470 THE CAUSES OF THE X l 



be read with as much ease as its pleasant style 

 may lead you to imagine. You spin through it 

 as if it were a novel the first time you read it, and 

 think you know all about it ; the second time you 

 read it you think you know rather less about it ; 

 and the third time, you are amazed to find how 

 little you have really apprehended its vast scope 

 and objects. I can positively say that I never 

 take it up without finding in it some new view, or 

 light, or suggestion that I have not noticed before. 

 That is the best characteristic of a thorough and 

 profound book ; and I believe this feature of the 

 " Origin of Species " explains why so many per- 

 sons have ventured to pass judgment and criti- 

 cisms upon it which are by no means worth the 

 paper they are written on. 



Before concluding these lectures there is one 

 point to which I must advert though, as Mr. 

 Darwin has said nothing about man in his book, 

 it concerns myself rather than him ; for I have 

 strongly maintained on sundry occasions that if 

 Mr. Darwin's views are sound, they apply as much 

 to man as to the lower mammals, seeing that it is 

 perfectly demonstrable that the structural differ- 

 ences which separate man from the apes are not 

 greater than those which separate some apes 

 from others. There cannot be the slightest doubt 

 in the world that the argument which applies to 

 the improvement of the horse from an earlier 

 stock, or of ape from ape, applies to the improve- 



