rest of nature, are but products of the blind eternal forces of the universe, and believing also that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and all life on the earth necessarily cease--have to contemplate a not very distant future in which all this glorious earth-which for untold millions of years has been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate at last in man-shall be as if it had never existed; who are compelled to suppose that all the slow growths of our race. struggling towards a higher life, all the agony of martyrs, all the groans of victims, all the evil and misery and undeserved suffering of the ages, all the struggles for freedom, all the efforts towards justice, all the aspirations for virtue and the wellbeing of humanity, shall absolutely vanish, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind." As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d'être of the world—with all its complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of man-was the development of the human spirit in association with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of man--the man himself—is so developed, we may well believe that this is the only, or at least the best, way for its development; and we may even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, one of the most efficient means of its growth. For we know that the noblest faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by struggle and effort; it is by unceasing warfare against physical evils and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, courage, self-reliance, and industry have become the common qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with moral evil in all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and selfsacrifice have been steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strengthened by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capable of such noble development, are surely destined for a higher and more permanent exist ence; and we may confidently believe with our greatest living poet That life is not as idle ore, But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit. INDEX A ABBOTT, Dr. C. C., instability of American water - thrushes Mr., drawings of caterpillars Acclimatisation, 94 Achatinellidæ, Gulick on variations Acquired characters, non-heredity of, 440 Acræidæ, mimicry of, 247 Adolias dirtea, sexual diversity of, Ægeriidæ, mimicry by, 240 on North American weeds, 15. Albatross, courtship of great, 287 on degradation of wind-fertilised on insects and flowers, 332 Mr. J. A., on the variability Allen, Mr. J. A., on colour as in- Alluring coloration, 210 intelligence, supposed action of, characteristics of man, 454 usually die painless deaths, 38 most allied to man, 450 Asclepias curassavica, spread of, 28 Australia, spread of the Cape-weed fossil and recent mammals of, Azara, on cause of horses and cattle 19 Barriers, importance of, in questions Bates, Mr. H. W., on varieties of on inedibility of Heliconidæ, on a conspicuous caterpillar, on mimicry, 240, 243, 249 Beddard, Mr. F. E., variations of on plumes of bird of paradise, Beetle and wasp (figs.), 259 Beginnings of important organs, 128 Belt's frog, 266 Birds, rate of increase of, 25 how destroyed, 26 variation among, 49 variation of markings of, 52 diagram showing variation of tarsus and toes, 60 use of structural peculiarities eggs, coloration of, 212 and butterflies, white in tropical sometimes seize inedible butter- mimicry among, 263 Birds, sexual coloration of, 275 choice of female not known to no proof of æsthetic tastes in, and insects at sea, 357 carrying seeds on their feet, ancestral forms of, 407 Boyd Dawkins, on development of on origin of man, 456 Brazil, supposed proof of glaciation Brewer, Professor W. H., on want of Bromelia, animals inhabiting leaves Carriers, 91 Caterpillars, resemblance of, to their Cattle, how they prevent the growth increase of, in St. Domingo, Chambers, Robert, on origin of species, Chance rarely determines survival, Change of conditions, utility of, 326 transferred from useless to use- Charaxes psaphon persecuted by a Chile, numerous red tubular flowers Chimpanzee, figure of, 454 of forests on the pampas, 23 Clover, white, spread of, in New Co-adaptation of parts by variation, Coccinella mimicked by grasshopper, Collingwood, Mr., on butterflies re- Coloration, alluring, 210 a theory of animal, 288 Colour correlated with sterility, 169 in nature, the problem to be constancy, in animals indicates and environment, 190 general theories of animal, 193 produced by surrounding ob- adaptations, local, 199 of wild animals not quite sym- as influenced by locality or development in butterflies, 274 |