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 



