290 MAN'S PLACE IN THE GEOLOGICAL EECORD. 



this test of variation, and feel an uneasy tenderness when- 

 ever the question of man's descent becomes involved in 

 their researches and speculations. Truth, however, will 

 never "be attained by such weakness. In science, as in 

 morals, error becomes only more deeply rooted, and bigotry 

 more emboldened, the longer that honest conviction hesi- 

 tates, or gives to its beliefs a timid and uncertain utter- 

 ance. 



Observe that, however man may have originated, it does 

 not alter his position in the scale of being. It is no degra- 

 dation to have been descended from some antecedent form of 

 life, any more than it is an exaltation to have been formed 

 directly from the dust of the earth. In the present state 

 of our knowledge it is even more difficult to conceive of an 

 origin from inorganic matter than of a development from 

 some pre-existing form. No one can compare with atten- 

 tion the vertebrate skeleton (of the mammals, for example) 

 without perceiving that it is adaptive modification that 

 runs throughout the whole of the ascensive orders, rather 

 than independent creation of newer and higher forms. In 

 his physical relations man is as much dependent upon 

 external conditions as the lowest creature with which he is 

 associated in the scheme of vitality. This scheme of vitality 

 is one united whole, from which you cannot possibly dis- 

 sociate any of its component parts ; and whatever be the 

 plan that has regulated the development of this scheme in 

 time, it must embrace man as certainly as it embraces all 

 or any of its other members. His high position depends 

 not so much upon the physical life which he shares in 

 common with other beings as upon his improvable intel- 

 lect ; and this, in any theory of his origin, can only be re- 

 solved into a newer and higher creational endowment the 

 latest manifestation in that Divine plan of cosmical pro- 

 gress which science is ever humbly and reverently endea- 



