July 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



287 



MEN AND APES. 



HERE is a waj^ of speaking of the relation- 

 ship recognised by science as existing be- 

 tween men and apes which requires correc- 

 tion, as tending to encourage a verj' 

 prevalent but quite incorrect notion re- 

 specting the doctrine of descent. By many 

 this doctrine is understood to imply that 

 man is descended from a race of beings identical with some 

 order of monkeys existing in our own day, or at least closely 

 resembling one of these orders. The doctrine of descent 

 does not involve any such teaching, while that special form 

 of the doctrine which is called Darwinism is very strongly 

 opposed to it, because natural selection implies slow develop- 

 ment. (The views advanced by Mivart mlijht account for 

 the appearance of man as a descendant of some order of apes, 

 because admitting change per sultum, and also the actual 

 copying of an old order, in one or more respects, by a now 

 order; but in his "Man and Apes" he certainly does not 

 encourage the opinion that man descended directly from an 

 oi'der of apes i-esembliug any at present existing. Nor dues 

 he anywhere indicate, sj fiir as 1 know, his actual opinion as 

 to the origin of man.) 



It docs not appear to be commonly recognised that, 

 according to any ductriue of descent not admitting both of 

 change 2'°r sultum, and of the reappearance of old forms 

 oiherwise than by reversion (as though nature had certain 

 types, which at any time might be introduced in lines of 

 descent where heretofore they had not been known), no 

 order existing in the present time can be regarded as closely 

 resembling the progenitors of man at a remote era. For, if 

 this were the case, then on the downward line from those 

 progenitors to man there must have been great change by 

 development, while on the downward line from those pro- 

 genitors to the order imagined there has been by the sup- 

 position scarcely any change. But it is incredible that 

 during the enoi'mous interval necessary to develop man 

 from progenitors resembling any present race other than 

 man, another line of descent from those same jsrogenitors 

 should have remained without noteworthy change. This is 

 true, whether we consider the highest orders of the true 

 apes, or some race which, according to the doctrine of 

 descent, is far more remotely related to man. The general 

 conditions involved may be thus presented : — ■ 



At any remote time, T years ago, when man had not as 

 yet appeared, let a class including every individual who.se 

 blood has descended to the existing races of man be called 

 A,, and let the classes similarly related to other existing 

 oiders sharing descent from A,, bs called Ao, A3, A4, &c., 

 to A„. Then, by the supposition, class A, more or less 

 overlaps each of the other {a — 1) classes ; biit the mistake 

 is commonly made of supposing that either the n classes 

 A], Ao, A3, (tc. were identical, or that at least class A, 

 included tlic vhoh; of the remaining {n — 1) classes and no 

 more. And from this mistake arise most of the common- 

 place and superficial objections to the doctrine of descent. 

 According to the real teachings of that doctrine, while A, 

 overlaps each of the remaining (m— 1) classes, it must have 

 had a portion not included in any one of the.se, while any 

 one of the set of classes may have overlapped some of the 

 others, but not all, besides overlapping other cl.asses outside 

 the series, and having also a portion distinct from all 

 other classes. The greater T, of course, the greater would 

 n be.* 



* The case here considered, which is in reality exceedingly com- 

 plex, may be conveniently illustrated by a simple imagined case : — 

 Let T represent tliree generations, and consider one family — say, a 

 brother and sister — as corresponding to the race o£ man in the 



The mistake commonly made may be fui-ther illustrated 

 by considering ox-dinary relationships. If I ascertain that a 

 certain family (X) is related to mj' own, I do not infer that 

 a certain number of generations ago my family were all X's, 

 or that from the X family there may be bred, in a certain 

 number of generations, descendants closely resembling my 

 own family in all its characteristics, bodily, mental^ and 

 moral. Again, no one supposes that Malays, Negroes, 

 Esquimaux, or any other race, could, in any length of time, 

 develop into a race closely re.sembliug the Caucasian, though 

 it may be admitted that some inferior races of men may be 

 gradually raised by development to the intellectual level of 

 races at present superior to them. So far from approxi 

 mating to the superior race in this process (except as to 

 level, supposing the superior race stationary in that respect), 

 the races would probably diverge, for divergence is the rule 

 and approach the exception. 



I may add, what is commonlj' overlooked in speaking of 

 descent, that the farther back we go the greater is the num- 

 ber of progenitors, whether individual ancestors or ancestral 

 races be considered. At any rate, this is true within the 

 limits of ordinary liiological reseai-ch. Nor is the rule in 

 the least aflected by the circumstance that a family or race 

 may for a time avoid alliance with individuals outside the 

 family. Supposing even such avoidance perfect, we have 

 only to go to the beginning of the family, as such, to find the 

 law of increase resumed as we pass farther back. 



Individual teachers of the doctrine of descent may believe 

 in a small number of primordial forms, and, of course, it is 

 theoretically possible that, as we pass backwards, after 

 reaching a certain maximum in the number of forms, the 

 number would diminish until only a few remained, from 

 which all the present forms have descended. But science 



above case. Suppose there has been no intermarrying in the three 

 preceding generations, so that the pair had four great-grandfathers 

 and four great-grandmothers — in all, eight persons corresponding to 

 class A,. Now, suppose every couple in the ancestry to have had 

 two children, son and daughter, each of these to have married and 

 had two children, this happening on all lines downwards from A,. 

 Then it will be found that the pair has ten families of cousins, two 

 first-cousin families, and eight second-cousin families ; and these are 

 all the families which share descent from the eight great-grand- 

 parents of the pair (to pass to third-cousin families we should have 

 to ascend to the fourth generation). Thus there are eleven families 

 in all. Now, it we suppose the eight great-grandfathers, or class A,, 

 to be all wealthy, or noble, or handsome, or in some respect luckier 

 than the remaining ancestry of the eleven families, then the pair 

 will presumably possess similar superiority. Say they inherit greater 

 wealth, so that the other ten families are of the order of "poor 

 relations," and so, of course, may serve to illustrate the ape tribes — 

 onr poor relations among the vertebrates. Now, if the eleven 

 families were in no way connected, it is clear they would have 

 eighty-eight ancestors in all at time T, or in the third generation of 

 ancestors. But it will be found that, being related, as above sup- 

 posed, they have instead only tifty-six. The two first-cousin fami- 

 lies (corresponding, say, to the higher apes) have each eight 

 ancestors, forming classes A., and A.,, A, not overlapping A3, but A, 

 "overlapping, by one-half, both A, and A,. The remaining eight 

 families (corresponding, say, to the lower apes) have each eight 

 ancestors forming classes Aj, A^. . . . A,,, A,, ; and A, overlaps one- 

 fourth of each of these classes. It may be noted in passing that 

 we should find in such a case that, though the two first-cousin fami- 

 lies might, on the whole, resemble the favoured pair more closely 

 than the other eight would, there would be some circumstances in 

 which the second-cousin families showed closer resemblance — just 

 as Mivart shows that in some features this or that order of the lower 

 apes resembles man more closely than either the gorilla, the orang, 

 or the chimpanzee. I must confess I cannot recognise the force 

 which Mivart finds in this circumstance as an argument against the 

 doctrine of development by natural selection. It is, of course, pre- 

 cisely what we should expect, according to the general doctrine of 

 evolution, which Mivart appears to accept ; but it seems to me to 

 make neither for nor against the special doctrines of the Darwinian 

 theory, when due account is taken of the increasing number of rela- 

 tions as well in ascent as in descent. 



