Polarities," strongly supports the philosophical importance of these peculiar relations, adding arguments in favour of antero-posterior homologies, which it is here unnecessary to discuss, enough having been said, it is believed, to thoroughly demonstrate the existence of those deep internal relations which are named lateral and serial homologies.

What explanation can be offered of these phenomena ? To say that they exhibit a "nutritional relation" brought about by a "balancing of forces" is no explanation of the fact. The changes are, of course, brought about by a "nutritional" process, and the symmetry is undoubtedly the result of a "balance of forces," but to say so is a truism. The question is, what is the cause of this " nutritional balancing"? It is here contended that this "balancing" must be due to an internal cause which at present science is utterly incompetent to explain. It is an internal property possessed by each living organic whole as well as by each non-living crystalline mass, and that there is such internal power or tendency, which may be termed a "polarity," seems to be demonstrated by the instances above given, which can easily be multiplied indefinitely. Mr. H Spencer1 (speaking of the reproduction, by budding, of a Begonia-leaf) recognizes a power of the kind. He says: We have therefore no alternative but to say, that the living particles composing one of these fragments, have an innate tendency to arrange themselves into the shape of the organism to which they belong. We must infer that a plant or animal of any species, is made up of special units, in all of which there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to aggregate into the form of that species: just as in the

1 66 Principles of Biology," vol. i p. 180.

atoms of a salt, there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to crystallize in a particular way. It seems difficult to conceive that this can be so; but we see it is so.” . . . . “For this property there is no fit term. If we accept the word polarity, as a name for the force by which inorganic units are aggregated into a form peculiar to them; we may apply this word to the analogous force displayed by organic units."1

Dr. Jeffries Wyman,2 in his paper on the "Symmetry and Homology of Limbs," has a distinct chapter on the "Analogy between Symmetry and Polarity," illustrating it by the effects of magnets on "particles in a polar condition."

Mr. J. J. Murphy, after noticing3 the power which crystals have to repair injuries inflicted on them and the modifications they undergo through the influence of the medium in which they may be formed, goes on to say: "It needs no proof that in the case of spheres and crystals the forms and the structures are the effect, and not the cause, of the formative principles. Attraction, whether gravitative or

1 Mr. Spencer, in an appendix to the first volume of the "Principles of Biology," has explained more fully what he means by the word "innate." He attributes "innate tendencies" entirely to the inherited structures of the "physiological units" produced in them by the total forces of the organisms through which they have been transmitted during the serial evolution of such organisms. This, however, is a mere moving of the difficulty a step backwards; and he by no means gets rid of (what never can be got rid of) the conception of innate power-of force proceeding from the organism as distinguished from force proceeding towards the organism. At the very least, Mr. Spencer must attribute to his ultimate units an innate power of inheriting effects of ancestral modifications, and this is, in principle, a power fully as mysterious as any for which the author of this book here contends.

2 See the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," vol. xi. June 5, 1867.

3 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 75.

4 Ibid. p. 112.

capillary, produces the spherical form; the spherical form does not produce attraction. And crystalline polarities produce crystalline structure and form; crystalline structure and form-do not produce crystalline polarities. The same is not quite so evident of organic forms, but it is equally true of them also." "It is not conceivable that the microscope should reveal peculiarities of structure corresponding to peculiarities of habitual tendency in the embryo, which at its first formation has no structure whatever;" and he adds that "there is something quite inscrutable and mysterious" in the formation of a new individual from the germinal matter of the embryo. In another place he says: "We know that in crystals, notwithstanding the variability of form within the limits of the same species, there are definite and very peculiar formative laws, which cannot possibly depend on anything like organic functions, because crystals have no such functions; and it ought not to surprise us if there are similar formative or morphological laws among organisms, which, like the formative laws of crystallization, cannot be referred to any relation of form or structure to function. Especially, I think, is this true of the lowest organisms, many of which show great beauty of form, of a kind that appears to be altogether due to symmetry of growth; as the beautiful star-like rayed forms of the acanthometræ, which are low animal organisms not very different from the Foraminifera." Their "definiteness of form does not appear to be accompanied by any corresponding dif ferentiation of function between different parts; and, so far as I can see, the beautiful regularity and symmetry of their radiated forms are altogether due to unknown laws 1 "Habit and Intelligence," vol. i. p. 170. 2 Ibid. p. 229,

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of symmetry of growth, just like the equally beautiful and somewhat similar forms of the compound six-rayed, starshaped crystals of snow."

Altogether, then, it appears that each organism has an innate tendency to develop in a symmetrical manner, and that this tendency is controlled and subordinated by the action of external conditions, and not that this symmetry is superinduced only ab externo. In fact, that each organism has its own internal and special laws of growth and development.

If, then, it is still necessary to conceive an internal law or "substantial form," moulding each organic being and directing its development as a crystal is built up, only in an indefinitely more complex manner, it is congruous to imagine the existence of some internal law accounting at the same time for specific divergence as well as for specific identity.

A principle regulating the successive evolution of dif ferent organic forms is not one whit more mysterious than is the mysterious power by which a particle of structureless sarcode develops successively into an egg, a grub, a chrysalis, a butterfly, all the conditions, cosmical, physical, chemical, and vital, being supplied which are the requisite accompaniments to determine such evolution.

CHAPTER IX.

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.

The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this book.— Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.--Mr. Darwin's speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.-Cause assigned by him insufficient. -Care of the aged and infirm opposed by "Natural Selection;" also self-abnegation and asceticism.--Distinctness of the ideas "right" and "useful."-Mr. John Stuart Mill.-Insufficiency of "Natural Selection" to account for the origin of the distinction between duty and profit.-Distinction of moral acts into "material" and “formal.”—No ground for believing that formal morality exists in brutes. Evidence that it does exist in savages.-Facility with which savages may be misunderstood.—Objections as to diversity of customs.— Mr. Hutton's review of Mr. Herbert Spencer.-Anticipatory character of morals. Sir John Lubbock's explanation.-Summary and conclusion.

ANY inquiry into the origin of the notion of " morality"— the conception of "right"—may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat remote from the question of the Genesis of Species; the more so since Mr. Darwin at one time disclaimed any pretension to explain the origin of the higher psychical phenomena of man. His disciples, however, were never equally reticent, and indeed he himself is now not only about to produce a work1 on man (in which this

1 The work referred to is the "Descent of Man," which has appeared since the publication of the first edition of this book. Mr. Darwin has therein justified the author's anticipations, and has asserted in the strongest terms the identity in kind of the mental faculties of men and brutes, and has thoroughly confounded our moral judgments with the gregarious instincts of beasts.