CHAPTER XL 

 APES. 



" IF," says Prof. Tyndall, addressing his Bir- 

 mingham audience, " If to any one of us 

 were given the privilege of looking back 

 through the aeons across which life has 

 crept towards its present outcome, his vision 

 would ultimately reach a point when the pro- 

 genitors of this assembly could not be called 

 human. From that humble society, through 

 the interaction of its members and the storing 

 up of their best qualities, a ,better one em- 

 erged ; from this again a better still ; until 

 at length, by the integration of infinitesimals 

 through ages of amelioration, we came to be 

 what we are to-day." l 



If ' we ask for some warrant of evidence 

 in support of this series of assertions founded 

 on assumption, Mr. Darwin replies that "On 

 the principle of Natural Selection with di- 



1 " Science and Man : " Fortnightly Review, 1877, p. 

 116. 



