CHAPTER XIV. 



CRITICISM OF NATURAL SELECTION THE BOOK ON THE 



" EMOTIONS " CONTINUED. 



WE have just specified the particular theme of the book ; 

 and its own earliest pages will amply suffice to verify 

 as much in the words proper of Mr. Darwin himself. 

 Such words more particularly occur in his references to 

 Gratiolet, towards whom, as an opponent of natural 

 selection, he feels, no doubt, just a little sore. Gratiolet, 

 as he snaps, " seems never to have reflected on the 

 principle of evolution, but apparently looks at each 

 species as a separate creation ; " but " by this doctrine 

 anything and everything can be equally well explained ; 

 and it has proved as pernicious with respect to expression 

 as to every other branch of natural history." He, for 

 his part, knows better : " some expressions can hardly be 

 understood, except on the belief that man once existed 

 in a much lower and animal-like condition : " the com- 

 munity of such expressions in man and certain animals 

 is only rendered intelligible to us, " if we believe in their 

 descent from a common progenitor." Might he not 

 quite as well have said, the fact that both men and 

 midges drink can only be explained to us by their 

 descent from a common progenitor ? 



Gratiolet, Mr. Darwin further complains, " appears to 

 overlook inherited habit, and even to some extent habit 



