56 ASSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



reason for doing so because the question which in 

 phylogeny is parallel to the ontogenic question of 

 the dawn of self-consciousness Mr. Romanes wisely 

 refuses to decide. It is interesting to see how man 

 in his embryonic life gathers up the sharply 

 defined types of infra-human existence, but no 

 one dreams of basing zoology on embryology. 

 Similarly, to argue from the origin of self-con- 

 sciousness in the individual, about which we know 

 so little, to the transition from the man-like ape 

 to the ape-like man, must be, as Mr. Romanes 

 says, "of a wholly speculative or unverifiable 

 character." "As well," he says, "might the 

 historian spend his time in suggesting hypothetical 

 histories of events known to have occurred in a 

 prehistoric age." And he therefore contents him- 

 self with criticizing three "alternative and equally 

 hypothetical" accounts of the process, the view 

 of certain German philologists, the view suggested 

 by Mr. Darwin, and a modification of this thrown 

 out as a suggestion by Mr. Romanes himself. 



What, then, has Mr. Romanes really done in 

 the volume before us ? If we take his own account, 

 he has triumphantly proved that the difference 

 between man and brute is one of degree and not 

 of kind. If this means that he has triumphed over 

 somebody who believed that the soul came from 

 God and the body from somewhere else, we con- 

 gratulate him on his victory over a revived Mani- 



