in the sense of burning shame which most of us have felt, even after the interval of years, when calling to mind some accidental breach of a trifling, though fixed, rule of etiquette' (vol. i. p. 92). This is most true; some trifling breach of good manners may indeed occasion us pain; but this may be unaccompanied by a judgment that we are morally blameworthy. It is judgment, and not feeling, which has to do with right and wrong. But a yet better example might be given. What quality can have been more universally useful to social communities than courage? It has always been, and is still, greatly admired and highly appreciated, and is especially adapted, both directly and indirectly, to enable its possessors to become the fathers of succeeding generations. If the social instinct were the basis of the moral sense, it is infallibly certain that courage must have come to be regarded as supremely 'good,' and cowardice to be deserving of the deepest moral condemnation. And yet what is the fact? A coward feels probably self-contempt and that he has incurred the contempt of his associates, but he does not feel 'wicked.' He is painfully conscious of his defective organization, but he knows that an organization, however defective, cannot, in itself, constitute moral demerit. Similarly, we, the observers, despise, avoid, or hate a coward; but we can clearly understand that a coward may be a more virtuous man than another who abounds in animal courage.

The better still to show how completely distinct are the conceptions enduring or strong instincts' and 'virtuous desires' on the one hand, and transient or weak impulses' and 'vicious inclinations' on the other, let us substitute in the following passage for the words which Mr. Darwin, on his own principles, illegitimately introduces, others which accord with those principles, and we shall see how such substitution eliminates every element of morality from the passage:

'Looking to future generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker, and we may expect that enduring [virtuous] habits will grow stronger, becoming perhaps fixed by inheritance. In this case the struggle between our stronger [higher] and weaker [lower] impulses will be less severe, and the strong [virtue] will be triumphant' (vol. i. p. 104).

As to past generations, Mr. Darwin tells us (vol. i. p. 166) that at all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes; and as social acts are an element in their success, sociality must have been intensified, and this because an increase in the number of well-endowed men will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another.' No doubt! but this

only

only explains an augmentation of mutually beneficial actions. It does not in the least even tend to explain how the moral judgment was first formed.

Having thus examined Mr. Darwin's theory of Sexual Selection, and his comparison of the mental powers of man (including their moral application) with those of the lower animals, we have a few remarks to make upon his mode of conducting his argument.

In the first place we must repeat what we have already said as to his singular dogmatism, and in the second place we must complain of the way in which he positively affirms again and again the existence of the very things which have to be proved. Thus, to take for instance the theory of the descent of man from some inferior form, he says:- the grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken' (vol. ii. p. 385), and 'the possession of exalted mental powers is no insuperable objection to this conclusion' (vol. i. p. 107). Speaking of sympathy, he boldly remarks, this instinct no doubt was originally acquired like all the other social instincts through natural selection' (vol. i. p. 164); and 'the fundamental social instincts were originally thus gained' (vol. i. p. 173).

Again, as to the stridulating organs of insects, he says:—' No one who admits the agency of natural selection, will dispute that these musical instruments have been acquired through sexual selection.' Speaking of the peculiarities of humming-birds and pigeons, Mr. Darwin observes, the sole difference between these cases is, that in one the result is due to man's selection, whilst in the other, as with humming-birds, birds of paradise, &c., it is due to sexual selection, that is, to the selection by the females of the more beautiful males' (vol. ii. p. 78.) Of birds, the males of which are brilliant, but the hens are only slightly so, he remarks: 'these cases are almost certainly due to characters primarily acquired by the male, having been transferred, in a greater or less degree, to the female' (vol. ii. p. 128). The colours of the males may safely be attributed to sexual selection' (vol. ii. p. 194). As to certain species of birds in which the males alone are black, we are told, there can hardly be a doubt, that blackness in these cases has been a sexually selected character' (vol. ii. p. 226). The following, again, is far too positive a statement:-Other characters proper to the males of the lower animals, such as bright colours, and various ornaments have been acquired by the more attractive males having been preferred by the females. There are, however, exceptional cases, in which the males, instead of having been selected, have been the selectors' (vol. ii. p. 371).

It is very rarely that Mr. Darwin fails in courtesy to his opponents; and we were therefore surprised at the tone of the following passage (vol. ii. p. 386) :—' He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit' the contrary. What justifies Mr. Darwin in his assumption that to suppose the soul of man to have been specially created, is to regard the phenomena of nature as disconnected?

6

In connexion with this assumption of superiority on Mr. Darwin's part, we may notice another matter of less importance, but which tends to produce the same effect on the minds of his readers. We allude to the terms of panegyric with which he introduces the names or opinions of every disciple of evolutionism, while writers of equal eminence, who have not adopted Mr. Darwin's views, are quoted, for the most part, without any commendation. Thus we read of our great anatomist and philosopher, Prof. Huxley,'—of 'our great philosopher, Herbert Spencer,'-of the remarkable work of Mr. Galton,'—of the admirable treatises of Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock,' -and so on. We do not grudge these gentlemen such honorific mention, which some of them well deserve, but the repetition produces an unpleasant effect; and we venture to question the good taste on Mr. Darwin's part, in thus speaking of the adherents to his own views, when we do not remember, for example, a word of praise bestowed upon Prof. Owen in the numerous quotations which our author has made from his works.

Secondly, as an instance of Mr. Darwin's practice of begging the question at issue, we may quote the following assertion :'Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man' (vol. i. p. 71). This is either a monstrous assumption or a mere truism; it is a truism, for of course, any creature with the intellect of a man would perceive the qualities men's intellect is capable of perceiving, and, amongst them-moral worth.

Mr. Darwin, in a passage before quoted (vol. i. p. 86) slips in the whole of absolute morality, by employing the phrase 'appreciation of justice.' Again (vol. i. p. 168), when he speaks of aiding the needy, he remarks:-Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.' How noblest? According to Mr. Darwin, a virtuous instinct is a strong and permanent one. There can be, according to his views, no other elements of quality

than

than intensity and duration. Mr. Darwin, in fact, thus silently and unconsciously introduces the moral element into his 'social instinct,' and then, of course, has no difficulty in finding in the latter what he had previously put there. This, however, is quite illegitimate, as he makes the social instinct synonymous with the gregariousness of brutes. In such gregariousness, however, there is no moral element, because the mental powers of brutes are not equal to forming reflective, deliberate, representative judg

ments.

The word 'social' is ambiguous, as gregarious animals may metaphorically be called social, and man's social relations may be regarded both beneficentially and morally. Having first used social' in the former sense, it is subsequently applied in the latter; and it is thus that the really moral conception is silently and illegitimately introduced.

We may now sum up our judgment of Mr. Darwin's work on the Descent of Man-of its execution and tendency, of what it fails to accomplish and of what it has successfully attained.

Although the style of the work is, as we have said, fascinating, nevertheless we think that the author is somewhat encumbered with the multitude of his facts, which at times he seems hardly able to group and handle so effectively as might be expected from his special talent. Nor does he appear to have maturely reflected over the data he has so industriously collected. Moreover, we are surprised to find so accurate an observer receiving as facts many statements of a very questionable nature, as we have already pointed out, and frequently on second-hand authority. The reasoning also is inconclusive, the author having allowed himself constantly to be carried away by the warmth and fertility of his imagination. In fact, Mr. Darwin's power of reasoning seems to be in an inverse ratio to his power of observation. He now strangely exaggerates the action of 'sexual selection,' as previously he exaggerated the effects of the 'survival of the fittest.' On the whole, we are convinced that by the present work the cause of natural selection' has been rather injured than promoted; and we confess to a feeling of surprise that the case put before us is not stronger, since we had anticipated the production of far more telling and significant details from Mr. Darwin's biological treasure-house.

A great part of the work may be dismissed as beside the point-as a mere elaborate and profuse statement of the obvious fact, which no one denies, that man is an animal, and has all the essential properties of a highly organised one. Along with this truth, however, we find the assumption

that

that he is no more than an animal-an assumption which is necessarily implied in Mr. Darwin's distinct assertion that there is no difference of kind, but merely one of degree, between man's mental faculties and those of brutes.

We have endeavoured to show that this is distinctly untrue. We maintain that while there is no need to abandon the received position that man is truly an animal, he is yet the only rational one known to us, and that his rationality constitutes a funda• mental distinction-one of kind and not of degree. The estimate we have formed of man's position differs therefore most widely from that of Mr. Darwin.

Mr. Darwin's remarks, before referred to (ante, p. 77), concerning the difference between the instincts of the coccus (or scale insect) and those of the ant-and the bearing of that difference on their zoological position (as both are members of the class insecta) and on that of man-exhibit clearly his misapprehension as to the true significance of man's mental powers.

For in the first place zoological classification is morphological. That is to say it is a classification based upon form and structure -upon the number and shape of the several parts of animals, and not at all upon what those parts do, the consideration of which belongs to physiology. This being the case we not only may, but should, in the field of zoology, neglect all questions of diversities of instinct or mental power, equally with every other power, as is evidenced by the location of the bat and the porpoise in the same class, mammalia, and the parrot and the tortoise in the same larger group, Sauropsida.

Looking, therefore, at man with regard to his bodily structure, we not only may, but should, reckon him as a member of the class mammalia, and even (we believe) consider him as the representative of a mere family of the first order of that class. But all men are not zoologists; and even zoologists must, outside their science, consider man in his totality and not merely from the point of view of anatomy.

If then we are right in our confident assertion that man's mental faculties are different in kind from those of brutes, and if he is, as we maintain, the only rational animal; then is man, as a whole, to be spoken of by preference from the point of view of his animality, or from the point of view of his rationality? Surely from the latter, and, if so, we must consider not structure, but action.

Now Mr. Darwin seems to concede* that a difference in kind would justify the placing of man in a distinct kingdom, inasmuch