42 



conjecture, instead of an established fact, the whole basis of Darwinism 

 is gone. 



"Mr Huxley's doctrine is in the same category of assumtion with- 

 out proof and against evidence. He is not more logical than his 

 fellows, because he is more peremptory and scornful. Granting that in 

 physical structure man approximates nearer to the ape than the ape 

 to the lowest monkey, this is no argument for either being descended 

 from the other, till we have admitted the two previous unproved hy- 

 potheses, universal evolution, and the savage origin of man. Again, 

 physical structure is only one element in specific classification, and 

 in the case of man the least important. His moral and intellectual 

 nature is emphatically his specific difference from other mammals ; and 

 here it is easy to retort Mr Huxley's argument. The highest ape 

 is morally and intellectually more removed from the lowest savage than 

 the latter from the most eminent philosopher. The savage may become 

 a philosopher, but the ape never becomes even a savage. Neither 

 can we detect the slightest tendency to such moral or intellectual 

 evolution. Mr. Darwin does, indeed, collect some interesting anecdotes 

 of quasi-human reason and affections in the lower animals, but it 

 requires an enormous exercise of ' imagination ' to elevate them into 

 anything approaching to the nature of man. Of this he seems to be 

 aware when he asks with a ludicrous sentimentality, ' who can say 

 what cows feel when they surround and stare intently on a dying or 

 dead companion ? ' Yes, who indeed ? There is nothing novel or 

 scientific in this sort of stuff ; we have heard of dreaming dogs, and 

 reasoning elephants, and arithmetical pigs, and beavers' houses, and 

 the wonderful instincts of bees all our lives, and the common sense of 

 mankind, gentle and simple, has long ago repudiated their real com- 

 munity with the moral and intellectual nature of man. Does Mr Darwin 

 hope to overcome the verdict by telling us that : 



If men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can 

 hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it 

 a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile 

 daughters, and no one would think of interfering. 



" What would be said if any advocate of Revelation resorted to such 

 puerile trifling V In the case supposed, the creatures would not be 

 men, but bees, and act like other bees. But that bees ever think any- 

 thing a ' sacred duty ' is one of the thousand forms of begylny the question 

 artfully scattered up and down the book. Curiously enough, the best 

 examples are found, not among the apes, from whom we ought to 

 inherit, but among creatures so remote in physical structure as the 

 dog, the elephant, and the bee. 



" Amid all this irrelevant gossip, Mr. Darwin notices, with the 

 feeblest attempt at refutation, the crucial arguments that man alone 

 is capable of progressive improvement, and that man alone fashions 

 implements for a special purpose. To the first he can only answer 

 that in the hunting countries foxes are more wary than in districts 

 where they are not disturbed ; and, to the second, that the chimpanzee 

 cracks nuts with a stone, and other apes build temporary platforms 

 (as birds build nests), which ' might readily grow into a voluntary 

 and conscious act.' Might! But does it? And could it, unless we 

 admit intellectual evolution, and so once more beg the question ? It 

 is astonishing how persistently this artifice is resorted to throughout. 

 It pervades every part of the book, till, by dint of repetition and 

 incessant assumption,- often veiled in the most subtle implications, 

 the reader is led to think a point demonstrated for which not a 

 shadow of evidence has been presented. Of the course of things, 

 when reason, language, and religion have been once ' acquired,' Mr. 



