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" Mr. Darwin's present book is a conspicuous example of this utterly 

 unscientific process. It begins by assuming evolution in the exact sense 

 which Dr. Salmon justly called a scientific imagination, not a scientific 

 fact. From a plausible conjecture that some species may be modified 

 descendents of other species the very most that Darwinism can logically 

 pretend to its author quietly infers a universal law, and so sets himself to 

 inquire in the present book 'whether man, like every other species, is 

 descended from some pre-existing form ! ' Having by this good beginning 

 accomplished more than half his work, he proceeds in like manner to ' take 

 for granted' the high antiquity assigned to man by M. Boucher de Perthes, 

 Sir Charles Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, and others, together with Professor 

 Huxley's ' conclusive ' proof that ' man differs less from the higher apes 

 than these do from the lower members of the same order of primates.' 

 Now here are at least four unproved hypotheses to be accepted in the dark 

 before the new argument can see daylight. Of the first Mr. Darwin himself 

 confesses that ' of the older and honoured chiefs in natural science, many 

 unfortunately are still opposed to evolution in every form.' His greatest 

 authority only denies the independent creation of every species, though Mr. 

 Darwin, in quoting his words, enlarges them into an assertion that ' species 

 instead of " some species" are the modified descendents of other species. 

 From this universal proposition, the induction is at present ludicrously 

 scanty, while the acts and reasons on the contrary side are overpowering. 

 The battle, in short, has yet to be fought before Darwinism can make good 

 this first step in its hypothetical Sorites. The antiquity of man is another 

 battle ground where it has hardly set up its banners. Assuredly it can boast 

 no victory. On the existence of man before the Tertiary period all is yet 

 the merest conjecture, and that of so slender a structure that it may at any 

 moment vanish away. Sir John Lubbock's theory of a savage origin is a 

 third hypothesis more in want of proof for itself, than able to afford proof 

 of another. Not a single fact is established which is not quite as easily 

 reconciled with the opposite theory. Against it is the unbroken testimony 

 of history, that while in many nations civilization has decayed and died 

 out, in none has it sprung up and flourished without extraneous assistance. 

 If man were originally savage, and acquired civilization by his own 

 exertions, we ought occasionally to find him on the rise. There are 

 savages enough within the sphere of history, and even of present observa- 

 tion, to give full scope for the experiment. How is it that we never see 

 them improving themselves, till some one comes to improve them ? Why 

 did New Zealand remain in cannibalism till visited by missionaries within 

 our own recollection, and then spring almost at a bound to a level beyond 

 many parts of Europe ? That the New Zealander was capable of civili- 

 zation is proved by the result ; if it be a natural acquisition, why did he 

 never acquire it before we found him out ? On the other hand, if he 

 received the gift from the Briton, as the Briton from the Eoman, the 

 Koman from the Greek, and the Greek from the Egyptian, we are conducted 

 back to an original civilization from which the separated fragments fell, 

 and to which they return again when the long lost connection is restored, 

 as water remounts to its level when the intervening mass is pierced 

 without. Against this invariable testimony of history the most that is 

 offered is that all existing nations were originally barbarous ; but to 

 infer from this that all ancient races were barbarous also, is again to 

 beg the question. Our contention is that they were not, and we have 

 some evidence in our favour in the remains of ancient Egypt and Assyria ; 

 to assume without' evidence that these were in turn preceded by an 

 unknown period of barbarism, requires us to admit the very point to 

 be proved. If civilization (we repeat) did spring spontaneously out of 

 barbarism at the first, why has it never done so since ? To this question 

 there is no reply. But if the original savagery is still an improbable 



