gence that if they stung them in one particular place, as between certain segments on the lower side, their prey was at once paralyzed. It does not seem to me at all incredible that this action should then become instinctive, i. e., memory transmitted from one generation to another. It does not seem necessary to suppose that, when Pompilius stung its prey in the ganglion, it intended, or knew, that the prey would keep long alive. The development of the larvæ may have been subsequently modified in relation to their half-dead, instead of wholly dead, prey; supposing that *he prey was at first quite killed, which would have required much stinging. Turn over this in your mind, etc."
I confess that this explanation does not appear to me altogether satisfactory, although it is no doubt the best explanation that can be furnished on the lines of Mr. Darwin's theory.
In the brief time at my disposal, I have endeavored to give an outline sketch of the main features of the evidence which tends to show that animal instincts have been slowly evolved under the influence of natural causes, the discovery of which we owe to the genius of Darwin. And, following the example which he has set, I shall conclude by briefly glancing at a topic of wider interest and more general importance. The great chapter on instinct, in the "Origin of Species," is brought to a close in the following words:
"Finally, it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneumonidæ feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live, and the weakest die."
This law may seem to some, as it has seemed to me, a hard one—hard, I mean, as an answer to the question which most of us must at some time, and in some shape, have had faith enough to ask, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" For this is a law, rigorous and universal, that the race shall always be to the swift, the battle without fail to the strong; and in announcing it the voice of Science has proclaimed a strangely new beatitude—Blessed are the fit, for they shall inherit the earth. Surely these are hard sayings, for in the order of Nature they constitute might the only right. But, if we are thus led to feel a sort of moral repugnance to Darwinian teaching, let us conclude by looking at this matter a little more closely, and in the light that Darwin himself has flashed upon it in the short passage which I have quoted.
Eighteen centuries before the publication of this book—the "Origin of Species"—one of the founders of Christianity had said, in words as strong as any that have been used by the Schopenhauers and Hartmanns of to-day, "The whole creation groaneth in pain and travail." Therefore we did not need a Darwin to show us this terrible truth;
