378 GENERAL SUMMARY [Part II. 



bear on llie belief iu the immortality of the soul?" The 

 barbarous races of man, as Sir J. Lubbock has shown, 

 possess no clear belief of this kind ; but arguments de- 

 rived from the primeval beliefs of savages are, as we have 

 just seen, of little or no avail. Few persons feel any 

 anxiety from the impossibility of determining at what 

 precise period in the development of the individual, from 

 the first trace of the minute germinal vesicle to the child 

 either before or after birth, man becomes an immortal 

 being ; and there is no greater cause for anxiety because 

 the period in the gradually-ascending organic scale cannot 

 possibly be determined.* 



I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work 

 will be denounced by some as highly irreligious ; but he 

 w^ho thns denounces them is bound to show why it is 

 more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct 

 species by descent from some lower form, through the 

 laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain 

 the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary 

 reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the 

 individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of 

 events, Avhich our minds refuse to accept as the result of 

 blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a con- 

 clusion, whether or not we are able to believe that every 

 slight variation of structure, the union of each pair in 

 marriage, the dissemination of each seed, and other such 

 events, have all been ordained for some special purpose. 



Sexual selection has been treated at great length in 

 these volumes ; for, as I have attempted to show, it has 

 played an important part in the history of the organic 

 world. As summaries have been given to each chaj)ter, 

 it would be superfluous here to add a detailed summary. 



' The Rev. J. A. Picton gives a discussion to this effect iu his ' New 

 Theories aud the Old Faith,' 1870. 



