140 DARWINIANA. 



of the author in these passages. The whole reads 

 more naturally as a caution against the inconsiderate 

 use of final causes in science, and an illustration of 

 some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their 

 hasty assumption is apt to involve considerations 

 probably equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon 

 to liken final causes to " vestal virgins." So, if any 

 one, it is here Bacon that " sitteth in the seat of the 

 scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which 

 the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary 

 question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, 

 but, we suppose, is wholly unconscious of denying 

 " any manifestation of design in the material universe." 

 He concludes the first sentence : 



" and consequently that it was a character of importance, 

 and might have been acquired through natural selection ; as it is, 

 I have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct 

 cause, probably to sexual selection." 



After an illustration from the vegetable creation, 

 Darwin adds : 



" The naked skin on the head of a vulture is generally looked 

 at as a direct adaptation for wallowing in putridity ; and to it 

 may 1>e t or it may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid 

 matter; but we should be very cautious in drawing any such 

 inference, when we see that the skin on the head of the clean- 

 feeding male turkey is likewise naked. The sutures in the 

 skulls of young mammals have been advanced as a beautiful 

 adaptation for aiding parturition, and no doubt they facilitate or 

 may be indispensable for this act ; but as sutures occur in the 

 skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have only to escape 

 from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure has arisen 

 from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage of in 

 the parturition of the higher animals." 



