IDEAS OF BIRTH AND DEATH. 39 



and death are alike familiar. Whatever sense 

 of mystery may, in the first dawnings of 

 reflection, have attached to either of these 

 ideas, is soon lost in the familiar experience 

 of the world. The same experience extends 

 to the lower animals — they, too, are born and 

 die. But no such experience ever comes to 

 us casting any light on the Origin of our 

 own Race, or of any other. Some varieties of 

 form are effected in the case of a few animals, 

 by domestication, and by constant care in the 

 selection of peculiarities transmissible to the 

 young. But these variations are all within 

 certain limits ; and wherever human care re- 

 laxes or is abandoned, the old forms return, 

 and the selected characters disappear. The 

 founding of new forms by the union of 



