112 MR. DARWIN'S WORK AND 



as much to man as to the lower mammals, seeing that it 

 is perfectly demonstrable that the structural differences 

 which separate man from the apes are not greater than 

 those which separate some apes from others. There 

 cannot be the slightest doubt in the world that the argu- 

 ment which applies to the improvement of the horse from 

 an earlier stock, or of ape from ape, applies to the improve- 

 ment of man from some simpler and lower stock than man. 

 There is not a single faculty functional or structural, 

 moral, intellectual, or instinctive, there is no faculty 

 whatever that is not capable of improvement ; there is no 

 faculty whatsoever which does not depend upon structure, 

 and as structure tends to vary, it is capable of being 

 improved. 



Well, I have taken a good deal of pains at various times 

 to prove this, and I have endeavoured to meet the objections 

 of those who maintain, that the structural differences 

 between man and the lower animals are of so vast a 

 character and enormous extent, that even if Mr. Darwin's 

 views are correct, you cannot imagine this particular 

 modification to take place. It is, in fact, easy matter to 

 prove that, so far as structure is concerned, man differs to 

 no greater extent from the animals which are immediately 

 below him than these do from other members of the same 

 order. Upon the other hand, there is no one who estimates 

 more highly than I do the dignity of human nature, and 

 the width of the gulf in intellectual and moral matters, 

 which lies between man and the whole of the lower creation. 



But I find this very argument brought forward vehe- 

 mently by some. " You say that man has proceeded 

 from a modification of some lower animal, and you take 

 pains to prove that the structural differences which are 

 said to exist in his brain do not exist at all, and you teach 

 that all functions, intellectual, moral, and others, are the 

 expression or the result, in the long run, of structures, and 

 of the molecular forces which they exert." It is quite 

 true that I do so. 



" Well, but," I am told at once, somewhat triumphantly, 

 " you say in the same breath that there is a great moral 

 and intellectual chasm between man and the lower animals. 

 How is this possible when you declare that moral and 

 intellectual characteristics depend on structure, and yet 

 tell us that there is no such gulf between the structure of 

 man and that of the lower animals ? " 



