Social, and Religious Life of Man. 2 1 1 



Mammalia. The nearest living genera are the Echidna 

 and the Ornithorhynchus. 17. Marsupialia, or kanga- 

 roos. 1 8. The Pro-simice, or half-apes, as the indris 

 and loris. 19. The Menocerca, or tailed apes. 20. The 

 Anthropoids, or man-like apes, represented by the 

 modern orang, gibbon, gorilla, and chimpanzee, amongst 

 which, however, we are not to look for the direct 

 ancestors of man, but amongst the unknown extinct 

 apes of the Miocene. 21. The Pithecanthropi, or dumb 

 ape-men an unknown race the nearest modern repre- 

 sentatives of which are cretins and idiots ! ! They ' must 

 have' lived, as a necessary transition to 22. The Hom- 

 ines, or true men, who ' developed themselves from the 

 last class by the gradual conversion of brute howlings 

 into articulate speech,' &c., &c." Ohe,jam satis est. 



Nor is a different conclusion to be drawn from the 

 manifold modifications which so many plants and 

 animals undergo under the fostering care of man and 

 in other ways, and which are often regarded as improve- 

 ments upon nature. Thus : the rose may be improved 

 from the wild rose of the hedges into the queen of the 

 garden. Thus : the dog may be improved from the wolf- 

 like wild dog into the tame, friendly, noble St. Bernard 

 dog. But the manifold changes producible in these 

 and countless other plants and animals are never so 

 great as to constitute species, never more than those 

 which go to make up the differences called varieties: 

 and, in fact, constant care on the part of man is needed 

 to prevent these varieties from speedily reverting to the 

 original type. And what other conclusion can be drawn 

 from the infertility of mules than this that there is a 

 barrier between different species, even between those 

 which are most closely akin to each other, by which 

 they are kept apart most effectually. Nay, it is even 



