XXV] 



DARWIN 



17 



Being. — On this great problem the belief and teaching of 

 Darwin was, that man's whole nature — physical, mental, 

 intellectual, and moral — was developed from the lower animals 

 by means of the same laws of variation and survival ; and, as 

 a consequence of this belief, that there was no difference in 

 kind between man's nature and animal nature, but only one 

 of degree. My view, on the other hand, was, and is, that 

 there is a difference in kind, intellectually and morally, 

 between man and other animals ; and that while his body 

 was undoubtedly developed by the continuous modification 

 of some ancestral animal form, some different agency, 

 analogous to that which first produced organic life^ and then 

 originated consciousness ^ came into play in order to develop 

 the higher intellectual and spiritual nature of man. This 

 view was first intimated in the last sentence of my paper 

 on the " Development of Human Races under Natural Selec- 

 tion," in 1864, and more fully treated in the last chapter of 

 my Essays," in 1870. 



These views caused much distress of mind to Darwin, 

 but, as I have shown, they do not in the least affect the 

 general doctrine of natural selection. It might be as well 

 urged that because man has produced the pouter-pigeon, 

 the bull-dog, and the dray-horse, none of which could have 

 been produced by natural selection alone, therefore the 

 agency of natural selection is weakened or disproved. 

 Neither, I urge, is it weakened or disproved if my theory 

 of the origin of man is the true one. 



2. Sextial Selection through Female Choice, — Darwin's 

 theory of sexual selection consists of two quite distinct 

 parts — the combats of males so common among polygamous 

 mammals and birds, and the choice of more musical or 

 more ornamental male birds by the females. The first is 

 an observed fact, and the development of weapons such as 

 horns, canine teeth, spurs, etc., is a result of natural selection 

 acting through such combats. The second is an inference 

 from the observed facts of the display of the male plumage 

 or ornaments ; but the statement that ornaments have been 

 developed by the female's choice of the most beautiful male 



VOL. II. C 



