Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology : a free examination of Darwin's treatise On the origin of species, and of its American reviewers / by Asa Gray.

  • Gray, Asa, 1810-1888.
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology : a free examination of Darwin's treatise On the origin of species, and of its American reviewers / by Asa Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    “ Now,” says the Examiner, “ suppose, for instance, the gills of an aquatic animal converted into lungs, while instinct still compelled a ( continuance under water, would not drowning ensue?” No doubt. |lBut — simply contemplating the facts, instead of theorizing — we : notice that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after (ceasing to be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the ^structure, without supernatural interposition,—just as Darwin wmuld fhave it, if the development of a variety or incipient species, though rrare, were as natural as a metamorphosis. ' “Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly pinspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a cliff, (\would not the descent be hazardously rapid?” Doubtless the animal i(Would be no better supported than the objection. But Darwin makes i very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even i 1 poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an •elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a fsquirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; yet might mot the length of the leap be increased by practice ? The “ North American” reviewer’s position, that the higher brute : animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a heavy iblow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and monkeys. Thus stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as they may ■ in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting to contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that instinct regularly increases ' downward and decreases upward in the scale of being. Now that the I case of the bee is reduced to moderate proportions,^ we know of nothing ; in instinct surpassing that of an animal so high as a bird, the Talegal, the male of which plumes himself upon making a hot-bed in which to • hatch his partner’s eggs, — which he tends and regulates the heat of > about as carefully and skilfully as the unplumed biped does an ecca- leobion.f As to the real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably ' defended by a far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose con- ' elusions we yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the ^ best of dogs “ in that respect upon a level with a considerable propor- r tion of poor humanity,” nor indulge the hope, or indeed the desire, of ! a renewed acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future i life.: * Vide article by Mr. C. Wright, in the Mathematical Monthly for May last, t Vide Minburgh Review for January, 1860, article on “ Acclimatization, eto. t Contributions, Essay on Ctassijication, etc., Vol. I. pp 60-66.