Scientific Sophisms. 237 



" The lower American apes meet us with what 

 seems 'the front of Jove himself,' compared 

 with the gigantic, but low-browed denizens of 

 tropical Western Africa. 



" In fact, in the words of the illustrious Dutch 

 naturalists, Messrs. Schroeder, Van der Kolk, 

 and Vrolik, the lines of affinity existing between 

 different Primates construct rather a network 

 than a ladder. 



" It is indeed a tangled web, the meshes of 

 which no naturalist has as yet unravelled by 

 the aid of natural selection. Nay, more, these 

 complex affinities form such a net for the use of 

 the teleological retiarius as it would be difficult 

 for his Lucretian antagonist to evade, even with 

 the countless turns and doublings of Darwinian 

 evolutions." 1 



And yet we are told by Professor Tyndall * 

 that the naturalist whose mind is " most deeply 

 stored with the choicest materials of the tele- 

 ologist,' ; rejects teleology. Does he then effect 

 his escape from the reticulations of the complex^ 

 affinities now specified ? By no means. But 

 he refers the spontaneous and independent 

 appearance of these similar structures to 

 " atavism," and " reversion ; " to the appearance 



1 Professor Mivart, ut sup,) pp. 174,175. 

 * ' Belfast Address." 



