Permanence and Evolution. 125 



primates must have lost instead of gaining (as 

 far as the struggle for existence is concerned) 

 in the course of their development out of lower 

 types. 



I think the only reason why these facts 

 have not hitherto received as much attention 

 as is their due, is from the want of sufficient 

 distinction between " advance," " improvement," 

 in the sense of " increased adaptation to the 

 conditions of life, in the respects important to 

 the continuance of the race," and the same 

 words in the sense of "increased complexity 

 of organs." An hypothesis of retrogression 

 would probably be more consistent with natural 

 selection than one of progress, but would land 

 its adherents, if it had any, in still more hope- 

 less difficulties, both by the impossibility of 

 finding any one standard of perfection from 

 which all forms could have degenerated, and 

 from collision with the palseontological and 

 ontogenical evidence. 



