86 De Vi Physica 



never can have existed. Between apes and 

 man, there is a gulf; and just as we saw, 

 that in introducing a new principle, Nature 

 must jump : so it is here. I deny that 

 language can originate gradually ex infantia. 

 Once in being, it is true, it can improve, 

 and rise to higher powers, like all other 

 principles. But in all the innumerable dis- 

 cussions of speech and language that have 

 seen the light in the nineteenth century, no 

 one has ever produced a particle of evidence, 

 rational or experimental, to show that, or 

 how, speech could originate out of speech- 

 lessness. And the truth is, that it is im- 

 possible : the problem is insoluble. There 

 is no gradual passage from the one con- 

 dition to the other. 



Therefore, without denying that man is- 

 sued from a lower form, we may and must 

 wholly dissent from Darwin and his friends 

 as to how it was done. And observe, that 



