474 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point 
to the existence in man of something which he has not derived 
from his animal progenitors—something which we may best 
refer to as being of a spiritual essence or nature, capable of 
progressive development under favourable conditions. On 
the hypothesis of this spiritual nature, superadded to the 
animal nature of man, we are able to understand much that 
is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible in regard to him, 
especially the enormous influence of ideas, principles, and 
beliefs over his whole life and actions. Thus alone we can 
understand the constancy of the martyr, the unselfishness of 
the philanthropist, the devotion of the patriot, the enthusiasm 
of the artist, and the resolute and persevering search of 
the scientific worker after nature’s secrets. Thus we may 
perceive that the love of truth, the delight in beauty, the 
passion for justice, and the thrill of exultation with which we 
hear of any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings 
within us of a higher nature which has not been developed 
by means of the struggle for material existence. 
It will, no doubt, be urged that the admitted continuity of 
man’s progress from the brute does not admit of the introduc¬ 
tion of new causes, and that Ave have no e\ 7 idence of the 
sudden change of nature which such introduction would bring 
about. The fallacy as to neAv causes involving any breach of 
continuity, or any sudden or abrupt change, in the effects, lias 
already been shown ; but Ave "will further point out that there 
are at least three stages in the development of the organic 
Avorld Avhen some neAv cause or poAver must necessarily have 
come into action. 
The first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, 
A\ r hen the earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out 
of which it arose, first appeared. This is often imputed to 
a mere increase of complexity of chemical compounds; but 
increase of complexity, Avith consecpient instability, even if Ave 
admit that it may have produced protoplasm as a chemical 
compound, could certainly not haA r e produced living protoplasm 
— protoplasm which has the power of growth and of reproduc¬ 
tion, and of that continuous process of development Avhich has 
resulted in the marvellous variety and complex organisation of 
the whole vegetable kingdom. There is in all this something 
