NO FUNCTION WITHOUT MECHANISM. 29 



are possessed by apes could have come by repetition 

 of generations to acquire the endowments fitting them 

 for the performance of the highly specialised func- 

 tions proper to those cells of the human brain in 

 question. 



How, therefore, can it be maintained that by 

 increased mental activity reason could have been 

 acquired by apes through Natural Selection aided by 

 inherited habit ? There might, indeed, be increased 

 mental activity in the ape, but that would be, never- 

 theless, nothing more than ape mental activity, not 

 man's even in the slightest degree ; and what does 

 not exist cannot be inherited. The more an ape's 

 mental activity is increased, the more intensely apish, 

 indeed, it must prove. 



In accordance with the teaching of the theory of 

 Evolution that function determines structure, Mr. 

 Darwin argues that as the mental faculties were 

 gradually developed, the brain would become larger. 

 But surely this is putting the cart before the horse, 

 for the truth is that the mental faculties are mani- 

 fested only in proportion to the existing size and 

 quality of the brain. Function cannot precede 

 mechanism. The rails had to be laid down, and the 

 steam-engine put into working order, before we could 

 be conveyed from London to Brighton in an hour 

 and a half. The telegraph cable had to be submerged 

 in the Atlantic before messages could be flashed 

 between London and New York. 



