86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



while, therefore, to consider whether the phrase, " derivation from 

 the lower animals," is one which can be maintained as rightly ex- 

 pressing the truth which it is intended to express concerning the 

 physical history of our race. 



Now it is manifest that if we look back, so far as is possible, 

 into the remote past, when the first germ of animal life appeared 

 upon the globe, two conditions of things, and two only, are con- 

 ceivable. Either (A) there was a single germ of life, from which 

 all subsequent living forms have been evolved or developed ; or 

 (B) there were several or many germs of life, from which, in sepa- 

 rate streams, so to speak, the evolution of living creatures took 

 place. Mr. Darwin inclined, I think, to the latter supposition ; but 

 either A or B must be accepted by all evolutionists of all schools. 

 Let us consider them successively. 



A. If we make the supposition that living forms commenced 

 upon the globe from a single germ, then it follows that all living 

 creatures now existing — insects, fishes, birds, beasts, man — have 

 been evolved by some process or processes from one and the same 

 origin : whether the process of variation and natural selection be 

 sufficient to account for the development, it is not necessary for 

 the purpose of this argument to decide ; it is sufficient to say, and 

 this can scarcely be denied, that by some process or processes the 

 development has taken place. Therefore, ascending to the hy- 

 pothesis now under consideration, it will be true that the lower 

 animals and man had a common origin ; but this is manifestly a 

 different thing from asserting that man is "derived from the 

 lower animals." If we go up to the hypothetical origin of life, or 

 the single germ, this latter assertion is obviously untrue, because, 

 as by hypothesis there was then only one germ, there could be no 

 distinction of superior or inferior ; but if we stop short of the ori- 

 gin and observe the condition of things at any period subsequent 

 to the hypothetical beginning, we shall find progress being made 

 toward the development of man and simultaneous progress being 

 made toward the development of the lower animals. But it does 

 not follow that, because this simultaneous development is taking 

 place, therefore we can say that one form of life is developed from 

 the other ; it might be as correct to say that the inferior animals 

 were developed from man, as man from the inferior animals. 

 Take an illustration from that which is possible in the case of 

 rivers. Conceive of two rivers running into the sea ; trace their 

 course, and suppose that ultimately you come to the same source 

 in the distant mountains ; it would not be correct to say that one 

 of these rivers was derived from the other. The correct state- 

 ment would be that they sprang from one and the same source, 

 that they had different histories, and that they terminated in dif- 

 ferent streams. 



