Darwin_, ii. p. 82.
[218] _North British Review_, July, 1867, p. 316.
[219] P. 313.
[220] November 5, 1903, _Journal of Botany_, January, 1904, p. 32.
[221] Dr. Hudson, see _Nature_, February 20, 1890, p. 375.
[222] _Origin of Species_, c. xi.
[223] _Op. cit._ p. 59.
[224] _History of Creation_, English Edition, ii. 353.
[225] _The Genealogy of Animals: a Review of Haeckel's "Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte."_ The _Academy_, 1869. Reprinted in _Critiques and Addresses_, and _Darwiniana_ (Collected Works).
[226] The Thyroid gland in the throat, the function of which is unknown, was supposed to be absolutely without use. It is found, however, that its removal entails _myxoedema_, a condition closely allied to cretinism.
[227] "Geological Contemporaneity." (_Lay Sermons_, p. 206.)
[228] Mr. Mivart, _Types of Animal Life_, p. 113.
[229] _Les Emules de Darwin_, ii. 13.
[230] Mr. Mivart, _Tablet_, April 21, 1888.
[231] The Mexican _Axolotl_, the _Triton Alpestris_, and probably others.
[232] _Nature_, March 24, 1892.
[233] i.e. the Science of Causes.
[234] _Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales._
[235] Thus having described in detail a series of experiments as to the effects of an alteration of diet supplied to the larvæ of various _hymenoptera_, M. Fabre writes:
"Tout cela est bien autrement grave que les petits riens invoqués par Darwin." (_Souvenirs entomologiques_, 3rd Series, p. 330.)
[236] _Journal of Linnean Society_, vol. xix.
[237] _Hibbert Journal_, January, 1903, p. 218.
[238] _Revue de Philosophie_, April 1, 1904.
[239] _Souvenirs entomologiques_, 3rd Series, p. 317.
[240] For some further testimonies on this head see Appendix.
[241] _Nature_, September 10, 1891.
[242] _Coming of Age of the Origin of Species._
[243] _De opere sex dierum_, ii. 10, n. 12.
[244] _Modern Idea of Evolution_, p. 97.
[245] Darwin (_Origin of Species_, p. 274, 6th Edition) considers it "incredible" that the same identical species should originate twice even under the very same conditions. In the following passage, Haeckel affirms such unity of origin in respect of a most remarkable species of wide-reaching affinities.
"All morphologists arrive at the firm conviction that all vertebrata, from the _Amphioxus_ upwards to man himself, all fishes, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and mammals, descend originally from a single vertebrate ancestor, for we cannot imagine that all the different and highly complicated conditions of life which, through a long series of processes or stages of development, led to the typical formation of a vertebrate, have accidentally happened together more than once in the course of the earth's history." (Address to Munich meeting of German Association, vid. _Nature_, October 4, 1877.)
[246] _Origin of Species_ (6th Edition), p. 265.
[247] _Les Emules de Darwin_, ii., 76.
[248] _History of Plant Life and its bearings on Theory of Evolution_ (1898).
[249] Harebell.
[250] According to the most recent system of classification, the Monopetalæ, now re-christened _Sympetalae_, are ranked above the Polypetalæ, the family of the _Compositae_ being highest of all.
[251] _Proceedings_, vol. v., p. 17, etc. (1875-6). The substance of this address appeared as an article in the _Contemporary Review_, February, 1877, entitled, "Evolution and the Vegetable Kingdom."
[252] See Appendix B. p. 284.
[253] _Modern Ideas of Evolution_ (6th Edition), pp. 107, seq.
[254] These first mammals, which were exceedingly small, are supposed by most naturalists to have been Marsupials. They would appear presently to have become extinct, no traces of them having been found in the chalk, a formation so rich in other organic remains. As Professor Marsh tells us on this subject (_Nature_, September 27, 1877, p. 471):
"Of the existence of Mammals before the Trias we have no evidence, either in the New or the Old World, and it is a significant fact that at essentially the same horizon in each hemisphere similar low forms of Mammals make their appearance. Although only a few incomplete specimens have been discovered, they are characteristic and well preserved, and all are apparently marsupials; the lowest mammalian group known in America, living or fossil. The American Triassic mammals are known at present only from two small lower jaws, on which has been founded the genus _Dromotherium_, supposed to be related to the insect-eating _Myrmecobius_, now living in Australia. Although the fauna of Europe have yielded other similar mammals for the Oolite, America has as yet none of this class from that formation, while from the rocks of cretaceous age, no mammals are known in any part of the world."
[255] P. 118.
[256] P. 105.
[257] _Le monde des plantes avant l'apparition de l'homme_, p. 34.
[258] _Genesis of Species_, p. 129.
[259] _Charles Darwin_, p. 185.
[260] _Genesis of Species_, p. 130.
[261] _Types of Animal Life_, 149.
[262] _Genesis of Species_, p. 132.
[263] "Primeval Vegetation in its relation to the Doctrine of Natural Selection and Evolution" (_Essays and Addresses_, Owen's College, Manchester, p. 251).
[264] "Succession of Life on Earth." (_Half-hour Recreations_, 2nd Series, p. 329.)
[265] _Essays and Addresses_, Owen's College, Manchester, p. 220, note.
[266] See note, p. 238.
[267] "Geological Contemporaneity," 1862. (_Lay Sermons_, p. 222.)
[268] "Palæontology and Evolution," 1876. (_Critiques and Addresses_, p. 182.)
[269] P. 187.
[270] P. 192.
[271] _Genealogy of Animals._
[272] _Natural History of Creation._
[273] _Le Transformisme_, pp. 337-340.
[274] _Lectures on Evolution_, New York, 1876. Cheap Edition, p. 43.
[275] _Coming of Age of the Origin of Species_, etc.
[276] _Essays on Controverted Questions_, p. 450.
[277] "Utebatur autem equo insigni, pedibus prope humanis, et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis; quem natum apud se, cum haruspices imperium orbis terrae significare domino pronuntiassent, magna cura aluit." (Suetonius, _Julius_, 61.)
[278] The _radius_ and _ulna_ are the two bones of the forearm above the wrist; the _tibia_ and _fibula_ the corresponding bones of the leg above the ankle. In the horse, the _ulna_ and _fibula_ are almost, but not quite, lost.
[279] Animals and plants are placed in different _species_ when the differences between them are only _relative_; in different _genera_, when such differences are _absolute_. Thus, for example, the size of teeth is considered relative; the number of teeth absolute.
[280] _American Journal of Science and Arts_, 3rd Series, vol. 43 (1892), p. 351.
[281] _Modern Ideas of Evolution_, p. 119.
[282] _Types of Animal Life_, 205.
[283] Nicholson and Lydekker's _Manual of Palæontology_, ii. 1362.
[284] _Origin of Species_, c. xi.
[285] _Lydekker_, p. 1361.
[286] _Evolution of the Horse_, 12.
[287] "Succession of Life on Earth" (_Recreations in Popular Science_, 2nd Series, p. 339).
[288] British Museum (_Nat. Hist._) _Guide to fossil mammals and birds_, p. 38.
[289] _American Journal of Science and Art_, 3rd Series, vol. 43 (1892), p. 351.
[290] _The Evolution of the Horse_, p. 16.
[291] _Lydekker_, _ut sup._ p. 1363.
[292] Sir W. Flower, _The Horse_, p. 74.
[293] "It is a consequence of the theory of Natural Selection that identity of structure involves community of descent; a given result can only be arrived at through a given sequence of events; the same morphological goal cannot be reached by two independent paths." Milnes Marshall, _Biological Lectures_, 247.
[294] _Origin of Species_, c. xi. "Geological Succession of Organic Beings."
[295] _Tablet_, April 21, 1888, p. 637.
[296] _Catalogue of Mammals_, etc., _ut sup._ p. 38.
[297] _Chain of Life_, p. 222.
[298] _Les Enchainements du Monde Animal_ ... Mammifères Tertiaires.
[299] _Chain of Life_, 227.
[300] It is the "fingers" of the bat's "hand" which support the wing membrane. Hence the scientific name _Cheiroptera_.
[301] E.g. Dinotherium giganteum and Elephas meridionalis. (Vid. Gaudry, _op. cit._ 169.)
[302] Lecture at Royal Institution, January 2, 1904.
[303] A remarkable instance of the need of caution is furnished by the history of the Dinotherium itself. From the teeth, first found, Cuvier set down the animal as a monster Tapir. Then, a whole skull being discovered, Herr Kaup of Darmstadt, commenting upon the danger of such a proceeding, himself classed the beast among the Edentata (Sloths, etc.), and afterwards among the Hippopotami. Buckland and Strauss thought it must have been an aquatic creature; Blainville and Pictet labelled it a Manatee, or sea-cow. (Vid. Gaudry, _op. cit._ 187-9.)
[304] _Op. cit._ p. 191.
[305] Milnes Marshall, _Lectures on Darwinian Theory_, p. 66.
[306] See Appendix C. p. 285.
[307] _Modern Ideas of Evolution_, c. iv.
[308] "Primeval Vegetation in its relation to the Doctrine of Natural Selection and Evolution." (_Essays and Addresses_, Owen's College, Manchester, p. 200.)
[309] _History of Creation_, ii. 92, English Edition.
[310] _Ibid._, p. 295.
[311] _Les Emules de Darwin_, ii. 76.
[312] As an instance M. de Quatrefages cites Haeckel's own words, from his _Anthropogenie_. "The Vertebrate Ancestor No. 15, akin to the Salamanders, must have been a species of Saurian (Lizard). There remains to us no fossil relic of this animal; in no respect did he resemble any form actually existing. Nevertheless, comparative anatomy and ontogeny authorize us in affirming that he once existed. We will call this animal _Protamnion_."
[313] _Ibid._, p. 122.
[314] _Revue Scientifique_ (1886), p. 486.
[315] _Ibid._ (1877), I. 1101.
[316] _Origin of Species_, c. x.
[317] _Genesis of Species_, p. 134.
[318] _Le monde des plantes avant l'apparition de l'homme_, p. vi.
[319] _Op. cit._, p. 288.
[320] _Life of Darwin_, ii. 193.
[321] _Epistle_ I--to Pope.
[322] _Hibbert Journal_, January, 1903.
[323] _Order of Nature_, p. 239.
[324] _Thoughts on Religion_, p. 123.
[325] _Presidential Address_, British Association, 1871.
[326] _Système Analytique des Connaissances positives de l'homme_ (1830), pp. 8, 43.
[327] _North American Slime Moulds_, Introduction, p. II.
[328] Bloud's _Science et Religion_, No. 431, pp. 50, seq.
[329] _Traité de Microbiologie_, I., p. 253. Also the Magazine _Broteria_ (Lisbon), Vol. vi., 1907, Botany, p. 23.
[330] See _Nature_, June 4, 1903, p. 113, in notice of a paper on the subject by Professor F. W. Oliver and Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S.
[331] _Linnean Society's Proceedings_, May 3, 1906.
[332] See the _Congress Report_, vol. iv.
[333] _Transactions American Philosophical Society_ (N.S.), 18, 1896, pp. 119, 120.
[334] _The Origin and Influence of the Thorough-bred Horse._ Cambridge, 1905.