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atoms of a salt, there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to crystallize in a particular way. It seems difficult to conceive that this can be so; but we see it is so.' "For this property there is no fit term. If we accept the word polarity, as a name for the force by which inorganic units are aggregated into a form peculiar to them; we may apply this word to the analogous force displayed by organic units."

Dr. Jeffries Wyman,2 in his paper on the "Symmetry and Homology of Limbs," has a distinct chapter on the Analogy between Symmetry and Polarity," illustrating it by the effects of magnets on " particles in a polar condition."

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Mr. J. J. Murphy, after noticing the power which crystals have to repair injuries inflicted on them and the modifications they undergo through the influence of the medium in which they may be formed, goes on to say: "It needs no proof that in the case of spheres and crystals the forms and the structures are the effect, and not the cause, of the formative principles. Attraction, whether gravitative or

1 Mr. Spencer, in an appendix to the first volume of the "Principles of Biology,” has explained more fully what he means by the word “innate.” He attributes "innate tendencies" entirely to the inherited structures of the "physiological units" produced in them by the total forces of the organisms through which they have been transmitted during the serial evolution of such organisms. This, however, is a mere moving of the difficulty a step backwards; and he by no means gets rid of (what never can be got rid of) the conception of innate power-of force proceeding from the organism as distinguished from force proceeding towards the organism. At the very least, Mr. Spencer must attribute to his ultimate units an innate power of inheriting effects of ancestral modifications, and this is, in principle, a power fully as mysterious as any for which the author of this book here contends.

2 See the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,” vol. xi. June 5, 1867.

3 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 75.

4 Ibid. p. 112.

capillary, produces the spherical form; the spherical form does not produce attraction. And crystalline polarities produce crystalline structure and form; crystalline structure and form do not produce crystalline polarities. The same is not quite so evident of organic forms, but it is equally true of them also." "It is not conceivable that the microscope should reveal peculiarities of structure corresponding to peculiarities of habitual tendency in the embryo, which at its first formation has no structure whatever;" and he adds that "there is something quite inscrutable and mysterious" in the formation of a new individual from the germinal matter of the embryo. In another place he says: "We know that in crystals, notwithstanding the variability of form within the limits of the same species, there are definite and very peculiar formative laws, which cannot possibly depend on anything like organic functions, because crystals have no such functions; and it ought not to surprise us if there are similar formative or morphological laws among organisms, which, like the formative laws of crystallization, cannot be referred to any relation of form or structure to function. Especially, I think, is this true of the lowest organisms, many of which show great beauty of form, of a kind that appears to be altogether due to symmetry of growth; as the beautiful star-like rayed forms of the acanthometræ, which are low animal organisms not very different from the Foraminifera." Their "definiteness of form does not appear to be accompanied by any corresponding differentiation of function between different parts; and, so far as I can see, the beautiful regularity and symmetry of their radiated forms are altogether due to unknown laws 1 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 170. 2 Ibid. p. 229.

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of symmetry of growth, just like the equally beautiful and somewhat similar forms of the compound six-rayed, starshaped crystals of snow."

Altogether, then, it appears that each organism has an innate tendency to develop in a symmetrical manner, and that this tendency is controlled and subordinated by the action of external conditions, and not that this symmetry is superinduced only ab externo. In fact, that each organism has its own internal and special laws of growth and development.

If, then, it is still necessary to conceive an internal law or "substantial form," moulding each organic being and directing its development as a crystal is built up, only in an indefinitely more complex manner, it is congruous to imagine the existence of some internal law accounting at the same time for specific divergence as well as for specific identity.

A principle regulating the successive evolution of different organic forms is not one whit more mysterious than is the mysterious power by which a particle of structureless sarcode develops successively into an egg, a grub, a chrysalis, a butterfly, all the conditions, cosmical, physical, chemical, and vital, being supplied which are the requisite accompaniments to determine such evolution.

CHAPTER IX.

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.

The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this book.Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.-Mr. Darwin's speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.-Cause assigned by him insufficient.-Care of the aged and infirm opposed by "Natural Selection;" also self-abnegation and asceticism.--Distinctness of the ideas "right" and "useful."-Mr. John Stuart Mill.-Insufficiency of "Natural Selection" to account for the origin of the distinction between duty and profit.-Distinction of moral acts into "material" and “formal.”—No ground for believing that formal morality exists in brutes. Evidence that it does exist in savages.-Facility with which savages may be misunderstood.-Objections as to diversity of customs. Mr. Hutton's review of Mr. Herbert Spencer.-Anticipatory character of morals.-Sir John Lubbock's explanation.-Summary and conclusion. ANY inquiry into the origin of the notion of " morality "the conception of “right”—may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat remote from the question of the Genesis of Species; the more so since Mr. Darwin at one time disclaimed any pretension to explain the origin of the higher psychical phenomena of man. His disciples, however, were never equally reticent, and indeed he himself is now not only about to produce a work1 on man (in which this

1 The work referred to is the "Descent of Man," which has appeared since the publication of the first edition of this book. Mr. Darwin has therein justified the author's anticipations, and has asserted in the strongest terms the identity in kind of the mental faculties of men and brutes, and has thoroughly confounded our moral judgments with the gregarious instincts of beasts.

question must be considered), but he has distinctly announced the extension of the application of his theory to the very phenomena in question. He says: "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." It may not be amiss then to glance at the question, so much disputed, concerning the origin of ethical conceptions and its bearing on the theory of "Natural Selection."2

The followers of Mr. John Stuart Mill, of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and apparently, also, of Mr. Darwin, assert that in spite of the great present difference between the ideas "useful" and "right," they are, nevertheless, one as to their origin, and that that origin consisted ultimately of pleasurable and painful sensations.

They say that "Natural Selection" has evolved moral conceptions from perceptions of what was useful, i.e. pleasurable, by having through long ages preserved a

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Origin of Species," 5th edition, 1869, p. 577.

2 Since the first edition of this work appeared, Mr. Darwin has fully explained his views as to morality, and has identified the "moral sense" with "stronger and more persistent instincts." No argument, however, has been employed, and no facts adduced, which even tend to answer the objections here urged. Mr. Darwin seems not adequately to recognize the points which require to be met, and while he brings forward instances bearing on the acquisition of materially moral habits (which are utterly trivial and beside the point), he literally does not say one word in explanation of the genesis of formal morality (with which we are alone concerned), nor even pretend to show how the gregarious instinct of a herd becomes metamorphosed into a common moral judgment. While therefore the author has the satisfaction of feeling that he has not misrepresented Mr. Darwin, he also feels that he has nothing whatever substantial to retract, or even to modify, in his former assertions and arguments.