10 



is science !). It is true I believe that I am only an animal, come from 

 one of them myself, and therefore you may argue that I have no 

 feeling, and may ask me to allow myself to be experimented on 

 accordingly for the good of science, but I must beg of you to ex- 

 cuse me. It might interfere rather unpleasantly with my theory, and 

 with the calmness, or to speak more truly, the cool assurance, not to 

 use a stronger word which a " Philosopher " ought to exhibit to the 

 public when he lays down the law to them. No one more ready than 

 a Philosopher to cry out even before he is hurt ; but he has no feeling 

 for dumb animals : he keeps all he has for himself.* 



I believe it would be highly imprudent in me to accept the chal- 

 lenge which was thrown down to me at the meeting of the British 

 Association in 1874. to meet the challenger face to face before the 

 public and discuss the truth or otherwise of my assertions. On the 

 contrary, though I have the advantage of a good memory, a fluent 

 tongue, and any amount you please of assurance, if you will oblige me 

 by using so mild a term, I altogether shrink from the touchstone of 

 common sense. Theory and assertion are all I have to do with, to 

 which I always make it a rule (a very convenient one) to bend any 

 given number of facts. 



I believe that though Professor Salmon has shown that Darwinism 

 is a mere scientific imagination, not a scientific fact, nevertheless the 

 human species is descended from the semi-human, and this again 

 from so low an origin as the larva or caterpillar of some sea animal. 



I therefore believe, for all the above satisfactory reasons, that 

 the origin of man is to be derived as follows: 



1. Marine animals, resembling the larva? of existing Ascidians. 



2. Fishes as lowly organised as the Lancelot. 



3. Fishes like the Lepidosirens: 



* I here add some few of the terms applied to the places, persons, and practices referred 

 to, by many eminent men : A " Hell," (Sir ARTHUR HELPS) ; " Abominable and atrocious," 

 (LoRD SHAFTESBURV) ; " Hellish," (DR. KITCHING); "Atrocious crimes," " Barbarities," 

 "Wickedness," "Worse than the worst Inquisitors, "Dens of torture," "Disgrace to 

 Science," " Never surpassed in impudence," " Polluters of the minds of School Children," 

 "Ruffians," "Young reprobates," " Perpetrators^ of atrocities," " Spouters of Blasphemy 

 and Infidelity," " Professors of Brutality," "Worse than Heathen persecutors," " Deceivers 

 of the I'eople,'' " Scientific crimes," "An outrage to the moral sense of every human being 

 who is not as depraved as themselves," "A few brutalized physiologists," '' who go whining 

 about the country with the importunity of beggars, because every right-minded man and 

 woman in the country is. not compelled by law to contribute his or her hard earned wages to 

 support the perpetration of crimes which they abhor, (DR. W. B. A. SCOTT.) " Disgraceful 

 butchery," "devilish," "loathsome," "fiendish," "would disgrace the lowest type of 

 savages," "merciless and unpitying/' "demons," "devilry," "wretches," "a depraved 

 instinct," " frightfully horrible," "disgraceful butchery," "devilish torment," "horrible,'' 

 "abominable devilry," "brutal beyond conception," "useless beyond belief," "all most 

 horrible," "a disgrace to the profession," "brutal deeds," (A LONDON SURGEON, Mr. 

 Waldron Bradley, in the Echo.) " Detestable villanies, protracted butcheries, degrading 

 the operator far lower than the brute on which he exercised his fiendish skill, soiling 

 the hands in blood, and grovelling in torture for hours, aye for days together," (The late 

 LORD CARNARVON.) "Who have made a path over the bodies of writhing animals to seats 

 of most questionable honour," (J.F.B., in The Hour. 1 " Their practice as various as their 

 theories." " Much in the aspect of school-boys playing with weapons of which they under 

 stand neither the use nor nature," (ROYAL COMMISSION.' "A set of young devils," (Dn. 

 HAUGHTON.) "A new horror," (PROFESSOR NEWMAN.) "Cruelty in its worst form is 

 the ultimate result of Science." " Cruelty in the garb and pretences of Science." "Now, 

 Science has become the rival of the tortures of the Inquisition, and by increase of learning 

 has learned to torment still more ingeniously." "Ancient Paganism may well put us to 

 shame." ''To cut up a living horse, day after day, in order to practise students in dissection, 

 is a crime and abomination hardly less monstrous from his not having an immortal soul." 

 " An inevitable logic would in a couple of generations unteach all tenderness towards 

 Jiuinaii suffering if such horrors are endured and carry us back into greater heartlessness 

 than that of the worst barbarians." "A new oppression." "The scientific Torquemadas 

 of the day." " The inseparable companion of the vilest impurities and vices to which flesh 

 is heir," (Saturday Review.) 



