83 HOMO V. DARWIN. 



disproportionate to the actual requirement ; and even if 

 once originated, it ought, according to Mr. Darwin's theory, 

 to have been lost by disuse. For if Natural Selection 

 tends in some instances to raise a race of beings, it might 

 tend in others to lower it. To a savage, the organs and 

 instincts of an animal might be more useful than the latent 

 brain power of a sage." 



Lord C. And yet the savage often has the latent brain power 

 of the sage! Mr. Darwin should tell us how the savage has 

 acquired this power, seeing that he could not have inherited 

 it either from his savage or from his ape-like progenitors. 



Homo. It would have been more to the purpose, my 

 Lord, for Mr. Darwin to have tried to reconcile these facts 

 with his hypothesis, than for him to have entertained us 

 with the fancy pictures he has just been exhibiting. 



Lord C. I fear he would the a have been attempting an 

 impossibility. 



Horro. It has been remarked, my Lord, that the title of 

 Mr. Darwin's book is a misnomer, and that it should have 

 been, not "The Descent of Man," but "The Ascent of 

 Man." I think it should rather have been, " The Evolu- 

 tion of Man from a Tadpole taken for granted, and the 

 steps by which * we may confidently believe ' it came about." 



