book, quotes from Mr. Lewes in regard to Erasmus Darwin, one is led to believe that Mr. Lewes had a very high opinion of that respected grandsire. That is certainly the impression Mr. Darwin desires to convey. We come to the very opposite conclusion, however, when we turn up the passage and read in Mr. Lewes himself, who tells us how Erasmus, "as he proceeds, gets more and more absurd;" how, "as a poet, his Botanic Garden by its tawdry splendour gained him a tawdry reputation; " and how, as a philosopher, his Zoonomia gained him a reputation equally noisy and fleeting." The grandson speaks of his grandfather's "overpowering tendency to theorize and generalize." And certainly no one will dispute as much if he reads the Zoonomia. All life for Erasmus proceeds from an organic filament; there is a different one for the different kingdoms; yet, probably, he says at last, "one and the same kind of living filament is and has been the cause of all organic life." And here I, for my part, prefer the grandfather's filament to the grandson's proteine. Mr. Darwin conjectures seals to begin to feed on shore (ii. 339), and so, consequently, to vary; and yet he admits (ii. 336), "I know of no fact showing any the least incipient variation of seals feeding on the shore." The grandfather will have it, again, that all animals were at first fish, and became amphibious by feeding on shore, and so gradually terrestrial. This is vastly more wholesale than what the grandson says about seals, and yet I know not that the grandfather's teeming imagination ever gave birth to a more Brobdingnagian monster than this on the part of the grand son. At page 141 of the latest issue of the Origin of Species we read: "In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching almost like a whale insects in the water." A bear swimming and catching insects, even as THE BEAR AND THE WHALE. 361 a whale might this on the part of Mr. Darwin is to make easy to us the transition of one animal into another. Truly, as I said, Mr. Darwin does not always scout genealogy! He could not stomach it in the case of Dr. Robert Chambers and the passage of a fish into a reptile; but in fifteen years-the interval between his reading and his writing-he has learned something-he has acquired himself a swallow wide enough for both a whale and a bear. The passage, it seems, according to a note in the Life and Letters (ii. 234), was omitted in the second edition. Nevertheless, it is to be read in the last issue now. Mr. Darwin, then, must have deliberately restored it. I say deliberately, for we find him, November 24, 1859, consulting Lyell about it. "Will you send me one line to say whether I must strike out about the whale? it goes to my heart!" Next day also we find him assuring this same Lyell, "I will certainly leave out the whale and bear." Nay, in September of the following year he cannot help writing once more on the subject to Lyell, but this time-so much has it gone to his heart-appealingly. "Observe," he cries," observe that in my wretched polar bear case I do show the first step by which conversion into a whale 'would be easy,' 'would offer no difficulty!" He had already said in the first of these three letters, "In transitions it is the premier pas qui coute," and we are to understand, therefore, that supplied with the first step of the transition of a bear into a whale we could be at no loss in picturing to ourselves the easy remainder of the entire process. An easy remainder, surely, seeing we had to refer for it only to our own imaginations! It is to the imagination, at all events, that the grandfather testifies great gratitude. He cheerfully allows it a chief place in "metamorphoses," and surely with reason! It shall be the imagination of the mother that colours the eggs of her progeny; he even brings in the imagination of the father in a wonderful (Shandy-an) manner! Then it is by imagination afterwards of the original irritation of the lachrymal glands at birth that we are able during life to weep when in grief, as it is by imagination of our first cold shivering, also at birth, that when in fear we always tremble, etc. I suppose it is still the effects of imagination he alludes to when he says: "The tadpole acquires legs and lungs-when he wants them! and loses his tail -when it is no longer of service to him!" And certainly it is only by a signal effort of the imagination that he himself has been enabled to discover this astonishing rationale and causality of squinting (Zoonomia, ii. 143). Squinting is generally owing to one eye being less perfect than the other, on which account the patient endeavours to hide the worst eye in the shadow of the nose!" We may break off here, and resume next week. GIFFORD LECTURE THE NINETEENTH. Dr. Erasmus Darwin-Student scribbles on Zoonomia--Family differences, attraction and repulsion The Darwins in this respect-Dr. Erasmus of his sons, Mr. Charles and Dr. R. W. -Dr. R. W. as to his sons Charles on his grandfather, father, brother-Mr. Erasmus on his brother's book-On the à priori-On facts - Darwin's one method - Darwin and Hooker on facts-Family politics - Family religion - Family habits - Family theories - Mr. Darwin's endowments - His Journal-The Zoonomia-Theories of Dr. Erasmus-PaleyInstinct - An idea to Dr. E. - Dugald Stewart - Picturethinking-Dr. E.'s method-Darwin's doubts-His brave spirit -The theory to his friends-Now- Almost every propos of the grandson has its germ in the grandfather (Krause) - Yet the position of the latter-Byron on-Mr. Lewes also-The greater Newton, original Darwinism now to be revived - Dr. E. admirable on design-Charles on cats made by God to play with mice!-Dr. E. on atheism-The apology-But will conclude with a single point followed thoroughly out: the Galapagos -Darwin held to be impregnably fortified there-The Galapagos thrown up to opponents at every turn-But we are not naturalists!-Dr. E. rehabilitates us-Description of the Galapagos from the Journal-The islands, their size, number, position, geographical and relative-depth of water and distance between -Climate, currents, wind-Geology, botany, zoology-Volcanoes, dull sickly vegetation, hills, craters, lava, pits, heat, saltpools, water - Tortoises, lizards, birds - Quite a region to suggest theory. WHEN we left off on the last occasion we were engaged in drawing illustrations in regard to the source and nature of the doctrine of natural selection from the special theories and peculiar character of Erasmus Darwin, the elder. We saw how it was the imagination that predominated, whether in the theories or in the man. A curious testimony to this on the part of general readers may be found in the scrawls and scribbles on the University copy of the Zoonomia. Some one has been wicked enough to tear out a good number of pages from one of the volumes. Of scrawls, there occur : Imaginary-Darwin, beware! That is the rock you have split upon, Hypothesis, where other barks as well as yours have been wrecked;" and again, "Darwin's dreams!" One writer laments that Erasmus strayed beyond the Botanic Garden; had he not done so," the writer says, "Then disappointment had not marked thy name; There may have been remarked a peculiarity in some families according as it shall be the principle of attraction or the principle of repulsion that rules in them. Of some the members are, as the Germans say, spröde, mutually repellent; they have no confidences with each other. That they are sons, brothers, sisters is, in respect of one another, a reason for depreciation and disregard, almost for offensive familiarity and contempt. They never think of the opinion of one of themselves as an opinion at all; and with one another there is no end to the liberties they take. With others, all that is reversed. Their geese are all swans. They support each other. In season and out of season they cry each other up. They never think of the members of other families, they never can see anything in them. All on the outside of themselves are the βέβηλοι, indifferent people, people of no account. Charles Darwin was a loyal, modest man, who was quite incapable of being unjust to others. Such a trait, too, is probably to be found, more or less, in all the Darwins. Still, on the whole, perhaps, the Darwins, at least of three generations, may be not too unrighteously admitted to have exhibited |