A serious objection here presents itself. Does the influence of the soil perfect the instinct of animals as well as their bodies? Has _it_ given man that intelligence which, better than all zoological characters, especially distinguishes him from the brute creation? M. Trémaux meets this difficulty with a reply which might have been taken from Nysten's dictionary. In his comparison "of man with the ape," he tells us "that M. Gratiolet divides the subject into two sections, the one referring to organization, the other to faculties. He concedes the resemblances of the first, he refuses to acknowledge those of the second, without observing that these differences in faculties are only the consequence of a greater or less degree of organic development." This philosophical heresy does not slip by chance from the writer's pen; we find it repeated in several places, nearly in the same terms. Moreover, in refuting another passage from Gratiolet, he says: "I am astonished that Gratiolet does not recognize in instinct a rudiment of intelligence; in the constructions of the beaver, in the nests of birds, in the cells of bees, elements of sculpture and of design, etc."
M. Trémaux divides the opinions of Gratiolet into two; the first part is serious, and is that of the learned anatomist; the second is that of sentiment, wherein he speaks by the same title as the philosophers who develop the void of their entities. This contempt for philosophy well explains the strange ideas of our author about the intelligence of man and the souls of brutes. To see nothing between both but a difference of organization is not philosophical. A little metaphysics would spoil nothing, and it really does not require a strong dose to behold the abyss which separates human intelligence, capable of seizing the abstract and the absolute as well as the concrete and the continent, from that of brutes, acting by instinct, able only at the most to combine some sensations, without ever having any general ideas.
We think we have now given a pretty exact epitome of M. Trémaux' ideas. The whole work rests upon an ill defined principle, which, in the sense in which we have understood it, the only one which appears to us to be feasible, cannot be considered new. This principle, although true in a certain sense and within certain limits, is not to be proved irrefragable, as the basis of any theory should be. The consequences which are sought to be drawn from the premises are not necessarily contained in them, and many bear not the seal of a wholesome philosophy. We shall perhaps be thought a little too severe upon this work. We think we should be so, especially as the author is in many respects recommendable. Apropos of the question of species, M. Trémaux writes: "M. Kourens has his merits, but they lie elsewhere; it is in his researches on the periosteum and on the vital cord that he acquires them." We may be allowed to use the same expressions and to say: "M. Trémaux deserves well, but not herein; his actual labors on ethnography and archaeology are very good. Read the account of his travels to Soudan and into Asia Minor, and you will acknowledge him a man of talent and undoubted science. But as to his theoretical ideas on the question of the species, he must not reckon upon them to support his reputation." Some journals may waste their incense upon him; the Constitutional may exclaim: "The veil has been lifted.… a new law is about to unite all disputants. … the arguments of M. Trémaux abound, and we feel only an embarrassment in choosing." L'Independance Beige will join the chorus. Even the Moniteur will grant its approval. But all this is no set-off against the opinions of the learned, and M. Trémaux knows very well that our great naturalists do not [{851}] look upon his ideas as acceptable, or his arguments as conclusive.
It will be observed that we have not spoken of the Bible, although its narrative appears compromised by the transformation theory. We believe it to be useless to mix up theology with scientific debates, at least, when it is not directly attacked. Now, M. Trémaux is far from attacking revelation; he does not believe his ideas reconcileable with Genesis; he never speaks of the Bible narrative but with the greatest respect. Hence we believe it advisable to show great tolerance toward sciences which are still in their infancy, which require their elbows free for development, and which must wander a little in unknown countries, free to make a false step from time to time. It is thus they will progress and arrive at the truth.
We will add one last remark on the address of the anthropologists. The origin of man concerns historians as much as naturalists; for this reason we should not, in works of this character, neglect historic monuments. Of all those monuments, books are the surest. Even in abstracting the special value which the Bible possesses as an inspired volume, it is not the less true that it is a document which must be considered, and which as a written document has an incontestably safer meaning than all the fossils in the world.
For a higher reason we should beware of all theories or hypotheses which do not agree with the sacred text. The Bible no doubt is not intended to instruct us in the secrets of the natural order, and it is perhaps for that that we find in it so little relating to these subjects; but the Holy Ghost, who inspired the sacred writers, could not have dictated to them errors, and every assertion which would be contrary to the clear and certain sense of a passage in it should, for this reason, be rejected as untrue. When the sense is obscure or doubtful, which is nearly always the case in passages relating to physics, we should, we think, be very cautious, and it is prudent for the learned to be on their guard, for fear of falling into very numerous and grave errors.
From The Victoria Magazine.
WISDOM BY EXPERIENCE.
What a shame! What abominable interference! What cruelty! What tyranny! These and many other strong expressions of the same kind proceeded from a collection of rose-stocks planted ready for budding. They were all fiercely angry and indignant, and first one and then another uttered some exclamation of disgust, and then all joined in a chorus of maledictions on the gardener who had done them so much injury. It was in the month of June that their feelings were so much excited, just when the sap was most active, and they were throwing out their most luxuriant shoots. I don't know how they went on when the gardener first dug them up out of the hedges, and cut away all their side branches and left only a single straight stem. If they did not make a fight for it then, it must have been because their sap was all dried up, and their leaves had fallen off, and they were in low spirits, and did not much care what became of them. But even then I don't think they yielded without a struggle, and I have no doubt there was a good deal of scratching and dragging back, [{852}] and a great show of independence and sullenness. But they had not the spirits to keep up resistance, and the gardener did not give them much chance, for he pruned them close, and planted them in rows just far enough apart to prevent the possibility of their having much intercourse, or of the evil disposed corrupting the more docile. But it was different in June, when, as I said, the sap was active, and their branches began to grow out on all sides, so that they could reach each other and even take a sly pinch at the gardener or any of his friends who happened to come near. And the particular irritation now was because the gardener had discovered how wild they were becoming, and set resolutely about restraining them. First of all he cut off all the suckers that grew from the roots, and the lower shoots, leaving only those that grew at the crown of the stock, and then he put them all straight up, and would not let them loll about or hang over the path—a habit they had got into which was very disagreeable to those who passed by. And if they would not stand upright without, he fastened them to pieces of board let into the ground. This was a great grievance, but I think they most rebelled at having their lower boughs cut off, for if left to themselves they would have spread and puffed themselves out in a most ridiculous way.
Now it so happened that Madame Boll, a stock of a former year which had been budded, but left in its place and not removed with the rest into the flower-garden, heard their exclamations of anger and impatience, and having perhaps gone through some such phase of feeling herself, and thus gained wisdom by experience, she thought she would try if she could put their case to them in a better light; so she took advantage of a little lull in the storm, and said in a gentle, ladylike tone,