8 INTRODUCTION 



but hold their judgment in suspense both as to 

 that specific theory of one department of Evolu- 

 tion which is called Darwinism, and as to the 

 factors and causes of Evolution itself. No one 

 asks more of Evolution at present than per- 

 mission to use it as a working theory. Un- 

 doubtedly there are cases now before Science 

 where it is more than theory — the demonstration 

 from Yale, for instance, of the Evolution of the 

 Horse; and from Steinheim of the transmutation 

 of Planorbis. In these cases the missing links 

 have come in one after another, and in series so 

 perfect, that the evidence for their evolution is 

 irresistible. " On the evidence of Palaeontology," 

 says Mr. Huxley in the Encyclopcedia Britannica^ 

 " the evolution of many existing forms of animal 

 life from their predecessors is no longer an hypo- 

 thesis but an historical fact." And even as to 

 Man, most naturalists agree with Mr. Wallace who 

 " fully accepts Mr. Darwin's conclusion as to the 

 essential identity of Man's bodily structure with 

 that of the higher mammalia and his descent from 

 some ancestral form common to man and the an- 

 thropoid apes," for " the evidence of such descent 

 appears overwhelming and conclusive."^ But as 

 to the development of the whole Man it is suf- 

 "^ Darwinism y p. 461. 



