180 MAN AND APES. 



wrist-bones of man, the Chimpanzee, and Indris. 

 Tf this condition arises independently, and is 

 no mark whatever of genetic affinity, what 

 other single character can with certainty be 

 deemed to be valid evidence of affinity of the 

 kind ? 



But if the foregoing facts and considerations 

 tell against a belief in the origin of man and 

 apes, by the purely accidental preservation in 

 the struggle of life of minute and fortuitous 

 structural variations, do they tell against the 

 doctrine of evolution generally ? 



To this question it must be replied that, if 

 we have reason to think an innate law has 

 been imposed upon nature, by which new 

 and definite species, under definite conditions, 

 emerge from a latent and potential being into 

 actual and manifest existence, then the fore- 

 going facts do not in the least tell against such 

 a conception — a conception, that is, of a real 

 and true process of " evolution" or "un- 

 folding." 



For there is no conceivable reason why 



