DARWIN. 115 



were not perfect or perfectly useful. The working out 

 of the evolution theory as applied to animal minds, the 

 study of the first beginnings of nerve action, and the 

 analysis of instinct, all due largely to Darwin's prominent 

 disciple, Romanes, together with the immensely fuller 

 knowledge of molecular physics, of protoplasm, and of 

 brain function, acquired in the years since Darwin wrote, 

 have sufficed to place these questions on a much more 

 secure basis. But the collection of facts made by him, 

 and the suggestive remarks he everywhere makes, render 

 his book of permanent value. His sympathy is obvious 

 in such passages as this : " Every one has heard of the dog 

 suffering under vivisection who licked the hand of the 

 operator ; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must 

 have felt remorse to the last hour of his life ; " the 

 "terrible" superstitions of the past, such as human 

 sacrifices, trial by ordeal, &c., show us, he says, "what an 

 indefinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement 

 of our reason, to science, and our accumulated know- 

 ledge." We see the fruit of Darwin's repeated visits to 

 the Zoological Gardens, especially in his study of the 

 habits and mental powers of monkeys. We gain a 

 definition from him of imagination, by which faculty 

 man " unites, independently of the will, former images and 

 ideas, and thus creates brilliant and novel results. . . . 

 The value of the products of our imagination depends of 

 course on the number, accuracy, and clearness of our 

 impressions ; on our judgment and taste in selecting or 

 rejecting the involuntary combinations, and to a certain 

 extent on our power of voluntarily combining them." 

 As to religion, he says, " There is no evidence that man 



