140 DARWINIANA. 



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of the author in these passages. The whole reads 

 more naturally as a caution against the inconsiderate 

 use of final causes in science, and an illustration of 

 some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their 

 hasty assumption is apt to involve — considerations 

 probably equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon 

 to liken final causes to " vestal virgins." So, if any 

 one, it is here Bacon that " sitteth in the seat of the 

 scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which 

 the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary 

 question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, 

 but, we suppose, is wholly unconscious of denying 

 " any manifestation of design in the material universe." 

 He concludes the first sentence : 



— " and consequently that it was a character of importance, 

 and might have "been acquired through natural selection ; as it is, 

 I have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct 

 cause, probably to sexual selection." 



After an illustration from the vegetable creation, 

 Darwin adds : 



" The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked 

 at as a direct adaptation for wallowing in putridity ; and so it 

 may oe, or it may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid 

 matter; but we should be very cautious in drawing any such 

 inference, when we see that the skin on the head of the clean- 

 feeding male turkey is likewise naked. The sutures in the 

 skulls of voung mammals have been advanced as a beautiful 

 adaptation for aiding parturition, and no doubt they facilitate or 

 may be indispensable for this act ; but as sutures occur in the 

 skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have only to escape 

 from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure has arisen 

 from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage of in 

 the parturition of the higher animals." 



