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XAVIER

AN AGE GAP BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE

GIA BAILEY

Copyright © 2021 by Gia Bailey

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any

electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and

retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except

for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONTENTS

Spoiled Royal Series

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

12. Three Months Later

Chapter 13

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Gia Bailey

SPOILEDROYALSERIES

Xavier is the first hero in the Spoiled Royal series. These heroes are
badly-behaved billionaire

aristocrats who are used to getting their way. They’ll go all out for
their feisty, independent heroines

and stop at nothing, to get their ring on their fingers.

A steam story about obsessed billionaires, SAFE with a sweet HEA

guarantee.

X avier

Someone was in my house.

I knew because the hour where I usually sat in silence in the library,
with nothing but a crackling

fire for accompaniment was being disturbed by… singing. Pop

singing, of all things.

I shut my book of poetry and stood, stretching my long body to my

full, towering height, and left

the quiet book-filled sanctuary.

White Hall House had been part of the Roxburgh Estate for over four
centuries. I strode along a

hall lined with portraits of my ancestors, and headed toward the

sound of an off-key song, echoing

harshly off the old stone walls.

I couldn’t have named the song the woman, for it was undoubtedly
a woman, was singing at the

top of her untalented lungs, not only because it was godawful, but
also because I didn’t offend my

ears by listening to the radio.

Granted, I was a little set in my ways. People of my class and

position usually were. From early

childhood, with a procession of nannies, governesses, and private

schools, to the days of Eton and

prep, then London with all its frivolities and distractions while
searching for a suitable lady for this

crumbling manor, before retiring to the country estate to shoot

pheasants, read books, and have mild-

mannered children you need only endure at breakfast and dinner,

my life was very much like all my

friends. Well, most of them, The respectable ones, anyway.

This was where my veneer of genteel polish and orderly life fell
apart somewhat.

I’d followed all the rules and yet, here I was, at the grand old age of
35, alone.
It hadn’t quite all gone as planned.

You see, the problem is that I seemed to have quite the aversion to
women from the upper crust. I

found them often jaded, nihilistic, and materialistic, and I hadn’t

quite managed to settle on one I

could stand to live with, though of course, I wouldn’t be the first to

feel that way. My own parents had

seldom lived at the same residence, perhaps during hunting season,

but that was sufficient for both.

Maybe I was just looking for the wrong thing. To want more from a
wife than companionship and

good stock for breeding would only lead to disappointment. I knew it

well, yet here I was alone still.

I reached the source of the singing, finally, and was perplexed to

find not a trace of the singer,

only her tone-deaf voice.

In the back hall, near to the kitchen, there was a huge trap door cut
into the flagstone floor that

held a stair leading down to an underground pantry. The voice

floated upwards from there. I couldn’t

quite make out the words, but certain phrases floated to me, giving
me pause.

“….about you….”

“…touch myself….”
I stared down at the hole in the floor, perplexed. A scrapping
sounded on the steps, and the singer

finally emerged.

I should say, parts of the singer emerged. She was backing up the
stone steps, clearly dragging

something heavy behind her. This resulted in her hips, and a rather
shapely arse, being the first thing

to emerge from the cellar.

She was wearing tight jeans with holes in them, strategically placed
to provide maximum intrigue

and excitement, rising up her thighs like a ladder I’d kill to climb.
The sudden thought was unexpected

and gave me pause.

She hummed under her breath as she dragged her heavy baggage
upwards.

“Here, allow me,” I said, reaching for what I could now see was a
sack of potatoes. Jack, the

gardener, kept a fully stocked allotment on the grounds, and I ate

exceedingly well thanks to it. I

reached for the sack, and she jerked her face up toward me, clearly
startled.

For one earth-stopping moment, I met her fine, green gaze. Her
face was lovely. Exquisite even. If

I should have found it in a classical portrait, I wouldn’t have been

surprised. A clear, high brow, and
long-winged eyebrows the color of fine sable. Her cheeks were full
and round, plump apples that

were stained a pretty rose. Her eyelashes, toffee dark and thick
around those green spritely eyes. Her

mouth opened, a rosebud of temptation, deep, pink, and soft. It

popped open, and I steeled myself to

hear what sweet sound of surprise this vision made flesh might
speak.

“Motherfucker!” she swore viciously, clearly far more surprised than

I’d expected, and it was

then that I realized she was falling backward, toward the cellar. I
reached for her with the speed and

strength that a lifetime of fencing, rugby, and a tour of Iraq had

ingrained in me.

Her wrist was fine beneath my brutish grip, but I had no time for
gentleness, as I yanked her from

her fall, and toward me instead.

I fell, there was no other choice. Luckily, she fell with me, instead of
down the stairs. I landed

hard on the flagstones and the woman landed atop me. I was glad
that I was able to break her fall,

even if the position was less than proper. Far less than proper, I
realized dimly, as I felt her slight,

soft weight rest over every part of me. Her hair, the same shining
sable as her eyebrows, was tickling
my nose, and the smell of it filled my head. Violets and jasmine.
Something undeniably feminine, yet

uncloying all at once. I inhaled it deeply, without thought.

“Are you smelling me?” A hard voice spoke from the vicinity of my
chest. I jolted at being caught.

The woman on top of me wriggled, sending heat crashing through

me. My entire body was extremely

aware of this person. She pushed herself up, bracing her hands on
my shoulders, and opening her legs

about my hips.

“Certainly not. I was preventing you from a nasty fall. Maybe

concentrating on the task at hand

and not your karaoke performance might be advised in the future.” I

was defensive, I couldn’t help it.

My body was responding. It could hardly fail to. Not only was she
stunning, full of fire and energy

in my arms, but she might also be the very first woman I’d allowed
to touch me in a good long while.

Years, perhaps. Since I went on my military tour. It was tradition for

the Duke of Roxburgh to serve,

and my predecessors had all done so before me. But the world had
changed. Officers no longer sat in

tents, and strategized, before having a drink and cigar and sending
their men off into battle. Perhaps
some did, but that didn’t sit well with me. Ignoring the locals and
their fear and confusion and endless

need hadn’t sat well with me either. You can measure a man’s true
worth through how he treats those

in need. It was the rule I had always lived by, and in Iraq, it had
been pushed to the limit.

“That’s a pretty shit excuse for manhandling someone and sniffing

their hair. I’ve heard it all

now.” The vision of loveliness was literally straddling me at this

point, and I was hardening quickly.

In a moment, she’d know.

“That’s quite some language you have on you. Do you kiss your
mother with that mouth?” I heard

myself demand, quite before I could help it. Something about her
knowing look and smart mouth was

unraveling my manners.

“Yeah, I do, and plenty other people too. I’ve had no complaints,”
the little vixen said and gave

me a sweetly sarcastic smirk.

“You’re making me regret preventing your inevitable fall,” I ground

out. I was turned around.

“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m sure you thought I’d simper and thank you
for being my hero, and excuse

the flimsy excuse to grope me?” she asked, raising a caramel

eyebrow at me. I wasn’t quite sure how
to respond to that, but one thing was certain. This girl was nothing
like I’d assumed she’d be from her

classic loveliness.

“I am hardly groping you. You might thank me for breaking your fall.
If I was groping you, you’d

know,” I snapped. She laughed then, a low-down dirty sound that

went straight down below. I had to

move her before she felt my rapidly growing interest. “Now how
about you get up, and next time, I’ll

just let you fall. Does that sound agreeable to you?” I asked, my
voice a deep snap. I was finished

playing.

She blinked at me, surprised, but then she moved, planting her feet
on the ground, she stood. I sat

up, willing my body into submission.

“You’re him, aren’t you? Lord of the manor,” she folded her arms
over an ample chest and graced

me with a half-smile. Not only was she tiny, but curvy as hell. I
forced my eyes to hers as I gathered

myself.

“Astutely reasoned, seeing as I’m no doubt the only person you’ve

met here,” I muttered, pulling

myself to my feet. I could only hope my three-piece suit would go

some way to hiding my body’s
visceral reaction to this woman.

“I also met Jack, the gardener, so, no need to be so smart,” she

quipped. Her accent wasn’t one I

could place. It had the general sound of someone expensively

educated and well-traveled. I’d

certainly never met her before, there was no way I’d have forgotten
it. She stuck a hand out now. Her

nail polish was black and chipped. “I’m Lily. I’m just filling in for my
mum while she recovers,” she

said.

Her mum. Recovers? I took her hand, distracted a long moment by

the velvet touch of her skin

before my brain kicked into gear.

“Of course, Mrs. Stone. She’s in hospital still, is she not?”

“Coming home next week,” Lily confirmed. Mrs. Stone had been the
cook at White Hall House for

decades. She was a much loved and respected part of the estate,
and her absence and the series of

temporary replacements had been tiresome. “She said you visited

her, a few times,” Lily said, raising

an eyebrow at me. I don’t quite know why that observation and her
frank appraisal made me feel

uncomfortable for a moment.

“Of course, she’s a part of the family,” I said rotely. Lily suddenly
stepped closer to me,

reminding me again of my stiff and overly eager hardness. I wanted

to pull her into my arms and sink

my face into her fragrant hair. I hadn’t had this gut reaction to a
woman in this way in longer than I

could recall.

“Does that make us related?” she asked. Her grin was portrait-
worthy. I didn’t have the will to

find a response for that. “Should I be calling you dear brother?”

“Given our age difference I’d think father was more likely,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes at me.

“Oh, you’d prefer daddy, is that it?” she murmured, sending a

cascade of heat sparking through

me. This woman was dangerous. I couldn’t guess what scandalous

statement was about to come out of

that volatile mouth.

“Please, pass my regards on to your mother. If you need help with

her care, just let me know,” I

said stiffly. When in doubt, fall back on manners and etiquette. It

was the only way I knew. She sighed

and tossed her head carelessly.

“I can handle it, thanks though,” she said. There was a frown of
worry between her elegant
eyebrows that betrayed her casual confidence. It seemed Lily Stone
was hiding something.

Interesting. “What would you like for lunch, Lord Stone?” she asked,
seeming determined to change

the subject. I cast a look to the potatoes, laying haphazardly across

the floor.

“I feel that it would be tactful to say root vegetables, at this

juncture,” I said and was rewarded

with Lily’s laughter. It peeled like a bell and landed somewhere deep
inside me.

“You can, but you can ask for anything else as well,” she said, in that
throaty voice of hers. My

mind went straight to the gutter at that, and the most illicit picture
flashed through my mind of this

woman spread across the banquet table, as I pulled up my chair,

rolled my shirt sleeves to my elbow,

and prepared to feast on every inch.

“Did your mother teach you to cook?” I asked, hoping a change of

subject might dampen the raging

hard-on that was pressing through my suit furiously, at that very

moment.

“She did, and then I went on to study in Paris. I just graduated from
Le Cordon Bleu a few months

ago,” she said. A graduate, then. So perhaps the age difference

wasn’t as shocking as I had imagined.
I forced that tempting thought from my mind. The Cordon Bleu
Institute. That did surprise me. Not that

she would have attended such a prestigious school, but that I should
find her here, preparing to cook

me lunch. I said as much to her. She simply shrugged. “My mum

needs help. There’s no other place in

the world that I would rather be.” It moved me, her simple, heartfelt
dedication. I wondered what it

would be like to be loved so deeply and unconditionally. I knew

without a doubt, that I had never felt

even a moment of that kind of selfless love.

“I would like to be of service, in some way. Mrs. Stone has been a

fixture of my life here for a

long time.”

“I know. She talks of you. Handsome, charming Lord Acton. She

thinks you need marrying off. She

thinks you’re lonely up here, in this huge house, all by yourself,” Lily
said, giving me an assessing

look. I knew that look. It was designed to take the measure of a

man, and see if he had gall enough to

admit to his weaknesses. I’d given that look, but I’d never once
received it. And then, she spoke

again, and all composure fled my mind. “She doesn’t know you’re
just going around looking for a

woman who’ll call you daddy.”

Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
shown to belong to this stage, and which proves a subsidence even
greater than that to be inferred from the present diminution of the
land area. Knowing as we do that the close of the Glacial period was
not more than 8,000 years ago, and deducting from this the
probable duration of the Palanthropic age on the one hand, and that
of modern history on the other, we must admit that the interval left
for the great physical and faunal changes above referred to is too
small to permit them to have occurred as the result of slow and
gradual operations. Considerations of this kind have indeed some of
the best authorities on the subject, as Cartailhac, Forel, and de
Mortillet, to hold that there is "an immense space, a great gap,
during which the fauna was renewed, and after which a new race of
men suddenly made its appearance, and polished stone instead of
chipping it, and surrounded themselves with domestic animals."[210]
There is thus, in the geological history of man an interval of physical
and organic change, corresponding to that traditional and historical
deluge which has left its memory with all the more ancient nations.
Thus our men of the Palanthropic, Post-glacial or Mammoth age are
the same we have been accustomed to call Antediluvians, and their
immediate successors are identical with the Basques and ancient
Iberians, a non-Aryan or Turanian people who once possessed nearly
the whole of Europe, and included the rude Ugrians and Laps of the
north, the civilized Etruscans of the south, and the Iberians of the
west, with allied tribes occupying the British Islands. This race,
scattered and overthrown before the dawn of authentic history in
Europe by the Celts and other intrusive peoples, was unquestionably
that which succeeded the now extinct Palæocosmic race, and
constituted the men of the so-called "Neolithic period," which thus
connects itself with the modern history of Europe, from which it is
not separated by any physical catastrophe like that which divides the
older men of the mammoth age and the widely spread continents of
the Post-glacial period from our modern days. This identification of
the Neolithic men with the Iberians, which the writer has also
insisted on, Dawkins deserves credit for fully elucidating, and he
might have carried it farther, to the identification of these same
Iberians with the Berbers, the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and
the Caribbean and other tribes of eastern and central America. On
these hitherto dark subjects light is now rapidly breaking, and we
may hope that much of the present obscurity will soon be cleared
away.
 [210] Quatrefages, "The Human Species." The interval should not, however, be
placed after the reindeer period, as this animal occurs in both ages.

Supposing, then, that we may apply the term Anthropic to that

portion of the Kainozoic period which intervenes between the close
of the Glacial age and the present time, and that we admit the
division of this into two portions, the earlier, called the Palanthropic,
and the later, which still continues, the Neanthropic, it will follow
that one great physical and organic break separates the Palanthropic
age from the preceding Glacial, and a second similar break separates
the two divisions of the Anthropic from each other. This being
settled, if we allow say 2,500 years from the Glacial age for the first
peopling of the world and the Palanthropic age, and if we consider
the modern history of the European region and the adjoining parts
of Asia and Africa to go back for 5,000 years, there will remain a
space of from 500 to 1,000 years for the destruction of the
Palæocosmic men and the re-peopling of the old continent by such
survivors as founded the Neocosmic peoples. These later peoples,
though distinct racially from their predecessors, may represent a
race contemporary with them in some regions in which it was
possible to survive the great cataclysm, so that we do not need to
ask for time to develop such new race.[211]
[211] For details of the physical characters of the older races of men I may
refer to the works mentioned below, or to the writings of Dawkins and
Quatrefages.

We cannot but feel some regret that the grand old Palæocosmic
race was destined to be swept away by the flood, but it was no
doubt better for the world that it should be replaced by a more
refined if feebler race. When we see how this has, in some of its
forms, reverted to the old type, and emulated, if not surpassed it in
filling the earth with violence, we may, perhaps, congratulate
ourselves on the extinction of the giant races of the olden time.
References:—"Fossil Men," London, 1880. The Antiquity of Man,
Princeton Review. "Pre-historic Man in Egypt and the Lebanon,"
Trans. Vict. Institute, 1884. Pre-historic Times in Egypt and
Palestine, North American Review, June and July, 1892.
 MAN IN NATURE.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

MY DEAR FRIEND DR. P. P. CARPENTER,

at once an eminent Naturalist and

Educator—

equally a Lover of Nature,

of his Fellow Men and of God.

What is Nature—Man a Part of Nature—Distinction between Man and

other Animals—Man as an Imitator of Nature—Man As at War With
Nature—Man in Harmony With Nature
 Carving of thePalanthropic Age.—Cave of Mas d'Azil,
France; after Cartailhac.

Heads of the wild horse, carved on antler of

the reindeer, and showing accurate imitation of
nature, with ideal and adaptive art on the part
of the antediluvian sculptor. (See p. 490.)
 CHAPTER XVIII.

MAN IN NATURE.

F
ew words are used among us more loosely than "nature."
Sometimes it stands for the material universe as a whole.
Sometimes it is personified as a sort of goddess, working her own
sweet will with material things. Sometimes it expresses the forces
which act on matter, and again it stands for material things
themselves. It is spoken of as subject to law, but just as often
natural law is referred to in terms which imply that nature itself is
the lawgiver. It is supposed to be opposed to the equally vague term
"supernatural"; but this term is used not merely to denote things
above and beyond nature, if there are such, but certain opinions
held respecting natural things. On the other hand, the natural is
contrasted with the artificial, though this is always the outcome of
natural powers, and is certainly not supernatural. Again, it is applied
to the inherent properties of beings for which we are unable to
account, and which we are content to say constitute their nature.
We cannot look into the works of any of the more speculative writers
of the day without meeting with all these uses of the word, and have
to be constantly on our guard lest by a change of its meaning we
shall be led to assent to some proposition altogether unfounded.
For illustrations of this convenient though dangerous ambiguity, I
may turn at random to almost any page in Darwin's celebrated work
on the "Origin of Species." In the beginning of Chapter III. he
speaks of animals "in a state of nature" that is, not in a
domesticated or artificial condition, so that here nature is opposed to
the devices of man. Then he speaks of species as "arising in nature,"
that is, spontaneously produced in the midst of certain external
conditions or environment outside of the organic world. A little
farther on he speaks of useful varieties as given to man by "the
hand of Nature," which here becomes an imaginary person; and it is
worthy of notice that in this place the printer or proof-reader has
given the word an initial capital, as if a proper name. In the next
section he speaks of the "works of Nature" as superior to those of
art. Here the word is not only opposed to the artificial, but seems to
imply some power above material things and comparable with or
excelling the contriving intelligence of man. I do not mean by these
examples to imply that Darwin is in this respect more inaccurate
than other writers. On the contrary, he is greatly surpassed by many
of his contemporaries in the varied and fantastic uses of this
versatile word. An illustration which occurs to me here, as at once
amusing and instructive, is an expression used by Romanes, one of
the cleverest of the followers of the great evolutionist, and which
appears to him to give a satisfactory explanation of the mystery of
elevation in nature. He says, "Nature selects the best individuals out
of each generation to live." Here nature must be an intelligent agent,
or the statement is simply nonsensical. The same alternative applies
to much of the use of the favourite term "natural selection." In
short, those who use such modes of expression would be more
consistent if they were at once to come back to the definition of
Seneca, that nature is "a certain divine purpose manifested in the
world."
The derivation of the word gives us the idea of something
produced or becoming, and it is curious that the Greek physis,
though etymologically distinct, conveys the same meaning—a
coincidence which may perhaps lead us to a safe and serviceable
definition. Nature, rightly understood, is, in short, an orderly system
of things in time and space, and this not invariable, but in a state of
constant movement and progress, whereby it is always becoming
something different from what it was. Now man is placed in the
midst of this orderly, law-regulated yet ever progressive system, and
is himself a part of it; and if we can understand his real relations to
its other parts, we shall have made some approximation to a true
philosophy. The subject has been often discussed, but is perhaps not
yet quite exhausted.[212]
[212] "Man's Place in Nature," Princeton Review, November, 1878. "The Unity
of Nature," by the Duke of Argyll, 1884, may be considered as suggestive of the
thoughts of this chapter.

Regarding man as a part of nature, we must hold to his entering

into the grand unity of the natural system, and must not set up
imaginary antagonisms between man and nature as if he were
outside of it. An instance of this appears in Tyndall's celebrated
Belfast address, where he says, in explanation of the errors of
certain of the older philosophers, that "the experiences which
formed the weft and woof of their theories were chosen not from
the study of nature, but from that which lay much nearer to them—
the observation of Man": a statement this which would make man a
supernatural, or at least a preternatural being. Again, it does not
follow, because man is a part of nature, that he must be precisely on
a level with its other parts. There are in nature many planes of
existence, and man is no doubt on one of its higher planes, and
possesses distinguishing powers and properties of his own. Nature,
like a perfect organism, is not all eye or all hand, but includes
various organs, and so far as we see it in our planet, man is its
head, though we can easily conceive that there may be higher
beings in other parts of the universe beyond our ken.
The view which we may take of man's position relatively to the
beings which are nearest to him, namely, the lower animals, will
depend on our point of sight—whether that of mere anatomy and
physiology, or that of psychology and pneumatology as well. This
distinction is the more important, since, under the somewhat
delusive term "biology," it has been customary to mix up all these
considerations, while, on the other hand, those anatomists who
regard all the functions of organic beings as merely mechanical and
physical, do not scruple to employ this term biology for their science,
though on their hypothesis there can be no such thing as life, and
consequently the use of the word by them must be either
superstitious or hypocritical.
Anatomically considered, man is an animal of the class
Mammalia. In that class, notwithstanding the heroic efforts of some
modern detractors from his dignity to place him with the monkeys in
the order Primates, he undoubtedly belongs to a distinct order. I
have elsewhere argued that, if he were an extinct animal, the study
of the bones of his hand, or of his head, would suffice to convince
any competent palæontologist that he represents a distinct order, as
far apart from the highest apes as they are from the carnivora. That
he belongs to a distinct family no anatomist denies, and the same
unanimity of course obtains as to his generic and specific
distinctness. On the other hand, no zoological systematist now
doubts that all the races of men are specifically identical. Thus we
have the anatomical position of man firmly fixed in the system of
nature, and he must be content to acknowledge his kinship not only
with the higher animals nearest to him, but with the humblest
animalcule. With all he shares a common material and many
common features of structure.
When we ascend to the somewhat higher plane of physiology we
find in a general way the same relationship to animals. Of the four
grand leading functions of the animal, nutrition, reproduction,
voluntary motion, and sensation, all are performed by man as by
other animals. Here, however, there are some marked divergences
connected with special anatomical structures, on the one hand, and
with his higher endowments on the other. With regard to food, for
example, man might be supposed to be limited by his masticatory
and digestive apparatus to succulent vegetable substances. But by
virtue of his inventive faculties he is practically unlimited, being able
by artificial processes to adapt the whole range of vegetable and
animal food substances to his use. He is very poorly furnished with
natural tools to aid in procuring food, as claws, tusks, etc., but by
invented implements he can practically surpass all other creatures.
The long time of helplessness in infancy, while it is necessary for the
development of his powers, is a practical disadvantage which leads
to many social arrangements and contrivances specially
characteristic of man. Man's sensory powers, while inferior in range
to those of many other animals, are remarkable for balance and
completeness, leading to perceptions of differences in colours,
sounds, etc., which lie at the foundation of art. The specialization of
the hand again connects itself with contrivances which render an
animal naturally defenceless the most formidable of all, and an
animal naturally gifted with indifferent locomotive powers able to
outstrip all others in speed and range of locomotion. Thus the
physiological endowments of man, while common to him with other
animals, and in some respects inferior to theirs, present in
combination with his higher powers points of difference which lead
to the most special and unexpected results.
In his psychical relations, using this term in its narrower sense,
we may see still greater divergencies from the line of the lower
animals. These may no doubt be connected with his greater volume
of brain; but recent researches seem to show that brain has more to
do with motory and sensory powers than with those that are
intellectual, and thus, that a larger brain is only indirectly connected
with higher mental manifestations. Even in the lower animals it is
clear that the ferocity of the tiger, the constructive instinct of the
beaver, and the sagacity of the elephant depend on psychical powers
which are beyond the reach of the anatomist's knife, and this is still
more markedly the case in man. Following in part the ingenious
analysis of Mivart, we may regard the psychical powers of man as
reflex, instinctive, emotional, and intellectual; and in each of these
aspects we shall find points of resemblance to other animals, and of
divergence from them. In regard to reflex actions, or those which
are merely automatic, inasmuch as they are intended to provide for
certain important functions without thought or volition, their
development is naturally in the inverse ratio of psychical elevation,
and man is consequently, in this respect, in no way superior to lower
animals. The same may be said with reference to instinctive powers,
which provide often for complex actions in a spontaneous and
unreasoning manner. In these also man is rather deficient than
otherwise; and since, from their nature, they limit their possessors
to narrow ranges of activity, and fix them within a definite scope of
experience and efficiency, they would be incompatible with those
higher and more versatile inventive powers which man possesses.
The comb-building instinct of the bee, the nest-weaving instinct of
the bird, are fixed and invariable things, obviously incompatible with
the varied contrivance of man; and while instinct is perfect within its
narrow range, it cannot rise beyond this into the sphere of unlimited
thought and contrivance. Higher than mere instinct are the powers
of imagination, memory, and association, and here man at once
steps beyond his animal associates, and develops these in such a
variety of ways, that even the rudest tribes of men, who often
appear to trust more to these endowments than to higher powers,
rise into a plane immeasurably above that of the highest and most
intelligent brutes, and toward which they are unable, except to a
very limited degree, to raise those of the more domesticable animals
which they endeavour to train into companionship with themselves.
It is, however, in these domesticated animals that we find the
highest degree of approximation to ourselves in emotional
development, and this is perhaps one of the points that fits them for
such human association. In approaching the higher psychical
endowments, the affinity of man and the brute appears to diminish
and at length to cease, and it is left to him alone to rise into the
domain of the rational and ethical.
Those supreme endowments of man we may, following the
nomenclature of ancient philosophy and of our Sacred Scriptures,
call "pneumatical" or spiritual. They consist of consciousness,
reason, and moral volition. That man possesses these powers every
one knows; that they exist or can be developed in lower animals no
one has succeeded in proving. Here, at length, we have a severance
between man and material nature. Yet it does not divorce him from
the unity of nature, except on the principles of atheism. For if it
separates him from animals, it allies him with the Power who made
and planned the animals. To the naturalist the fact that such
capacities exist in a being who in his anatomical structure so closely
resembles the lower animals, constitutes an evidence of the
independent existence of those powers and of their spiritual
character and relation to a higher power which, I think, no
metaphysical reasoning or materialistic scepticism will suffice to
invalidate. It would be presumption, however, from the standpoint of
the naturalist to discuss at length the powers of man's spiritual
being. I may refer merely to a few points which illustrate at once his
connection with other creatures, and his superiority to them as a
higher member of nature.
And, first, we may notice those axiomatic beliefs which lie at the
foundation of human reasoning, and which, while apparently in
harmony with nature, do not admit of verification except by an
experience impossible to finite beings. Whether these are ultimate
truths, or merely results of the constitution bestowed on us, or
effects of the direct action of the creative mind on ours, they are to
us like the instincts of animals infallible and unchanging. Yet, just as
the instincts of animals unfailingly connect them with their
surroundings, our intuitive beliefs fit us for understanding nature and
for existing in it as our environment. These beliefs also serve to
connect man with his fellow man, and in this aspect we may
associate with them those universal ideas of right and wrong, of
immortality, and of powers above ourselves, which pervade
humanity.
Another phase of this spiritual constitution is illustrated by the
ways in which man, starting from powers and contrivances common
to him and animals, develops them into new and higher uses and
results. This is markedly seen in the gift of speech. Man, like other
animals, has certain natural utterances expressive of emotions or
feelings. He can also, like some of them, imitate the sounds
produced by animate or inanimate objects; while the constitution of
his brain and vocal organs gives him special advantages for
articulate utterance. But when he develops these gifts into a system
of speech expressing not mere sounds occurring in nature, but by
association and analogy with these, properties and relations of
objects and general and abstract ideas, he rises into the higher
sphere of the spiritual. He thus elevates a power of utterance
common to him with animals to a higher plane, and connecting it
with his capacity for understanding nature and arriving at general
truths, asserts his kinship to the great creative mind, and furnishes a
link of connection between the material universe and the spiritual
Creator.
The manner of existence of man in nature is as well illustrated by
his arts and inventions as by anything else; and these serve also to
enlighten us as to the distinction between the natural and the
artificial. Naturalists often represent man as dependent on nature for
the first hints of his useful arts. There are in animal nature tailors,
weavers, masons, potters, carpenters, miners, and sailors,
independently of man, and many of the tools, implements, and
machines which he is said to have invented were perfected in the
structures of lower animals long before he came into existence. In
all these things man has been an assiduous learner from nature,
though in some of them, as for example in the art of aërial
navigation, he has striven in vain to imitate the powers possessed by
other animals. But it may well be doubted whether man is in this
respect so much an imitator as has been supposed, and whether the
resemblance of his plans to those previously realized in nature does
not depend on that general fitness of things which suggests to
rational minds similar means to secure similar ends. But in saying
this we in effect say that man is not only a part of nature, but that
his mind is in harmony with the plans of nature, or, in other words,
with the methods of the creative mind. Man is also curiously in
harmony with external nature in the combination in his works of the
ideas of plan and adaptation, of ornament and use. In architecture,
for example, devising certain styles or orders, and these for the most
part based on imitations of natural things; he adapts these to his
ends, just as in nature types of structure are adapted to a great
variety of uses, and he strives to combine, as in nature, perfect
adaptation to use with conformity to type or style. So, in his
attempts at ornament he copies natural forms, and uses these forms
to decorate or conceal parts intended to serve essential purposes in
the structure. This is at least the case in the purer styles of
construction. It is in the more debased styles that arches, columns,
triglyphs, or buttresses are placed where they can serve no useful
purpose, and become mere excrescences. But in this case the
abnormality resulting breeds in the beholder an unpleasing mental
confusion, and causes him, even when he is unable to trace his
feelings to their source, to be dissatisfied with the result. Thus man
is in harmony with that arrangement of nature which causes every
ornamental part to serve some use, and which unites adaptation
with plan.
The following of nature must also form the basis of those fine
arts which are not necessarily connected with any utility, and in
man's pursuit of art of this kind we see one of the most recondite
and at first sight inexplicable of his correspondences with the other
parts of nature; for there is no other creature that pursues art for its
own sake. Modern archæological discovery has shown that the art of
sculpture began with the oldest known races of man, and that they
succeeded in producing very accurate imitations of natural objects.
But from this primitive starting-point two ways diverge. One leads to
the conventional and the grotesque, and this course has been
followed by many semi-civilized nations. Another leads to accurate
imitation of nature, along with new combinations arising from the
play of intellect and imagination. Let us look for a moment at the
actual result of the development of these diverse styles of art, and at
their effect on the culture of humanity as existing in nature. We may
imagine a people who have wholly discarded nature in their art, and
have devoted themselves to the monstrous and the grotesque. Such
a people, so far as art is concerned, separates itself widely from
nature and from the mind of the Creator, and its taste and possibly
its morals sink to the level of the monsters it produces. Again, we
may imagine a people in all respects following nature in a literal and
servile manner. Such a people would probably attain to but a very
moderate amount of culture, but having a good foundation, it might
ultimately build up higher things. Lastly, we may fancy a people
who, like the old Greeks, strove to add to the copying of nature a
higher and ideal beauty by combining in one the best features of
many natural objects, or devising new combinations not found in
nature itself. In the first of these conditions of art we have a falling
away from or caricaturing of the beauty of nature. In the second we
have merely a pupilage to nature. In the third we find man aiming to
be himself a creator, but basing his creations on what nature has
given him. Thus all art worthy of the name is really a development
of nature. It is true the eccentricities of art and fashion are so erratic
that they may often seem to have no law. Yet they are all under the
rule of nature; and hence even uninstructed common sense, unless
dulled by long familiarity, detects in some degree their incongruity,
and though it may be amused for a time, at length becomes wearied
with the mental irritation and nervous disquiet which they produce.
I may be permitted to add that all this applies with still greater
force to systems of science and philosophy. Ultimately these must be
all tested by the verities of nature to which man necessarily submits
his intellect, and he who builds for aye must build on the solid
ground of nature. The natural environment presents itself in this
connection as an educator of man. From the moment when infancy
begins to exercise its senses on the objects around, this education
begins training the powers of observation and comparison,
cultivating the conception of the grand and beautiful, leading to
analysis and abstract and general ideas. Left to itself, it is true this
natural education extends but a little way, and ordinarily it becomes
obscured or crushed by the demands of a hard utility, or by an
artificial literary culture, or by the habitude of monstrosity and
unfitness in art. Yet, when rightly directed, it is capable of becoming
an instrument of the highest culture, intellectual, æsthetic, and even
moral. A rational system of education would follow nature in the
education of the young, and drop much that is arbitrary and
artificial. Here I would merely remark, that when we find that the
accurate and systematic study of nature trains most effectually some
of the more practical powers of mind, and leads to the highest
development of taste for beauty in art, we see in this relation the
unity of man and nature, and the unity of both with something
higher than either.
It may, however, occur to us here, that when we consider man as
an improver and innovator in the world, there is much that suggests
a contrariety between him and nature, and that, instead of being the
pupil of his environment, he becomes its tyrant. In this aspect man,
and especially civilized man, appears as the enemy of wild nature, so
that in those districts which he has most fully subdued, many
animals and plants have been exterminated, and nearly the whole
surface has come under his processes of culture, and has lost the
characteristics which belonged to it in its primitive state. Nay more,
we find that by certain kinds of so called culture man tends to
exhaust and impoverish the soil, so that it ceases to minister to his
comfortable support, and becomes a desert. Vast regions of the
earth are in this impoverished condition, and the westward march of
exhaustion warns us that the time may come when even in
comparatively new countries, like America, the land will cease to be
able to sustain its inhabitants. Behind this stands a still farther and
portentous possibility. The resources of chemistry are now being
taxed to the utmost to discover methods by which the materials of
human food may be produced synthetically, and we may possibly, at
some future time, find that albumen and starch may be
manufactured cheaply from their elements by artificial processes.
Such a discovery might render man independent of the animal and
vegetable kingdoms. Agriculture might become an unnecessary and
unprofitable art. A time might come when it would no longer be
possible to find on earth a green field, or a wild animal; and when
the whole earth would be one great factory, in which toiling millions
were producing all the materials of food, clothing, and shelter. Such
a world may never exist, but its possible existence may be imagined,
and its contemplation brings vividly before us the vast powers
inherent in man as a subverter of the ordinary course of nature. Yet
even this ultimate annulling of wild nature would be brought about
not by anything preternatural in man, but simply by his placing
himself in alliance with certain natural powers and agencies, and by
their means attaining dominion over the rest.
Here there rises before us a spectre which science and
philosophy appear afraid to face, and which asks the dread question,
—What is the cause of the apparent abnormality in the relations of
man and nature? In attempting to solve this question, we must
admit that the position of man, even here, is not without natural
analogies. The stronger preys upon the weaker, the lower form gives
place to the higher, and in the progress of geological time old
species have died out in favour of newer, and old forms of life have
been exterminated by later successors. Man, as the newest and
highest of all, has thus the natural right to subdue and rule the
world. Yet there can be little doubt that he uses this right unwisely
and cruelly, and these terms themselves explain why he does so,
because they imply freedom of will. Given a system of nature
destitute of any being higher than the instinctive animal, and
introduce into it a free rational agent, and you have at once an
element of instability. So long as his free thought and purpose
continue in harmony with the arrangements of his environment, so
long all will be harmonious; but the very hypothesis of freedom
implies that he can act otherwise, and so perfect is the equilibrium
of existing things, that one wrong or unwise action may unsettle the
nice balance, and set in operation trains of causes and effects
producing continued and ever-increasing disturbance. Thus the most
primitive state of man, though destitute of all mechanical inventions,
may have been better in relation to the other parts of nature than
any that he has subsequently attained to. His "many inventions"
have injured him in his natural relations. This "fall of man" we know
as a matter of observation and experience has actually occurred, and
it can be retrieved only by casting man back again into the circle of
merely instinctive action, or by carrying him forward until, by growth
in wisdom and knowledge, he becomes fitted to be the lord of
creation. The first method has been proved unsuccessful by the
rebound of humanity against all the attempts to curb and suppress
its liberty. The second has been the effort of all reformers and
philanthropists since the world began, and its imperfect success
affords a strong ground for clinging to the theistic view of nature, for
soliciting the intervention of a Power higher than man, and for
hoping for a final restitution of all things through the intervention of
that Power. Mere materialistic evolution must ever and necessarily
fail to account for the higher nature of man, and also for his moral
aberrations. These only come rationally into the system of nature
under the supposition of a Higher Intelligence, from whom man
emanates, and whose nature he shares.
But on this theistic view we are introduced to a kind of unity and
of evolution for a future age, which is the great topic of revelation,
and is not unknown to science and philosophy, in connection with
the law of progress and development deducible from the geological
history, in which an ascending series of lower animals culminates in
man himself. Why should there not be a new and higher plane of
existence to be attained to by humanity—a new geological period, so
to speak, in which present anomalies shall be corrected, and the
grand unity of the universe and its harmony with its Maker fully
restored. This is what Paul anticipates when he tells us of a
"pneumatical" or spiritual body, to succeed to the present natural or
"psychical" one, or what Jesus Himself tells us when He says that in
the future state we shall be like to the angels. Angels are not known
to us as objects of scientific observation, but such an order of beings
is quite conceivable, and this not as supernatural, but as part of the
order of nature. They are created beings like ourselves, subject to
the laws of the universe, yet free and intelligent and liable to error,
in bodily constitution freed from many of the limitations imposed on
us, mentally having higher range and grasp, and consequently
masters of natural powers not under our control. In short, we have
here pictured to us an order of beings forming a part of nature, yet
in their powers as miraculous to us as we might be supposed to be
to lower animals, could they think of such things. This idea of angels
bridges over the great natural gulf between humanity and deity, and
illustrates a higher plane than that of man in his present state, but
attainable in the future. Dim perceptions of this would seem to
constitute the substratum of the ideas of the so-called polytheistic
religions. Christianity itself is in this aspect not so much a revelation
of the supernatural as the highest bond of the great unity of nature.
It reveals to us the perfect Man, who is also one with God, and the
mission of this Divine Man to restore the harmonies of God and
humanity, and consequently also of man with his natural
environment in this world, and with his spiritual environment in the
higher world of the future. If it is true that nature now groans
because of man's depravity, and that man himself shares in the evils
of this disharmony with nature around him, it is clear that if man
could be restored to his true place in nature he would be restored to
happiness and to harmony with God, and if, on the other hand, he
can be restored to harmony with God, he will then be restored also
to harmony with his natural environment, and so to life and
happiness and immortality. It is here that the old story of Eden, and
the teaching of Christ, and the prophecy of the New Jerusalem strike
the same note which all material nature gives forth when we
interrogate it respecting its relations to man. The profound manner
in which these truths appear in the teaching of Christ has perhaps
not been appreciated as it should, because we have not sought in
that teaching the philosophy of nature which it contains. When He
points to the common weeds of the fields, and asks us to consider
the garments more gorgeous than those of kings in which God has
clothed them, and when He says of these same wild flowers, so
daintily made by the Supreme Artificer, that to-day they are, and to-
morrow are cast into the oven, He gives us not merely a lesson of
faith, but a deep insight into that want of unison which, centring in
humanity, reaches all the way from the wild flower to the God who
made it, and requires for its rectification nothing less than the
breathing of that Divine Spirit which first evoked order and life out of
primeval chaos.
References:—Articles in Princeton Review on Man in Nature and on
Evolution. "The Story of the Earth and Man." London, 1890.
"Modern Ideas of Evolution." London, 1891. Nature as an
Educator. Canadian Record of Science, 1890.
 INDEX OF PRINCIPAL TOPICS.
Air-breathers, their Origin and History, 257, 303.

Alpine and Arctic Plants, their Geological History, 425.

American Stone Age, 464.

Animals, their Apparition and Succession, 169.

---- their Geological History, 176, 187, 194.

---- Permanent Forms of, 87, 180.

Anthropic Age, 461.

Antiquity of Man, 469.

Arctic Climates in the Past, 213.

Atlantic, its Origin and History, 57.

---- Cosmical Functions of, 72.

---- its Influence on Climate, 81.

---- Deposits in, 83.

---- Migrations across, 84.

---- Future of, 90.

Azores, their Animals, 408.

Baphetes planiceps, 263.

Bay of Fundy, its Deposits, 312.

---- Footprints on Shores of, 311.

Bermudas, their Flora, etc., 85.

Boulders, Belts of, on Lower St. Lawrence, 345.

Boulder-Clay, Nature, etc., of, 360.

Cave Men, 476.

Cannstadt Race, 474

Chaos, Vision of, 90.

Chronology of Pleistocene, 470.

Climate, its Causes, 81.

---- as related to Plants, 215.

Climatal Changes, 382.

Coal, its Nature and Structure, 235.

---- its Origin and Growth, 233.

---- Summary of Facts relating to, 241.

---- of Mesozoic and Tertiary, 249.

---- its Connection with Erect Forests, 296.

Continents and Islands, 402.

---- Permanence of, 31, 403.

Contrast of land and sea-borne Ice, 360.

Cordilleran Glaciers, 369.

Cromagnon Race, 474.

Crust and Sub-crust, 62.

Dawn of Life, 95.

Deluge, The, 467.

Dendrerpeton Acadianum, 270.

Determination in Nature, 329.

Development of Life, 23.

---- Laws of, 194.

Distribution of Animals and Plants, 401.

Drift of Western Canada, 369

Early Man, 459.

Engis Race, 472.

Eozoon, Discovery of, 111.

---- Nature of, 112.

---- Contemporaries of, 129.

---- Teachings of, 135.

Eozoon, Preservation of and Structure, 143.

Eyes, earliest Types of, 331.

Evolution, its partial Character, 188.

Flora of White Mountains, 421.

Floras originate in the Arctic, 297.

Floating Ice, 360.

Footprints of Reptiles, 260.

---- of Limulus, 319.

Fossils, Preservation of, 136.

Fucoids, 311.

Galapagos, how Peopled, 412.

Geographical Changes and Climate, 390.

Geological Record, Imperfection of, 40.

Glaciers, Work of, 353.

Glacial Period, Conditions of, 375.

Gulf Stream, 388.

Hydrous Silicates, 144.

Huronian as a Geological System, 104.

Hylonomus Lyelli, 279.

Icebergs, their Nature and Work, 348.

Ice Age, the, 343.

Imperfection of the Geological Record, 40.

Land and Water, 58.

Land Snails, Earliest, 247.

Labyrinthodonts, their Origin and History, 265.

Laurentian System, 97.

---- Life in the, 107.

Laurentide Glaciers, 364, 368.

Leda Clay of Lower St. Lawrence, 365.