220 
arrive at an interesting conclusion that the brilliant colours 
{i.e., the abundant secretion of pigment) have caused the 
inedibility of the species, rather than that the inedibility 
has necessitated the production of bright colour as an 
advertisement.* Mr. Darwin informs us that “ the ex 
treme beauty of the Eolidae (naked sea-slugs) is chiefly 
due to the biliary glands being seen through the 
translucent integuments.”-f Bile and beauty seem to 
us a queer combination ; and it would sound very 
strangely in our ears, if we could hear the lovers among 
the sea-slugs apostrophising one another and declaring 
one another to be as beautiful as they are bilious. Such 
facts are no less fatal to the theory of Darwinism, for 
we see clearly that a phenomenon which at once produced 
a nasty taste and a gaudy colour would make short work 
of the protracted process which Mr. Wallace has conjec 
tured to take place, and the discovery of which is supposed 
to be the crowning triumph of the advocate of Natural 
Selection. 
(b) INSTINCT. 
“ Les gens de qualité savent tout sans avoir rien appris.” 
—MOLIERE. 
It has been asserted that the problem of instinct affords 
the best test of the doctrine of evolution, and that the 
theory of Natural Selection is most successful in its ex 
planation of the phenomena of instinct. 
“Among the many sagacious sayings of the patient and profound 
thinkers of Germany, not the least noteworthy was Schelling’s affirm 
ation that the phenomena of instinct are some of the most important 
* Beddard. /. 173. 
t Descent of Man. pp. 261-2.