CHAPTER XIII. 



CRITICISM OF NATURAL SELECTION THE BOOK ON THE 



" EMOTIONS." 



MR. DARWIN is one of the few men who, since Linnaeus, 

 are of Linnaean fame. Even in botany, which is the 

 express Linnaean field, Mr. Darwin's observation and 

 observation, again, is the express Linnaean faculty is 

 not by any means at its weakest, but, on the contrary, 

 perhaps, almost keener, stronger, truer than anywhere 

 else since the time when he wrote his Journal. Neverthe- 

 less, natural selection is Mr. Darwin's historical stand- 

 point, and to that we confine ourselves. If we omit 

 consideration of botany, however, it would hardly be right 

 to conclude without a word on the specially relevant 

 work that is named Tlie Expression of the Emotions in Man 

 and Animals. 



What is called education, civilisation, progress, is 

 largely artificial ; and if there is anything that can still 

 be called nature in man, it must lie as close as possible 

 to his simple animality. Now that, plainly, is his instinct- 

 ive expression of feeling ; and so it was that the subject 

 as a whole was in place for Mr. Darwin, who seems to 

 have turned at once to his own domestic hearth as a field 

 of observation. " My first child was born on December 

 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced to make notes on 

 the first dawn of the various expressions which he ex- 



