DARWINISM. 29 



hover doubtfully between reflex and instinctive action : 

 go forward through the innumerable gradations of in- 

 stinct till you come, for instance, to the spider, weaving 

 its symmetrical web, rushing out of its lair to seize the 

 prey when the web is shaken lightly, but keeping itself 

 close from a too dangerous foe when the web is vehe- 

 mently shaken. Examine the nest of the Mygale (the 

 trap-door spider) lined with silken tapestry, furnished 

 with a door on a silken hinge, which it covers above 

 with materials like the surrounding soil, and holds from 

 beneath against an intruder, by applying its claws to 

 the most advantageous point, the point most distant 

 from the hinge : consider the little Sylvia Sutoria, or 

 tailor-bird, which draws filaments of cotton from the 

 cotton-plant, and sews leaves together with its beak 

 and feet to form a nest ; go to the huts and river-dams 

 of the beaver ; attend a conclave of rooks judging an 

 offender ; look into the hive of the hive-bee ; observe 

 the conscious vanity of the peacock; preach liberty to 

 the slave-making ants; watch the sagacious ways of 

 dogs and horses ; and then lastly see if it be possible 

 to resist the conclusion that, were all forms that ever 

 existed, from the earliest geological times to our own, 

 present before us in the order of their genealogies, we 

 should see them to be the members of a single family, 

 now, indeed, immensely divergent, yet all united by 

 some affinity or affinities, whether dimly or conspicu- 

 ously shown. 



How strangely men and beasts are united by simi- 

 larity of blood and fibre !. How strangely fishes, birds, 



