264 ERASMUS DARWIN, 



adultery ; he saw the injurious effect of breeding by buds alone, and 

 instances disease of the potato as such a result ; yet on most of these 

 points he has been left far behind by the observations of his gifted and 

 laboiious descendant. He explains the similitude of the flowers of 

 Ophrijs apifera to the bee, as designed to keep off the insect, the latter 

 supposing that the flower is already appropriated. He was the first to 

 point out the many close analogies of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 

 He studied chmbing-plants, bulbs, and buds, and the effects of gi-afts on 

 the stock ; and he alludes to the admixture of parts of tv o kinds of 

 fruit in one. He notices the irritabihty of the leaves and their glandular 

 hairs in the Drosera, though not from his own observation, and 

 attributes such actions very strangely to vegetable sensation, ideas, and 

 vohtion. 



He considers instinct to be but an imperfect reason — a gi'adation to 

 mind ; that the race of bees is older than man, because the inteUigence 

 of the hive bee is unchangeable and arrived at perfection ; that the 

 singing of birds is more hke artificial language than a natural expression 

 of passion, as the young bird only learns its song from its parent, or from 

 its own kind. Man has attained his pre-eminence principally by reason 

 of his touch and developed powers of volition, as dwelt upon in our 

 times by Herbert Spencer and Dr. Carpenter. In " Zoonomia" we have 

 an interesting dissertation on Instinct, of seventy-nine pages, rich in fact. 

 (Ed. 3rd, 8vo., 1801, voL 1, sec. 16.) 



He, more or less probably, endeavours to account for the origin of 

 some of our facial or bodily expressions. He supposes that infants 

 acquire the smile from the pleasure of relaxing the facial muscles after 

 the action of suckling, and associates other pleasant feehngs, as the 

 sense of beauty, with the remembrance of the fount of infantile 

 enjoyment. His remarks on hereditaiy acquirements are numerous and 

 worthy of regard. He considers the acquii-ed or inhei'ited love of diink 

 to be the frequent cause of the extinction of families, and of more than 

 half of our chronical diseases ; and even in his time, when the poorer 

 classes could less afford to spend money in the pernicious stuff, as the 

 curse of Chi'istendom : hke Prometheus, we take fire in our bosom, and 

 sometimes suffer his punishment, even hterally as respects the seat of 

 injury. Darwin combated the gout in his own person at the age of forty 

 by totally renouncing fermented diinks, and continued quite fi'ee from it 

 till his death, though he was a gourmand in fruit and non-spirituous 

 drinks of several sorts. From the hereditaiy tendency to disease arises 

 his observation that " it is hazardous to marry an heiress." 



We think that upon the whole we have now traced in the philosopher 

 of the eighteenth many of the germs of thought which have been 

 developed in the present century. But with respect to these more 

 modem doctrines we say little in this article. Few have been more 

 interested in Mr. Dai-is'in's writings than ourselves, but it is not in us to 

 say how far his theory is adeqiiate to the requirements, or whether some 

 priinum mobile, which the vitahsts would suppl}', is wanting — some 

 doctrine of life as antecedent to, yet wondertully influenced by, the 

 simple operation of Natural Selection. 



