88 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



the artistic sense of a Burne Jones or a 

 Rossetti was a survival from the artistic sense 

 of the cave-men who etched reindeers in the 

 Perigord grottoes, or that the mechanical 

 genius of a Watt or an Edison was an instinct 

 inherited from the black-fellows who chipped 

 flints ages ago beside the Somme at St. 

 Acheul. Darwinism does not degrade our 

 race it elevates it. For the fall of man it 

 substitutes the rise of man : for a hopelessly 

 degraded lapse from an imaginary Paradise 

 in the past it substitutes a hopeful progress 

 towards a perfectible and realisable Paradise 

 in the future. 



The love for the blue colour in the vero- 

 nica is doubtless due in its inception to the 

 primitive love for colour common to all frugi- 

 vorous races. But it is not only that. If it 

 were a mere survival it would be weaker in 

 us than in the monkeys ; whereas it is, as a 

 matter of fact, infinitely stronger. We all of 

 us yes, including even Gradgrind himself 

 love the little blue veronica with a love of 



