II THE ORIGIN OF MAN 147 



amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man. 

 In other words, if it could be shown that the 

 Marmosets, for example, have arisen by gradual 

 modification of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that 

 both Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified 

 ramifications of a primitive stock then, there 

 would be no rational ground for doubting that 

 man might have originated, in the one case, by 

 the gradual modification of a man-like ape ; or, 

 in the other case, as a ramification of the same 

 primitive stock as those apes. 



At the present moment, but one such process 

 of physical causation has any evidence in its 

 favour; or, in other words, there is but one 

 hypothesis regarding the origin of species of 

 animals in general which has any scientific exist- 

 ence that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For 

 Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, 

 mingled them with so much that was crude and 

 even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which 

 his originality might have effected, had he been a 

 more sober and cautious thinker; and though I 

 have heard of the announcement of a formula 

 touching "the ordained continuous becoming of 

 organic forms," it is obvious that it is the first 

 duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that a 

 qua-qu&-versal proposition of this kind, which 

 may be read backwards, or forwards, or sideways, 

 with exactly the same amount of signification, 

 does not really exist, though it may seem to do so. 



