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of modification in descent of organized animal forms, crude in conception, but clearly indicating the idea that animals might descend from each other in a series of gradual modifications. Coming down to modern times, the same idea, although having doubtless occurred to many men in the interval, first permanently emerges from obscurity in the writings of the celebrated Buffon, who was born in 1707 and died in 1788. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin, the man whose views we have here under consideration, was the next prominent writer on the subject between 1794 and 1796. The statement by him of these particular views, however, in a book which was noted for its extravagance, led to no impression at the time. It was not until the writings of the distinguished Frenchman, Lamarck, appeared, between the years 1801 and 1815, that real interest was for the first time awakened to the subject. From that time to the present the question has hardly been allowed to slumber. Geoffroy St. Hilaire published in 1828 a modified view of the doctrine of evolution, recognizing previous instability of living forms, but hesitating to believe that they are still unstable, and in 1851 he again resumed the subject with greater boldness in the affirmation of his conclusions. Several distinguished names then intervene, too numerous, although really few, for mention in a work like this, and then we come upon the names of Darwin and Wallace, suddenly appearing upon the scene of this discussion. Both were known as distinguished naturalists, but now, in 1859, they first appear before the world as identified with the discussions on the subject of which we are speaking. Their conjunction and following career, in which their work touched at so many points, is so remarkable that it deserves passing notice. Darwin had been the naturalist of the British ship "Beagle," in its celebrated voyage around the world, and for a little over twenty years after his return had been collecting evidence in favor of his theory, when Wallace, who was studying the fauna

and flora of the Malay archipelago, suddenly sent him a paper containing an expression of the same views which he himself entertained, requesting him to forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist. Here was an extraordinary complication. Had not the persons concerned been high-minded men, the situation might have led to most disagreeable consequences. Luckily, Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Hooker, the naturalist, both knew of Darwin's labors in the direction in which Wallace was unintentionally anticipating him in apparent priority of demonstration. As the result of consultation between these, wise friends of the two parties most interested, the conclusion was reached and carried into effect, of publishing, with Wallace's memoir, in the Linnæan Journal, extracts from the manuscript which Darwin had been laboriously preparing as the result of his experiments and one absorbing thought for years. After that period, these two men stood almost side by side in the ensuing contest, differing in particulars, but in complete accord as to generals.

Darwin's work, "The Descent of Man," following that entitled "The Origin of Species," appeared first in 1871. He said in the Introduction:

The conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other species of some ancient, lower, and extinct form is not in any degree new. Lamarck long ago came to this conclusion, which has been lately maintained by several eminent naturalists and philosophers; for instance, Wallace, Huxley, Lyell, Vogt, Lubbock, Büchner, Rolle, etc., and especially Häckel.

He himself had thought so years before, long before his work, "The Origin of Species," had appeared, for therein is plainly involved that what, in his estimation, applies to the lowest animals, must apply to the highest one of all; and besides, in that work, "The Origin of Species," he had unequivocally directed the reader's attention to this inevitable conclusion from his expressed views there as to the lower animals and plants, by remarking that, by the present work, "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history."

The theory of evolution was, therefore, not first conceived by Darwin, he himself expressly disclaiming any such pretension. In his work, "The Origin of Species," he did not broach the theory of evolution except as, by the incidental phrase just quoted, including man. It was, with that single exception, devoted wholly to the question of modification by descent among the lower animals. Impliedly, however, as has been admitted, it throughout included man, and in the passage just quoted it expressly included man. But it was not until his much later work, "The Descent of Man," that Darwin devoted himself to the consideration of man's evolution, all the wealth of illustration therein contained confessedly centring on that attempted demonstration. It only remains to add that, throughout his works, he never indicates that man is derived from one of the existing types of apes or monkeys. On the contrary, he expressly denies it, as expressly stating that he believes that man and some one of the present existing species of anthropoid apes are linked together by a remote common progenitor, from which they have widely diverged in traits.

The various grosser errors of statement regarding Darwin's views having thus been corrected, we can proceed to the consideration of the lesser ones, gradually approaching and finally reaching a clear view of the kernel of the matter as to what Darwin really believed and taught.

In point of fact, the whole tenor of " The Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man" proves that, if anything, Darwin was less assertive as to the existence of the law of evolution than as to the evidence of the modes by which evolution could be effected through certain natural processes. Of course the two contentions must needs go hand-in-hand, but what is meant to be indicated is what has been acknowledged by himself, that he could not claim priority over all the world in the discovery, or the alleged discovery, if the reader will, of the law of evolution,

but that he could claim priority in the perception of processes by which the effect is rendered possible. Does not every one know what a barrier to investigation of the unknown is previous conception of impossibility? Given that processes were shown by which it could be conceived that forms might be made capable of divergence, and then men were led to look into the evidence as to the degree of divergence, assuming for the first time that sequence and degree of divergence might have, conjointly, a history to tell. Whereas, if some plausible method had not been assigned by which men generally could conceive that successive modifications had taken place, they might have gone on till doomsday asserting that nature, whether living or fossil, had no mystery of life to tell that was worth the unraveling.

Darwin chiefly devoted himself to the establishment of the existence of an agency which he termed "natural selection." The consequence of the operation of this agency was described by the term which he afterward adopted from Herbert Spencer,"the survival of the fittest." These statements of the action and result of the working of the alleged law of evolution constitute the points of departure for the lesser misinterpretation of Darwin's views to which reference has been made.

Proceeding now on this higher plane, still profoundly in error, it is first of all to be remarked that the popular notion as to Darwin's belief is that natural selection works principally through what scientific men call cataclysm,—that is, violent changes in exterior nature,-instead of through slow processes of change in exterior nature. That, to begin with, is not correct, as representing his views. He makes change in climate a factor in his supposed agencies, but not sudden change, even if we include in the change the coming on of the glacial period. The principal factors by which he accounts for divergence among animals are: Changes in continental and insular areas, produced

by the slow upheaval and subsidence of portions of the earth, with consequent changes in climate; pressure of animal life, through natural increase, upon the means of subsistence, leading in the struggle for existence to many consequences, such as extirpation of the less hardy and modification of the offspring in the remaining élite; migration to new regions, involving new external conditions and the indirect contest for subsistence with other species.

But Darwin, in accounting for change in species, did not rely solely upon the agencies especially designated by the term. "natural selection," but included another agency coming within the sphere of natural selection, but distinguished from it by the term "sexual selection." The agencies, in sum, upon which he relied as competent to effect change in species are natural selection (by which comes change of structure through new external conditions), artificial selection (by which man modifies the lower animals), sexual selection (by which minor attributes are acquired), compensation of growth (by which vital growth, expending itself in one direction, is lessened or discontinued in another), reversion to primitive details of structure (through what is now called atavism), protective acquirement of similarity (called, for brevity's sake, mimicry), and food. So, it will be observed that Darwin summoned a number of agencies, agencies within the fullest idea of natural selection, to account for variability of species.

Continuing to rise to a still higher plane above the grossest of the errors regarding Darwin's belief, which are now corrected, we find that, among even educated people, the term "survival of the fittest" is often misconstrued. It does not, as largely interpreted, mean the survival of those forms which, in the estimation of any one or a number of persons, have an inherent right, morally or otherwise, to survive, to be worthy of continued existence; but simply the survival of those which, either from constitution or from plasticity in adapting themselves to new

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