As to the alleged action of natural selection on our own species we may mention two points.

evidence rarely raising it to probability. but also of the habits, diseases, and paraIt cannot be a "sufficient cause to account sites (internal and external) of man, tofor the phenomena which it is intended to gether with the process of his development. explain, nor can it even claim to be taken le points out (vol. i. p. 11) not only the as a vera causa at all. Yet Mr. Darwin close similarity even of cerebral structure again and again speaks as if its reality and between man and apes, but also how the cogency were indisputable. same animals are "liable to many of the same non-contagious diseases as we are; thus Rengger, who carefully observed for a long time the Cebus Azara in its native First, as to the absence of hair. This is land, found it liable to catarrh, with the a character which Mr. Darwin admits can-usual symptoms, and which when often not be accounted for by "natural selec- recurrent, led to consumption. These tion, because manifestly not beneficial; monkeys suffered also from apoplexy, init is therefore attributed to "sexual selec- flammation of the bowels, and cataract in tion," incipient man being supposed to the eye. The younger ones, when shedhave chosen mates with less and less hairy ding their milk-teeth, often died from bodies; and the possibility of such action fever. Medicines produced the same effect is thought by Mr. Darwin to be supported on them as on us. Many kinds of monby the fact that certain monkeys have keys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, parts of the body naked. Yet it is a fact and spirituous liquors; they will also, as I that the higher apes have not this naked- have myself seen, smoke tobacco with ness, or have it in a much smaller de-pleasure." He also tells us of baboons gree. which, after taking too much beer, “on Secondly, as to the races of mankind, the following morning were very cross and Mr. Darwin's theory, indeed, requires the dismal, held their aching heads with both alternation of constancy and caprice to hands, and wore a most pitiable expresaccount for the selection and the conserva-sion: when beer or wine was offered them, tion of marked varieties. In order that each race may possess and preserve its own ideal standard of beauty we require the truth of the hypothesis that "certain tastes may in the course of time become inherited;" and yet Mr. Darwin candidly admits (vol. ii. p. 353): "I know of no evidence in favour of this belief." On the other hand, he says (p. 370), As soon as tribes exposed to different conditions came to vary, "each isolated tribe would form for itself a slightly different standard of beauty," which "would gradually and inevitably be increased to a greater and greater degree." But why have not the numerous tribes of North American Indians diverged from each other more conspicuously, inhabiting, as they do, such different climates, and surrounded by such diverse conditions?

Again, far from each race being bound in the trammels of its own features, all cultivated Europeans, whether Celts, Teutons, or Slaves, agree in admiring the Hellenic ideal as the highest type of human beauty.

We may now pass on to the peculiarities of man's bodily frame, and the value and signification of the resemblances presented by it to the various structures which are found to exist in lower members of the animal kingdom.

Mr. Darwin treats us to a very interesting account, not only of man's anatomy,

they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons." He notices, besides, the process of development in man with the transitory resemblances it exhibits to the immature conditions of other animals, and he mentions certain muscular abnormalities.

Mr. Darwin also brings forward an observation of Mr. Woolner, the sculptor, as to a small projection of the helix or outermost fold of the human ear, which projection "we may safely conclude " to be "a vestige of formerly pointed ears which occasionally reappears in man (vol. i. p. 23). Very many other interesting facts are noted which it would be superfluous here to recapitulate. It is, however, in connexion with man's bodily structure and its resemblances that we have observed slight errors on the part of Mr. Darwin, which it may be as well to point out; though it should be borne in mind that he does not profess to be in any sense an anatomist. Thus, at vol. i. p. 28, he mistakes the supra-condyloid foramen of the humerus for the inter-condyloid perforation. Did the former condition frequently occur in man as, through this mistake, he asserts-it would be remarkable indeed, as it is only found in the lower monkeys and not in the higher. A more singular mistake is that of the malar bone for the premaxilla (vol. i. p. 124).

To return to the bodily and other char

that to take any other view than his as to man's origin, "is to admit that our own structure and that of all the animals around us, is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment" (vol. i. p. 32). Mr. Darwin is, we are quite sure, far enough from pretending that he has exhausted the possibilities of the case, and yet could anything but a conviction that the whole field had been explored exhaustively, justify such an assertion? If, without such a conviction, it were permissible so to dogmatize, every theorizer who had attained to a plausible explanation of a set of phenomena might equally make use of the assertion, and say, until a better explanation was found, that to doubt him would be to attribute duplicity to the Almighty.

acters enumerated at such length by Mr. Darwin. They may, and doubtless they will, produce a considerable effect on readers who are not anatomists, but in fact the whole and sole result is to show that man is an animal. That he is such is denied by no one, but has been taught and accepted since the time of Aristotle. We remember on one occasion meeting at a dinner-table a clever medical man of materialistic views. He strongly impressed the minds of some laymen present by an elaborate statement of the mental phenomena following upon different injuries, or diseased conditions of different parts of the brain, until one of the number remarked as a climax, "Yes; and when the brain is entirely removed the mental phenomena cease altogether the previous In tracing man's origin Mr. Darwin is observations having only brought out again betrayed into slight inaccuracies. vividly what no one denied, viz., that dur- Thus, in combating the position, advanced ing this life a certain integrity of bodily in this "Review," that the hands of apes structure is requisite for the due exercise had been preformed (with a view to man) of the mental powers. Thus Mr. Darwin's in a condition of perfection beyond their remarks are merely an elaborate statement needs, he says: of what all admit, namely, that man is an animal. They further imply, however, that he is no more than an animal, and that the mode of origin of his visible being must be the mode of his origin as a whole-a conclusion of which we should not question the legitimacy if we could accept Mr. Darwin's views of man's mental powers.

All that can be said to be established by our author is, that if the various kinds of lower animals have been evolved one from the other by a process of natural generation or evolution, then it becomes highly probable a priori that man's body has been similarly evolved; but this, in such a case, becomes equally probable from the admitted fact that he is an animal at all.

"On the contrary, I see no reason to doubt that a more perfectly constructed hand would have been an advantage to them, provided, and had not thus been rendered less well adapted for it is important to note this, that their hands climbing trees. We may suspect that a perfect hand would have been disadvantageous for climbing; as the most arboreal monkeys in the world, namely Ateles in America and Hylobates in Asia, either have their thumbs much reduced in size and even rudimentary, or their fingers partially coherent so that their hands are converted into grasping-hooks.” — vol. i. p. 140. In a note, Mr. Darwin refers to the Syndactyle Gibbon as having two of the digits coherent. But these digits are not, as he supposes, digits of the hand but toes. Moreover, though doubtless the Gibbons The evidence for such a process of evo- and spider-monkeys are admirably organIntion of man's body amounts, however, ized for their needs, yet it is plain that a only to an a priori probability, and might well-developed thumb is no impediment to be reconciled with another mode of origin climbing, for the strictly arboreal Lemurs if there were sufficient reason (of anare exceedingly well furnished in this reother kind) to justify a belief in such spect. Again he says (vol. i. p. 143) of other mode of origin. Mr. Darwin the Gibbons, that they "without having says: "It is only our natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our forefathers declare that they were descended from demi-gods, which leads us to demur to this conclusion" (vol. i. p. 32). But this is not the case; for many demur to his conclusion because they believe that to accept his view would be to contradict other truths which to them are far more evident.

He also makes the startling assertion

been taught can walk or run upright with tolerable quickness, though they move awkwardly, and much less securely than man." This is a little misleading, inas much as it is not stated that this upright progression is effected by placing the enormously long arms behind the head or holding them out backwards as a balance in progression.

See "Quarterly Review," April, 1869, p. 392.

-

We have already seen that Mr. Darwin | may be well here to state plainly certain tries to account for man's hairlessness by very elementary matters. The ordinary the help of "sexual selection." He also, antecedents and concomitants of distinctly however, speculates as to the possibility of felt sensations may exist, with all their his having lost it through heat of climate, physical consequences, in the total absence saying: "Elephants and rhinoceroses of intellectual cognizance, as is shown by are almost hairless; and as certain ex- the well-known fact, that when through tinct species which formerly lived under fracture of the spine the lower limbs of a an arctic climate were covered with long man are utterly deprived of the power of wool or hair, it would almost appear as if feeling, the foot may nevertheless withthe existing species of both genera had draw itself from tickling just as if a sensalost their hairy covering from exposure to tion was consciously felt. Amongst lower heat" (vol. i. p. 148). animals, a decapitated frog will join its hind feet together to push away an irritating object just as an uninjured animal will do. Here we have coadjusted actions resulting from stimuli which normally produce sensation, but occurring under conditions in which cerebral action does not take place. Did it take place we should have sensations, but by no means necessarily intellectual action.

This affords us a good example of hasty and inconclusive speculation. Surely it would be as rational to suppose that the arctic species had gained their coats as that the tropical species had lost theirs. But over-hasty conclusions are, we regret to say, the rule in Mr. Darwin's speculations as to man's genealogy. He carries that genealogy back to some ancient form of animal life somewhat like an existing "Sensation" is not "thought," and no larval Ascidian; and he does this on the amount of the former would constitute the strength of the observations of Kowalevsky most rudimentary condition of the latter, and Kuppfer. He assumes at once that though sensations supply the conditions the similarities of structure which those | for the existence of "thought" or "knowlobservers detected are due to descent in- edge." stead of to independent similarity of evolution, though the latter mode of origin is at least possible, and can hardly be considered improbable when we reflect on the close similarity independently induced in the eyes of fishes and cephalopods.

Quite recently, however, observations have been published by Dr. Donitz,t which render it necessary, at the least, to pause and reconsider the question before admitting the Ascidian ancestry of the Vertebrate sub-kingdom.

We now come to the consideration of a subject of great importance namely, that of man's mental powers. Are they, as Mr. Darwin again and again affirms that they are, different only in degree and not in kind from the mental powers of brutes? As is so often the case in discussions, the error to be combated is an implied negation. Mr. Darwin implies and seems to assume that when two things have certain characters in common there can be no fundamental difference between them.

To avoid ambiguity and obscurity, it

Altogether, we may clearly distinguish at least six kinds of action to which the nervous system ministers:

I. That in which impressions received result in appropriate movements without the intervention of sensation or thought, as in the cases of injury above given. (This is the reflex action of the nervous system.)

II. That in which stimuli from without result in sensations through the agency of which their due effects are wrought out. (Sensation.)

III. That in which impressions received result in sensations which give rise to the observation of sensible objects.— Sensible perception.

IV. That in which sensations and perceptions continue to coalesce, agglutinate, and combine in more or less complex aggregations, according to the laws of the association of sensible perceptions. As sociation.

The above four groups contain only indeliberate operations, consisting, as they do at the best, but of mere presentative sensible ideas in no way implying any reflective or representative faculty. Such actions minister to and form Instinct.

Be

See Professor Rolleston's "Address at the Liv-sides these, we may distinguish two other erpool Meeting of the British Association, 1870." kinds of mental action, namely:

SeeJournal fur Anatomie und Physiologie,"

edited by Reichert and Dubois. Berlin.

"There is no fundamental difference between

man and the higher mammals in their mental fac

ultles." Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 35.

V. That in which sensations and sensible perceptions are reflected on by thought and recognized as our own, and we our

selves recognized by ourselves as affected, ditions of the eontroversy must be noand perceiving.- Self-consciousness. ticed.

VI. That in which we reflect upon our sensations or perceptions, and ask what they are and why they are.- Reason.

These two latter kinds of action are deliberate operations, performed, as they are, by means of representative ideas implying the use of a reflective representative faculty. Such actions distinguish the intellect or rational faculty. Now, we assert that possession in perfection of all the first four (presentative) kinds of action by no means implies the possession of the last two (representatire) kinds. All persons, we think, must admit the truth of the following proposition:

Two faculties are distinct, not in degree but in kind, if we may possess the one in perfection without that fact implying that we possess the other also. Still more will this be the case if the two faculties tend to increase in an inverse ratio. Yet this is the distinction between the instinctive and the intellectual parts of man's

nature.

In the first place, the position which we maintain is the one in possession that which is commended to us by our intuitions, by ethical considerations, and by religious teaching universally. The onus probandi should surely therefore rest with him who, attacking the accepted position, maintains the essential similarity and fundamental identity of powers the effects. of which are so glaringly diverse. Yet Mr. Darwin quietly assumes the whole point in dispute, by asserting identity of intuition where there is identity of sensation (vol. i. p. 36), which, of course, implies that there is no mental power whatever except sensation. For if the existence of another faculty were allowed by him, it is plain that the action of that other faculty night modify the effects of mere sensation in any being possessed of such additional faculty.

Secondly, it must be remembered that it is a law in all reasoning that where known causes are sufficient to account for As to animals, we fully admit that they any phenomena we shall not gratuitously may possess all the first four groups of ac- call in additional causes. If, as we believe tions that they may have, so to speak, to be the case, there is no need whatever mental images of sensible objects combined to call in the representative faculty as an in all degrees of complexity, as governed explanation of brute mental action; — if by the laws of association. We deny to the phenomena brutes exhibit can be aethem, on the other hand, the possession of counted for by the presentative faculty the last two kinds of mental action. We that is, by the presence of sensible perdeny them, that is, the power of reflecting ceptions and emotions together with the on their own existence or of enquiring reflex and co-ordinating powers of the into the nature of objects and their causes. nervous system; then to ascribe to them We deny that they know that they know the possession of reason is thoroughly or know themselves in knowing. In other gratuitous. words, we deny them reason. The possession of the presentative faculty, as above explained, in no way implies that of the reflective faculty; nor does any amount of direct operation imply the power of asking the reflective question before mentioned as to "what" and "why."

According to our definition, then, given above, the faculties of men and those of other animals differ in kind; and brutes low in the scale supply us with a good example in support of this distinctness; for it is in animals generally admitted to be wanting in reason-such as insects (e. g. the ant and the bee) - that we have the very summit and perfection of instinct made known to us.

We will shortly examine Mr. Darwin's arguments, and see if he can bring forward a single instance of brute action implying the existence in it of the repre-sentive reflective power. Before doing so, however, one or two points as to the con

Thirdly, in addition to the argument that brutes have not intellect because their actions can be accounted for without the exercise of that faculty, we have other and positive arguments in opposition to Mr. Darwin's view of their mental powers. These arguments are based upon the absence in brutes of articulate and rational speech, of true concerted action and of educability, in the human sense of the word. We have besides, what may be called an experimental proof in the same direction. For if the germs of a rational nature existed in brutes, such germs would certainly ere this have so developed as to have produced unmistakeably rational phenomena, considering the prodigious lapse of time passed since the entombment of the earliest known fossils. To this question we will return later.

We shall perhaps be met by the assertion that many men may also be taken to be irrational animals, so little do the phenom

6

ena they exhibit exceed in dignity and importance the phenomena presented by certain brutes. But, in reply, it is to be remarked that we can only consider men who are truly men - not idiots, and that all men, however degraded their social condition, have self-consciousness properly so called, possess the gift of articulate and rational speech, are capable of true concerted action, and have a perception of the existence of right and wrong. On the other hand, no brute has the faculty of articulate, rational speech: most persons will also admit that brutes are not capable of truly concerted action, and we contend most confidently that they have no selfconsciousness, properly so called, and no perception of the difference between truth and falsehood and right and wrong.

Let us now consider Mr. Darwin's facts in favour of an opposite conclusion.

1st. His testimony drawn from his own experience and information regarding the

lowest races of men.

2nd. The anecdotes he narrates in favour of the intelligence of brutes.

however, to diminish the force of this admission, he remarks, what no one would dream of disputing, that there are psychical phenomena common to men and to other animals. He says of man that

"He uses in common with the lower animals

inarticulate cries to express his meaning, aided by gestures and the movements of the muscles of the face. This especially holds good with the the more simple and vivid feelings, which are but little connected with the higher intelligence. Our cries of pain, fear, surprise, anger, together with their appropriate actions, and the murmur of a mother to her beloved child are more expressive than any words." - vol. i. p. 54.

But, inasmuch as it is admitted on all hands that man is an animal, and therefore has all the four lower faculties enumerated in our list, as well as the two higher ones, the fact that he makes use of common instinctive actions in no way diminishes the force of the distinction between him and brutes as regards the representative, reflective faculties. It rather follows as a matter of course from his animality that he should manifest phenomena common to him and to brutes. That man has a common nature with them is perfectly compatible with his hav

In the first place, we have to thank our author for very distinct and unqualified statements as to the substantial unity of men's mental powers. Thus he tellsing, besides, a superior nature and facul

us:

...

ties of which no brute has any rudiment or vestige. Indeed, all the arguments and objections in Mr. Darwin's second chapter may be met by the fact that man being an animal, has corresponding facul ties, whence arises a certain external conformity with other animals as to the modes of expressing some mental modifications. In the overlooking of this pos

The Fuegians rank amongst the lowest barbarians; but I was continually struck with surprise how closely the three natives on board H. M. S. Beagle,' who had livel some years in England and could talk a little English, resembled us in disposition, and in most of our mental qualities." vol. i. p. 34. Again he adds: — "The American aborigines, Negroes and Eu-sibility of co-existence of two natures lies ropeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the Beagle, with the many little traits of character, showing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate." vol. i. p. 232.

that error of negation to which we before alluded. Here, as in other parts of the book, we may say there are two quantities a and a plus x, and Mr. Darwin, seeing the two as but neglecting the x, represents the quantities as equal.

au

We will now notice the anecdotes nar rated by Mr. Darwin in support of the rationality of brutes. Before doing so, however, we must remark that our thor's statements, given on the authority others, afford little evidence of careful (sometimes second-hand authority) of criticism. This is the more noteworthy when we consider the conscientious care and pains which he bestows on all the phenomena which he examines himself.

Thus, for example, we are told on the authority of Brehm that

"An eagle seized a young cercopithecus, which, by clinging to a branch, was not at once