54 J^h^ Descent of Man. 



' These cases are alniost certainly due to characters primarily 

 acquired by the male, having been transferred, in a greater 

 or less degree, to the female ' (vol. ii. p. 128). ' The colours 

 of the males may safely be attributed to sexual selection 

 (vol. ii. p. 194). As to certain species of birds in which the 

 males alone are black, we are told, there can hardly he a 

 doubt, that blackness in these cases has been a sexually 

 selected character ' (vol. ii. p. 226). The following, again, is 

 far too positive a statement : — ' Other characters proper to 

 the males of the lower animals, such as bright colours, and 

 various ornaments have been acquired by the more attractive 

 males having been preferred by the female. There are, how- 

 ever, exceptional cases, in which the males, instead of having 

 been selected, have been the selectors ' (vol. ii. p. 371). 



It is very rarely that Mr. Darwin fails in courtesy to his 

 opponents; and we were therefore surprised at the tone of 

 the following passage (vol. ii. p. 386) : — ' He who is not con- 

 tent to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as 

 disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work 

 of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit 

 the contrary.' What justifies Mr. DarAvin in his assumption 

 that to suppose the soul of man to have been specially created 

 is to regard the phenomena of nature as disconnected ? 



As an instance of Mr. Darwin's practice of begging 

 the question at issue, we may quote the following asser- 

 tion: — 'Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked 

 social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or 

 conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as 

 well developed, or nearly as Avell developed, as in man ' (vol. i. 

 p. 71). This is either a monstrous assumption or a mere 

 truism ; it is a truism, for, of course, any creature with the 

 intellect of a man would perceive the qualities men's intel- 

 lect is capable of perceiving, and, amongst them — moral 

 worth. 



