8 The Descent of Man 



conclusions and erroneous calculations inspire us. When 

 their author comes before us anew, as he now does, with 

 opinions and conclusions still more startling, and calculated 

 in a yet greater degree to disturb convictions reposing upon 

 the general consent of the majority of cultivated minds, we 

 may Avell pause before we trust ourselves unreservedly to a 

 guidance which thus again and again declares its own reiter- 

 ated fallibility. Mr. Darwin's conclusions may be correct, 

 but we feel we have now indeed a right to demand that they 

 shall be proved before we assent to themj and that since 

 what Mr. Darwin before declared ' rtivbst be ' he now admits 

 not only to be unnecessary but untrue, we may justly regard 

 with extreme distrust the numerous statements and calcula- 

 tions which, in the Descent of Man, are avowedly recom- 

 mended by a mere ' may be.' This is the jnore necessary, as 

 the author, starting at first with an avowed hypothesis, con- 

 stantly asserts it as an undoubted fact, and claims for it, 

 somewhat in the spirit of a theologian, that it should be 

 received as an article of faith. Thus the formidable objection 

 to Mr. Darwin's theory, that the great break in the organic 

 chain between man and his nearest alHes, which cannot be 

 bridged over by any extinct or living species, is answered 

 simply by an appeal ' to a belief in the general principle of 

 evolution ' (vol. i. p. 200), or by a confident statement that 

 ' we have every reason to believe that breaks in the series are 

 simply the result of many forms having become extinct ' (vol. 

 i. p. 187). So, in like manner, we are assured that 'the 

 early progenitors of man were, no doubt once covered with 

 hair, both sexes having beards ; their ears were pointed and 

 capable of movement ; and their bodies were provided with a 

 tail, having the proper muscles ' (vol. i. p. 206). And, finally, 

 Ave are told, with a dogmatism little worthy of a philosopher, 

 that, ' unless we wilfully close our eyes' we must recognise 

 our parentage (vol. i. p. 213). 



