Lect. ly.] SOUTHEY AS A DARWINIAN. 121 



I would refer him to an instance much more easily grasped and 



understood. 



Southey's little poem, beginning "with — 



' ' Oil Reader ! hast thou stood to see 

 The holly-tree ? " 



is an exquisite piece of stiU-life Darwinism, notwithstanding that 

 the writer of it, had he lived a generation later, would, I believe, 

 have been the last to become a convert to Charles Darwin's theory. 

 Therefore that contribution to the doctrine of development is all the 

 more valuable, as being utterly undesigned. 



Yet the polymorphism of the leaves of that beautiful tree admits 

 of but one interpretation ; they each and all have responded to their 

 .surroundings, setting up their prickly backs, like Hedgehogs, in the 

 lower parts of the tree, lest the ox that licketh up the grass 

 should lick them up also ; but above, in the steeple-like culmination 

 of the tree, right under the eye of heaven, the defensive prickles are 

 suppressed, and each leaf glistens in the sunshine, unarmed and void 

 (if fear. Was each leaf separately created in spring-time? You answer 

 — "No, no need for that ; the forces within the tree, working in 

 exquisite harmony with the surroundings, sufficed to make all that 

 •difference in the form of the individual leaves." I rejoin — ^"Are 

 you assured of that ? if so, good ! We now can understand each 

 •other." Of course every observer of nature is acquainted with 

 a thousand instances of the same kind as that presented to us 

 in the holly-tree; yet these familiar phenomena all speak one 

 language; — that language is no longer barbarous; everyone under- 

 stands it now. 



That lies outside, but illustrates, our work ; every member of the 

 animal tribes merely lives out the cycle of an individual life, which life 

 is one continual struggle against drought and rain, heat and cold. Of 

 course, each kind has the benefit of the whole accumulation of 

 excellences developed in its own direct ancestry ; each oak tree and 

 hoUy tree enjoys the rich inheritance, so also does the Armadillo, 

 the Ant-bear, and the Man. I have no doubt of one thing, namely, 

 that Armadillos, like Tortoises, are the descendants of types that 

 were not cased in complete armour. I have, likewise, no doubt 

 that Ant-eaters and Pangolins, like Tortoises and Birds, are the 

 ■descendants of types that had a perfect series of teeth. The Ant- 



