DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT 



[323] 19 



"beings, with scarcely anything in 

 common, and yet all belonging to the 

 same species!" (i. 293). 



Scattered through the Origin of 

 Species, the Variation of Plants and 

 ^Animals under Domestication, and 

 the Descent of Man, we meet with 

 many purely zoological observations 

 of much interest and importance as 

 such, or apart from their bearing on 

 the general principles and arguments 

 for the illustration or fortification of 

 which they are introduced. In this 

 connection we may particularly allude 

 to the chapters on Variability, Hy- 

 bridism, and Geographical Distribu- 

 tion — chapters which contain such a 

 large number of new facts, as well as 

 new groupings of old ones, that we 

 cannot undertake to epitomize them in 

 a resume of Mr. Darwin's work so 

 brief as the present. Nor should we 

 forget to mention in the present con- 

 nection his experimental proof of the 

 manner in which bees make their 

 Tiexagonal cells, rad of the important 

 part played in the economy of nature 

 1>y earthworms. Moreover, the hy- 

 pothesis of sexual selection necessitat- 

 -ed the collection of a large body of 

 facts relating to the ornamentation of 

 all classes of animals, from insects and 

 Crustacea upward ; and whatever we 

 may think about the stability of the 

 liypothesis, there can be no question, 

 from a zoological point of view, con- 

 cerning the value of this collection of 

 facts as such. 



But without waiting to consider 

 further the purely zoological results 

 presented by the work before us, we 

 must turn to consider the effects of 

 this work upon zoological science it- 

 self. And here we approach the 

 true magnitude of Darwin as a 

 zoologist. Of very izw men in the 

 history of our race can it be said that 

 they not only enlarged science, but 

 changed it — not only added facts to 

 the growing structure of natural 

 knowledge, but profoundly modified 

 the basal conceptions upon which the 

 whole structure rested ; and of no one 

 can this be said with more truth than 

 it can be said of Darwin. For 



although it is the case that the idea 

 of evolution had occurred to other 

 minds — in two or three instances 

 with all the force of full conviction — 

 it is no less certainly the case that the 

 idea proved barren. Why did it 

 prove so ? Because it had never be- 

 fore been fertilized by the idea of 

 natural selection. To demonstrate, 

 or to render sufficiently probable by 

 inference, the fact of evolution (for 

 direct observation of the process is 

 from the nature of the case impossible), 

 required some reasonable suggestion 

 as to the cause of evolution, such as 

 is supplied by the theory of natural 

 selection ; and when once this sugges- 

 tion was forthcoming, it mattered 

 little whether it was considered as 

 propounding the only, the chief, or 

 but a subordinate cause ; all that was 

 needed to recommend the evidence of 

 evolution to the judgment of science 

 was the discovery of some cause 

 which could be reasonably regarded 

 as not incommensurate with some of 

 the effects ascribed to it. And, un- 

 like the desperate though most laud- 

 able groupings of Lamarck, the sim- 

 ple solution furnished by Darwin 

 was precisely what was required to 

 give a locus standi to the evidence 

 of descent. 



But we should form a very inade- 

 quate estimate of the services render- 

 ed to science by Mr. Darwin if we 

 were to stop here. The few gen- 

 eral facts out of which the theory of 

 evolution by natural selection is 

 formed — viz. struggle for existence, 

 survival of the fittest, and heredity — 

 were ail previously well-known facts ; 

 and we may not unreasonably feel 

 astonished that so apparently obvious 

 a combination of them as that which 

 occurred to Mr. Darwin should have 

 occurred to no one else, with the 

 single exception of Mr. Wallace. 

 The fact that it did not do so is most 

 fortunate in two respects — first, be- 

 cause it gave Mr. Darwin the op- 

 portunity of pondering upon the sub- 

 ject ab initio, and next because it gave 

 the world an opportunity of witness- 

 ing the disinterested unselfishness 



