April 6, 1871 | 
NATURE 
443 

it is argued that the use of articulate language, the power 
of forming abstract ideas, and even the sense of right and 
wrong, may have been gradually acquired by steps which 
here and there it is not impossible to trace. The question 
of the origin of the moral sense leads to the proposition 
of the following theory. Some natural emotions are of 
great intensity but short endurance, and their force is not 
easily recalled by memory ; others, though less powerful 
at certain times, exert a constant influence, or one which 
is only interrupted by being overpowered for atime by 
the former. Accordingly, during the greater part of life, 
and always when there is leisure for reflection, the grati- 
fication connected with the more violent passions, such as 
hunger, sexual desire, and revenge, appears small, whereas 
the social instincts of sympathy and the pleasures of 
benevolence exert their full power. Hence we find social 
virtues, as courage, fidelity, obedience, among savages and 
even animals, long before the “ self-regarding” virtues 
begin to appear. This theory is analogous to that by which 
Mr. Bain explains the higher character of the pleasures 
of sight compared with those of smell ; they can be more 
easily recalled ;and corresponds to the distinction drawn 
by the same writer between the acute and the more 
“massive” and permanent pleasures. 
In the fourth chapter Mr. Darwin discusses the manner 
in which man was developed. It is shown that the broad 
facts on which the theory of Natural Selection rests apply 

Human Ear, Modelled and Drawn by Mr. Woolner. a. The projecting point. 
to him. He is prolific enough to share in the struggle for 
existence, In him, as in all organic forms, there is a 
constant tendency to growth, which being checked anc 
modified by external influences, proceeds in the direction 
of least resistance, and so produces the variations which 
are often ascribed to an assumed inherent tendency. 
Among the various forms produced, those will survive 
which are best fitted for the surrounding conditions, and 
they will transmit their character to their descendants, 
still subject to the same liability tovary. Next the author 
argues that the mental endowments of man, including 
language, his social habits, his upright position, and perfect 
hands, are of direct advantage to him in the struggle with 
other animals and with his fellows. Ithas always appeared 
thatthe difficult point in the development of man by'Natural 
Selection is at the period when he was more defenceless 
than an anthropoid ape and less intelligent than the lowest 
savage ; but Mr. Darwin thinks that the transition may 
have been safely made in some large tropical island where 
there was abundance of forest and of fruit. That man, 
once developed, can maintain himself, is obvious from his 
present existence. The arguments in favour of civilised 
man being the descendant of savages, which have been so 
admirably developed by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Tylor, 
are of course brought forward in support of the author's 
view, and the important question is discussed how far we 
may hope for future improvement in the race by means of 
continued Natural Selection. Thus, while admitting that 
the process undergoes many checks and complications 
among human beings, the author does not assent to the 
arguments urged by Mr. Wallace that it would cease to 
operate as soon as the moral faculties came into play.* 
One human peculiarity which is apparently inexplicable 
by Natural Selection, the nakedness of the body and 
presence of a beard, is referred by Mr. Darwin to the 
operation of Sexual Selection. To this same agency is 
attributed the origin of the so-called Races of Man, which 
is discussed with admirable clearness and impartiality in 
the last chapter, and this leads to the complete exposition 
of the theory of Sexual Selection which occupies the 
second part of this work, and must be considered in a 
future article. 
It only remains here to add a word on the account of 
the affinities and genealogy of man contained in the sixth 
chapter. Asa kind of retribution for the attempt to raise 
Cuvier’s order Bzmana into a sub-class, not only have 
most naturalists now reverted to a modified definition of 
the Primates of Linnzeus, but Mr. Darwin shows reasons 
for refusing to the genus Homo even the rank of a family 
in this order, which Prof. Huxley admits, and regards it 
simply as an aberrant member of the Catarrhine division 
of the Szzzad@. This conclusion, which seems to us to 
be a just one, will only be distasteful to those who so little 
appreciate the true characters of man as a spiritual being, 
that they could feel self-complacency in the brevet-rank 
of a sub-class. 
Mr. Darwin mentions Africa as the possible seat of the 
Catarrhine progenitors of man, but shows the futility of 
speculations on this point, until we know more of the 
recent changes of the earth, the records of paleontology, 
and the laws affecting the rapidity of animal modifica- 
tions. He does not advert to Prof. Haeckel’s hypothesis 
of a ‘‘ Lemuria” in the Indian Ocean, but agrees with him 
in next tracing the phylum of manto the Pvosimie. These 
igain were developed from “forms standing very low in 
he deciduate mammalian series” (possibly, as Prof. 
Huxley suggests, most nearly allied to the existing /7- 
sectivora), and thus, through the Marsupials and Mono- 
tremes from the Reptilian stock, and thence through the 
D:pnoi and Ganoids from the Urtyhus of the vertebrate 
series, represented by the Lancelet alone. Nor does Mr. 
Darwin stop here, but adds the weight of his judgment to 
the theory based on the observations of Kowalewsky and 
Kuppler, which deduces the primeval Vertebrata from a 
form resembling a Tunicate larva, Perhaps the most 
brilliant of the many new suggestions in these volumes is 
one thrown out incidentally in a note to p. 212, and based 
upon this supposed relation of man to the Ascidians. 
Beyond the organic world Mr. Darwin does not attempt 
to trace the genealogy of man. Considering how essential 
this extension of the theory of evolution is held by men 
so distinguished as Haeckel, and how keenly the question 
* In reviewing in these columns the contributions of the latter eminent 
writer, we took occasion to quote the estimate he expresses of Mr. Darwin's 
claims. Should anyone be disposed to overlook the original value of Mr. 
Wallace's work, he will be corrected by a somewhat similar passage in the 
present volume. See pp- 137, note, and 416. 
