505 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Organ* 

 Griffin 



having a lake, and in this there was 

 another island full of wild men. But much 

 the greater part of them were women with 

 hairy bodies, whom the interpreters called 

 ' Gorillas.' Pursuing them, we were not 

 able to take the men; they all escaped, be- 

 ing able to climb the precipices, and de- 

 fended themselves with pieces of rock. But 

 three women, who bit and scratched those 

 who led them, were not willing to follow. 

 However, having killed them, we flayed 

 them and conveyed the skins to Car- 

 thage. . . ." 



In the opinion of many naturalists, the 

 wild men of this story were the anthropoid 

 or manlike apes which are now called go- 

 rillas, rediscovered recently by Du Chaillu. 

 . . . I must confess these inferences 

 seem to me somewhat open to question, and 

 the account of Hanno's voyage only inter- 

 esting in its relation to the gorilla as hav- 

 ing suggested the name now given to this 

 race of apes. It is not probable that Hanno 

 sailed much further than Sierra Leone. 

 . . . The behavior of the " wild men," 

 again, does not correspond with the known 

 habits of the gorilla. PROCTOR Pleasant 

 Ways in Science, p. 296. (L. G. & Co., 1895.) 



2486. ORIGIN OF RELIGION-^s- 



sumptions Regarding a Divine Being. Men 

 have been very busy of late in speculating 

 on the origin of religion. In asking this 

 question they generally make, often as it 

 seems unconsciously, one or other of two 

 assumptions. One is the assumption that 

 there is no God, and that it must have 

 taken a long time to invent him. The other 

 is that there is a God, but that men were 

 born, or created, or developed, without any 

 sense or feeling of his existence, and that 

 the acquisition of such a sense must of ne- 

 cessity have been the work of time. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 11, p. 265. 

 (Burt.) 



2487. ORIGIN OF STATES OF CON- 

 SCIOUSNESS UNKNOWN It must be 

 frankly confessed that in no fundamental 

 sense do we know where our successive fields 

 of consciousness come from, or why they 

 have the precise inner constitution* which 

 they do have. They certainly follow or ac- 

 company our brain states, and, of course, 

 their special forms are determined by our 

 past experiences and education. But, if we 

 ask just how the brain conditions them, we 

 have not the remotest inkling of an answer 

 to give. JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 2, p. 

 16. (H. H. & Co., 1900.) 



2488. ORIGIN OF VARIATIONS UN- 

 EXPLAINED Darwin Admits Profound Ig- 

 norance. Darwin does not pretend to have 

 discovered any law or rule according to 

 which new forms have been born from old 

 forms. He does not hold that outward con- 

 ditions, however changed, are sufficient to 

 account for them. Still less does he connect 

 them with the effort or aspirations of any 



organism after new faculties and powers. 

 He frankly confesses that " our ignorance 

 of the laws of variation is profound," and 

 says that in speaking of them as due to 

 chance he means only " to acknowledge 

 plainly our ignorance of the cause of each 

 particular variation." [" Origin of Species," 

 p. 131 (first edition).] Again he says: "I 

 believe in no law of necessary development." 

 [Ibid., p. 351.] This distinction between 

 Mr. Darwin's theory and other theories of 

 development has not, I think, been suffi- 

 ciently observed. His theory seems to be 

 far better than a mere theory to be an es- 

 tablished scientific truth in so far as it 

 accounts, in part at least, for the success 

 and establishment and spread of new forms 

 when they have arisen. But it does not 

 even suggest the law under which, or by 

 which, or according to which such new 

 forms are introduced. ARGYLL Reign of 

 Law, ch. 5, p. 130. (Burt.) 



2489. 



Natural Selection 



Not a Cause. It cannot be too often re- 

 peated that natural selection can produce 

 nothing whatever, except the conservation 

 or preservation of some variation otherwise 

 originated. The true origin of species does 

 not consist in the adjustments which help 

 varieties to live and to prevail, but in those 

 previous adjustments which cause those va- 

 rieties to be born at all. Now what are 

 these? Can they be traced or even guessed 

 at? Mr. Darwin has a whole chapter on the 

 " Laws of Variation " ; and it is here, if 

 anywhere, that we look for any suggestion 

 as to the physical causes which account for 

 the origin as distinguished from the mere 

 preservation of species. He candidly ad- 

 mits that his doctrine of natural selection 

 takes cognizance of variations only after 

 they have arisen, and that it regards those 

 variations as purely accidental in their 

 origin, or, in other words, as due to chance. 

 This, of course, he adds, is a supposition 

 wholly incorrect, and only serves " to indi- 

 cate plainly our ignorance of the cause of 

 each particular variation." ARGYLL Reign 

 of Law, ch. 5, p. 143. (Burt.) 



249O. ORIGIN, SUPPOSED INDE- 

 PENDENT, OF SIMILAR STRUCTURES 



Nor is it clear that the apes of the New 

 World and those of the Old ever had any 

 ape ancestors common to both. Possibly 

 further discoveries in the Eocene deposits 

 of North America (which are such veritable 

 treasure-houses of relics of ancient life) 

 will reveal to us the past existence of 

 transitional forms between the monkeys of 

 America and of Asia and Africa; but, in 

 spite of all that has been published, this has 

 not, to our minds, been done, and we think 

 it quite possible that these two families 

 have had different origins, and have come to 

 resemble each other independently. MIVART 

 Types of Animal Life, ch. 1, p. 34. (L. B. & 

 Co., 1893.) 



