of oxen. Most persons will have been influenced by the moralising of the melancholy Jacques, as he lay where That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish ; and will have sympathised with his invective against the selfishness of the herd 66 Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; 'Tis just the fashion; Wherefore do you look -(As You Like It. Act ii., sc. 1.) But this is not all. For in some cases the members of a herd will not only leave a sick companion severely alone, but, seized with sudden rage, they will sometimes gore a wounded comrade to death. Mr. Hudson, in a striking essay on The Strange Instincts of Cattle, attempts a solution of these difficulties. He distinguishes between flocks of birds and herds of oxen. The former are all equals: among the latter there is strife for preeminence. "Among mammals equality and harmony are rare. The instinct of one and all is to lord it over the others, with the result that one more powerful or domineering gets the mastery, to keep it thereafter as long as he can. The lower animals are, in this respect, very much like us; and in all kinds that are at all fierce-tempered, the mastery of one over all, and of a few under him over the others, is most salutary; indeed it is inconceivable that they should be able to exist together under any other system."-(The Naturalist in La Plata. p. 336.) "The hottest contests are always between dogs that are well matched; neither will give place to the other, and so they fight it out. But from the foremost in strength and power down to the weakest there is a gradation of authority; each one knows just how far he can go, which companion he can bully when he is in a bad temper or wishes to assert himself, and to which he must humbly yield in his turn. In such a state the weakest one must always yield to all the others, and cast himself down, seeming to call himself a slave and worshipper of any other member of the pack that chooses to snarl at him or command him to give up his bone with a good grace. But "This masterful or domineering temper, so common among social mammals, is the cause of the persecution of the sick and weakly. When an animal begins to ail he can no longer hold his own; he ceases to resent the occasional ill-natured attacks made on him, his non-combative condition is quickly discovered, and he at once drops down to a place below the lowest; it is common knowledge in the herd that he may be buffeted with impunity by all, even by those that have hitherto suffered buffets but have given none. judging from my own observation, this persecution is not, as a rule, severe, and is seldom fatal. It is often the case that a sick or injured animal withdraws and hides himself from the herd; the instinct of the 'stricken deer' this might be called. But I do not think that we need assume that the ailing individual goes away to escape the danger of being ill-used by his companions; he is sick and drooping, and consequently unfit to be with the healthy and vigorous. That is the simplest and probably the true explanation of his action; although in some cases he might be driven from them by persistent rough usage. However peaceably gregarious mammals may live together, and however fond of each other's company they may be, they do not, as a rule, treat each other gently. Furthermore, their games are exceedingly rough and require that they shall be in a vigorous state of health to escape injury. Horned animals have no buttons to the sharp weapons they prod and strike each other with in a sportive spirit. I have often witnessed the games of wild and half-wild horses with astonishment, for it seemed that broken bones must result from the sounding kicks they freely bestowed on one another. This roughness itself would be a sufficient cause for the action of the individual, sick and out of tune and untouched by the glad contagion of the others, in escaping from them; and to leave them would be to its advantage (and to that of the race) since, if not fatally injured or sick unto death, its chances of recovery to perfect health would be thereby greatly increased."(The Naturalist in La Plata. pp. 337-9.) Speaking of the goring to death of a wounded comrade by the other members of the herd, Mr. Hudson explains that it is a delusion sometimes accompanying what he calls the rescuing instinct : "The first thing that strikes us is that, in these wild abnormal moments of social animals, they are acting in violent contradiction to the whole tenor of their lives; that in turning against a distressed fellow they oppose themselves to the law of their being, to the whole body of instincts, primary and secondary, and habits, which have made it possible for them to exist together in communities. It is, I think, by reflecting on the abnormal character of such an action that we are led to a true interpretation of this "dark saying of nature." (The Naturalist in La Plata. p. 340.) "It is precisely the animals, high or low in the organic scale, that are social and possess the instinct of helping each other, that will on occasions attack a fellow in misfortune--such an attack being no more than a blunder of the helping instinct."-(p. 343.) "A noble courage, greatly surpassing that exhibited on all other occasions, is displayed by an infinite number of mammals and birds of gregarious habits, when repelling the attacks of some powerful and dangerous enemy, or when they rush to the rescue of one of their captive fellows. Concerning this rage and desperate courage of social animals in the face of an enemy, we see (1) that it is excited by the distressed cries, or by the sight of a member of the herd or family flying from, or struggling in, the clutches of an enemy; (2) that it affects animals when a number of individuals are together, and is eminently contagious, like fear, that communicates itself, quick as lightning, from one to another until all are in a panic, and like the joyous emotion that impels the members of a herd or flock to rush simultaneously into play."—(p. 341-2.) "The effectiveness of the rescuing instinct depends altogether on the emotion of overmastering rage excited in the animal, rage against a tangible visible enemy, or invisible, and excited by the cries or struggles of a suffering companion. Clearly, then, it could not provide against the occasional rare accidents that animals meet with, which cause them to act precisely in the way they do when seized or struck down by an enemy.”—(p. 342.) He then goes on to explain how, under certain circumstances, the members of a herd mistake their stricken fellow for an enemy and treat him accordingly, and he rejoices in the relief which is afforded when we are able to look upon this phenomenon "no longer as something ugly and hateful, a blot on nature, but as an illusion, a mistake, an unconscious crime, so to speak, that has for its motive the noblest passion that animals knowthat sublime courage and daring which they exhibit in defence of a distressed companion. This fiery spirit in animals, which makes them forget their own safety, moves our hearts by its close resemblance to one of the most highly-prized human virtues."-(The Naturalist in La Plata. pp. 346-7.) After full consideration of the facts which have been adduced, it is very difficult to resist the conclusion that the competition required by the logic of Natural Selection is very largely modified by the co-operation which obtains among the members of the animal world. There may be exceptions to the rule. We need not, however, be surprised to find selfishness among animals any more than we are to find selfishness among men; and it would be as rash to deny the existence of disinterestedness and co-operation in the one case as in the other. If Mr. Hudson's explanations are admitted, and they appear to be most reasonable, we may regard "the strange instincts of cattle" as a curious but inevitable accompaniment of co-operation. It would not be too much to say that we find in nature scarcely a trace of that bellum omnium contra omnes, which Oscar Schmidt declares to be an indisputable and undeniable fact, to be accepted in its widest relations; and which is generally pronounced to be an indispensable condition of the action of Natural Selection. CHAPTER VI. THE THREE STRONGEST ARGUMENTS. "In point of argument the truth is always far the strongest." [τἀληθὲς ἀεὶ πλεῖστον ἰσχύει λόγου.] -SOPHOCLES. MR. ROMANES, in his Darwin and After Darwin, adduces three main arguments in favour of the theory of Natural Selection. Now, when a writer of wide knowledge and great critical acumen, who is also one of the experts on a given subject, definitely sets himself the task of finding the strongest arguments for a particular theory, we are sure that the advocacy of the subject will not suffer in his hands. It is reasonable to suppose that he will make the best possible selection. On the other hand, the controversialist who deals with such arguments cannot be charged with selecting the weakest points for his attack. (a) THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RACE AND RACE. "When Greeks joined Greeks then was the tug of war." -NATHANIEL LEE. "The one is taken and the other left." The first argument in favour of the transmutation of species by means of Natural Selection is drawn from the conflict between one race and another, which results in |