298 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



The facts to which our thought is now being directed 

 have received special attention from Professor E. Ray 

 Lankester, whose discussion deserves consideration. 

 Degeneration : A Chapter in Darwinism is the title 

 of the lecture which appears first in his volume of 

 Essays. 1 At the outset, the references are to organic 

 variations, and are virtually inapplicable to human 

 life so far as it is rational. Professor Lankestcr s obser 

 vations are designed to show that the process of 

 natural selection and survival of the fittest has not 

 inevitably acted so as either to improve and elaborate 

 the structure of all the organisms subject to it, or 

 else has left them unchanged, exactly fitted to their 

 conditions, maintained, as it were, in a state of balance. 2 

 On the contrary he argues, we have as possibilities 

 either balance, or elaboration, or degeneration. 3 The 

 reader will remark how naturally the whole range of 

 observation is taken as one of structure, and the 

 reference is made to all the organisms. Nevertheless, 

 before the close, it appears that this is preparatory 

 to showing that the traditional history of mankind 

 furnishes us with notable examples of degeneration. 4 

 We are here specially concerned with these notable 

 examples. 



The illustrations of degeneration first given are 

 those supplied by lizards and by parasites. The former 

 set of illustrations will suffice here. Our author says, 

 I may call to mind the very remarkable series of 

 lizard-like animals which exist in the south of Europe 

 and in other countries, which exhibit in closely-related 



1 The Advancement of Science : Occasional Essays and Addresses, 

 1890. 



2 Ib. p. 22. 3 Ib. p. 24. 4 Ib. p. 47. 



