Fifth Series, Volamo XXXIX.

}

No. 1995.- September 16, 1882.

{

From Beginning,

Vol. CLIV.

.

667

CONTENTS. I. CHARLES DARWIN AND EVOLUTION,

Church Quarterly Review,
II, No NEW THING. Part IV., .

Cornhill Magazine,
II. CAROLINE Fox, JOHN STERLING, AND JOHN
STUART MILL,

Westminster Review,
IV. ROBIN. By Mrs. Parr, author of "Adam
and Eve." Part XV.,

Temple Bar, V. REMINISCENCE OF A MARCH,

Blackwood's Magazine,
VI. The BRETHREN OF DEVENTER,

Cornhill Magazine,
VII. INFLUENCE OF FORESTS UPON STREAMS, Kaffrarian Watchman,

.

.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. Tor Eight Dollars, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents.

2

642

IN A PALM GROVE, ETC.
IN A PALM GROVE.

Hearted with glowing pink,
The cocoa-nut trees grow tall and slim,

On stems so slender,
Not straight, but bending ;

They must be tender,
With their branchless stems and leaves de. Such gossamer sprays to link.

pending, Which look so small,

Here come Alickering butterflies,
So high

Orange and sulphur, a couple of sprites;
Up in the sky,

A couple of gorgeous insects, which rise
That when the fall of a leaf occurs —

And fall and quiver among the lights, A big dead leaf of serrate brown

And circle around the lantana blooms It wonder stirs ;

The orange-colored lantana — and play For it comes down from the crown

With the blooms which are just as yellow as With a swishing sound,

they, And a crash on the ground.

And lose themselves in the jungle glooms.

Golden Hours. GRAHAM L. CAMPBELL Our cocoa-nut garden borders the lake; Has rocks and bushes to form a brake; A sweet green brake, which, girdling The garden, nests many a birdling; A birdling that chirps in the cinnamon shrub, That twitters unseen in the close-growing scrub.

TWO RONDEAUX. And the lake

I.
Mirrors the brake

WORKS DEATH SUCH A CHANGE?
And the huge grey stones;
And laps,

Works Death such change upon our dead,
And flaps,

Doth it such awe around them spread, In whispering tones

That should they suddenly appear, At their base.

At once we'd shrink from them with fear,

Though on their breast we laid our head? This my garden's a beautiful place; In the afternoon hush

Why should their light and ghostly tread What shadows lie

Thus thrill us with a nameless dread, On the turf so green,

If still we bold them all so dear ? Where the foot must crush

Works Death such change? The flowers' satine, As it tramples by. ...

We kiss'd their cold lips on the bier, Flowers that gently look up from their beds,

And weeping wish'd the spirit here;

And shall the wish be all unsaid,
Up, and up, to the trees' lofty heads;
The feathery heads of the cocoa-nut trees,

some night, rising near our bed, So far away up that one scarcely sees

They stand within the moonlight clear ? The great brown nuts which are hanging there,

Works Death such change? Growing and ripening in hot clear air.

II.
The soft grey squirrels run up the boles;

I WOULD NOT SHRINK.
They fly to their airie rooms;
They fly to their nooks and holes

I would not shrink if some dear ghost,
Close under the leafy plumes :

One of the Dead's unnumber'd host, And the shadows of all come flickering down, Should rise in silence of the night, And rest on the turf to sober the shine,

Shrined in an aureole of light,
The hot gold shine,

And pale as snowdrop in the frost,
That would scorch too much
The blossoms which gaze

No! If the brother loved and lost,
On such ardent rays,
And would slay them by too long a burning For me the silent river cross’d,
touch,

For me left worlds all fair and bright,

I would not shrink.
Delicate flowers,
Through the drowsy hours

Oh, if I gauge my heart aright,
Living to breathe in the crystal calm,

Dear would the dead be to my sight. Living to drink in the scents and balm

A vision from the other coast
Of a tropical clime ;

Of one on earth I cherish'd most,
Living to look,

Would be a measureless delight;
For a time,

I would not shrink.
Into Nature's beautiful book.

CHARLES D. BELL, D.D. Azure and flecked with white,

Sunday Magazine.

From The Church Quarterly Review. with regard to some of his views, Mr. CHARLES DARWIN AND EVOLUTION.* Darwin's scientific work has secured him

On April 19th last died Charles Dar. a reputation that in all probability will win in his seventy-fourth year, by general

endure throughout the civilized world for acknowledgment the greatest scientist of many generations to come. It may be the age, and the man whose influence said of him, if of any one, upon the world of thought not only ex- Exegit monumentum ære perennius. ceeds that of any of his contemporaries, A man of such acknowledged eminence, but can scarcely be paralleled by more paradoxical as it may seem to say so, than one or two instances in the centu- is peculiarly the product, the child, of ries which we call modern. If the philo- the age to which he belongs; and this sophical basis of thought be regarded, the fact may assist us to understand our own far-reaching, though in relation to the age and to anticipate, in part, the view mass of mankind indirect, influence of which posterity will take of its distinguishKant, may perhaps, be compared with ing characteristics. If excellence in literathat of Darwin. If an example of the more ture, the expression of the noblest thought direct influence upon popular thought be in the best language, was the dominant sought for, we shall have to go back to intellectual aim three centuries ago, Luther to find the parallel.

Shakespeare, the product of that age, was It is publicly announced that Mr. also its master mind, and has remained Darwin has left his own autobiography its representative. The subsequent ten. amongst bis papers. To its appearance, dency of thought has been to develop the together with such additional details of passionate desire to arrive at scientific his life and of his thought as may be truth, the desire to follow the operations given to the world at some future day, we of nature in her most hidden recesses, shall look forward with very great inter- and to understand the constitution of the est. Until the life is published it would material world. What was scarcely more be premature, as it seems to us, to attempt than a prophecy and an ideal three cento add anything to the sketches of Mr. turies ago, the ideal of scientific inquiry Darwin's career which have already been and of the investigator of nature, has published, and with which most of our gradually become reality. From Bacon's readers are probably familiar. But his writings we might gather most of the scientific writings are in our hands, and essential characters of the ideal man of a few of the thoughts which their perusal science, and it would not be possible to suggests may not be out of place in these find the lineaments of such a conception pages.

more faithfully and fully presented than Whatever may be the ultimate verdict by him who forns the subject of this

paper. Recognizing, as we do, that every * 1. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural truth is a portion of divine light, and be. Selection ; or, The Preservation of Favored Races lieving, as we do, in God's providential in the Struggle for Life. By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. Sixth Edition, with Additions government of the world, we must hold and Corrections to 1872. Twenty-fourth Thousand. that the appearance on the terrestrial London, 1882. 2. The Variation of Animals and Plants under stage of a commanding scientific genius

By the same Author. Second Edi- is a divinely ordered means for the action, revised.

complishment of a great divine purpose. 3. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation And if that which presents itself as new to Ser. By the same Author. Second Edition, re

light demands a change in our previous 4. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and conceptions of things which, at the best, Animals. By the same Author. Ninth Thousand.

we but saw “through a glass, darkly," it The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects. By the same Author. Second is our duty in this case, as in others, to Edition, revised.

impartially consider its claims to be one 6. The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants of those "good and perfect gifts” which By the same Author. Second Edition, revised. 7. The Power of Movement in Plants.

By the

come down “from the Father of lights," same Author, assisted by Francis Darwin.

as it is our duty to “prove or rather to

Domestication.

vised. Thirteenth Thousand.

a

test “all things,” and to “hold fast that I tion of secondary causes has reached its which is good.”

limits and he can no longer see his way,

he is the model of a scientific pioneer. Man should mount on each

It was by the aid of his admirable New height in view; the help whereby hemoral qualities, as well as by the abun.

mounts, The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall,

dance and weight of his arguments, and Since all things suffer change save God the the skill with which he marshalled them, truth,

that he won respectful attention to his Man apprehends him newly at each stage ; theories, however novel, from all who Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done. were qualified to judge. It was these

qualities which largely helped to win for Bacon did not exaggerate when he spoke of the extreme subtlety of nature, win is, and always will be, most commonly

the theory with which the naine of Darand of the patience, the concentration,

associated that of the origin of spethe directness of aim and the perfect hon

cies by natural selection the consid. esty which must be possessed by those who seek to track her footsteps if any some form of it has received, notwith

erable amount of acceptance, which it or worthy result is to be gained. But he

standing that this theory ran counter to could not imagine the immense extent of

the traditional opinions of all religious territory which the exposition of nature

men, and seemed at first sight to threaten that we call science would cover within a

the very foundations of religious belief, few centuries. He cannot have con.

and notwithstanding that a similar theory ceived the vast amount of detail which

had previously encountered the scorn of the man of science would be required to

the scientific world. We may measure master and to co-ordinate. He could not

the extent of the revolution which Mr. anticipate in any adequate measure the

Darwin has effected in educated thought necessity under which investigators would

during the progress of a single generation lie of division of labor.

by recalling the statements which so lib. As an original explorer of nature's se

eral-minded a writer as the late Archcrets, Mr. Darwin is unsurpassed, we

bishop Whately propounded as typical may say, perhaps, unrivalled, in regard to

examples of the false and absurd. those qualities of mind which Bacon perceived to be indispensable. As a patient

Even if you suppose a case she says) where

one or both of the Premises shall be mani. accumulator of facts, an acute experi

festly false and absurd, this will not alter the menter, a ready interpreter of phenomena, as an unswerving, unbiassed searcher conclusion itself may perhaps be absurd also.

conclusiveness of the Reasoning; though the for truth, he was a man after Bacon's own For instance, “ All the Ape tribe are originally heart. In the industry and pains with descended from Reptiles or Insects: Mankind which he acquainted himself with the re- are of the Ape tribe ; therefore Mankind are sults of studies pursued by other diligent originally descended from Reptiles or Insects.” laborers, and in his quickness to perceive Here, every one (except certain French Natuthe evidential force of facts recorded by ralists) would perceive the falsity of all three others, he is eminently typical of the true of these propositions. * man of science, as he is actually required These statements do not indeed exactly to be in the presence of that ample page represent the views of advanced evoluof knowledge, “rich with the spoils of tionists at the present time. It is main. time,” which has been unrolled since Ba- tained that apes and men are collaterally con's days. In his frank and generous descended from some remote common acknowledgment of the merits of other ancestor; the former, it may be, on a dewriters, whether they are hostile or favor scending, the latter on an ascending line: able to his own views, in his earnest en not that men are the lineal descendants deavor to state those views fairly, bis of any known species of apes. In fact, candid admission of difficulties wherever all attempts to pass beyond a general he sees them, and his unhesitating con. fession of ignorance when his investiga- • Whately's Logic, p. 19 (London, 1951).

on

doctrine of evolution and to construct want of scientific caution.” Mr. Darwin's ancestral trees involve a great deal of con- own work offered a conspicuous contrast jecture or of unfounded assertion. But in regard to both these qualities. Its assuredly such examples as those selected abundance of scientific resource, and the by Archbishop Whately would not now patience and cautiousness with which the be put forward by any writer of note as author had arrived at his conclusions, the types, the ne plus ultra, of absurd. compelled at once the attention of the sciity.

entific world, and secured for him the adThe first edition of Mr. Darwin's book herence of some of the foremost thinkers

“The Origin of Species by means of of the age, many of whom afterwards asNatural Selection ” appeared at the close sisted him by communicating facts obof 1859. Previously, the belief enter- served in the course of their own studies, tained generally by naturalists, and almost and which received an explanation from, universally by the rest of the world, was and lent support to, his theory. that species were separate and sudden It was when visiting South America, on creations, and immutable. Mr. Darwin board H. M. ship “Beagle," as naturalist,* himself, at an earlier period, had shared that Mr. Darwin was sorcibly struck with the same view. He was not the first to certain facts that seemed likely to throw proclaim a different one. Here and there, light on the great scientific mystery of the since the beginning of the present cen-origin of species. After his return home tury, a few writers had maintained a doc- in 1837, he devoted twenty-two years to trine of the descent of existing from accumulating and digesting all sorts of previous species, which was more or less facts “ which could possibly have any anticipatory of Mr. Darwin's views. bearing upon it.” At length, finding that Prominent amongst these writers was La- he was not alone in the opinions which he marck, for whom Frenchmen now claim had formed, Mr. Wallace having arrived the honor of having been the true parent at almost identical conclusions, Mr. Darof the evolution theory, and whose merits win was strongly urged by friends to pubMr. Darwin frankly allows.* But the lish his views without any further delay, most widely known work on the subject which accordingly be did, with an abstract was the “Vestiges of Creation,” published of the facts in support of them, in the anonymously in 1843. Of this work Mr. work, entitled “ The Origin of Species by Darwin expresses his opinion that it did means of Natural Selection.” Two emi. excellent service in this country by calling nent scientists liad in this case, as has so attention to the subject and removing often happened in other cases, been simulprejudice. The first part of this verdict taneously working at the same problem, is undoubtedly just; the latter part re- and had arrived at very similar results. quires some qualification. Our own im. It is, however, generally admitted that pression on reading the book in 1852 was the actual conversion of the world to the that the author bad brought forward some solution then propounded, or to somevery striking facts in regard, for example, thing like it, is due to Mr. Darwin. The to the resemblances and differences in Buddhists distinguish between the “ Pacembryological development in widely ceka-Buddha,” him who is "enlightened different species, but that liis explanation for one,” wlio has arrived at truth for of the facts was wild and fanciful. On himself, and the “Sam-Buddha,” or “ verythe whole, the effect of the book was in Buddha,” that rare being, who not only some quarters certainly to strengthen the himself possesses insight, but has the gift prejudice against any doctrine of the de- to make others participate in his knowlvelopment of species, and this was only edge. Without in the least underrating the natural result of a work which, to

Mr. Darwin's “A Naturalist's Journal of Requote Mr. Darwin's own words, displayed searches into the Natural History and Geology of “ little accurate knowledge and a great Countries visited during a Voyage round the World"