Part 17

Although Natural Selection can act only through and for the good of each being, yet characters and structures, which we are apt to consider as of very trifling importance, may thus be acted on. When we see leaf-eating insects green, and bark-feeders mottled gray; the Alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red grouse the color of heather,--we must believe that these tints are of service to these birds and insects in preserving them from danger. Grouse, if not destroyed at some period of their lives, would increase in countless numbers; they are known to suffer largely from birds of prey; and hawks are guided by eyesight to their prey--so much so, that on parts of the Continent persons are warned not to keep white pigeons, as being the most liable to destruction. Hence Natural Selection might be effective in giving the proper color to each kind of grouse, and in keeping that color, when once acquired, true and constant. Nor ought we to think that the occasional destruction of an animal of any particular color would produce little effect: we should remember how essential it is in a flock of white sheep to destroy a lamb with the faintest trace of black. We have seen how the color of hogs which feed on the "paint-root" in Virginia, determines whether they shall live or die. In plants, the down on the fruit and the color of the flesh are considered by botanists as characters of the most trifling importance; yet we hear from an excellent horticulturist, Downing, that in the United States smooth-skinned fruits suffer far more from a beetle, a curculio, than those with down; that purple plums suffer far more from a certain disease than yellow plums; whereas another disease attacks yellow-fleshed peaches far more than those with other colored flesh. If with all the aids of art, these slight differences make a great difference in cultivating the several varieties, assuredly, in a state of nature, where the trees would have to struggle with other trees and with a host of enemies, such differences would effectually settle which variety, whether a smooth or downy, a yellow or a purple-fleshed fruit, should succeed.

In looking at many small points of difference between species, which, as far as our ignorance permits us to judge, seem quite unimportant, we must not forget that climate, food, etc., have no doubt produced some direct effect. It is also necessary to bear in mind that owing to the law of correlation, when one part varies, and the variations are accumulated through Natural Selection, other modifications, often of the most unexpected nature, will ensue.

As we see that those variations which under domestication appear at any

## particular period of life, tend to reappear in the offspring at the same

period;--for instance, in the shape, size, and flavor of the seeds of the many varieties of our culinary and agricultural plants; in the caterpillar and cocoon stages of the varieties of the silkworm; in the eggs of poultry, and in the color of the down of their chickens; in the horns of our sheep and cattle when nearly adult; so in a state of nature Natural Selection will be enabled to act on and modify organic beings at any age, by the accumulation of variations profitable at that age, and by their inheritance at a corresponding age. If it profit a plant to have its seeds more and more widely disseminated by the wind, I can see no greater difficulty in this being effected through Natural Selection, than in the cotton-planter increasing and improving by selection the down in the pods on his cotton-trees. Natural Selection may modify and adapt the larva of an insect to a score of contingencies wholly different from those which concern the mature insect; and these modifications may effect, through correlation, the structure of the adult. So, conversely, modifications in the adult may affect the structure of the larva; but in all cases Natural Selection will insure that they shall not be injurious: for if they were so, the species would become extinct.

Natural Selection will modify the structure of the young in relation to the parent, and of the parent in relation to the young. In social animals it will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the whole community, if the community profits by the selected change. What Natural Selection cannot do, is to modify the structure of one species, without giving it any advantage, for the good of another species; and though statements to this effect may be found in works of natural history, I cannot find one case which will bear investigation. A structure used only once in an animal's life, if of high importance to it, might be modified to any extent by Natural Selection; for instance, the great jaws possessed by certain insects, used exclusively for opening the cocoon, or the hard tip to the beak of unhatched birds, used for breaking the eggs. It has been asserted that of the best short-beaked tumbler-pigeons a greater number perish in the egg than are able to get out of it; so that fanciers assist in the act of hatching. Now if Nature had to make the beak of a full-grown pigeon very short for the bird's own advantage, the process of modification would be very slow, and there would be simultaneously the most rigorous selection of all the young birds within the egg, which had the most powerful and hardest beaks, for all with weak beaks would inevitably perish; or more delicate and more easily broken shells might be selected, the thickness of the shell being known to vary like every other structure.

It may be well here to remark that with all beings there must be much fortuitous destruction, which can have little or no influence on the course of Natural Selection. For instance, a vast number of eggs or seeds are annually devoured, and these could be modified through Natural Selection only if they varied in some manner which protected them from their enemies. Yet many of these eggs or seeds would perhaps, if not destroyed, have yielded individuals better adapted to their conditions of life than any of those which happened to survive. So again a vast number of mature animals and plants, whether or not they be the best adapted to their conditions, must be annually destroyed by accidental causes, which would not be in the least degree mitigated by certain changes of structure or constitution which would in other ways be beneficial to the species. But let the destruction of the adults be ever so heavy, if the number which can exist in any district be not wholly kept down by such causes,--or gain, let the destruction of eggs or seeds be so great that only a hundredth or a thousandth part are developed,--yet of those which do survive, the best adapted individuals, supposing that there is any variability in a favorable direction, will tend to propagate their kind in larger numbers than the less well adapted. If the numbers be wholly kept down by the causes just indicated, as will often have been the case, Natural Selection will be powerless in certain beneficial directions; but this is no valid objection to its efficiency at other times and in other ways; for we are far from having any reason to suppose that many species ever undergo modification and improvement at the same time in the same area.

PROGRESSIVE CHANGE COMPARED WITH INDEPENDENT CREATION

From the 'Origin of Species'

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of an individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living, very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped shows that the greater number of species in each genus, and all the species in many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the common and widely spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups within each class, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of great length. And as Natural Selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance, which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving,--namely, the production of the higher animals,--directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.

CREATIVE DESIGN

From 'The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication'

Some authors have declared that natural selection explains nothing, unless the precise cause of each slight individual difference be made clear. If it were explained to a savage utterly ignorant of the art of building, how the edifice had been raised stone upon stone, and why wedge-formed fragments were used for the arches, flat stones for the roof, etc.; and if the use of each part and of the whole building were pointed out, it would be unreasonable if he declared that nothing had been made clear to him, because the precise cause of the shape of each fragment could not be told. But this is a nearly parallel case with the objection that selection explains nothing, because we know not the cause of each individual difference in the structure of each being.

The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental, but this is not strictly correct; for the shape of each depends on a long sequence of events, all obeying natural laws: on the nature of the rock, on the lines of deposition or cleavage, on the form of the mountain, which depends on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and lastly on the storm or earthquake which throws down the fragments. But in regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape may be strictly said to be accidental. And here we are led to face a great difficulty, in alluding to which I am aware that I am traveling beyond my proper province. An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence which results from the laws imposed by him. But can it be reasonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any ordinary sense, that certain fragments of rock should assume certain shapes so that the builder might erect his edifice? If the various laws which have determined the shape of each fragment were not predetermined for the builder's sake, can it be maintained with any greater probability that he specially ordained for the sake of the breeder each of the innumerable variations in our domestic animals and plants;--many of these variations being of no service to man, and not beneficial, far more often injurious, to the creatures themselves? Did he ordain that the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fantail breeds? Did he cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport? But if we give up the principle in one case,--if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed,--no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the result of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that "variation has been led along certain beneficial lines," like a stream "along definite and useful lines of irrigation." If we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning of all time preordained, then that plasticity of organization which leads to many injurious deviations of structure, as well as the redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and as a consequence, to the natural selection or survival of the fittest,--must appear to us superfluous laws of Nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of free-will and predestination.

THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES

From 'The Descent of Man'

The main conclusion arrived at in this work--namely, that man is descended from some lowly organized form--will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians. The astonishment which I felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore will never be forgotten by me, for the reflection at once rushed into my mind--Such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint.... They possessed hardly any arts, and like wild animals, lived on what they could catch; they had no government, and were merciless to every one not of their own small tribe. He who has seen a savage in his native land will not feel much shame if forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins. For my own part, I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs,--as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system,--with all these exalted powers, Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

ALPHONSE DAUDET

(1840-)

BY AUGUSTIN FILON

[Illustration: ALPHONSE DAUDET.]

Forty years have now elapsed since a lad of seventeen, shivering under his light summer dress in a cold misty morning, was waiting, with an empty stomach, for the opening of a "dairy" in the Quartier Latin. Young as he was, he looked still younger: a pale, eager, intellectual face, with flashing eyes, delicately carved features, and a virgin forest of dark hair falling low on his brow. He had been an usher for a twelvemonth at a small college in the South of France, and he had just arrived in Paris after a two-days' journey in a third-class railway carriage, during which time he had tasted no food and no drink except a few drops of brandy from the flask of some charitable sailors. And there he was, with two francs left in his pocket, and an unlimited supply of courage, cheerfulness, and ambition, fully determined to make the whole world familiar with the obscure name of Alphonse Daudet.

We all know how well he has succeeded in winning for himself a foremost place in the ranks of French contemporary literature, and indeed of literature in general. There is no doubt that he was admirably equipped for the great struggle on which he was about to enter; but it may be also remarked that he had not to fight it out alone and with his own solitary resources, but found at the very outset useful and strong auxiliaries. He was to have a powerful though somewhat selfish and indolent patron in the famous Duke of Morny, who admitted him among his secretaries before he was twenty years old. Then he had the good fortune to attract the attention and to take the fancy of Villemessant, the editor of the Figaro, who at first sight gave him a place in his nursery of young talents. He had a kind and devoted brother, who cheerfully shared with him the little money he had to live upon, and thus saved him from the unspeakable miseries which would inevitably attend a literary debut at such an early age and under such inauspicious circumstances. Later on, he was still more fortunate in securing a loving and intelligent wife, who was to be to him, in the words of the holy Scriptures, "a companion of his rank," a wife who was not only to become a help and a comfort, but a literary adviser, a moral guide, and a second conscience far more strict and exacting than his own; a wife who taught him how to direct and husband his precious faculties,--how to turn them to the noblest use and highest ends.

But before that was to come, the first thing was to find a publisher; and after long looking in vain for one throughout the whole city, he at last discovered the man he wanted, at his door, in the close vicinity of that Hotel du Sinat, in the Rue de Tournon, where the two brothers Daudet had taken up their abode. That publisher was Jules Tardieu, himself an author of some merit (under the transparent pseudonym of J. T. de St. Germain): a mild, quiet humorist of the optimistic school, a Topffer on a small scale and with reduced proportions.

And thus it happened that a few months after the lad's arrival in Paris an elegant booklet, with the attractive title 'Les Amoureuses' (Women in Love) printed in red letters on its snow-white cover, made its appearance under the _galeries de l'Odeon_, where in the absence of political emotions, the youth of the Quartier was eagerly looking for literary novelties, and where Daudet himself had been wandering often, in the hope of an occasional acquaintance with the great critics and journalists of the day who made the _galeries_ their favorite resort.

I have read that the book was a failure; that the young author was unable to pay the printer, and was accordingly served with stamped paper at the official residence of Morny, where he was then acting as secretary; that the duke, far from showing any displeasure at the occurrence, was delighted to find his secretary in hot water with the bailiffs, and that he arranged the matter in the most paternal spirit. This may be a pretty little story, but I fear it is a "legend." I cannot reconcile it with the fact that four years after the first publication, the same publisher gave the public another edition of 'Les Amoureuses' and that the young poet dedicated it to him as a token of respect and gratitude. The truth is that Daudet's little volume not only did not pass unnoticed, but received a good deal of attention, chiefly from the young men. Many thought that a new Musset was born in their midst, only a few months after the real one had been laid down to his last sleep in the Pere Lachaise, under the trembling shadow of his favorite willow-tree. Young Daudet alluded to the unfortunate poet--

"... mort de degout, de tristesse, et d'absinthe;"--

and he tried to imitate the half cynical, half nostalgic skepticism which had made the author of 'Les Nuits' so powerful over the minds of the new generation and so dear to their hearts.

But it did not seem perfectly genuine. When Daudet said, "My heart is old," no one believed it, and he did not believe it himself, for he entitled the piece 'Fanfaronnade'; and in fact it was nothing more than a fanfaronnade. The book was full of the freshness, buoyancy, and frolicsome petulance of youth. Here and there a few reminiscences might be traced to the earliest poets of the sixteenth century, more

## particularly to Clement Marot. A tinge of the expiring romanticism

lingered in 'Les Amoureuses' with a much more substantial admixture of the spirit of an age which made pleasure-hunting its paramount occupation. The precocious child could modulate the 'Romance a Madame' as well as the page of Beaumarchais, if not better; but he could also laugh it down in Gavroche's sneering way; he could intersperse a song of love with the irony of the boulevard or the more genial humor of his native South. He was at his best in the tale of 'Les Prunes'--

"Si vous voulez savoir comment Nous nous aimames pour des prunes"--

That exquisite little piece survived long the youthful volume of 'Les Amoureuses.' In those days, when Coquelin's monologues and _saynetes_ were yet unknown, the brothers Lionnet, then in the height of their vogue, delighted the drawing-rooms with the miniature masterpiece.