

SEXUAL SELECTION*. 257 



geographical distribution in past and present times, and 

 their geological succession. It is incredible that all these 

 facts should speak falsely. He who is not content to 

 look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as dis- 

 connected, can not any longer believe that man is the 

 work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to 

 admit that the close resemblance of the embryo of man 

 to that, for instance, of a dog — the construction of his 

 skull, limbs, and whole frame on the same plan with that 

 of other mammals, independently of the uses to which 

 the parts may be put — the occasional reappearance of 

 various structures, for instance of several muscles, which 

 man does not normally possess, but which are common 

 to the Quadrumana — and a crowd of analogous facte — all 

 point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that man 

 is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common 

 progenitor. 



