EXTENSIONS OF DARWINISM 277 



species ; and probably also of those examples of excessive 

 brilliancy of colour, as in the intense blues of many gentians, 

 the vivid scarlet of the Cardinal lobelia, or the glistening 

 yellow of many of our buttercups. It is quite possible, 

 therefore, that to this principle of " germinal selection " we 

 owe some of the most exquisite refinements of beauty amid 

 the endless variety of form and colour both of the animal 

 and the vegetable world. 



We may also owe to it the superabundant production of 

 sap which enabled the early colonists of America to make 

 almost unlimited quantities of sugar from the " sugar maple." 

 Each tree will yield about four pounds of sugar yearly from 

 about thirty gallons of sap ; and it is stated by Lindley that 

 a tree will yield this quantity for forty years without being 

 at all injured ; and large quantities of such sugar are still 

 made for home consumption, the molasses produced from it 

 being said to be superior in flavour to that from the sugar- 

 cane. Here surely is a very remarkable case of an excessive 

 surplus product which is of great use to man, and, so far as 

 we can see, to man only. The same phenomenon of a 

 surplus product is presented by the Para rubber - trees 

 (Siphonia, many species), from which, at the proper season, 

 large quantities of the precious sap can be withdrawn annu- 

 ally for very long periods, without injuring the trees or 

 producing a diminution of the supply. There are also many 

 other useful vegetable products, among those referred to in 

 our fifteenth chapter, to which the same remark will apply ; 

 and it seems probable that we owe the whole of these, and 

 many others not yet discovered in the vast unexplored 

 tropical forests, to this far-reaching principle of "germinal 

 selection." 



General Conclusions as to Life- Development 



Before quitting the subject of the course of development 

 of the entire world of life as shown by the geological record, 

 to which the present chapter is in a measure supplementary, 

 it will be well to say something as to its broader features 

 from the point of view adopted in this work. This is, that 

 beyond all the phenomena of nature and their immediate 

 causes and laws there is Mind and Purpose ; and that the 



