Darwinism | Page 4

origin of the mathematical faculty--The origin of the musical and artistic faculties--Independent proof that these faculties have not been developed by natural selection--The interpretation of the facts--Concluding remarks

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR MAP SHOWING THE 1000-FATHOM LINE 1. DIAGRAM OF VARIATIONS OF LACERTA MURALIS 2. " VARIATION OF LIZARDS 3. " VARIATION OF WINGS AND TAIL OF BIRDS 4. " VARIATION OF DOLICHONYX ORYZIVORUS 5. " VARIATION OF AGELAEUS PHOENICEUS 6. " VARIATION OF CARDINALIS VIRGINIANUS 7. " VARIATION OF TARSUS AND TOES 8. " VARIATION OF BIRDS IN LEYDEN MUSEUM 9. " VARIATION OF ICTERUS BALTIMORE 10. " VARIATION OF AGELAEUS PHOENICEUS 11. " CURVES OF VARIATION 12. " VARIATION OF CARDINALIS VIRGINIANUS 13. " VARIATION OF SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS 14. " VARIATION OF SKULLS OF WOLF 15. " VARIATION OF SKULLS OF URSUS LABIATUS 16. " VARIATION OF SKULLS OF SUS CRISTATUS 17. PRIMULA VERIS (Cowslip). From Darwin's Forms of Flowers 18. GAZELLA SOEMMERRINGI (to show recognition marks) 19. RECOGNITION MARKS OF AFRICAN PLOVERS (from Seebohm's Charadriadae) 20. RECOGNITION OF OEDICNEMUS VERMICULATUS AND OE. SENEGALENSIS (from Seebohm's Charadriadae) 21. RECOGNITION OF CURSORIUS CHALCOPTERUS AND C. GALLICUS (from Seebohm's Charadriadae) 22. RECOGNITION OF SCOLOPAX MEGALA AND S. STENURA (from Seebohm's Charadriadae) 23. METHONA PSIDII AND LEPTALIS ORISE 24. OPTHALMIS LINCEA AND ARTAXA SIMULANS (from the Official Narrative of the Voyage of the Challenger) 25. WINGS OF ITUNA ILIONE AND THYRIDIA MEGISTO (from Proceedings of the Entomological Society) 26. MYGNIMIA AVICULUS AND COLOBORHOMBUS FASCIATIPENNIS 27. MIMICKING INSECTS FROM THE PHILIPPINES (from Semper's Animal Life) 28. MALVA SYLVESTRIS AND M. ROTUNDIFOLIA (from Lubbock's British Wild Flowers in Relation to Insects) 29. LYTHRUM SALICARIA, THREE FORMS OF (from Lubbock's British Wild Flowers in Relation to Insects) 30. ORCHIS PYRAMIDALIS (from Darwin's Fertilisation of Orchids) 31. HUMMING-BIRD FERTILISING MARCGRAVIA NEPENTHOIDES 32. DIAGRAM OF MEAN HEIGHT OF LAND AND DEPTH OF OCEANS 33. GEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE HORSE TRIBE (from Huxley's American Addresses) 34. DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING THE GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS (from Ward's Sketch of Palaeobotany) 35. TRANSFORMATION OF ARTEMIA SALINA TO A. MILHAUSENII (from Semper's Animal Life) 36. BRANCHIPUS STAGNALIS AND ARTEMIA SALINA (from Semper's Animal Life) 37. CHIMPANZEE (TROGLODYTES NIGER)

CHAPTER I
WHAT ARE "SPECIES," AND WHAT IS MEANT BY THEIR "ORIGIN"
Definition of species--Special creation--The early Transmutationists--Scientific opinion before Darwin--The problem before Darwin--The change of opinion effected by Darwin--The Darwinian theory--Proposed mode of treatment of the subject.

The title of Mr. Darwin's great work is--_On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection and the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_. In order to appreciate fully the aim and object of this work, and the change which it has effected not only in natural history but in many other sciences, it is necessary to form a clear conception of the meaning of the term "species," to know what was the general belief regarding them at the time when Mr. Darwin's book first appeared, and to understand what he meant, and what was generally meant, by discovering their "origin." It is for want of this preliminary knowledge that the majority of educated persons who are not naturalists are so ready to accept the innumerable objections, criticisms, and difficulties of its opponents as proofs that the Darwinian theory is unsound, while it also renders them unable to appreciate, or even to comprehend, the vast change which that theory has effected in the whole mass of thought and opinion on the great question of evolution.
The term "species" was thus defined by the celebrated botanist De Candolle: "A species is a collection of all the individuals which resemble each other more than they resemble anything else, which can by mutual fecundation produce fertile individuals, and which reproduce themselves by generation, in such a manner that we may from analogy suppose them all to have sprung from one single individual." And the zoologist Swainson gives a somewhat similar definition: "A species, in the usual acceptation of the term, is an animal which, in a state of nature, is distinguished by certain peculiarities of form, size, colour, or other circumstances, from another animal. It propagates, 'after its kind,' individuals perfectly resembling the parent; its peculiarities, therefore, are permanent."[1]
To illustrate these definitions we will take two common English birds, the rook (Corvus frugilegus) and the crow (Corvus corone). These are distinct species, because, in the first place, they always differ from each other in certain slight peculiarities of structure, form, and habits, and, in the second place, because rooks always produce rooks, and crows produce crows, and they do not interbreed. It was therefore concluded that all the rooks in the world had descended from a single pair of rooks, and the crows in like manner from a single pair of crows, while it was considered impossible that crows could have descended from rooks or vice versa. The "origin"