DARWIN. 125 



" the survival of the fittest " was a truth which readily 

 presented itself to any one considering the subject, and 

 that to Darwin was due the credit of having first brought 

 it forward and demonstrated its truth, and asserted that 

 the destruction of the least fit was recognised thousands 

 of years ago. But, in regard to the descent of man, it 

 fastens specially upon the author's theory of mental 

 and moral evolution, and declares that he has utterly 

 failed. The Saturday Review, however, admitted the high 

 antiquity of man, and the nearness of his bodily structure 

 to the apes, and went much further. In discussing the 

 evolution of morals, the author's unexampled grasp of 

 facts, with his power of correlation, is, according to The 

 Saturday, seen at its highest, in an exquisite chain of 

 philosophical deduction. The mode in which, at a remote 

 period, the races of mankind became differentiated, is 

 declared to be the weak point in the argument. 



