56 . The Descent of Man. 



n 



appear to have maturely reflected over the data he has so 

 industriously collected. Moreover, we are surprised to find 

 so accurate an observer receiving as facts many statements 

 of a very questionable nature, as we have already pointed 

 out, and frequently on second-hand authority. The reason- 

 ing also is inconclusive, the author having allowed himself 

 constantly to be carried away by the warmth and fertility of 

 his imagination. In fact, Mr. Darwin's power of reasoning 

 seems to be in an inverse ratio to his power of observation. 

 He now strangely exaggerates the action of ' sexual selection,' 

 as previously he exaggerated the effects of the ' survival of 

 the fittest.' On the whole, we are convinced that by the 

 present Avork the cause of ' natural selection ' has been rather 

 injured than promoted ; and we confess to a feeling of sur- 

 prise that the case put before us is not stronger, since we had 

 anticipated the production of far more telling and significant 

 details from Mr. Darwin's biological treasure-house. 



A great part of the work may be dismissed as beside the 

 point — as a mere elaborate and profuse statement of the 

 obvious fact, Avhich no one denies, that man is an animal, 

 and has all the essential properties of a highly organised one. 

 Along with this truth, however, we find the assumption that 

 he is no "more than an animal — an assumption which is 

 necessarily implied in Mr. Darwin's distinct assertion that 

 there is no difference of Idnd, but merely one of degree, 

 between man's mental faculties and those of brutes. 



We have endeavoured to show that this is distinctly 

 untrue. AVe maintain that while there is no need to abandon 

 the received position that man is truly an animal, he is yet 

 the only rational one known to us, and that his rationality 

 constitutes a fundamental distinction — one of Izind and not 

 oi degree. The estimate we have formed of man's position 

 differs therefore most widely from that of Mr. Darwin. 



Mr. Darwin's remarks, before referred to {aniey p. 43) 



