while, therefore, to consider whether the phrase, “derivation from the lower animals," is one which can be maintained as rightly expressing the truth which it is intended to express concerning the physical history of our race.

Now it is manifest that if we look back, so far as is possible, into the remote past, when the first germ of animal life appeared upon the globe, two conditions of things, and two only, are conceivable. Either (A) there was a single germ of life, from which all subsequent living forms have been evolved or developed; or (B) there were several or many germs of life, from which, in separate streams, so to speak, the evolution of living creatures took place. Mr. Darwin inclined, I think, to the latter supposition; but either A or B must be accepted by all evolutionists of all schools. Let us consider them successively.

A. If we make the supposition that living forms commenced upon the globe from a single germ, then it follows that all living creatures now existing-insects, fishes, birds, beasts, man-have been evolved by some process or processes from one and the same origin: whether the process of variation and natural selection be sufficient to account for the development, it is not necessary for the purpose of this argument to decide; it is sufficient to say, and this can scarcely be denied, that by some process or processes the development has taken place. Therefore, ascending to the hypothesis now under consideration, it will be true that the lower animals and man had a common origin; but this is manifestly a different thing from asserting that man is "derived from the lower animals." If we go up to the hypothetical origin of life, or the single germ, this latter assertion is obviously untrue, because, as by hypothesis there was then only one germ, there could be no distinction of superior or inferior; but if we stop short of the origin and observe the condition of things at any period subsequent to the hypothetical beginning, we shall find progress being made toward the development of man and simultaneous progress being made toward the development of the lower animals. But it does not follow that, because this simultaneous development is taking place, therefore we can say that one form of life is developed from the other; it might be as correct to say that the inferior animals were developed from man, as man from the inferior animals. Take an illustration from that which is possible in the case of rivers. Conceive of two rivers running into the sea; trace their course, and suppose that ultimately you come to the same source in the distant mountains; it would not be correct to say that one of these rivers was derived from the other. The correct statement would be that they sprang from one and the same source, that they had different histories, and that they terminated in different streams.

When we speak of the lower animals, do we not in fact postulate the existence of man? Lower than what? Surely lower than man: therefore inferiority can not be predicated until man's existence has been assumed, or has become a fact; and therefore to speak of man being derived from the lower animals in the remote past, when, if you only go far enough, there is no higher or lower, would seem to be a confusing use of language.

If it be urged that the objection now made to the phraseology used by Mr. Wallace is merely a verbal quibble, I venture to argue, on the other hand, that there is not a little importance in the objection. I quite admit that if the creation of man be a merely fortuitous fact, a lucky hit, so to speak, in the infinite variety of living forms developed from a single original living germ-if, in fact, creation be without the high purpose which human life, as distinguished from all other forms of life, seems to make manifest-it is scarcely worth while to argue the question whether man was derived from the inferior animals or not. But if man be the intended crown of creation existing in the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God from the beginning, then it does seem to be worth while to argue that the derivation of man and beast from the same living germ is not the same thing as the derivation of one from the other. A sane man may have the misfortune to have an idiot brother; the sane man and the idiot are derived from the same parents, but it would be incorrect to say that one was derived from the other. May there not be some analogy between a case of this kind and the case of man and beast?

B. So much, then, for the hypothesis of one original germ of life; the argument becomes perhaps more simple if we adopt the second hypothesis, namely, that of several or many germs.

For in this case it is not unreasonable to suppose that specific differences existed among the original germs. I confess that the notion of the development of all forms of life from one original germ offers to my own mind an almost insuperable difficulty. The arguments drawn from the experimental facts of variation and natural selection, from the observed progression of animal forms in successive geological strata, and the like, seem to me quite inadequate to explain the development of insects, fishes, birds, mammals, from one stock. Consequently, to my own mind it is a relief to be able to think of several, and if of several then possibly of any number, of original germs. The hypothesis is not opposed to, but quite in accordance with, Mr. Darwin's own views; in fact, he was far too cautious a man to dogmatize concerning the unity of the origin of living forms, when all attempt at the examination of the question of origin would necessarily carry him far beyond the limits of possible experiment. Let us

then adopt provisionally the hypothesis of a multiplicity of germs of life; and if we do this, there is nothing wild or strange in the supposition that the germ of man was different from other germs. It would be beyond all that scientific caution would justify to assume that, given a number of original germs of life, it is matter of chance into what each will develop. It is contrary, I think, to the whole analogy of Nature to suppose that a living germ, which is to all intents and purposes an ovum or egg, may ultimately develop into an oak, or a fish, or a man, according to its surroundings or according to mere chance. At all events, it is much more probable, much more according to analogy, that each germ should have its specific character, and that so man should have been man in intention and preparation from the very beginning of things. It may have been-in fact, according to the supposition of evolution it must have been-that in the early condition of life upon the globe there was no man (in the full and proper sense of the word) in existence, but his progenitors would be there; and what is submitted is this, that those progenitors were undeveloped men, and not "lower animals." What they visibly were scientific discovery has not yet put in evidence; it is admitted that there is a "missing link " between the present and the past. Some scientific men hope that the link may be found, some think that it is hidden under the sea; but, whatever the truth may be with regard to this point, what is maintained is this, that, on the hypothesis of a multiplicity of original germs of life, it is more probable than otherwise that certain germs contained the promise of men, others of "lower animals"; and that, if so, it is incorrect to speak of the lower animals as the progenitors of men.

This view of the case, though founded upon a criticism of Mr. Wallace's language, would seem nevertheless to be consistent with his real views concerning the origin of man. In the last chapter of his work, entitled Darwinism applied to Man, to which reference has been already made, it is contended, as we have seen, that the principle of natural selection will not account for the development of the human faculties. I recur to that chapter chiefly for the purpose of making two extracts, which will, I think, tend to strengthen the arguments which have been already advanced. After rehearsing three stages of progress in creation-the change from the inorganic to the organic; the introduction of sensation or consciousness, constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms; and the existence in man of a number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties, those which raise him above the brutes and open up possibilities of almost indefinite advancement-Mr. Wallace writes thus:

These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of matter and motion up to man, point clearly to an unseen universe-to a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate.*

And again:

Those who admit my interpretation of the evidence now adduced-strictly scientific evidence in its appeal to facts which are clearly what ought not to be on the materialistic theory-will be able to accept the spiritual nature of man, as not in any way inconsistent with the theory of evolution, but as dependent upon those fundamental laws and causes which furnish the very materials for evolution to work with.t

Declarations such as these, coming from such an authority, must doubtless be very comforting to those minds which feel themselves compelled to receive the evidence for evolution but shrink from materialism, which feel convinced that materialism can not be true, and yet have an uneasy suspicion that evolution points to it as a logical conclusion. But if we admit with Mr. Wallace that variation and natural selection are not adequate to explain the evolution of man's higher qualities and faculties, we are not merely delivered from the acceptance of materialism, we are invited and even compelled (as has been urged in a former part of this paper) to review the whole question of the extent of the application of Mr. Darwin's great principle. He would be a rash man who, in the face of Mr. Darwin, Mr. Wallace, and the whole generation of naturalists who have followed in their steps, should deny that natural selection was a vera causa in creative work; but there is no rashness or audacity in maintaining what Mr. Darwin did not deny, and what Mr. Wallace emphatically affirms, namely, that there is needed for the explanation of phenomena something beyond, and essentially different from, the process of natural selection. All seems to point beyond matter into the region of mind, beyond mechanical sequence to purpose, beyond all veræ causæ to the causa causarum, beyond Nature to God.

I will close this paper by recording an incident which was communicated to me some years ago in the course of conversation by Dr. Thompson, the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Dr. Thompson was walking, in his college days, with two companions, one of whom was Alfred Tennyson; of the name of the other I am not sure. The path by which they went was one which all Cambridge men know, namely, that which leads from the backs of the colleges through the fields toward Coton. After passing the brook, which used to be crossed (and perhaps is now) by a rude wooden bridge, it was perceived that Tennyson had

*

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VOL. XXXVII.-7

+ Ibid.

lagged behind. He had paused by the side of the brook, brought his eyes as near as he could to the surface of the water, and was examining with intense interest the subaqueous life which the little stream contained. After a time he rejoined his companions, and this was his utterance when he joined them: "What an imagination God has!" The words must have made a deep impression upon my informant's mind; otherwise he would not have retained them in memory, and would not have thought it worth while to repeat them to me. They made a similar impression upon myself when so repeated; and I can not but regard them as containing a true philosophy of Nature. Whatever may be the power of natural selection, and whatever causes may be at work to produce the varied scene of life which the world contains, you need some underlying cause, both of life itself and of reproduction and variation, and of all natural phenomena; and if causally the existence of the universe may be attributed to God's will and purpose, so the endless variety of vital manifestations may be attributed to that which in the case of man we should call imagination.

In reality, whatever may be the actual historical genesis of Nature, we seem to need a quasi-Platonic doctrine of antecedent ideas in the divine mind as the basis, the underlying condition, of the existence of things as we see them. It is matter for fair discussion among naturalists how much may be attributed to natural selection, how much to sexual, how much to physiological, and so forth. But such discussions can not go to the root of things; they do not reach the original thought out of which the works of Nature, as we call them, originally spring. Michael Angelo, as we are told, used to sit with his hammer and chisel before his marble block, and shape it without any previous modeling process into the figure which he intended to produce; other sculptors, I believe, with only this one grand exception, make their model in clay, and thence proceed by semi-mechanical steps to the finished work; but Michael Angelo and all other sculptors have alike the seminal idea in their minds, and the manner of its evolution is comparatively a matter of detail. Something of the same kind may be said of the production of natural things. It may be possible for naturalists to discover some of the steps by which the finished work comes to be what it is; but the actual origin of natural things-the wonders of life, the varied beauties of the universe, above all, the mind of man, which is capable of understanding, appreciating, and discussing the problems to which natural things give rise-is to be sought in no region lower than that which may, with all reverence, be described as the mind, or as the imagination of God.-Nineteenth Century.