| 1866. | Darwin and his Teachings. 173 
because it revolves around a luminary from which it has derived its 
being (physically speaking), but which is probably of a lower 
cosmical nature than it is; and should it in like manner be shown 
(as will probably be the case) that our animal frame is derived by 
the usual generative succession “from some lower stock” of animal, 
will anyone hereafter venture to say that man is less noble on 
that account ? 
But certain well-ascertained facts appear to militate strongly 
against the assumption that man is descended in a direct line from the 
apes. 1. Although very degraded types of mankind exist amongst 
us to-day, and traces of similar beings have been discovered in the 
later geological formations, it is admitted that no form has yet 
been revealed, which serves as the approach to an intermediate link. 
The most impetuous followers of Darwin are the most positive on 
this point. 2. Although we find at the present day savages almost 
as untutored and undomesticated as any animal “ Man,” of which 
we can form a conception—indeed, in some cases almost below the 
highest domesticated animal in their mental character—and although 
these beings must have existed through untold ages, often exposed 
to every state of the weather in absolute nakedness, there has been 
no reliable case of a tribe reverting to the hairy type, nor any trace 
of such a variety of the human race having existed as aborigines 
in former times. And 3. Whilst the intelligence of the apes cannot 
be said to have advanced in proportion to the complexity of their 
organization, but to have reached its climax before we approach 
those forms nearest to Man; the intelligence of Man appears to be 
of a different nature to that of the apes, which are even less capable 
of sympathizing with man than some of the domestic quadrupeds ; 
and this intelligence, suc generis, appears just to have entered upon 
the dawn of its development, and to present an unlimited future. 
But whilst the problems of the origin of living beings and of 
Man present no serious obstacles to a belief in the simple doctrine 
of the transmutation of species, they do offer fatal objections to 
Darwin's version of that theory. If his law of natural selection is 
valid in one case of animal progress, it must hold good in all, and 
he has no more right to pass over the consideration of “the first 
steps in the advancement, or in the differentiation or specialization 
of parts,” in “looking at the dawn of life”* (in the lowest types of 
animals) as an inscrutable problem, than he would have to select 
any other phenomenon difficult of reconciliation with his law. And 
then what has he to say concerning the origin of the sexes them- 
selves? It is true, he tells us that “he is strongly inclined to 
suspect that the most frequent cause of variability may be attributed 
to the male and female reproductive elements having been affected 
prior to the act of conception ;”t but we would appeal to readers 
* «Origin of Species,’ p. 137. + Ibid. p. 8. 
