FIRST DAY'S SITTING. 15 



extended, as I hear from M. Kowalevsky, in Naples, he has 

 now effected." (Vol. i. pp. 205, 206.) 



Homo. Pray observe, my Lord, the remarkable mental 

 agility of Mr. Darwin. To reach his desired conclusion, he 

 leaps, at a bound, over all the recognized laws of reasoning. 

 First, he tells us that a foreign gentleman lately made 

 " some observations," which observations, it appears, another 

 foreign gentleman confirmed. Mr.Oarwin then hears from 

 thii first foreign gentleman that he has " further extended " 

 those observations. We are then unhesitatingly told that 

 those observations have led to the discovery that the tad- 

 pole-like Ascidians of the present day which, for brevity's 

 *ake, we may, I presume, henceforth speak of simply as 

 tadpoles are "related in descent to the Vertebrata." Another 

 element of uncertainty is then introduced into the argument. 

 " //," says Mr. Darwin, "a/ we may rely on Embryology. . . 

 we have at last gained a clue to the source whence the 

 Vertebrata have been derived." From these hypothetical 

 premises a portion of which only I have detailed he 

 draws the conclusion, " We shotild thus be justified in 

 believing "-'that we are descended from "a group of animals 

 resembling -the larvae of our present Ascidians.^> Now, even 

 were these premises of Mr. Darwin satisfactorily proved, 

 my Lord, they do not justify his conclusion. No reputable 

 man of science would dream of inferring from them that 

 there was an ancient race of tadpoles more respectable than 

 any now in existence, and that these ancient tadpoles were 

 the progenitors of man on the one hand, and of the de- 

 generate tadpoles of these days on the other. If such 

 reasoning be valid, why, then, one might undertake to prove 

 that Tenterden steeple is the cause of the Goodwin 

 Sands! 



Lord C. You had better, Homo, let Mr. Darwin reason 



