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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ings and imperfect training ; and not to that which 

 alarmed our Prussian colleague, a tendency in the 

 expounders of scientific doctrine to make too sure 

 of things, to put forward as known fact that which 

 is not yet known fact, but only conjecture. In- 

 deed, our own scientific teachers, notably Huxley 

 and Tyndall, have for years been impressing upon 

 us this very thing, by example and precept, in 

 season and out of season — if, indeed, it is possi- 

 ble for such warning to be out of season. And to 

 their testimony I shall hope to return presently. 



As to that other fear of Virchow's, that some 

 caricature of the true doctrine of evolution may 

 become a dangerous weapon in the hands of the 

 socialist, it is a thing somewhat difficult for us to 

 understand. We have a way of suspecting that, 

 when socialism is dangerous, somebody or other 

 is being badly treated. We can conceive that it 

 should cause uneasiness to a repressive and med- 

 dling protectionist government. But in this coun- 

 try, where it would probably mean a kind of alli- 

 ance between cooperative stores and that very 

 respectable institution, the Metropolitan Board 

 of Works, we cannot undertake to be much 

 alarmed about it. Before any socialist measure 

 could enter into practical politics at all, it would 

 have so far to commend itself to the country as 

 to be supported by a considerable number of votes 

 in the House of Commons ; and a measure which 

 can do that is a thing not to be shuddered at, 

 but to be calmly discussed. 



What really remains for us to consider, then, 

 as of English interest, is, as I said before, that 

 question about the teaching of our children. The 

 principle laid down by Virchow I shall assume as 

 the basis of the discussion : we ought not to teach 

 to little children, as a known fact, thai which is not 

 a known fact. And the questions to be discussed 

 are, in what respects this canon is disobeyed or 

 in danger of being disobeyed ; and what means 

 we should adopt that our system of teaching may 

 be more perfectly conformed to it. It seems to 

 me that the second question answers itself in the 

 process of considering the first one. I shall there- 

 fore now proceed to those doctrines which, in 

 Virchow's view, are in danger of being taught 

 with an assurance which is in advance of the act- 

 ual evidence for them. 



And first, let us consider that very important 

 doctrine of the descent of man from some non- 

 human ancestor. " There are, at this time, few 

 students of Nature who are not of opinion that 

 man stands in some connection with the rest of 

 the animal world, and that such a connection may 

 possibly be discovered, if not with the apes, yet 



perhaps, as Dr. Vogt now supposes, at some other 

 point." Notwithstanding this, Virchow says, 

 " We cannot teach, we cannot pronounce it to be 

 a conquest of science, that man descends from 

 the ape or from any other animal." He bases 

 this decision upon the absence of such evidence 

 from paleontology, in the case of man, as is found 

 in the case of the horse. The horse (asses and 

 zebras being included under this name) is a one- 

 toed beast, thereby differing from all other mam- 

 mals ; but, as he has many points showing rela- 

 tionship with them, it is probable that he is de- 

 scended from a five-toed ancestor. The problem 

 is, to find this ancestor. There is no trace of him 

 in the quaternary strata. If the naturalist were 

 confined to the evidence of those strata, and were 

 not particularly careful of his logic, he might 

 " declare that every positive advance which we 

 have made in the domain of prehistoric hippology 

 has actually removed us further from the proof 

 of such a connection." The doctrine of the de- 

 scent of the horse from a five-toed ancestor would, 

 in fact, rest upon other grounds than the actual 

 discovery of the ancestral form. But the ances- 

 tor of the horse has been found in the tertiary 

 strata. He has three toes in the more recent 

 strata, and four toes in the earlier ; and, curiously 

 enough, the complete series is found in America, 

 where there were no horses at the time of its dis- 

 covery by Europeans. Now, man, on the other 

 hand, is a complex-brained animal, differing in 

 this way and in some others from all other mam- 

 mals ; but since in other respects his whole struct- 

 ure shows relationship with them, and especially 

 with the apes, it is probable that he is descended 

 from an ancestor with a simpler brain and a 

 structure generally bearing more resemblance to 

 the common simian type. The problem is to find 

 this ancestor. There is no trace of him in the 

 quaternary strata, because the quaternary men 

 are still men so far as their bony structure is con. 

 cerned, and we have no evidence about the com- 

 plexity of their brains, the pointedness of their 

 ears, or the hairy covering of their bodies. Nor, 

 as yet, has any decisive discovery been made of 

 the remaips of man, or of any sufficiently man- 

 like animal to count as his ancestor, in the ter- 

 tiary strata. Until we find the missing link, says 

 Virchow, the descent of man from an ape-like 

 ancestor is qot a conquest of science. When we 

 do find the missing link, it will be a conquest of 

 science. 



It will naturally, I think, strike any one who, 

 though a layman, has gained a certain amount 

 of second-hand knowledge of this subject from 



