754 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



and it is also short and weak on the face, ears, and backs of the hands 

 and feet. I have not observed eyebrows ou the animals I have seen, 

 but they may occur, and the eyelashes are fully developed. 



The hair is of a reddish-brown color, something like burnt sienna, 

 and the hair-tips on the back parts of the body are generally brown. 

 In some individuals the hair is darker, of a russet or blackish brown ; 

 in others it is lighter, and in the latter case the breast and belly are of 

 a yellowish white. The beard is sometimes dark yellow. Some indi- 

 viduals almost devoid of hair have been observed. 



THE FACTOES OF OEGAXIC EYOLUTIO:^:. 



Bt HERBERT SPENCEE. 



■TTTITIIIN the recollection of men now in middle life, opinion con- 

 V V cerning the derivation of animals and plants was in a chaotic 

 state. Among the unthinking there was tacit belief in creation by 

 miracle, which formed an essential part of the creed of Christendom ; 

 and among the thinking there were two parties, each of which held an 

 indefensible hypothesis. Immensely the larger of these parties, in- 

 cluding nearly all whose scientific culture gave weight to their judg- 

 ments, though not accepting literally the theologically-orthodox doc- 

 trine, made a compromise between that doctrine and the doctrines 

 which geologists had established ; while opposed to them were some, 

 mostly having no authority in science, who held a doctrine which was 

 heterodox both theologically and scientifically. Professor Huxley, in 

 his lecture on " The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species," re- 

 marks concerning the first of these parties as follows : 



" One-and-twenty years ago, in spite of the work commenced by Ilutton and 

 continued with rare skill and patience by Lyell, the dominant view of the past 

 history of the earth was catastrophic. Great and sudden pliysical revolutions, 

 wholesale creations and extinctions of living beings, were tlie ordinary machin- 

 ery of the geological epic brought into fashion by the misapplied genius of Cu- 

 vier. It was gravely maintained and taught that the end of every geological 

 epoch was signalized by a cataclysm, by which every living being on the globe 

 was swept away, to be rey)laced by a brand-new creation when the world re- 

 turned to quiescence. A scheme of nature which appeared to be modelled on 

 the likeness of a succession of rubbers of wliist, at the end of each of which the 

 players upset the table and called for a new pack, did not soem to shock any- 

 body. 



I may be wrong, but I doubt if, at the present time, there is a single respon- 

 sible representative of these opinions left. The progress of scientific geology 

 has elevated the fundament principle of uniformitarianism, that the ex[)lanation 



