FIEST DAY'S SITTING. 21 



true that each of these numerous intermediate series of 

 forms has become extinct. Why have we no species of 

 living creature half-way between ape and man ? Why is 

 not the vast gap filled up by two or three, or more of 

 these supposed numerous intermediate forms? 



Darwin. That, my Lord, " has often been advanced as a 

 grave objection to the belief that man is descended from 

 some lower form, but this objection will not appear of much 

 weight to those who, convinced by general reasons, believe 

 in the general principle of evolution. Breaks incessantly 

 occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp, and 

 defined, others less so in various degrees ; as between the 

 orang and its nearest allies between the Tarsius and the 

 other Lemuridae . . . but all these breaks depend 

 merely on the number of related forms that have become 

 extinct." (Vol. i. pp. 200, 201.) 



Lord C. I have been arguing that, as these supposed 

 related forms graduated "insensibly" from ape to man, 

 their number must have been very great, but you seem to 

 make no difficulty of the circumstance of their all having 

 become extinct. 



Darwin. It is certainly np difficulty whatever to me, my 

 Lord. "At some future period, not very distant as 

 mej.sjTe^_by__centurie8, the civilized races of man will 

 almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the 

 world the savage races. At the same time the anthropo- 

 morphous (man-shaped) apes, as Professor Schaaifhausen 

 has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break 

 will then be rendered wider." (Vol. i. p. 201.) 



Homo. What Mr. Darwin says, my Lord, sounds very 

 learned, but it does not meet the difficulty suggested. 



Lord C. It certainly does not. I can understand that 

 civilized man may, in the course of time, exterminate savage 



