VII.
1.—“... Evolution ...”
“We now know that Nature, as an anthropomorphic being, does not exist; that the great forces called natural are unconscious; that their blind action results, however, in the world of life, in a choice, a selection, a progressive evolution, or, to sum up, in the survival of the individuals best adapted to the conditions of their existence.”—Letourneau (“The Evolution of Marriage,” Chap. I., Part II.).
Id.... “Robert Chambers’s common-sense view of evolution as a process of continued growing.”—Professor Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson (“The Evolution of Sex,” p. 302).
3.—“By Art ...”
“Other implements of Palæolithic age are formed of bone and horn. Among these are harpoon-heads, barbed on one or both sides, awls, pins, and needles with well-formed eyes. But by far the most noteworthy objects of this class are the fragments of bone, horn, ivory, and stone, which exhibit outlined and even shaded sketches of various animals. These engravings have been made with a sharp-pointed implement, and are often wonderfully characteristic representations of the creatures they pourtray. The figures are sometimes single, in other cases they are drawn in groups. We find representations of a fish, a seal, an ibex, the red-deer, the great Irish elk or deer, the bison, the horse, the cave-bear, the reindeer, and the mammoth or woolly elephant. Besides engravings, we meet also with sculptures.... It is impossible to say to what use all these objects were put. Some of them may have been handles for knives, while others are mere fragments, and only vague guesses can be made as to the nature of the original implements. It is highly probable, however, that many of these works of art may have been designed simply as such, for the pleasure and amusement of the draughtsman and his fellows.”—James Geikie (“Prehistoric Europe,” Chap. II.).
Id.... The culture or appreciation of Art is of itself evidence of a higher nature in man; “a soul, a psyche, a something which aspires,” as Richard Jefferies calls it. For though the professional pursuit of Art may be occasionally not unmingled with mercenary motives, or with the pourtrayal of incentives to lower desire, yet the ultimate appeal of every truly beautiful picture or object of Art is, at any rate, not to man’s mercenary or meaner nature. As Jefferies again says, “The ascetics are the only persons who are impure. The soul is the higher even by gazing on beauty.”—(“The Story of My Heart,” Chap. VII.)
7.—“... the soul ...”
“The mind of man is infinite. Beyond this, man has a soul. I do not use this word in the common-sense which circumstances have given to it. I use it as the only term to express that inner consciousness which aspires.”—Richard Jefferies (“The Story of My Heart,” Chap. IX.).
8.—“... from lower flush of lust.”
“The fact to be insisted upon is this, that the vague sexual attraction of the lowest organisms has been evolved into a definite reproductive impulse, into a desire often predominating over even that of self-preservation; that this, again, enhanced by more and more subtle additions, passes by a gentle gradient into the love of the highest animals, and of the average human individual.”—Geddes and Thomson (“Evolution of Sex,” p. 267).