CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN (1809-1882) NLIKE his disciples Spencer and Huxley, Darwin shunned the "Reviews." He wrote "works" and "treatises, "-nothing which can be called an essay in the popular sense, though such works as "The Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man » are constructed on a plan which often results incidentally in completely elaborated essays of great merit. Darwin is voluminous, but not diffuse. He deals with facts by massing as illustrations of his hypotheses everything which can be brought to bear from his own extensive observation and his still more extensive reading. It is said that he had a habit of buying books and tearing from them, to be filed for reference, everything in them which bore on his own work. He handles his facts with great literary skill, but the nature of the subjects he treated called for amplification rather than for the condensation which the highest class of the essay demands. In his summary of the theory of Natural Selection and in his restatement of his views of the Survival of the Fittest, he illustrates his habit of thinking coherently and compactly and shows at the same time the essentially poetical quality of his imagination. "As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds," he writes, "and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications." Though perhaps he never attempted verse in his life, Darwin is indeed much more a poet than his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, author of "The Loves of the Plants, "-from whom and Lord Monboddo he inherited his theory of "The Descent of Man." "Would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament ?" -asks the elder Darwin-❝from one living filament which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations ?» This is in itself doubtlessly a much higher achievement of constructive imagination than anything the elder Darwin ever put into his verse, but in tracing the earthworm through the clay as he prepares the barren earth for man; in following the insect from flower to flower, to find how the beauty and fragrance of the flower harmonize the instincts of insect life with a great plan of perpetual improvement operating throughout all nature, the younger Darwin showed the same mind which was in Milton and Shakespeare. Though himself an agnostic, he insisted that his theories were compatible with orthodox Christianity, and his celebrated pupil, the learned and saintly Drummond, has demonstrated it to the satisfaction of many who at first believed it impossible. But however much the science of some may conflict with the theology of others, the theory that all the laws of nature work to force progress resulted under Darwin's researches in developing such new ideas of beauty and harmony that there was an irresistible impulse to accept it as true. It was the highest poetical idea ever attained by biological science, and it has already worked itself out in revolutionary improvements of flowers and fruits by methods which Darwin first suggested. This is the positive part of Darwin's great work. The negative part remains still to be fought over in the twentieth century—as it must necessarily be with bitterness. The Malthusian theory that among men the strong must crush the weak in order to survive has been discredited in political economy, but as Darwin introduced it into science as the basis of his theory of struggle and survival, it comes back into politics from an unexpected quarter, and it has already resulted in bold denial that there can exist as a reality what Beccaria and Burlamaqui asserted as natural, inherent, and inalienable rights. Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, England, February 12th, 1809. Educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, he made up his mind early in life to devote himself to science. In pursuance of his plan, he retired in 1842 to a secluded part of Kent where he carried on the investigation which resulted in his first epoch-marking work, "The Origin of Species," published in 1859. "The Descent of Man," which appeared in 1871, provoked the most heated controversy of the nineteenth century. But Darwin took no part in it. While it was raging, he devoted his time to the study of the minutiae of nature. His work on Earthworms has been greatly admired by some because of the faculty of close observation it shows. This faculty, illustrated in his researches into the cross-fertilization of plants by means of insects, has proved more immediately valuable than his great powers of generalization. The modern rose-garden and the modern orchard are products of this kind of "Darwinism." These noble results of his ideas remain as his best memorial. W. V. B. I' DARWIN'S SUMMARY OF HIS THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION F UNDER changing conditions of life organic beings present individual differences in almost every part of their structure (and this cannot be disputed), if there be, owing to their geometrical rate of increase a severe struggle for life at some age, season, or year, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of life, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variations had occurred useful to each being's own welfare, in the same manner as so many variations have occurred useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being ever do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance, these will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, or the survival of the fittest, I have called Natural Selection. It leads to the improvement of each creature in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life; and consequently, in most cases, to what must be regarded as an advance in organization. Nevertheless, low and simple forms will long endure if well fitted for their simple conditions of life. Natural selection, on the principle of qualities being inherited at corresponding ages, can modify the egg, seed, or young, as easily as the adult. Amongst many animals, sexual selection will have given its aid to ordinary selection, by assuring to the most vigorous and best adapted males the greatest number of offspring. Sexual selection will also give characters useful to the males alone, in their struggles or rivalry with other males; and these characters will be transmitted to one sex or to both sexes, according to the form of inheritance which prevails. Whether natural selection has really thus acted in adapting the various forms of life to their several conditions and stations, must be judged by the general tenor and balance of evidence given in the following chapters. But we have already seen how it entails extinction, and how largely extinction has acted in the world's history, geology plainly declares. Natural selection, also, leads to divergence of character; for the more organic beings diverge in structure, habits, and constitution, by so much the more can a large number be supported on the area,- of which we see proof by looking to the inhabitants of any small spot, and to the productions naturalized in foreign lands. Therefore, during the modification of the descendants of any one species, and during the incessant struggle of all species to increase in numbers, the more diversified the descendants become, the better will be their chance of success in the battle for life. Thus the small differences distinguishing varieties of the same species, steadily tend to increase, till they equal the greater differences between species of the same genus, or even of distinct genera. We have seen that it is the common, the widely diffused and widely ranging species, belonging to the larger genera within each class, which vary most; and these tend to transmit to their modified offspring that superiority which now makes them dominant in their own countries. Natural selection, as has just been remarked, leads to divergence of character and to much extinction of the less improved and intermediate forms of life. On these principles, the nature of the affinities, and the generally well-defined distinctions between the innumerable organic beings. in each class throughout the world, may be explained. It is a truly wonderful fact-the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity- that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in groups, subordinate to groups, in the manner which we everywhere behold namely, varieties of the same species most closely related, species of the same genus less closely and unequally related, forming sections and subgenera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, subclasses and classes. The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked in a single file, but seem clustered round points, and these round other points, and so on in almost endless cycles. If species had been independently created, no explanation would have been possible of this kind of classification; but it is explained through inheritance and the complex action of natural selection, entailing extinction and divergence of character. The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was young, budding twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few have left living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these fallen branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin, straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favored and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the ornithorhynchus or lepidosiren, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its everbranching and beautiful ramifications. Darwin's Summary of Chapter iv. of "The I' THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST IN ORDER to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations. Let us take the case of a wolf, which preys on various animals, securing some by craft, some by strength, |