NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. 481 



The questions thus propounded may be said to include all 

 others appertaining to the subject ; save one perhaps, already 

 adverted to, but which we must here notice again, inasmuch 

 as it involves the very definition of a species, and suggests 

 contingencies which, if admitted, change the whole aspect of 

 the enquiry. We allude to the opinion of those naturalists 

 who, holding that there is no sufficient reason to suppose 

 the immutability of species, believe it possible or probable 

 that what have hitherto been considered such, may, by the 

 operation of various natural causes acting through long 

 periods of time, be gradually transmuted into other and 

 very different forms, or species as we now regard them. On 

 this momentous question we have spoken at length elsewhere, 

 and need not now revert to it in detail.* We admit the fact of 

 great changes in animal organisation, due to the progressive 

 working of natural or artificial causes, and capable in 

 numerous cases of becoming permanent by propagation. 

 Further, we cannot doubt that our catalogues largely err in 

 recording as separate species what are but varieties of the 

 same. Still we believe that species, very numerous and 

 widely different in their type, have an original and lasting 

 existence in nature. However difficult to explain their 

 number and individuality (difficulties whch occur under 

 every theory), we see in them an intention and law of 

 creation. The variations themselves of which species are 

 rendered capable do, by the very limits imposed on them, 

 and the constant tendency to recur to the primitive condi- 

 tions, become an exponent and proof of such general law. 



That which chiefly here concerns us is the question as to 

 the relations of Man to the Quadrumana, and especially to 

 those (the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, &c.) which obviously stand 

 next to him in the scale of the animal creation. May it be 

 that in time, and through a succession of changes, the lower 



* See the second Article in this volume, ' On Life and Organisation.' 



I I 



