text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/141

V

Isolation is no doubt an important aid to natural selection, as shown by the fact that islands so often present a number of peculiar species; and the same thing is seen on the two sides of a great mountain range or on opposite coasts of a continent. The importance of isolation is twofold. In the first place, it leads to a body of individuals of each species being limited in their range and thus subjected to uniform conditions for long spaces of time. Both the direct action of the environment and the natural selection of such varieties only as are suited to the conditions, will, therefore, be able to produce their full effect. In the second place, the process of change will not be interfered with by intercrossing with other individuals which are becoming adapted to somewhat different conditions in an adjacent area. But this question of the swamping effects of intercrossing will be considered in another chapter.

Mr. Darwin was of opinion that, on the whole, the largeness of the area occupied by a species was of more importance than isolation, as a factor in the production of new species, and in this I quite agree with him. It must, too, be remembered, that isolation will often be produced in a continuous area whenever a species becomes modified in accordance with varied conditions or diverging habits. For example, a wide-ranging species may in the northern and colder part of its area become modified in one direction, and in the southern part in another direction; and though for a long time an intermediate form may continue to exist in the intervening area, this will be likely soon to die out, both because its numbers will be small, and it will be more or less pressed upon in varying seasons by the modified varieties, each better able to endure extremes of climate. So, when one portion of a terrestrial species takes to a more arboreal or to a more aquatic mode of life, the change of habit itself leads to the isolation of each portion. Again, as will be more fully explained in a future chapter, any difference of habits or of haunts usually leads to some modification of colour or marking, as a means of concealment from enemies; and there is reason to believe that this difference will be intensified by natural selection as a means of identification


text:
Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/110

494 the pipe, clean and shining, in the cabinet.

There was a different hardness about Mrs. DeBrugh. No longer was she content with driving Letty like a slave day in and day out. She became even more unbearable.

There were little things, like taking away her privilege of having Saturday afternoons off. And the occasional "forgetting" of Letty's weekly pay.

Once Letry thought of leaving during the night, of packing her few clothes and going for ever from the house. But that was foolish. There was no place to go, and she was getting too old for maid service.

Besides, hadn't Mr. DeBrugh said she would be taken care of. "After Mrs. DeBrugh and I are gone." Perhaps she would not live much longer.

And then one morning Mrs. DeBrugh called Letty in to talk with her. It was the hour Letty had been awaiting—and dreading.

There was a harsh, gloating tone in Mrs. DeBrugh's voice as she spoke. She was the master now. There was no Hector to think of.

"Letty," she said, "for some time now I have been considering closing the house. I'm lonely here. I intend to go to the city and live with my sister. So, you see, I shan't be needing you any longer. I'll be leaving within the next two days. I'm sorry."

Letty was speechless. She had expected something terrible, but not this. This wasn't so! Mrs. DeBrugh was lying! It was the will she was afraid of. Letty remembered Mr. DeBrugh's promise.

She did not complain, however. Her only words were, "I'll leave tomorrow."

That night she packed her things. She had no definite plans, but she hoped something would turn up.

would not come easy, so Letty lay in bed and thought of old Mr. DeBrugh. She imagined he was before her in the room, reclining on the sofa, puffing long on the meerschaum. She even saw in fancy the curling wisps of gray smoke drifting upward, upward....

It was sleep. Then, with a start, she was suddenly wide awake.

She had surely heard a scream. But no.

And then, as soft and as silent as the night wind, came the whisper: "Letty."

It drifted slowly off into silence, and a cool breeze crossed her brow. She suddenly felt wet with perspiration. She listened closely, but the whisper was not repeated.

Then, noiselessly, she got out of bed, stepped into slippers, and drew a robe about her. Just as silently she left her room and walked down the hall to Mrs. DeBrugh's bedroom.

She rapped softly on the door, fearing the wrath of the woman within at being awakened in the middle of the night. There was no answer, no sound from inside the room.

Letty hesitated, wondering what to do. And once more she felt that cool, deathlike breeze, and heard the faintest of whispers, fainter even than the sighing of the night wind: "Letty."

She opened the door and switched on the light, Mrs. DeBrugh lay in the bed as in sleep, but Letty knew, as she had known about Mr. DeBrugh, that it was more than sleep.

She quickly called the doctor, and sometime much later he arrived, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep.

"Dead," he remarked, after looking at the body. "Probably had a shock. Fright, nightmare, or something her heart couldn't stand. I always thought. she would have died first."

Letty walked slowly from the room,

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/101

Rh And the upshot of it was, he smuggled me and the unwanted painting out of the Museum. Never mind how. I have done quite enough as it is to jeopardize his job and my own welcome up there.

not until I had paid off my taxi and lugged the unwieldy parallelogram of canvas and wood upstairs to my bachelor apartment that I bothered to wonder if it might be valuable. I never did find out, but from the first I was deeply impressed.

Hung over my own fireplace, it looked as large and living as a scene glimpsed through a window or, perhaps, on a stage in a theater. The capering pink bodies caught new lights from my lamp, lights that glossed and intensified their shape and color but did not reveal any new details. I pored once more over the cryptic legend: I sold my soul that I might paint a living picture.

A living picture—was it that? I could not answer. For all my honest delight in such things, I cannot be called expert or even knowing as regards art. Did I even like the Golgotha painting? I could not be sure of that, either. And the rest of the inscription, about selling a soul; I was considerably intrigued by that, and let my thoughts ramble on the subject of Satanist complexes and the vagaries of half-crazy painters. As I read, that evening, I glanced up again and again at my new possession. Sometimes it seemed ridiculous, sometimes sinister. Shortly after midnight I rose, gazed once more, and then turned out the parlor lamp. For a moment, or so it seemed, I could see those dancers, so many dim-pink silhouettes in the sudden darkness. I went to the kitchen for a bit of whisky and water, and thence to my bedroom.

I had dreams. In them I was a boy again, and my mother and sister were leaving the house to go to a theater where—think of it!—Richard Mansfield would play Bean Brummell. I, the youngest, was told to stay at home and mind the troublesome furnace. I wept copiously in my disappointed loneliness, and then Mansfield himself stalked in, in full Brummell regalia. He laughed goldenly and stretched out his hand in warm greeting. I, the lad of my dreams, put out my own hand, then was frightened when he would not loosen his grasp. I tugged, and he laughed again. The gold of his laughter turned suddenly hard, cold. I tugged with all my strength, and woke.

Something held me tight by the wrist.

In my first half-moment of wakefulness I was aware that the room was filled with the pink dancers of the picture, in nimble, fierce-happy motion. They were man-size, too, or nearly so, visible in the dark with the dim radiance of fox-fire. On the small scale of the painting they had seemed no more than babyishly plump; now they were gross, like huge erect toads. And, as I awakened fully, they were closing in, a menacing ring of them, around my bed. One stood at my right side, and its grip, clumsy and rubbery-hard like that of a monkey, was closed upon my arm.

I saw and sensed all this, as I say, in a single moment. With the sensing came the realization of peril, so great that I did not stop to wonder at the uncanniness of my visitors. I tried frantically to jerk loose. For the moment I did not succeed and as I thrashed about, throwing my body nearly across the bed, a second dancer dashed in from the left. It seized and clamped my other arm. I felt, rather than heard, a wave of soft, wordless merriment from them all. My heart and sinews seemed to fail, and briefly I lay still in a daze of horror, pinned down crucifix-fashion between my two captors.


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/142

 and recognition by members of the same variety or incipient species. It has also been observed that each differently coloured variety of wild animals, or of domesticated animals which have run wild, keep together, and refuse to pair with individuals of the other colours; and this must of itself act to keep the races separate as completely as physical isolation.

As natural selection acts solely by the preservation of useful variations, or those which are beneficial to the organism under the conditions to which it is exposed, the result must necessarily be that each species or group tends to become more and more improved in relation to its conditions. Hence we should expect that the larger groups in each class of animals and plants—those which have persisted and have been abundant throughout geological ages—would, almost necessarily, have arrived at a high degree of organisation, both physical and mental. Illustrations of this are to be seen everywhere. Among mammalia we have the carnivora, which from Eocene times have been becoming more and more specialised, till they have culminated in the cat and dog tribes, which have reached a degree of perfection both in structure and intelligence fully equal to that of any other animals. In another line of development, the herbivora have been specialised for living solely on vegetable food till they have culminated in the sheep, the cattle, the deer, and the antelopes. The horse tribe, commencing with an early four-toed ancestor in the Eocene age, has increased in size and in perfect adaptation of feet and teeth to a life on open plains, and has reached its highest perfection in the horse, the ass, and the zebra. In birds, also, we see an advance from the imperfect tooth-billed and reptile-tailed birds of the secondary epoch, to the wonderfully developed falcons, crows, and swallows of our time. So, the ferns, lycopods, conifers, and monocotyledons of the palæozoic and mesozoic rocks, have developed into the marvellous wealth of forms of the higher dicotyledons that now adorn the earth.

But this remarkable advance in the higher and larger groups does not imply any universal law of progress in organisation, because we have at the same time numerous examples (as has been already pointed out) of the persistence of lowly organised


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/143

 forms, and also of absolute degradation or degeneration. Serpents, for example, have been developed from some lizard-like type which has lost its limbs; and though this loss has enabled them to occupy fresh places in nature and to increase and flourish to a marvellous extent, yet it must be considered to be a retrogression rather than an advance in organisation. The same remark will apply to the whale tribe among mammals; to the blind amphibia and insects of the great caverns; and among plants to the numerous cases in which flowers, once specially adapted to be fertilised by insects, have lost their gay corollas and their special adaptations, and have become degraded into wind-fertilised forms. Such are our plantains, our meadow burnet, and even, as some botanists maintain, our rushes, sedges, and grasses. The causes which have led to this degeneration will be discussed in a future chapter; but the facts are undisputed, and they show us that although variation and the struggle for existence may lead, on the whole, to a continued advance of organisation; yet they also lead in many cases to a retrogression, when such retrogression may aid in the preservation of any form under new conditions. They also lead to the persistence, with slight modifications, of numerous lowly organised forms which are suited to places which higher forms could not fully occupy, or to conditions under which they could not exist. Such are the ocean depths, the soil of the earth, the mud of rivers, deep caverns, subterranean waters, etc.; and it is in such places as these, as well as in some oceanic islands which competing higher forms have not been able to reach, that we find many curious relics of an earlier world, which, in the free air and sunlight and in the great continents, have long since been driven out or exterminated by higher types.

We have now passed in review, in more or less detail, the main facts on which the theory of "the origin of species by means of natural selection" is founded. In future chapters we shall have to deal mainly with the application of the theory to explain the varied and complex phenomena presented by the organic world; and, also, to discuss some of the theories put forth by modern writers, either as being more fundamental than


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/144

 that of Darwin or as supplementary to it. Before doing this, however, it will be well briefly to summarise the facts and arguments already set forth, because it is only by a clear comprehension of these that the full importance of the theory can be appreciated and its further applications understood.

The theory itself is exceedingly simple, and the facts on which it rests—though excessively numerous individually, and coextensive with the entire organic world—yet come under a few simple and easily understood classes. These facts are,—first, the enormous powers of increase in geometrical progression possessed by all organisms, and the inevitable struggle for existence among them; and, in the second place, the occurrence of much individual variation combined with the hereditary transmission of such variations. From these two great classes of facts, which are universal and indisputable, there necessarily arises, as Darwin termed it, the "preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life," the continuous action of which, under the ever-changing conditions both of the inorganic and organic universe, necessarily leads to the formation or development of new species.

But, although this general statement is complete and indisputable, yet to see its applications under all the complex conditions that actually occur in nature, it is necessary always to bear in mind the tremendous power and universality of the agencies at work. We must never for an instant lose sight of the fact of the enormously rapid increase of all organisms, which has been illustrated by actual cases, given in our second chapter, no less than by calculations of the results of unchecked increase for a few years. Then, never forgetting that the animal and plant population of any country is, on the whole, stationary, we must be always trying to realise the ever-recurring destruction of the enormous annual increase, and asking ourselves what determines, in each individual case, the death of the many, the survival of the few. We must think over all the causes of destruction to each organism,—to the seed, the young shoot, the growing plant, the full-grown tree, or shrub, or herb, and again the fruit and seed; and among animals, to the egg or new-born young, to the youthful, and to the adults. Then, we must always bear in mind that what goes on in the case of the individual or family group we may


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/145

 observe or think of, goes on also among the millions and scores of millions of individuals which are comprised in almost every species; and must get rid of the idea that chance determines which shall live and which die. For, although in many individual cases death may be due to chance rather than to any inferiority in those which die first, yet we cannot possibly believe that this can be the case on the large scale on which nature works. A plant, for instance, cannot be increased unless there are suitable vacant places its seeds can grow in, or stations where it can overcome other less vigorous and healthy plants. The seeds of all plants, by their varied modes of dispersal, may be said to be seeking out such places in which to grow; and we cannot doubt that, in the long run, those individuals whose seeds are the most numerous, have the greatest powers of dispersal, and the greatest vigour of growth, will leave more descendants than the individuals of the same species which are inferior in all these respects, although now and then some seed of an inferior individual may chance to be carried to a spot where it can grow and survive. The same rule will apply to every period of life and to every danger to which plants or animals are exposed. The best organised, or the most healthy, or the most active, or the best protected, or the most intelligent, will inevitably, in the long run, gain an advantage over those which are inferior in these qualities; that is, the fittest will survive, the fittest being, in each particular case, those which are superior in the special qualities on which safety depends. At one period of life, or to escape one kind of danger, concealment may be necessary; at another time, to escape another danger, swiftness; at another, intelligence or cunning; at another, the power to endure rain or cold or hunger; and those which possess all these faculties in the fullest perfection will generally survive.

Having fully grasped these facts in all their fulness and in their endless and complex results, we have next to consider the phenomena of variation, discussed in the third and fourth chapters; and it is here that perhaps the greatest difficulty will be felt in appreciating the full importance of the evidence as set forth. It has been so generally the practice to speak of variation as something exceptional and comparatively rare—as an abnormal deviation from the uniformity and stability of the


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/146

 characters of a species—and so few even among naturalists have ever compared, accurately, considerable numbers of individuals, that the conception of variability as a general characteristic of all dominant and widespread species, large in its amount and affecting, not a few, but considerable masses of the individuals which make up the species, will be to many entirely new. Equally important is the fact that the variability extends to every organ and every structure, external and internal; while perhaps most important of all is the independent variability of these several parts, each one varying without any constant or even usual dependence on, or correlation with, other parts. No doubt there is some such correlation in the differences that exist between species and species—more developed wings usually accompanying smaller feet and vice versâ—but this is, generally, a useful adaptation which has been brought about by natural selection, and does not apply to the individual variability which occurs within the species.

It is because these facts of variation are so important and so little understood, that they have been discussed in what will seem to some readers wearisome and unnecessary detail. Many naturalists, however, will hold that even more evidence is required; and more, to almost any amount, could easily have been given. The character and variety of that already adduced will, however, I trust, convince most readers that the facts are as stated; while they have been drawn from a sufficiently wide area to indicate a general principle throughout nature.

If, now, we fully realise these facts of variation, along with those of rapid multiplication and the struggle for existence, most of the difficulties in the way of comprehending how species have originated through natural selection will disappear. For whenever, through changes of climate, or of altitude, or of the nature of the soil, or of the area of the country, any species are exposed to new dangers, and have to maintain themselves and provide for the safety of their offspring under new and more arduous conditions, then, in the variability of all parts, organs, and structures, no less than of habits and intelligence, we have the means of producing modifications which will certainly bring the species into harmony with its


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/147

 new conditions. And if we remember that all such physical changes are slow and gradual in their operation, we shall see that the amount of variation which we know occurs in every new generation will be quite sufficient to enable modification and adaptation to go on at the same rate. Mr. Darwin was rather inclined to exaggerate the necessary slowness of the action of natural selection; but with the knowledge we now possess of the great amount and range of individual variation, there seems no difficulty in an amount of change, quite equivalent to that which usually distinguishes allied species, sometimes taking place in less than a century, should any rapid change of conditions necessitate an equally rapid adaptation. This may often have occurred, either to immigrants into a new land, or to residents whose country has been cut off by subsidence from a larger and more varied area over which they had formerly roamed. When no change of conditions occurs, species may remain unchanged for very long periods, and thus produce that appearance of stability of species which is even now often adduced as an argument against evolution by natural selection, but which is really quite in harmony with it.

On the principles, and by the light of the facts, now briefly summarised, we have been able, in the present chapter, to indicate how natural selection acts, how divergence of character is set up, how adaptation to conditions at various periods of life has been effected, how it is that low forms of life continue to exist, what kind of circumstances are most favourable to the formation of new species, and, lastly, to what extent the advance of organisation to higher types is produced by natural selection. We will now pass on to consider some of the more important objections and difficulties which have been advanced by eminent naturalists.


text: Darwinism (Wallace)/Chapter V

title: Darwinism (Wallace)/Chapter V


text:
User talk:Ret.Prof/Gospel Paralipomena

This is not a Wikisource article: It is an individual user's work in progress page. See Paralipomena See also Jesus in the Talmud and Celsus

title: User talk:Ret.Prof/Gospel Paralipomena


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/1


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/2


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/3


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/28

8 guardroom, receiving light and air through one heavily barred window, said: "Drive the scoundrels in there."

The sergeant, tightening his grip upon the stick he carried in virtue of his rank, executed this order with alacrity and zeal. He hit Gaspar Ruiz, whose movements were slow, over his head and shoulders. Gaspar Ruiz stood still for a moment under the shower of blows, biting his lip thoughtfully as if absorbed by a perplexing mental process—then followed the others without haste. The door was locked, and the adjutant carried off the key.

By noon the heat of that vaulted place crammed to suffocation had become unbearable. The prisoners crowded towards the window, begging their guards for a drop of water; but the soldiers remained lying in indolent attitudes wherever there was a little shade under a wall, while the sentry sat with his back against the door smoking a cigarette, and raising his eyebrows philosophically from time to time. Gaspar Ruiz had pushed his way to the window with irresistible force. His capacious chest needed more air than the others; his big face, resting with its chin on the ledge, pressed close to the bars, seemed to support the other faces crowding up for breath. From moaned entreaties they had passed to desperate cries, and the tumultuous howling of those thirsty men obliged a young officer who was just then crossing the courtyard to shout in order to make himself heard.

"Why don't you give some water to these prisoners?"

The sergeant, with an air of surprised innocence, excused himself by the remark that all those men were condemned to die in a very few hours.

Lieutenant Santierra stamped his foot. "They are condemned to death, not to torture," he shouted, "Give them some water at once."

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/28


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/29

Rh Impressed by this appearance of anger, the soldiers bestirred themselves, and the sentry, snatching up his musket, stood to attention.

But when a couple of buckets were found and filled from the well, it was discovered that they could not be passed through the bars, which were set too close. At the prospect of quenching their thirst, the shrieks of those trampled down in the struggle to get near the opening became very heartrending. But when the soldiers who had lifted the buckets towards the window put them to the ground again helplessly, the yell of disappointment was still more terrible.

The soldiers of the army of Independence were not equipped with canteens. A small tin cup was found, but its approach to the opening caused such a commotion, such yells of rage and pain in the vague mass of limbs behind the straining faces at the window, that Lieutenant Santierra cried out hurriedly, "No, no—you must open the door, sergeant."

The sergeant, shrugging his shoulders, explained that he had no right to open the door even if he had had the key. But he had not the key. The adjutant of the garrison kept the key. Those men were giving much unnecessary trouble, since they had to die at sunset in any case. Why they had not been shot at once early in the morning he could not understand.

Lieutenant Santierra kept his back studiously to the window. It was at his earnest solicitations that the Commandante had delayed the execution. This favour had been granted to him in consideration of his distinguished family and of his father's high position amongst the chiefs of the Republican party. Lieutenant Santierra believed that the General commanding would visit the fort some time in the afternoon, and he ingenuously hoped that his naive intercession would induce

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/29


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/30

10 that severe man to pardon some, at least, of those criminals. In the revulsion of his feeling his interference stood revealed now as guilty and futile meddling. It appeared to him obvious that the general would never even consent to listen to his petition. He could never save those men, and he had only made himself responsible for the sufferings added to the cruelty of their fate.

"Then go at once and get the key from the adjutant," said Lieutenant Santierra.

The sergeant shook his head with a sort of bashful smile, while his eyes glanced sideways at Gaspar Ruiz's face, motionless and silent, staring through the bars at the bottom of a heap of other haggard, distorted, yelling faces.

His worship the adjutant de Plaza, the sergeant murmured, was having his siesta; and supposing that he, the sergeant, would be allowed access to him, the only result he expected would be to have his soul flogged out of his body for presuming to disturb his worship's repose. He made a deprecatory movement with his hands, and stood stock-still, looking down modestly upon his brown toes.

Lieutenant Santierra glared with indignation, but hesitated. His handsome oval face, as smooth as a girl's, flushed with the shame of his perplexity. Its nature humiliated his spirit. His hairless upper lip trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of rage or into tears of dismay.

Fifty years later, General Santierra, the venerable relic of revolutionary times, was well able to remember the feelings of the young lieutenant. Since he had given up riding altogether, and found it difficult to walk beyond the limits of his garden, the general's greatest delight was to entertain in his house the officers of the foreign men-of-war visiting the harbour.

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/30


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/31

Rh For Englishmen he had a preference, as for old companions in arms. English naval men of all ranks accepted his hospitality with curiosity, because he had known Lord Cochrane and had taken part, on board the patriot squadron commanded by that marvellous seaman, in the cutting out and blockading operations before Callao—an episode of unalloyed glory in the wars of Independence and of endless honour in the fighting tradition of Englishmen. He was a fair linguist, this ancient survivor of the Liberating armies. A trick of smoothing his long white beard whenever he was short of a word in French or English imparted an air of leisurely dignity to the tone of his reminiscences.

  III

", my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have? A youth of seventeen summers, without worldly experience, and owing my rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest his soul. I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the disobedience of that subordinate, who, after all, was responsible for those prisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself dreaded going to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his rough and cutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit except his savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from the first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was only a fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but I shrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers.

"I don't remember having been so miserable in my life before or since. The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant to fall dead at

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/31


text:
Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/4

 ''

''


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/5


text:
Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/6

 Junius Henderson


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/7


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/9


text:
Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/10

 Henderson's copy,

presented by Mrs.

Bess Green Henderson

to July 1954

Two typewritten copies of these notes were made by me, the original and a carbon copy, the former to be placed in the library of the University of Colorado, the other retained by me as partial compensation for the laborious task of deciphering, transcribing, annotating and indexing the notes. The original note-books are placed in the Gale collection of nests and eggs in the University of Colorado, which is part of the Guggenheim Biological Collection.

Junius Henderson.


text: Page:DenisGale annotated notebook complete2.pdf/11


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/32

12 my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out of that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window who had heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation: one of these fellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order the soldiers to fire through the window. His insane loquacity made my heart turn faint. And my feet were like lead. There was no higher officer to whom I could appeal. I had not even the firmness of spirit to simply go away.

"Benumbed by my remorse, I stood with my back to the window. You must not suppose that all this lasted a long time. How long could it have been? A minute? If you measured by mental suffering it was like a hundred years; a longer time than all my life has been since. No, certainly, it was not so much as a minute. The hoarse screaming of those miserable wretches died out in their dry throats, and then suddenly a voice spoke, a deep voice muttering calmly. It called upon me to turn round.

"That voice, señores, proceeded from the head of Gaspar Ruiz. Of his body I could see nothing. Some of his fellow-captives had clambered upon his back. He was holding them up. His eyes blinked without looking at me. That and the moving of his lips was all he seemed able to manage in his overloaded state. And when I turned round, this head, that seemed more than human size resting on its chin under a multitude of other heads, asked me whether I really desired to quench the thirst of the captives.

"I said, 'Yes, yes!' eagerly, and came up quite close to the window. I was like a child, and did not

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/32


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/33

Rh know what would happen. I was anxious to be comforted in my helplessness and remorse.

"'Have you the authority, Señor teniente, to release my wrists from their bonds?' Gaspar Ruiz's head asked me.

"His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinked upon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard.

"As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: 'What do you mean? And how can I reach the bonds on your wrists?'

"'I will try what I can do,' he said; and then that large staring head moved at last, and all the wild faces piled up in that window disappeared, tumbling down. He had shaken his load off with one movement, so strong he was.

"And he had not only shaken it off, but he got free of the crush and vanished from my sight. For a moment there was no one at all to be seen at the window. He had swung about, butting and shouldering, clearing a space for himself in the only way he could do it with his hands tied behind his back.

"Finally, backing to the opening, he pushed out to me between the bars his wrists, lashed with many turns of rope. His hands, very swollen, with knotted veins, looked enormous and unwieldy. I saw his bent back. It was very broad. His voice was like the muttering of a bull.

"'Cut, Señor teniente. Cut!'

"I drew my sword, my new unblunted sword that had seen no service as yet, and severed the many turns of the hide rope. I did this without knowing the why and the wherefore of my action, but as it were compelled by my faith in that man. The sergeant made as if to cry out, but astonishment deprived him of his

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/33


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/34

14 voice, and he remained standing with his mouth open as if overtaken by sudden imbecility.

"I sheathed my sword and faced the soldiers. An air of awestruck expectation had replaced their usual listless apathy. I heard the voice of Gaspar Ruiz shouting inside, but the words I could not make out plainly. I suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented the influence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence that with ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily vigour. In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account of the numbness of his arms and hands, which lasted for some time.

"The sergeant had recovered his power of speech. 'By all the saints!' he cried, 'we shall have to get a cavalry man with a lasso to secure him again, if he is to be led to the place of execution. Nothing less than a good enlazador on a good horse can subdue him. Your worship was pleased to perform a very mad thing.'

"I had nothing to say. I was surprised myself, and I felt a childish curiosity to see what would happen next. But the sergeant was thinking of the difficulty of controlling Gaspar Ruiz when the time for making an example would come.

"'Or perhaps,' the sergeant pursued, vexedly, 'we shall be obliged to shoot him down as he dashes out when the door is opened.' He was going to give further vent to his anxieties as to the proper carrying out of the sentence; but he interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation, snatched a musket from a soldier, and stood watchful with his eyes fixed on the window.

  IV

" had clambered up on the sill, and sat down there with his feet against the thickness of the

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/34


text:
Page:A Set of Six.djvu/35

Rh wall and his knees slightly bent. The window was not quite broad enough for the length of his legs. It appeared to my crestfallen perception that he meant to keep the window all to himself. He seemed to be taking up a comfortable position. Nobody inside dared to approach him now he could strike with his hands.

" ' Por Dios! ' I heard the sergeant muttering at my elbow, 'I shall shoot him through the head now, and get rid of that trouble. He is a condemned man.'

"At that I looked at him angrily. 'The general has not confirmed the sentence,' I said—though I knew well in my heart that these were but vain words. The sentence required no confirmation. 'You have no right to shoot him unless he tries to escape,' I added, firmly.

"'But sangre de Dios! ' the sergeant yelled out, bringing his musket up to the shoulder, 'he is escaping now. Look!'

"But I, as if that Gaspar Ruiz had cast a spell upon me, struck the musket upward, and the bullet flew over the roofs somewhere. The sergeant dashed his arm to the ground and stared. He might have commanded the soldiers to fire, but he did not. And if he had he would not have been obeyed, I think, just then.

"With his feet against the thickness of the wall and his hairy hands grasping the iron bar, Gaspar sat still. It was an attitude. Nothing happened for a time. And suddenly it dawned upon us that he was straightening his bowed back and contracting his arms. His lips were twisted into a snarl. Next thing we perceived was that the bar of forged iron was being bent slowly by the mightiness of his pull. The sun was beating full upon his cramped, unquivering figure. A

title: Page:A Set of Six.djvu/35


text:
Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/102

486 Was that a hammer raised above me as I sprawled?

There rushed and swelled into me the sudden startled strength that sometimes favors the desperate. I screamed like any wild thing caught in a trap, rolled somehow out of bed and to my feet. One of the beings I shook off and the other I dashed against the bureau. Freed, I made for the bedroom door and the front of the apartment, stumbling and staggering on fear-weakened legs.

One of the dim-shining pink things barred my way at the very threshold, and the others were closing in behind, as if for a sudden rush. I flung my right fist with all my strength and weight. The being bobbed back unresistingly before my smash, like a rubber toy floating through water. I plunged past, reached the entry and fumbled for the knob of the outer door.

They were all about me then, their rubbery palms fumbling at my shoulders, my elbows, my pajama jacket. They would have dragged me down before I could negotiate the lock. A racking shudder possessed me and seemed to flick them clear. Then I stumbled against a stand, and purely by good luck my hand fell upon a bamboo walking-stick. I yelled again, in truly hysterical fierceness, and laid about me as with a whip. My blows did little or no damage to those unearthly assailants, but they shrank back, teetering and dancing, to a safe distance. Again I had the sense that they were laughing, mocking. For the moment I had beaten them off, but they were sure of me in the end. Just then my groping free hand pressed a switch. The entry sprang into light.

On the instant they were not there.

was knocking outside, and with trembling fingers I turned the knob of the door. In came a tall, slender girl with a blue lounging-robe caught hurriedly around her. Her bright hair was disordered as though she had just sprung from her bed.

"Is someone sick?" she asked in a breathless voice. "I live down the hall—I heard cries." Her round blue eyes were studying my face, which must have been ghastly pale. "You see, I'm a trained nurse, and perhaps——"

"Thank God you did come!" I broke in, unceremoniously but honestly, and went before her to turn on every lamp in the parlor.

It was she who, without guidance, searched out my whisky and siphon and mixed for me a highball of grateful strength. My teeth rang nervously on the edge of the glass as I gulped it down. After that I got my own robe—a becoming one, with satin facings—and sat with her on the divan to tell of my adventure. When I had finished, she gazed long at the painting of the dancers, then back at me. Her eyes, like two chips of the April sky, were full of concern and she held her rosy lower lip between her teeth. I thought that she was wonderfully pretty.

"What a perfectly terrible nightmare!" she said.

"It was no nightmare," I protested.

She smiled and argued the point, telling me all manner of comforting things about mental associations and their reflections in vivid dreams.

To clinch her point she turned to the painting.

"This line about a 'living picture' is the peg on which your slumbering mind hung the whole fabric," she suggested, her slender fingertip touching the painted scribble. "Your very literal subconscious self didn't understand that the artist meant his picture would live only figuratively."

"Are you sure that's what the artist meant?" I asked, but finally I let her


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stone, Lucy


text:
Forty Years On The Pacific/Wireless

MALE radio operators only are carried on ships nowadays, although a certain magazine states that a woman operator sailed from Philadelphia for Europe in 1917. About 1910, the Mariposa, trading between San Francisco and Honolulu, took on a woman wireless operator, but she became so popular with the passengers that the crowded condition of her office prevented strict attention to business. Even so, the experiment was profitable in that the passengers, to justify their presence in the wireless room, sent many more messages than they otherwise would have done.

Two operators are required on all boats since the loss of the Titanic. At times, they will issue a newspaper, filled with information picked from the air. Some days, when conditions prevent, no paper can be issued. Such a bar, however, did not hinder an enterprising operator, on a vessel sailing from San Francisco a few years ago, from providing a paper every morning. He even produced New York Stock Exchange quotations. All went merrily until one day a New York broker, who was on board, on the strength of a rise in quotations reported in the newspaper, opened wine for the smoking-room crowd. Next day, however, some true quotations came through and Mr. Broker discovered that his stocks had suffered a big drop, rather than a rise. The radio man lasted only that one trip.

The telegraph service, consisting of wireless for the most part, in Alaska and Yukon Territory, is owned by the American and Canadian Governments.

I am glad to present the following interesting and authentic resume:

Wireless: By Kenneth Ormiston
Passengers from America to Australia may communicate with all points of the world, throughout the entire voyage, except when the atmospheric conditions are abnormal. These atmospheric disturbances, variously known as "atmospherics," "strays," or "static," are quite severe at times in the tropics, and are caused by electrical discharges in the air, which affect the receiving apparatus in exactly the same manner as wireless signals.

Static varies with the time of the day, the time of the year, and the locality. As a rule, disturbances are more severe at night than in the daytime, and more prevalent in Summer than in Winter. As it is Summer at the San Francisco end of the voyage when it is winter at the Australian end, and vice versa, the operators on this trip make up their minds that to fight static is unavoidable either at one end or the other. The most troublesome form of static is that caused by nearby thunder storms, as the effect from lightning is to paralyze or destroy the sensitiveness of the receiver for a time, from a few seconds to a few minutes, during which time several words of the incoming message are lost. Another form of static which is very troublesome is the so-called "rain static," found only in the tropics. This form of static causes a continuous hissing sound in the receivers as long as there is rain around, or fairly close to the ship. This static prevents anything but very strong signals from being read at all.

Wireless signals may be transmitted much farther at night than in the daytime. No exact cause for this effect has been determined, but it is usually conceded that it is due to the absorption by the sun's rays of certain essential parts of the wireless energy. Another peculiarity is the difference in range when transmitting over land or over water, the greatest ranges being attained when the transmission is entirely over water. This is due to some kind of absorption by the land, and to obstructions such as mountains. The Poulsen system, with which the vessels of the Oceanic Steamship Company are equipped, overcomes these two difficulties to a very great extent, it being possible to transmit signals at great distances in broad daylight, as well as cover long stretches over land.

The islands of the Pacific are well supplied with radio stations, but those forming the chain of communication from San Francisco to Sydney only are of interest to us at present. These are the stations on the American and Australian coasts, and in the Hawaiian, Samoan and Fiji Islands. Commercial radio service between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands is carried on both by the Marconi Wireless Company and the Federal Telegraph Company, the latter company operating the Poulsen System. The stations of the former company are located at Bolinas, California, a short distance north of San Francisco, and at Kahuku, on the northern extremity of the island of Oahu, about thirty miles from the city of Honolulu. The Federal Telegraph Company has its stations for the trans-Pacific service at South San Francisco, on San Francisco Bay, a few miles south of the city, and at Heeia Point, Oahu. In addition to these high-power stations are the lower-power stations of the Marconi Company, at Daly, California, and Wahiawa, Oahu, and the Federal Company's station on the beach at San Francisco. All these, with the exception of the Marconi high-power radios, are available for ship-to-shore wireless service.

Samoa is represented on the wireless map by the United States Naval Radio station at Pago Pago, on the island of Tutuila. A high-power station is operated by the New Zealand Government on the island of Upolo, sixty miles distant, and located in the town of Apia. The main station in the Fijian group is at Suva, on the island of Viti Levu, though there are, as in the Hawaiian Islands, several small stations for interisland communication.

Conditions are met with in the tropics which are not to be encountered anywhere else, and "freak" work is not unusual. For instance, the lower-power station at Pago Pago is able to maintain regular nightly commercial service with Honolulu, yet can be heard only a few hundred miles in a southerly direction. Honolulu is about 2,600 miles from Pago Pago, in a northerly direction. Occasionally, signals are heard from lowpower stations at enormous distances, while again the highpower stations, much closer, will be faint.

With a modern receiving set of the maximum efficiency, the low-power spark stations (the spark system being the style affected by daylight absorption) can easily be heard up to five thousand miles at night, whereas one thousand miles by daylight is a very good receiving record. The Poulsen stations, however, can be read up to six thousand miles by daylight from the high-power stations. Signals from the 60 kilowatt Poulsen Station at Tuckerton, New Jersey, have been copied on the Steamship Ventura for the entire voyage, the distance from Tuckerton to Sydney being about ten thousand miles. The Ventura is equipped with the most modern supersensitive receiving apparatus, and has been able to accomplish some very remarkable long distance receiving work. For instance, the 200 kilowatt Station at Elviese, Germany, which maintains twenty-four hours commercial service with Tuckerton, New Jersey, is heard throughout the entire voyage from San Francisco to Sydney. At a point between Pago Pago and Fiji, the Ventura is exactly half way around the world from Elviese, and wireless signals are thus received at the greatest distance possible on the earth's surface, 12,500 miles.

The following is a note made by Mr. J. Sterling, radio operator on the North Pacific, formerly of the Yukon Telegraph Trail:

Radio Communication—"Rain Static, so-called, occurs almost to a greater extent in northern latitudes than in equatorial latitudes. In fact it is often possible in the north to advise the officers on the ship's bridge of the approach of a rain squall, or sleet storm, some time before they can see it

"The reason that distant radio stations are sometimes heard better than nearby ones, is because the other waves are propagated both in an upward and an outward direction. The more or less parallel waves reach nearby stations, while those going upward are deflected downward at an angle upon reaching the upper strata, and arrive at a spot on the earth's surface far beyond the normal range of the station. Ships which are, therefore, at that particular spot at a given time are enabled to receive the signals."

Wireless Stations In The Pacific Ocean
As taken from the London Year Book of Wireless Telegraphy, 1918. Stations open to Ships and Shore Communication:

title: Forty Years On The Pacific/Wireless


text:
Forty Years On The Pacific/Alaska Telegraph Signal Corps

THE outside world hears but little about a band of heroes who lead a solitary life, but at times exciting existence in the trackless wastes of the Arctic. I refer to the United States Signal Corps, the eyes and ears of the Army. On the outposts of civilization their work consists of manning the wireless and telegraph stations erected at various points. They go to the aid of stricken "mushers," prospectors, etc., who stray from the cabins and become exhausted and frostbitten.

Many heroic deeds have been performed by this self-sacrificing body of men. One instance occurred in 1916, when a soldier was fifty miles from his post at Fairbanks and cold 60 degrees below zero. He knew that in the vicinity there was a cabin owned by a man, which he eventually found. On entering, he saw the poor fellow, named Monte, lying in his bunk, with his feet badly frostbitten. He had been in that helpless condition for forty-eight hours. The brave young signaler tapped the wires leading to Fairbanks, asking for immediate aid. Pending arrival of assistance, he put the man's feet in coal oil, to try and thaw them. Help appeared thirtysix hours after his call. They placed Monte on the dog-sledge, and walking alongside, started for Fairbanks. On arrival, they placed him in a hospital, where every attention was given him by the surgical staff and Sisters in charge, to save his feet, but their efforts were unavailing, and it was found necessary to amputate them.


text: Template:Chinese vertical block

title: Template:Chinese vertical block


text:
Template:Chinese vertical block/doc

Usage
Used to present a block of vertically-formatted Chinese text, as often found in older texts.

Parameters

 * : The contents, formatted into columns with something like vertical text
 * : Font size (optional, default 150%)
 * : Line height (optional, default 120%)
 * : Border style (optional, default "1px solid black")

title: Template:Chinese vertical block/doc


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camm, Anne


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camm, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camm, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camocke, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camoys, Thomas de


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, Alexander (d.1608)


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/148

the present chapter I propose to discuss the more obvious and often repeated objections to Darwin's theory, and to show how far they affect its character as a true and sufficient explanation of the origin of species. The more recondite difficulties, affecting such fundamental questions as the causes and laws of variability, will be left for a future chapter, after we have become better acquainted with the applications of the theory to the more important adaptations and correlations of animal and plant life.

One of the earliest and most often repeated objections was, that it was difficult "to imagine a reason why variations tending in an infinitesimal degree in any special direction should be preserved," or to believe that the complex adaptation of living organisms could have been produced "by infinitesimal beginnings." Now this term "infinitesimal," used by a well-known early critic of the Origin of Species, was never made use of by Darwin himself, who spoke only of variations being "slight," and of the "small amount" of the variations that might be selected. Even in using these terms he undoubtedly afforded


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/1


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/2


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/3


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/4


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/5


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/6


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/149

 grounds for the objection above made, that such small and slight variations could be of no real use, and would not determine the survival of the individuals possessing them. We have seen, however, in our third chapter, that even Darwin's terms were hardly justified; and that the variability of many important species is of considerable amount, and may very often be properly described as large. As this is found to be the case both in animals and plants, and in all their chief groups and subdivisions, and also to apply to all the separate parts and organs that have been compared, we must take it as proved that the average amount of variability presents no difficulty whatever in the way of the action of natural selection. It may be here mentioned that, up to the time of the preparation of the last edition of The Origin of Species, Darwin had not seen the work of Mr. J. A. Allen of Harvard University (then only just published), which gave us the first body of accurate comparisons and measurements demonstrating this large amount of variability. Since then evidence of this nature has been accumulating, and we are, therefore, now in a far better position to appreciate the facilities for natural selection, in this respect, than was Mr. Darwin himself.

Another objection of a similar nature is, that the chances are immensely against the right variation or combination of variations occurring just when required; and further, that no variation can be perpetuated that is not accompanied by several concomitant variations of dependent parts—greater length of a wing in a bird, for example, would be of little use if unaccompanied by increased volume or contractility of the muscles which move it. This objection seemed a very strong one so long as it was supposed that variations occurred singly and at considerable intervals; but it ceases to have any weight now we know that they occur simultaneously in various parts of the organism, and also in a large proportion of the individuals which make up the species. A considerable number of individuals will, therefore, every year possess the required combination of characters; and it may also be considered probable that when the two characters are such that they always act together, there will be such a correlation between them that they will frequently vary together. But there is another consideration that seems to show that this coincident


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/150

 variation is not essential. All animals in a state of nature are kept, by the constant struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, in such a state of perfect health and usually superabundant vigour, that in all ordinary circumstances they possess a surplus power in every important organ—a surplus only drawn upon in cases of the direst necessity when their very existence is at stake. It follows, therefore, that any additional power given to one of the component parts of an organ must be useful—an increase, for example, either in the wing muscles or in the form or length of the wing might give some increased powers of flight; and thus alternate variations—in one generation in the muscles, in another generation in the wing itself—might be as effective in permanently improving the powers of flight as coincident variations at longer intervals. On either supposition, however, this objection appears to have little weight if we take into consideration the large amount of coincident variability that has been shown to exist.

We now come to an objection which has perhaps been more frequently urged than any other, and which Darwin himself felt to have much weight—the first beginnings of important organs, such, for example, as wings, eyes, mammary glands, and numerous other structures. It is urged, that it is almost impossible to conceive how the first rudiments of these could have been of any use, and, if not of use they could not have been preserved and further developed by natural selection.

Now, the first remark to be made on objections of this nature is, that they are really outside the question of the origin of all existing species from allied species not very far removed from them, which is all that Darwin undertook to prove by means of his theory. Organs and structures such as those above mentioned all date back to a very remote past, when the world and its inhabitants were both very different from what they are now. To ask of a new theory that it shall reveal to us exactly what took place in remote geological epochs, and how it took place, is unreasonable. The most that should be asked is, that some probable or possible mode of origination should be pointed out in some at least of these


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/151

 difficult cases, and this Mr. Darwin has done. One or two of these may be briefly given here, but the whole series should be carefully read by any one who wishes to see how many curious facts and observations have been required in order to elucidate them; whence we may conclude that further knowledge will probably throw light on any difficulties that still remain.

In the case of the mammary glands Mr. Darwin remarks that it is admitted that the ancestral mammals were allied to the marsupials. Now in the very earliest mammals, almost before they really deserved that name, the young may have been nourished by a fluid secreted by the interior surface of the marsupial sack, as is believed to be the case with the fish (Hippocampus) whose eggs are hatched within a somewhat similar sack. This being the case, those individuals which secreted a more nutritious fluid, and those whose young were able to obtain and swallow a more constant supply by suction, would be more likely to live and come to a healthy maturity, and would therefore be preserved by natural selection.

In another case which has been adduced as one of special difficulty, a more complete explanation is given. Soles, turbots, and other flatfish are, as is well known, unsymmetrical. They live and move on their sides, the under side being usually differently coloured from that which is kept uppermost. Now the eyes of these fish are curiously distorted in order that both eyes may be on the upper side, where alone they would be of any use. It was objected by Mr. Mivart that a sudden transformation of the eye from one side to the other was inconceivable, while, if the transit were gradual the first step could be of no use, since this would not remove the eye from the lower side. But, as Mr. Darwin shows by reference to the researches of Malm and others, the young of these fish are quite symmetrical, and during their growth exhibit to us the whole process of change. This begins by the fish (owing to the increasing depth of the body) being unable to maintain the vertical position, so that it falls on one side. It then twists the lower eye as much as possible towards the upper side; and, the whole bony structure of the head being at


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/152

 this time soft and flexible, the constant repetition of this effort causes the eye gradually to move round the head till it comes to the upper side. Now if we suppose this process, which in the young is completed in a few days or weeks, to have been spread over thousands of generations during the development of these fish, those usually surviving whose eyes retained more and more of the position into which the young fish tried to twist them, the change becomes intelligible; though it still remains one of the most extraordinary cases of degeneration, by which symmetry—which is so universal a characteristic of the higher animals—is lost, in order that the creature may be adapted to a new mode of life, whereby it is enabled the better to escape danger and continue its existence.

The most difficult case of all, that of the eye—the thought of which even to the last, Mr. Darwin says, "gave him a cold shiver"—is nevertheless shown to be not unintelligible; granting of course the sensitiveness to light of some forms of nervous tissue. For he shows that there are, in several of the lower animals, rudiments of eyes, consisting merely of pigment cells covered with a translucent skin, which may possibly serve to distinguish light from darkness, but nothing more. Then we have an optic nerve and pigment cells; then we find a hollow filled with gelatinous substance of a convex form—the first rudiment of a lens. Many of the succeeding steps are lost, as would necessarily be the case, owing to the great advantage of each modification which gave increased distinctness of vision, the creatures possessing it inevitably surviving, while those below them became extinct. But we can well understand how, after the first step was taken, every variation tending to more complete vision would be preserved till we reached the perfect eye of birds and mammals. Even this, as we know, is not absolutely, but only relatively, perfect. Neither the chromatic nor the spherical aberration is absolutely corrected; while long-and short-sightedness, and the various diseases and imperfections to which the eye is liable, may be looked upon as relics of the imperfect condition from which the eye has been raised by variation and natural selection.

These few examples of difficulties as to the origin of remarkable or complex organs must suffice here; but the reader who wishes further information on the matter may study carefully


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/153

 the whole of the sixth and seventh chapters of the last edition of The Origin of Species, in which these and many other cases are discussed in considerable detail.

Many naturalists seem to be of opinion that a considerable number of the characters which distinguish species are of no service whatever to their possessors, and therefore cannot have been produced or increased by natural selection. Professors Bronn and Broca have urged this objection on the continent. In America, Dr. Cope, the well-known palæontologist, has long since put forth the same objection, declaring that non-adaptive characters are as numerous as those which are adaptive; but he differs completely from most who hold the same general opinion in considering that they occur chiefly "in the characters of the classes, orders, families, and other higher groups;" and the objection, therefore, is quite distinct from that in which it is urged that "specific characters" are mostly useless. More recently, Professor G. J. Romanes has urged this difficulty in his paper on "Physiological Selection" (Journ. Linn. Soc., vol. xix. pp. 338, 344). He says that the characters "which serve to distinguish allied species are frequently, if not usually, of a kind with which natural selection can have had nothing to do," being without any utilitarian significance. Again he speaks of "the enormous number," and further on of "the innumerable multitude" of specific peculiarities which are useless; and he finally declares that the question needs no further arguing, "because in the later editions of his works Mr. Darwin freely acknowledges that a large proportion of specific distinctions must be conceded to be useless to the species presenting them."

I have looked in vain in Mr. Darwin's works to find any such acknowledgment, and I think Mr. Romanes has not sufficiently distinguished between "useless characters" and "useless specific distinctions." On referring to all the passages indicated by him I find that, in regard to specific characters, Mr. Darwin is very cautious in admitting inutility. His most pronounced "admissions" on this question are the following: "But when, from the nature of the organism and of the conditions, modifications have been induced which are


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/154

 unimportant for the welfare of the species, they may be, and apparently often have been, transmitted in nearly the same state to numerous, otherwise modified, descendants" (Origin, p. 175). The words I have here italicised clearly show that such characters are usually not "specific," in the sense that they are such as distinguish species from each other, but are found in numerous allied species. Again: "Thus a large yet undefined extension may safely be given to the direct and indirect results of natural selection; but I now admit, after reading the essay of Nägeli on plants, and the remarks by various authors with respect to animals, more especially those recently made by Professor Broca, that in the earlier editions of my Origin of Species I perhaps attributed too much to the action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest. I have altered the fifth edition of the Origin so as to confine my remarks to adaptive changes of structure, but I am convinced, from the light gained during even the last few years, that very many structures which now appear to us useless, will hereafter be proved to be useful, and will therefore come within the range of natural selection. Nevertheless I did not formerly consider sufficiently the existence of structures which, as far as we can at present judge, are neither beneficial nor injurious; and this I believe to be one of the greatest oversights as yet detected in my work." Now it is to be remarked that neither in these passages nor in any of the other less distinct expressions of opinion on this question, does Darwin ever admit that "specific characters"—that is, the particular characters which serve to distinguish one species from another—are ever useless, much less that "a large proportion of them" are so, as Mr. Romanes makes him "freely acknowledge." On the other hand, in the passage which I have italicised he strongly expresses his view that much of what we suppose to be useless is due to our ignorance; and as I hold myself that, as regards many of the supposed useless characters, this is the true explanation, it may be well to give a brief sketch of the progress of knowledge in transferring characters from the one category to the other.

We have only to go back a single generation, and not even the most acute botanist could have suggested a reasonable use, for each species of plant, of the infinitely varied forms, sizes,


text:
Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/445

 lasting traces. This would then be a diagram of our psychic apparatus:

It is known that from the perceptions that act on the P-system we retain something else as lasting as the content itself. Our perceptions prove to be connected with one another in memory, and this is especially the case when they have once fallen together in simultaneity. We call this the fact of association. It is now clear that if the P-system is entirely lacking in memory, it certainly cannot preserve traces for the associations; the individual P-elements would be intolerably hindered in their function if a remnant of former connection should make its influence felt against a new perception. Hence we must, on the contrary, assume that the memory system is the basis of the association. The fact of the association, then, consists in this—that, in consequence of the diminutions in resistance and a smoothing of the ways from one of the Mem-elements, the excitement transmits itself to a second rather than to a third Mem-system.

On further investigation we find it necessary to assume not one but many such Mem-systems, in which the same excitement propagated by the P-elements experiences a diversified fixation. The first of these Mem-systems will contain in any case the fixation of the association through simultaneity, while in those lying further away the same exciting material will be arranged according to other forms of concurrence; so that relationships of similarity, &c., might perhaps be represented through these later systems. It would naturally be idle to attempt to report in words the psychic significance of such a system. Its characteristic would lie in the intimacy


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/155

 and colours of the flowers, the shapes and arrangement of the leaves, and the numerous other external characters of the whole plant. But since Mr. Darwin showed that plants gained both in vigour and in fertility by being crossed with other individuals of the same species, and that this crossing was usually effected by insects which, in search of nectar or pollen, carried the pollen from one plant to the flowers of another plant, almost every detail is found to have a purpose and a use. The shape, the size, and the colour of the petals, even the streaks and spots with which they are adorned, the position in which they stand, the movements of the stamens and pistil at various times, especially at the period of, and just after, fertilisation, have been proved to be strictly adaptive in so many cases that botanists now believe that all the external characters of flowers either are or have been of use to the species.

It has also been shown, by Kerner and other botanists, that another set of characteristics have relation to the prevention of ants, slugs, and other animals from reaching the flowers, because these creatures would devour or injure them without effecting fertilisation. The spines, hairs, or sticky glands on the stem or flower-stalk, the curious hairs or processes shutting up the flower, or sometimes even the extreme smoothness and polish of the outside of the petals so that few insects can hang to the part, have been shown to be related to the possible intrusion of these "unbidden guests." And, still more recently, attempts have been made by Grant Allen and Sir John Lubbock to account for the innumerable forms, textures, and groupings of leaves, by their relation to the needs of the plants themselves; and there can be little doubt that these attempts will be ultimately successful. Again, just as flowers have been adapted to secure fertilisation or cross-fertilisation, fruits have been developed to assist in the dispersal of seeds; and their forms, sizes, juices, and colours can be shown to be specially adapted to secure such dispersal by the agency of birds and mammals; while the same end is secured in other


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/156

 cases by downy seeds to be wafted through the air, or by hooked or sticky seed-vessels to be carried away, attached to skin, wool, or feathers.

Here, then, we have an enormous extension of the region of utility in the vegetable kingdom, and one, moreover, which includes almost all the specific characters of plants. For the species of plants are usually characterised either by differences in the form, size, and colour of the flowers, or of the fruits; or, by peculiarities in the shape, size, dentation, or arrangement of the leaves; or by peculiarities in the spines, hairs, or down with which various parts of the plant are clothed. In the case of plants it must certainly be admitted that "specific" characters are pre-eminently adaptive; and though there may be some which are not so, yet all those referred to by Darwin as having been adduced by various botanists as useless, either pertain to genera or higher groups, or are found in some plants of a species only—that is, are individual variations not specific characters.

In the case of animals, the most recent wide extension of the sphere of utility has been in the matter of their colours and markings. It was of course always known that certain creatures gained protection by their resemblance to their normal surroundings, as in the case of white arctic animals, the yellow or brown tints of those living in deserts, and the green hues of many birds and insects surrounded by tropical vegetation. But of late years these cases have been greatly increased both in number and variety, especially in regard to those which closely imitate special objects among which they live; and there are other kinds of coloration which long appeared to have no use. Large numbers of animals, more especially insects, are gaudily coloured, either with vivid hues or with striking patterns, so as to be very easily seen. Now it has been found, that in almost all these cases the creatures possess some special quality which prevents their being attacked by the enemies of their kind whenever the peculiarity is known; and the brilliant or conspicuous colours or markings serve as a warning or signal flag against attack. Large numbers of insects thus coloured are nauseous and inedible; others, like wasps and bees, have stings; others are too hard to be eaten by small birds; while snakes with


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/157

 poisonous fangs often have some characteristic either of rattle, hood, or unusual colour, which indicates that they had better be left alone.

But there is yet another form of coloration, which consists in special markings—bands, spots, or patches of white, or of bright colour, which vary in every species, and are often concealed when the creature is at rest but displayed when in motion,—as in the case of the bands and spots so frequent on the wings and tails of birds. Now these specific markings are believed, with good reason, to serve the purpose of enabling each species to be quickly recognised, even at a distance, by its fellows, especially the parents by their young and the two sexes by each other; and this recognition must often be an important factor in securing the safety of individuals, and therefore the wellbeing and continuance of the species. These interesting peculiarities will be more fully described in a future chapter, but they are briefly referred to here in order to show that the most common of all the characters by which species are distinguished from each other—their colours and markings—can be shown to be adaptive or utilitarian in their nature.

But besides colour there are almost always some structural characters which distinguish species from species, and, as regards many of these also, an adaptive character can be often discerned. In birds, for instance, we have differences in the size or shape of the bill or the feet, in the length of the wing or the tail, and in the proportions of the several feathers of which these organs are composed. All these differences in the organs on which the very existence of birds depends, which determine the character of flight, facility for running or climbing, for inhabiting chiefly the ground or trees, and the kind of food that can be most easily obtained for themselves and their offspring, must surely be in the highest degree utilitarian; although in each individual case we, in our ignorance of the minutiæ of their life-history, may be quite unable to see the use. In mammalia specific differences other than colour usually consist in the length or shape of the ears and tail, in the proportions of the limbs, or in the length and quality of the hair on different parts of the body. As regards the ears and tail, one of the objections by Professor


text:
Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/446

 of its relations to elements of raw memory material—that is, if we wish to point to a profounder theory in the gradations of the resistances to conduction toward these elements.

We may insert here an observation of a general nature which points perhaps to something of importance. The P-system, which possesses no capability of preserving changes and hence no memory, furnishes for our consciousness the entire manifoldness of the sensible qualities. Our memories, on the other hand, are unconscious in themselves; those that are most deeply impressed form no exception. They can be made conscious, but there can be no doubt that they develop all their influences in the unconscious state. What we term our character is based, to be sure, on the memory traces of our impressions, and indeed on these impressions that have affected us most strongly, those of our early youth—those that almost never become conscious. But when memories become conscious again they show no sensible quality or a very slight one in comparison to the perceptions. If, now, it can be confirmed that memory and quality exclude each other, as far as consciousness in the Ψ-systems is concerned, a most promising insight reveals itself to us in the determinations of the neuron excitement.

What we have so far assumed concerning the composition of the psychic apparatus at the sensible end follows regardless of the dream and the psychological explanations derived from it. The dream, however, serves as a source of proof for the knowledge of another part of the apparatus. We have seen that it became impossible to explain the dream formation unless we ventured to assume two psychic instances, one of which subjected the activity of the other to a critique as a consequence of which the exclusion from consciousness resulted.

We have seen that the criticising instance entertains closer relations with consciousness than the criticised. The former stands between the latter and consciousness like a screen. We have, moreover, found essential reasons for identifying the criticising instance with that which directs our waking life and determines our voluntary conscious actions. If we now replace these instances in the development of our theory by systems, the criticising system is then to be ascribed


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/158

 Bronn relates to this very point. He states that the length of these organs differ in the various species of hares and of mice, and he considers that this difference can be of no service whatever to their possessors. But to this objection Darwin replies, that it has been shown by Dr. Schöbl that the ears of mice "are supplied in an extraordinary manner with nerves, so that they no doubt serve as tactile organs." Hence, when we consider the life of mice, either nocturnal or seeking their food in dark and confined places, the length of the ears may be in each case adapted to the particular habits and surroundings of the species. Again, the tail, in the larger mammals, often serves the purpose of driving off flies and other insects from the body; and when we consider in how many parts of the world flies are injurious or even fatal to large mammals, we see that the peculiar characteristics of this organ may in each case have been adapted to its requirements in the particular area where the species was developed. The tail is also believed to have some use as a balancing organ, which assists an animal to turn easily and rapidly, much as our arms are used when running; while in whole groups it is a prehensile organ, and has become modified in accordance with the habits and needs of each species. In the case of mice it is thus used by the young. Darwin informs us that the late Professor Henslow kept some harvest-mice in confinement, and observed that they frequently curled their tails round the branches of a bush placed in the cage, and thus aided themselves in climbing; while Dr. Günther has actually seen a mouse suspend itself by the tail (Origin, p. 189).

Again, Mr. Lawson Tait has called attention to the use of the tail in the cat, squirrel, yak, and many other animals as a means of preserving the heat of the body during the nocturnal and the winter sleep. He says, that in cold weather animals with long or bushy tails will be found lying curled up, with their tails carefully laid over their feet like a rug, and with their noses buried in the fur of the tail, which is thus used exactly in the same way and for the same purpose as we use respirators.

Another illustration is furnished by the horns of deer which, especially when very large, have been supposed to be


text: Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 9.djvu/13


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/159

 a danger to the animal in passing rapidly through dense thickets. But Sir James Hector states, that the wapiti, in North America, throws back its head, thus placing the horns along the sides of the back, and is then enabled to rush through the thickest forest with great rapidity. The brow-antlers protect the face and eyes, while the widely spreading horns prevent injury to the neck or flanks. Thus an organ which was certainly developed as a sexual weapon, has been so guided and modified during its increase in size as to be of use in other ways. A similar use of the antlers of deer has been observed in India.

The various classes of facts now referred to serve to show us that, in the case of the two higher groups—mammalia and birds—almost all the characters by which species are distinguished from each other are, or may be, adaptive. It is these two classes of animals which have been most studied and whose life-histories are supposed to be most fully known, yet even here the assertion of inutility, by an eminent naturalist, in the case of two important organs, has been sufficiently met by minute details either in the anatomy or in the habits of the groups referred to. Such a fact as this, together with the extensive series of characters already enumerated which have been of late years transferred from the "useless" to the "useful" class, should convince us, that the assertion of "inutility" in the case of any organ or peculiarity which is not a rudiment or a correlation, is not, and can never be, the statement of a fact, but merely an expression of our ignorance of its purpose or origin.


text:
Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/447

Rh to the motor end because of the fact just mentioned. We now enter both systems in our scheme, and express by the names given them their relation to consciousness.

The last of the systems at the motor end we call the foreconscious in order to denote that exciting processes in this system can reach consciousness without any further detention provided certain other conditions be fulfilled, e.g., the attainment of a certain intensity, a certain distribution of that function which must be called attention, and the like. This is at the same time the system which possesses the keys to voluntary motility. The system behind it we call the unconscious because it has no access to consciousness except through the foreconscious, in the passage through which its excitement must submit to certain changes.

In which of these systems, now, do we localise the impulse to the dream formation? For the sake of simplicity, let us say in the system Unc. To be sure we shall find in later discussions that this is not quite correct, that the dream formation is forced to connect with dream thoughts which belong to the system of the foreconscious. But we shall learn later, when we come to deal with the dream-wish, that the motive power for the dream is furnished by the Unc., and, owing to this latter movement, we shall assume the unconscious system as the starting-point of the dream formation. This dream impulse, like all other thought structures, will now strive to continue itself in the foreconscious, and thence to gain admission to consciousness.

Experience teaches us that the road leading from the foreconscious to consciousness is closed to the dream thoughts during the day by the resistance of the censor. At night the


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/160

One very weighty objection to the theory that specific characters can ever be wholly useless (or wholly unconnected with useful organs by correlation of growth) appears to have been overlooked by those who have maintained the frequency of such characters, and that is, their almost necessary instability. Darwin has remarked on the extreme variability of secondary sexual characters—such as the horns, crests, plumes, etc., which are found in males only,—the reason being, that, although of some use, they are not of such direct and vital importance as those adaptive characters on which the wellbeing and very existence of the animals depend. But in the case of wholly useless structures,

skin has grown so tough and hard that it hinders the increase in volume which is inseparable from the growth of the animal. The casting of the skin is induced by the formation on the surface of the inner epidermis, of a layer of very fine and equally distributed hairs, which evidently serve the purpose of mechanically raising the old skin by their rigidity and position. These hairs then may be designated as casting hairs. That they are destined and calculated for this end is evident to me from the fact established by Dr. Braun, that the casting of the shells of the river crayfish is induced in exactly the same manner by the formation of a coating of hairs which mechanically loosens the old skin or shell from the new. Now the researches of Braun and Cartier have shown that these casting hairs—which serve the same purpose in two groups of animals so far apart in the systematic scale—after the casting, are partly transformed into the concentric stripes, sharp spikes, ridges, or warts which ornament the outer edges of the skin-scales of reptiles or the carapace of crabs." Professor Semper adds that this example, with many others that might be quoted, shows that we need not abandon the hope of explaining morphological characters on Darwinian principles, although their nature is often difficult to understand. During a recent discussion of this question in the pages of Nature, Mr. St. George Mivart adduces several examples of what he deems useless specific characters. Among them are the aborted index finger of the lemurine Potto, and the thumbless hands of Colobus and Ateles, the "life-saving action" of either of which he thinks incredible. These cases suggest two remarks. In the first place, they involve generic, not specific, characters; and the three genera adduced are somewhat isolated, implying considerable antiquity and the extinction of many allied forms. This is important, because it affords ample time for great changes of conditions since the structures in question originated; and without a knowledge of these changes we can never safely assert that any detail of structure could not have been useful. In the second place, all three are cases of aborted or rudimentary organs; and these are admitted to be explained by non-use, leading to diminution of size, a further reduction being brought about by the action of the principle of economy The Natural Conditions of Existence as they affect Animal Life, p. 19.


text:
Page:The Chinese Repository - Volume 15.pdf/370

354


text:
Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/448

430 dream thoughts gain admission to consciousness, but the question arises, in what way and because of what change. If this admission was rendered possible to the dream thoughts through the fact that the resistance watching on the boundary between the unconscious and foreconscious sinks at night, we should then get dreams in the material of our presentations which did not show the hallucinatory character which just now interests us.

The sinking of the censor between the two systems, Unc. and Forec., can explain to us only such dreams as "Autodidasker," but not dreams like the one of the burning child, which we have taken as a problem at the outset in these present investigations.

What takes place in the hallucinatory dream we can describe in no other way than by saying that the excitement takes a retrogressive course. It takes its station, not at the motor end of the apparatus, but at the sensible end, and finally reaches the system of the perceptions. If we call the direction towards which the psychic process continues from the unconscious into the waking state the progressive, we may then speak of the dream as having a regressive character.

This regression is surely one of the most important peculiarities of the dream process; but we must not forget that it does not belong to the dream alone. The intentional recollection and other processes of our normal thinking also require a retrogression in the psychic apparatus from any complex presentation act to the raw material of the memory traces lying at its basis. But during the waking state this turning backward does not reach beyond the memory pictures; it is unable to produce the hallucinatory vividness of the perception pictures. Why is this different in the dream? When we spoke of the condensation work of the dream we could not avoid the assumption that the intensities adhering to the presentations are fully transferred from one to another through the dream-work. It is probably this modification of the former psychic process which makes possible the occupation of the system of P to its full sensual vividness in the opposite direction from thought.

I hope that we are far from deluding ourselves about the importance of this present discussion. We have done nothing


text:
Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/449

Rh more than give a name to an inexplicable phenomenon. We call it regression if the presentation in the dream is changed back to the perceptible image from which it once originated. But even this step demands justification. Why this naming, if it does not teach us anything new? I believe, however, that the name "Regression" will serve us to the extent of connecting a fact familiar to us with a scheme of the psychic apparatus which is supplied with a direction. At this point, for the first time, it is worth the trouble to construct such a scheme. For, with the help of this scheme, any other peculiarity of the dream formation will become clear to us without further reflection. If we look upon the dream as a process of regression in the assumed psychic apparatus, we can readily understand the empirically proven fact that all mental relation of the dream thoughts either is lost in the dream-work or can come to expression only with difficulty. According to our scheme, these mental relations are contained not in the first Mem-systems, but in those lying further to the front, and in the regression they must forfeit their expression in favour of the perception pictures. The structure of the dream thoughts is in the regression broken up into its raw material.

But what change renders possible this regression which is impossible during the day? Let us here be content with assumption. There must evidently be some alterations in the charge of energy belonging to the single systems causing the latter to become accessible or inaccessible to the discharge of the excitement; but in any such apparatus the same effect upon the course of excitement might be brought about through more than one form of such changes. This naturally reminds us of the state of sleep and of the many changes of energy this state produces at the sensible end of the apparatus. During the day there is a continuous coursing stream from the Ψ-system of the P toward the motility; this current ceases at night, and no longer hinders a streaming of the current of excitement in the opposite direction. This would appear to be that "seclusion from the outer world" which according to the theory of some authors is supposed to explain the psychological character of the dream (vide p. 30). In the explanation of the regression of the dream we shall, however, have to consider those other regressions which originate during morbid


text: The New Student's Reference Work/Stone-Circles


text: Celtic Fairy Tales/Conall Yellowclaw

title: Celtic Fairy Tales/Conall Yellowclaw


text:
Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/450

 waking states. In these other forms the explanation just given plainly leaves us in the lurch. Regression takes place in spite of the uninterrupted sensible current in a progressive direction.

The hallucinations of hysteria and paranoia, as well as the visions of mentally normal persons, I can explain as actually corresponding to regressions, being in fact thoughts transformed into images; and only such thoughts are subjected to this transformation as are in intimate connection with suppressed or unconscious recollections. As an example I shall cite one of my youngest hysterical patients—a boy, twelve years old, who was prevented from falling asleep by "green faces with red eyes" which terrified him. The source of this manifestation was the suppressed, but once conscious, memory of a boy whom he had often seen during four years, and who offered him a deterring example of many childish bad habits, including onanism, which now formed the subject of his own reproach. His mother had noticed at the time that the complexion of the ill-bred boy was greenish and that he had red (i.e. red bordered) eyes. Hence the terrible vision which constantly served to remind him of his mother's warning that such boys become demented, that they are unable to make progress at school, and are doomed to an early death. A part of this prediction came true in the case of the little patient; he could not successfully pursue his high school studies, and, as appeared on examination of his involuntary fancies, he stood in great dread of the remainder of the prophecy. However, after a brief period of successful treatment, his sleep was restored, he lost his fears, and finished his scholastic year with an excellent record.

I may also add here the interpretation of a vision related to me by an hysteric forty years of age, as having occurred in her normal life. On opening her eyes one morning she beheld in the room her brother, whom she knew to be confined in an insane asylum. Her little son was asleep by her side. Lest the child should be frightened on seeing his uncle, and fall into convulsions, she pulled the sheet over the little one; this done, the phantom disappeared. This vision is the re-casting of one of her infantile reminiscences which, although conscious, is most intimately connected with all the


text:
Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/161

 which are not rudiments of once useful organs, we cannot see what there is to ensure any amount of constancy or stability. One of the cases on which Mr. Romanes lays great stress in his paper on "Physiological Selection" (Journ. Linn. Soc., vol. xix. p. 384) is that of the fleshy appendages on the corners of the jaw of Normandy pigs and of some other breeds. But it is expressly stated that they are not constant; they appear "frequently," or "occasionally," they are "not strictly inherited, for they occur or fail in animals of the same litter;" and they are not always symmetrical, sometimes appearing on one side of the face alone. Now whatever may be the cause or explanation of these anomalous appendages they cannot be classed with "specific characters," the most essential features of which are, that they are symmetrical,

of growth. But, when so reduced, the rudiment might be inconvenient or even hurtful, and then natural selection would aid in its complete abortion; in other words, the abortion of the part would be useful, and would therefore be subject to the law of survival of the fittest. The genera Ateles and Colobus are two of the most purely arboreal types of monkeys, and it is not difficult to conceive that the constant use of the elongated fingers for climbing from tree to tree, and catching on to branches while making great leaps, might require all the nervous energy and muscular growth to be directed to the fingers, the small thumb remaining useless. The case of the Potto is more difficult, both because it is, presumably, a more ancient type, and its actual life-history and habits are completely unknown. These cases are, therefore, not at all to the point as proving that positive specific characters—not mere rudiments characterising whole genera—are in any case useless. Mr. Mivart further objects to the alleged rigidity of the action of natural selection, because wounded or malformed animals have been found which had evidently lived a considerable time in their imperfect condition. But this simply proves that they were living under a temporarily favourable environment, and that the real struggle for existence, in their case, had not yet taken place. We must surely admit that, when the pinch came, and when perfectly formed stoats were dying for want of food, the one-footed animal, referred to by Mr. Mivart, would be among the first to succumb; and the same remark will apply to his abnormally toothed hares and rheumatic monkeys, which might, nevertheless, get on very well under favourable conditions. The struggle for existence, under which all animals and plants have been developed, is intermittent, and exceedingly irregular in its incidence and severity. It is most severe and fatal to the young; but when an animal has once reached maturity, and especially when it has gained experience by several years of an eventful existence, it may be able to maintain itself under conditions which would be fatal to a young and inexperienced creature of the same species. The examples adduced by Mr. Mivart do not, therefore, in any way impugn the hardness of nature as a taskmaster, or the extreme severity of the recurring struggle for existence.The Natural Conditions of Existence as they affect Animal Life, p. 19.See Nature, vol. xxxix. p. 127.


text: The New Student's Reference Work/Stonehenge