PRIMITJVB MAN. 837 



tage in some way, wliat guarantee can evolution give 

 us that the number of other modifications required 

 would take place simultaneously with this acquisition ? 

 It would be easy to show that this would depend 

 on the concurrence of hundreds of other conditions 

 within and without the animal, all of which must 

 co-operate to produce the desired effect, if indeed they 

 could produce this effect even by their conjoint action, 

 a power which the writer, it will be observed, quietly 

 assumes, as well as the probability of the initial 

 change in the head. Finally, the naivete with which 

 it is assumed that the bison and the ox are examples 

 of such an evolution, would be refreshing in these 

 artificial days, if instances of it did not occur in almost 

 every page of the writings of evolutionists. 



It would only weary the reader to follow evolution 

 any further into details, especially as my object in 

 this chapter is to show that generally, and as a 

 theory of nature and of man, it has no good founda- 

 tion; but we should not leave the subject without 

 noting precisely the derivation of man according to 

 this theory ; and for this purpose I may quote Dar- 

 win^s summary of his conclusions on the subject.* 



'^Man,^' says Mr. Darwin, ''is descended from a 

 hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed 

 ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabit- 

 ant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole 

 structure had been examined by a naturalist, would 

 have been classed amongst the quadrumana, as surely 

 • " Descent of Man," part ii., ch. 21. 



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