FIFTH DAY'S SITTING. 93 



it would, doubtless, long ago have been adopted as a pet 

 by the ladies. An ape might spend its lifetime in our 

 country without acquiring one word of English, and it will 

 be long before Mr. Darwin will be able to train one to 

 resemble us either in disposition or mental faculty. 



Lord C. So far, then, Mr. Darwin has been but indicating 

 a boundary line which no one of the inferior animals ever 

 has crossed, while a savage can cross it easily. The differ- 

 ence here, even between a savage and any animal, may, not 

 improperly, be said to be infinite. What Mr. Darwin says 

 of the Fuegians, who " rank among the lowest barbarians," 

 is most important, viz., that, " after they had lived some 

 years in England, and had acquired a little of our language, 

 he was continually struck with surprise at how closely they 

 resembled us in disposition and in most of our mental 

 faculties." 



Homo. That clearly shows, my Lord, that the mental 

 faculties of man are not inherited, as, on Mr. Darwin's 

 hypothesis, they should be. From whom could the 

 Fuegians have inherited their mental powers ? According 

 to Mr. Darwin, if we go back from any savage race in 

 the line of its progenitors, we shall find it savage still. 

 Yet it is a fact that, though they may not exercise them, 

 savage races poss3ss all the mental powers of civilized races. 

 But they cannot have become possessed of them through 

 Natural Selection and the laws of inheritance, for, on Mr. 

 Darwin's supposition, their progenitors never exercised those 

 powers. Here, as it seems to me, Mr. Darwin contradicts 

 and disproves his own hypothesis. 



Lord C. Clearly so. According to Mr. Darwin's hypo- 

 thesis the faculties man now possesses should have been 

 gradually acquired by mau's progenitors through Natural 

 {Selection, and transmitted by inheritance to his posterity. 



