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Mr. Darwin certainly exaggerates the hesitation, and can then hardly be distinguishe 1 force and extent of social sympathetic from an instinct; yet surely no one will pretend feelings. Mr. Mill admits that they are that an action thus done ceases to be moral. "often wanting; " but Mr. Darwin claims On the contrary, we all feel that an act cannot the conscious possession of such feelings be considered as perfect, or, as performed in the for all, and quotes Hume as saying that most noble manner, unless it is done impulsively, without deliberation or effort, in the same the view of the happiness of others " communicates a secret joy," while the appear- qualities are innate." - vol. i. p. 88. manner as by a man in whom the requisite ance of their misery "throws a melancholy damp over the imagination." One might wish that this remark were universally true, but unfortunately some men take pleasure in the pain of others; and Larochefoucauld even ventured on the now well-known saying, "that there is something in the misfortunes of our best friends not unpleasant to us." But our feeling that the sufferings of others are pleasant or unpleasant has nothing to do with the question, which refers to the judgment whether the indulging of such feelings is "right" or "wrong."

To this must be replied, in one sense, 66 Yes; in another, No." An action which has ceased to be directly or indirectly deliberate has ceased to be moral as a distinct act, but it is moral as the continuation of those preceding deliberate acts through which the good habit was originally formed, and the rapidity with which the will is directed in the case supposed may indicate the number and constancy of antecedent meritorious volitions. Mr. Darwin seems to see this more or less, as he adds: "He who is forced to overcome his fear or want of sympathy before he acts, deserves, however, in one way higher credit than the man whose innate disposition leads him to a good act without effort."

As an illustration of the genesis of remorse, we have the case

If the "social instinct " were the real basis of the moral sense, the fact that society approved of anything would be recognized as the supreme sanction of it. Not only, however, is this not so, not only do we judge as to whether society in certain cases is right or wrong, but we demand a reason why we should obey soci-"of a temporary though for the time strongly ety at all; we demand a rational basis and justification for social claims, if we happen to have a somewhat inquiring tnrn of mind. We shall be sure avowedly or secretly to despise and neglect the performance of acts which we do not happen to desire, and which have not an intellectual sanction.

The only passage in which our author seems as if about to meet the real question at issue is very disappointing, as the difficulty is merely evaded. He remarks, "I am aware that some persons maintain that actions performed impulsively do not come under the dominion of the moral sense, and cannot be called moral" (vol. i. p. 87). This is not a correct statement of the intuitive view, and the difficulty is evaded thus: "But it appears scarcely possible to draw any clear line of distinction of this kind, though the distinction may be real!" It seems to us, however, that there is no difficulty at all in drawing a line between a judgment as to an action being right or wrong and every other kind of mental act. Mr. Darwin goes on to

say:

"Moreover an action repeatedly performed by us will at last be done without deliberation or Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals." Edit. 1751, p. 132.

persistent instinct conquering another instinct which is usually dominant over all others." Swallows "at the proper season seem all day long to be impressed with the desire to migrate; their habits change; they become restless, are noisy, and congregate in flocks. Whilst the mother-bird is feeding or brooding over her nestlings, the maternal instinct probably stronger than the migratory; but the instinct at last, at a moment when her young ones are which is more persistent gains the victory, and not in sight, she takes flight and deserts them. When arrived at the end of her long journey, and the migratory instinct ceases to act, what an agony of remorse each bird would feel, if, from being endowed with great mental activity. she could not prevent the image continually passing before her mind of her young ones perishing in the bleak north from cold and hunger." vol. i. p. 90.

that feeling would be nothing to the purLet us suppose she does suffer " agony," pose. What is requisite is that she shall judge that she ought not to have left them. To make clear our point, let us imagine a which in justice to another his conscience man formerly entangled in ties of affection has induced him to sever. The image of the distress his act of severance has caused may occasion him keen emotional suffering for years, accompanied by a clear percep tion that his act has been right. Again

let us suppose another case: The struggling father of a family becomes aware that the property on which he lives really belongs to another, and he relinquishes it. He may continue to judge that he has done a proper action, whilst tortured by the trials in which his act of justice has involved him. To assert that these acts are merely instinctive would be absurdly false. In the cases supposed, obedience is paid to a clear intellectual perception and against the very strongest instincts.

his own view. Thus, he remarks of the Law of Honour - The breach of this law, even when the breach is known to be strictly accordant with true morality, has caused many a man more agony than a real crime. We recognize the same influence in the sense of burning shame which most of us have felt, even after the interval of years, when calling to mind some accidental breach of a trifling, though fixed, rule of etiquette" (vol. i. p. 92). This is most true; some trifling breach of That we have not misrepresented Mr. good manners may indeed occasion us pain; Darwin's exposition of "conscience" is but this may be unaccompanied by a judgmanifest. He says that if a man has grat- ment that we are morally blameworthy. ified a passing instinct, to the neglect of It is judgment, and not feeling, which has an enduring instinct, he "will then feel to do with right and wrong. But a yet dissatisfied with himself, and will resolve better example might be given. What with more or less force to act differently quality can have been more universally for the future. This is conscience; for useful to social communities than courage? conscience looks backwards and judges It has always been, and is still, greatly past actions, inducing that kind of dissat- admired and highly appreciated, and is isfaction, which if weak we call regret, and especially adapted, both directly and inif severe remorse (vol. i. p. 91). "Con- directly, to enable its possessors to bescience" certainly looks back and judges," but not all that "looks back and judges" is "conscience." A judgment of conscience is one of a particular kind, namely a judgment according to the standard of moral worth. But for this, a gourmand, looking back and judging that a particular sauce had occasioned him dyspepsia, would, in the dissatisfaction arising from his having eaten the wrong dish at dinner, exercise his conscience!

Indeed, elsewhere (vol. i. p. 103) Mr. Darwin speaks of "the standard of morality rising higher and higher," though he nowhere explains what he means either by the "standard" or by the "higher;" and, indeed, it is very difficult to understand what can possibly be meant by this "rising of the standard," if the "standard" is from first to last pleasure and profit.

come the fathers of succeeding generations. If the social instinct were the basis of the mora! sense, it is infallibly certain that courage must have come to be regarded as supremely "good," and cowardice to be deserving of the deepest moral condemnation. And yet what is the fact? A coward feels probably self-contempt and that he has incurred the contempt of his associates, but he does not feel

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wicked." He is painfully conscious of his defective organization, but he knows that an organization, however defective, cannot, in itself, constitute moral demerit. Similarly, we, the observers, despise, avoid, or hate a coward; but we clearly understand that a coward may be a more virtuous man than another who abounds in animal courage.

can

The better to show how completely disWe find, again, the singular remark: tinct are the conceptions "enduring or "If any desire or instinct leading to an strong instincts" and "virtuous desires action opposed to the good of others, still on the one hand, and "transient or weak appears to a man, when recalled to mind, impulses " and " vicious inclinations" on as strong as or stronger than his social in- the other, let us substitute in the followstinct, he will feel no keen regret at having passage for the words which Mr. Daring followed it" (vol. i. p. 92).

win, on his own principles, illegitimately introduces, others which accord with those principles, and we shall see how such substitution eliminates every element of morality from the passage:·

:

Mr. Darwin is continually mistaking a merely beneficial action for a moral one; but, as before said, it is one thing to act well and quite another to be a moral agent. A dog or even a fruit-tree may act well, "Looking to future generations, there but neither is a moral agent. Of course, is no cause to fear that the social instincts all the instances he brings forward with will grow weaker, and we may expect that regard to animals are not in point, on ac- enduring [virtuous] habits will grow count of this misconception of the prob- stronger, becoming perhaps fixed by inlem to be solved. He gives, however, heritance. In this case the struggle besome examples which tell strongly against tween our stronger [higher] and weaker

[lower] impulses will be less severe, and gree, to the female" (vol. ii. p. 128). the strong [virtue] will be triumphant "The colours of the males may safely be (vol. i. p. 104). attributed to sexual selection" (vol. ii. p. 194). As to certain species of birds in which the males alone are black, we are told, there can hardly be a doubt, that blackness in these cases has been a sexually selected character" (vol. ii. p. 226). The following, again, is far too positive a statement:- "Other characters proper to the males of the lower animals, such as bright colours, and various ornaments have been acquired by the more attractive males having been preferred by the females. There are, however, exceptional cases, in which the males, instead of having been selected, have been the selectors" (vol. ii. p. 371).

As to past generations, Mr. Darwin tells us (vol. i. p. 166) that at all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes; and as social acts are an element in their success, sociality must have been intensified, and this because "an increase in the number of well-endowed men will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another." No doubt! but this only explains an augmentation of mutually beneficial actions. It does not in the least even tend to explain how the moral judgment was first formed.

Having thus examined Mr. Darwin's theory of Sexual Selection, and his comparison of the mental powers of man (including their moral application) with those of the lower animals, we have a few remarks to make upon his mode of conducting his argument.

In the first place we must repeat what we have already said as to his singular dogmatism, and in the second place we must complain of the way in which he positively affirms again and again the existence of the very things which have to be proved. Thus, to take for instance the theory of the descent of man from some inferior form he says: "the grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken" (vol. ii. p. 385), and "the possession of exalted mental powers is no insuperable objection to this conclusion" (vol. i. p. 107). Speaking of sympathy, he boldly remarks, "this instinct no doubt was originally acquired like all the other social instincts through natural selection" (vol. i. p. 164); and "the fundamental social instincts were originally thus gained" (vol. i. p. 173).

Again, as to the stridulating organs of insects, he says:- "No one who admits the agency of natural selection, will dispute that these musical instruments have been acquired through sexual selection." Speaking of the peculiarities of hummingbirds and pigeons, Mr. Darwin observes, "the sole difference between these cases is, that in one the result is due to man's selection, whilst in the other, as with hummingbirds, birds of paradise, &c., it is due to sexual selection, that is, to the selection by the females of the more beautiful males" (vol. ii. p. 78). Of birds, the males of which are brilliant, but the hens are only slightly so, he remarks: "these cases are almost certainly due to characters primarily acquired by the male, having been transferred, in a greater or less de

It is very rarely that Mr. Darwin fails in courtesy to his opponents; and we were therefore surprised at the tone of the following passage (vol. ii. p. 386) : — "He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to admit " the contrary. What justifies Mr. Darwin in his assumption that to suppose the soul of man to have been specially created, is to regard the phenomena of nature as disconnected?

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--

In connection with this assumption of superiority on Mr. Darwin's part we may notice another matter of less importance, but which tends to produce the same effect on the minds of his readers. We allude to the terms of panegyric with which he introduces the names or opinions of every disciple of evolutionism, while writers of equal eminence, who have not adopted Mr. Darwin's views, are quoted, for the most part, without any commendation. Thus we read of our "great anatomist and philosopher, Prof. Huxley," - of our great philosopher, Herbert Spencer," of "the remarkable work of Mr. Galton," — of "the admirable treatises of Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock," and so on. We do not grudge these gentleman such honorific mention, which some of them well deserve, but the repetition produces an unpleasant effect; and we venture to question the good taste on Mr. Darwin's part, in thus speaking of the adherents to his own views, when we do not remember, for example, a word of praise bestowed upon Prof. Owen in the numerous quotations which our author has made from his works.

Secondly, as an instance of Mr. Darwin's practice of begging the question at issue,

we may quote the following assertion: |lected. Moreover, we are surprised to Any animal whatever, endowed with find so accurate an observer receiving as well-marked social instincts, would inevita- facts many statements of a very questionbly acquire a moral sense or conscience, as able nature, as we have already pointed soon as its intellectual powers had become out, and frequently on second-hand auas well developed, or nearly as well de- thority. The reasoning also is inconclusive, veloped, as in man" (vol. i. p. 71). This the author having allowed himself conis either a monstrous assumption or a mere stantly to be carried away by the warmth truism; it is a truism, for of course, any and fertility of his imagination. In fact, creature with the intellect of a man would Mr. Darwin's power of reasoning seems to perceive the qualities men's intellect is be in an inverse ratio to his power of obcapable of perceiving, and, amongst them servation. He now strangely exaggerates - moral worth. the action of "sexual selection," as previously he exaggerated the effects of the "survival of the fittest." On the whole, we are convinced that by the present work the cause of "natural selection" has been rather injured than promoted; and we confess to a feeling of surprise that the case put before us is not stronger, since we had anticipated the production of far more telling and significant details from Mr. Darwin's biological treasure-house.

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A great part of the work may be dismissed as beside the point-as a mere elaborate and profuse statement of the obvious fact, which no one denies, that man is an animal, and has all the essential properties of a highly organized one. Along with this truth, however, we find the assum ion that he is no more than an animal-an assumption which is necessarily implied in Mr. Darwin's distinct asserIn tion that there is no difference of kind, but merely one of degree, between man's mental faculties and those of brutes.

Mr. Darwin, in a passage before quoted (vol. i. p. 86) slips in the whole of absolute morality, by employing the phrase appreciation of justice." Again (vol. i. p. 168), when he speaks of aiding the needy, he remarks: "Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature." How noblest? According to Mr. Darwin, a virtuous instinct is a strong and permanent one. There can be, according to his views, no other elements of quality than intensity and duration. Mr. Darwin, in fact, thus silently and unconsciously introduces the moral element into his "social instinct," and then, of course, has no difficulty in finding in the latter what he had previously put there. This, however, is quite illegitimate, as he makes the social instinct synonymous with the gregariousness of brutes. such gregariousness, however, there is no moral element, because the mental powers of brutes are not equal to forming reflective, deliberate, representative judgments. The word "social" is ambiguous, as gregarious animals may metaphorically be called social, and man's social relations may be regarded both beneficentially and morally. Having first used "social" in the former sense, it is subsequently applied in the latter; and it is thus that the really moral conception is silently and illegitimately introduced.

We may now sum up our judgment of Mr. Darwin's work on the "Descent of Man" of its execution and tendency, of what it fails to accomplish and of what it has successfully attained.

We have endeavoured to show that this is distinctly untrue. We maintain that while there is no need to abandon the received position that man is truly an animal, he is yet the only rational one known to us, and that his rationality constitutes a fundamental distinction - one of kind and not one of degree. The estimate we have formed of man's position differs therefore most widely from that of Mr. Darwin.

Mr. Darwin's remarks, before referred to (ante, p. 77), concerning the difference between the instincts of the coccus (or scale insect) and those of the ant-and the bearing of that difference on their zoological position (as both are members of the class insecta) and on that of man - exhibit clearly his misapprehension as to the true significance of man's mental powers.

Although the style of the work is, as we have said, fascinating, nevertheless we think that the author is somewhat encumbered with the multitude of his facts, For in the first place zoological classifiwhich at times he seems hardly able to cation is morphological. That is to say it group and handle so effectively as might is a classification based upon form and be expected from his special talent. Nor structure upon the number and shape does he appear to have maturely reflected of the several parts of animals, and not at over the data he has so industriously col-all upon what those parts do, the consider

ation of which belongs to physiology. This being the case we not only may, but should, in the field of zoology, neglect all questions of diversities of instinct or mental power, equally with every other power, as is evidenced by the location of the bat and the porpoise in the same class, mammalia, and the parrot and the tortoise in the same larger group, Sauropsida.

Looking, therefore, at man with regard to his bodily structure, we not only may, but should, reckon him as a member of the class mammalia, and even (we believe) consider him as the representative of a mere family of the first order of that class. But all men are not zoologists; and even zoologists must, outside their science, consider man in his totality and not merely from the point of view of anatomy.

If then we are right in our confident assertion that man's mental faculties are different in kind from those of brutes, and if he is, as we maintain, the only rational animal; then is man, as a whole, to be spoken of by preference from the point of view of his animality, or from the point of view of his rationality? Surely from the latter, and, if so, we must consider not structure, but action.

uting a rudiment of rationality to any brute whatever.

We seem then to have Mr. Darwin on our side when we affirm that animals possessed of mental faculties distinct in kind should be placed in a kingdom apart. And man possesses such a distinction.

Is this, however, all that can be said for the dignity of his position? Is he merely one division of the visible universe co-ordinate with the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ?

It would be so if he were intelligent and no more. If he could observe the facts of his own existence, investigate the co-existences and successions of phenomena, but all the time remain like the other parts of the visible universe a mere floating unit in the stream of time, incapable of one act of free self-determination or one voluntary moral aspiration after an ideal of absolute goodness. This, however, is far from being the case. Man is not merely an intellectual animal, but he is also a free moral agent, and, as such and with the infinite future such freedom opens out before him — differs from all the rest of the visible universe by a distinction so profound that none of those which separate other visible beings is comparable with it. The gulf which lies between his being as a whole, and that of the highest brute, marks off vastly more than a mere kingdom of material beings; and man, so considered, differs far more from an elephant or a gorilla than do these from the dust of the earth on which they tread.

Now Mr. Darwin seems to concede that a difference in kind would justify the placing of man in a distinct kingdom, inasmuch as he says a difference in degree does not so justify; and we have no hesitation in affirming (with Mr. Darwin) that between the instinctive powers of the coccus and the ant there is but a difference of degree, and that, therefore, they do be- Thus, then, in our judgment the author long to the same kingdom; but we con- of the "Descent of Man" has utterly tend it is quite otherwise with man. Mr. failed in the only part of his work which is Darwin doubtless admits that all the won- really important. Mr. Darwin's errors are derful actions of ants are mere modifica- mainly due to a radically false metaphysitions of instinct. But if it were not so- cal system in which he seems (like so if the piercing of tunnels beneath rivers, many other physicists) to have become en&c., were evidence of their possession of tangled. Without a sound philosophical reason, then, far from agreeing with Mr. basis, however, no satisfactory scientific Darwin, we should say that ants also are superstructure can ever be reared; and if rational animals, and that, while considered Mr. Darwin's failure should lead to an infrom the anatomical stand-point they would crease of philosophic culture on the part be insects, from that of their rationality of physicists, we may therein find some they would rank together with man in a consolation for the injurious effects which kingdom apart of "rational animals." his work is likely to produce on too many Really, however, there is no tittle of evi- of our half-educated classes. We sincerely dence that ants possess the reflective, self- trust Mr. Darwin may yet live to furnish conscious, deliberate faculty; while the us with another work, which, while enrichperfection of their instincts is a most pow-ing physical science, shall not, with neederful argument against the need of attrib- less opposition, set at naught the first principles of both philosophy and religion.

"Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 186.