114 LIFE OF 



the master's acuteness, his moderation, his candour, and 

 his desire to state facts which tell against him, are as 

 conspicuous in the " Descent of Man " as in any of his 

 works. 



The " Descent of Man," which was published in 1871 

 in two volumes, with numerous illustrations, began, after 

 a short introduction, with a suggestive series of questions, 

 which to the evolutionist suffice to decide the question 

 as to man's origin. As the answers to these questions 

 are obvious, Darwin first concentrated his inquiry upon 

 two points on which disputes must necessarily occur, 

 namely, the traces which man shows, in his bodily struc- 

 ture, of descent from some lower form, and the mental 

 powers of man as compared with those of lower animals. 

 The facts of our bodily structure are inexplicable on any 

 other view than our community of descent with the 

 quadrumana, unless structure is but a snare to delude our 

 reason. It is only our natural prejudice, says Darwin, 

 and that arrogance which made our fathers declare that 

 they were descended from demigods, which leads us to 

 demur to this conclusion. 



The comparison of the mental powers of animals with 

 those of man, proving, as Darwin contends, that they there- 

 in also show traces of community of descent, was certain 

 to provoke much more debate, for the term "instinct" 

 and the use made of it by naturalists and psychologists 

 as signifying untaught, unlearnt ability, largely tended 

 to obscure the question, and to create prejudices against 

 believing that instincts could be built up by inherited 

 experience, that instincts were really not absolute and 

 fixed, but relative and variable, and that all instincts 



