CHAP. IX.] NATURAL SELECTION. 295 



assigned it ; while the reasoning employed in the Descent 

 of Man to support the hypothesis of our ape origin* seems 

 to me, to say the least, unworthy of Mr. Darwin s earlier 

 productions. 



Professor Huxley attributes &quot; peculiar notions of proba 

 bility &quot; to whoever affirms that if all animals below what is and 

 man have been evolved one from the other, then a in^anTanf- 

 close resemblance in man s body to any particular 

 animal s does not increase that a priori probability as to his 

 bodily evolution which springs from the fact of his being &quot; an 

 animal at all.&quot; But surely if it was of the essence of an animal 

 to be &quot; evolved,&quot; so that to be an animal implied being a crea 

 ture formed by evolution, then the fact of man being an animal 

 would necessarily have a similar implication, and I fail to see 

 what additional force that probability would obtain through 

 any particular resemblance. On the other hand, if there is 

 authority for believing that man s body was miraculously 

 created, such particular resemblance would not render such a 

 miracle one bit less credible ; for there is no necessity, on 

 the hypothesis of such miraculous creation, for more than 

 even a specific difference between his body and that of some 

 other animal. 



Professor Huxley declares the assertion that man differs 

 more from an ape than does an ape from inorganic matter 

 is the sign of the &quot; absence of a sound philosophical basis &quot; 

 in its assertor. But surely this is the position every one 

 must assume who believes that man is immortal, and has 

 a moral responsibility to God. For it is manifest that 

 such distinctions (e.g., growth, nutrition, locomotion, &c.) 

 as exist between apes and minerals are as nothing com 

 pared with the transcendent distinction above referred to. 

 If, then, in saying this we are in &quot;philosophical error,&quot; 

 we share that error with all those who assert the immor 

 tality of the soul, and a moral responsibility of each man 



* The much-ridiculed Lord Monboddo has been successfully redeemed from 

 very unjust depreciation in an interesting article which has lately appeared. 

 See the Month for November 1871. 



