Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

rest of nature, are but products of the blind eternal forces of the universe, and believing also that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and all life on the earth necessarily cease--have to contemplate a not very distant future in which all this glorious earth-which for untold millions of years has been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate at last in man-shall be as if it had never existed; who are compelled to suppose that all the slow growths of our race. struggling towards a higher life, all the agony of martyrs, all the groans of victims, all the evil and misery and undeserved suffering of the ages, all the struggles for freedom, all the efforts towards justice, all the aspirations for virtue and the wellbeing of humanity, shall absolutely vanish, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind."

As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d'être of the world—with all its complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of man-was the development of the human spirit in association with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of man--the man himself—is so developed, we may well believe that this is the only, or at least the best, way for its development; and we may even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, one of the most efficient means of its growth. For we know that the noblest faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by struggle and effort; it is by unceasing warfare against physical evils and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, courage, self-reliance, and industry have become the common qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with moral evil in all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and selfsacrifice have been steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strengthened by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capable of such noble development, are surely destined for a higher and more permanent exist

ence; and we may confidently believe with our greatest living poet

That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd with the shocks of doom
To shape and use.

We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit.

INDEX

A

ABBOTT, Dr. C. C., instability of
habits of birds, 76

American water - thrushes
(Seiurus), 117

Mr., drawings of caterpillars
and their food plants, 203
Accessory plumes, development and
display of, 293

Acclimatisation, 94

Achatinellidæ, Gulick on variations
in, 147

Acquired characters, non-heredity of,

440

Acræidæ, mimicry of, 247
Adaptation to conditions at various
periods of life, 112

Adolias dirtea, sexual diversity of,
271

Ægeriidæ, mimicry by, 240
Agaristidæ, mimicry of, 246
Agassiz, on species, 5

on North American weeds, 15.
Agelæus phoeniceus, diagram showing
variations of, 56; propor-
tionate numbers which vary,
64

Albatross, courtship of great, 287
Allen, Mr. Grant, on forms of leaves,
133

on degradation of wind-fertilised
from insect-fertilised flowers,
325 (note)

on insects and flowers, 332
on production of colour through
the agency of the colour
sense, 334

Mr. J. A., on the variability
of birds, 50

Allen, Mr. J. A., on colour as in-
fluenced by climate, 228

Alluring coloration, 210
American school of evolutionists, 420
Anemone nemorosa, variability of, 78
Animal coloration, a theory of, 288
general laws of, 296

intelligence, supposed action of,
425

characteristics of man, 454
Animals, the struggle among, 18
wild, their enjoyment of life,
39

usually die painless deaths, 38
constitutional variation of, 94
uses of colours of, 134
supposed effects of disuse in
wild, 415

most allied to man, 450
Antelopes, recognition marks of, 219
Anthrocera filipendula inedible, 235
Apples, variations of, 87
Arctic animals, supposed causes of
white colour of, 191
Argyll, Duke of, on goose reared by
a golden eagle, 75
Artemia salina and A. milhausenii,
426

Asclepias curassavica, spread of, 28
Asses running wild in Quito, 28
Attractive fruits, 306

Australia, spread of the Cape-weed
in, 29

fossil and recent mammals of,
392

Azara, on cause of horses and cattle
not running wild in Paraguay,

19
Azores, flora of, supports aerial trans-
mission of seeds, 368

[blocks in formation]

Barriers, importance of, in questions
of distribution, 341

Bates, Mr. H. W., on varieties of
butterflies, 44

on inedibility of Heliconidæ,
234

on a conspicuous caterpillar,
236

on mimicry, 240, 243, 249
Bathmism or growth-force, Cope on,
421

Beddard, Mr. F. E., variations of
earth-worms, 67

on plumes of bird of paradise,
292
Beech trees, aggressive in Denmark,
21

Beetle and wasp (figs.), 259
Beetle, fossil in coal measures of
Silesia, 404

Beginnings of important organs, 128
Belt, Mr., on leaf-like locust, 203
on birds avoiding Heliconidæ,
234

Belt's frog, 266

Birds, rate of increase of, 25

how destroyed, 26

variation among, 49

variation of markings of, 52
variation of wings and tails of,
53

diagram showing variation of

tarsus and toes, 60

use of structural peculiarities
of, 135

eggs, coloration of, 212
recognition marks of, 222

and butterflies, white in tropical
islands, 230

sometimes seize inedible butter-
flies, 255

mimicry among, 263

Birds, sexual coloration of, 275
cause of dull colour of female,
277

choice of female not known to
be determined by colour, etc.,
285
decorative plumage of, 285
antics of unornamented, 287
which fertilise flowers, 319
colours of, not dependent on the
colours of flowers, 336

no proof of æsthetic tastes in,
336
dispersal of, 355

and insects at sea, 357
of oceanic islands, 358

carrying seeds on their feet,
361

ancestral forms of, 407
Birthplace, probable, of man, 459
Bombyx regia, protective form of
larva of, 210

Boyd Dawkins, on development of
deer's horns, 389

on origin of man, 456
Brady, Mr. George, on protective
colouring of star-fishes, 209
Brain development, progressive, 390
Brains of man and apes, 452
Branner, Mr. J. C., on supposed
proofs of glaciation in Brazil,
370

Brazil, supposed proof of glaciation
in, 370

Brewer, Professor W. H., on want of
symmetry in colours of
animals, 217

Bromelia, animals inhabiting leaves

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Carriers, 91

Caterpillars, resemblance of, to their
food plants, 203-205
inedible, 236

Cattle, how they prevent the growth
of trees, 18

increase of, in St. Domingo,
Mexico, and the pampas, 27
Ceylon, spread of Lantana mixta in, 29
Chaffinch, change of habit of, in New
Zealand, 76

Chambers, Robert, on origin of species,
3

Chance rarely determines survival,
123

Change of conditions, utility of, 326
Characters, non-adaptive, 131

transferred from useless to use-
ful class, 132

Charaxes psaphon persecuted by a
bird, 235

Chile, numerous red tubular flowers
in, 320

Chimpanzee, figure of, 454
Clark, Mr. Edwin, on cause of absence

of forests on the pampas, 23
on the struggle for life in the
South American valleys, 24
Cleistogamous flowers, 322
Close interbreeding, supposed evil
results of, 326

Clover, white, spread of, in New
Zealand, 28

Co-adaptation of parts by variation,
no real difficulty, 418
Cobra, use of hood of, 262

Coccinella mimicked by grasshopper,
(figure), 260

Collingwood, Mr., on butterflies re-
cognising their kind, 226

Coloration, alluring, 210
of birds' eggs, 212

a theory of animal, 288

Colour correlated with sterility, 169
correlated with constitutional
peculiarities, 170

in nature, the problem to be
solved, 188

constancy, in animals indicates
utility, 189

and environment, 190

general theories of animal, 193
animal, supposed causes of, 193
obscure, of many tropical ani-
mals, 194

produced by surrounding ob-
jects, 195

adaptations, local, 199
for recognition, 217

of wild animals not quite sym-
metrical, 217 (note)

as influenced by locality or
climate, 228

development in butterflies, 274
more variable than habits, 278
and nerve distribution, 290
and tegumentary appendages,
291

[blocks in formation]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »