THE GORILLA AND OTHER APES. 315 



nrhat has been really ascertained from what is only surmised 

 with a greater or less degree of probability. 



In the first place, then, I would call attention to some 

 very common mistakes respecting the Darwinian theory of 

 the Descent of Man. I do not refer here to ordinary 

 misconceptions respecting the theory of natural selection. 

 To say the truth, those who have not passed beyond this 

 stage of error, those who still confound the theory of natural 

 selection with the Lamarckian and other theories (or rather 

 hypotheses *) of evolution, are not as yet in a position to 

 deal with our present subject, and may be left out of con- 

 sideration. 



The errors to which I refer are in the main included in 

 the following statement. It is supposed by many, perhaps 

 by most, that according to Darwin man is descended from 

 one or other of the races of anthropoid apes ; and that the 

 various orders and sub-orders of apes and monkeys at 

 present existing can be arranged in a series gradually 

 approaching more and more nearly to man, and indicating 

 the various steps (or some of them, for gaps exist in the 

 series) by which man was developed. Nothing can be 

 plainer, however, than Darwin's contradiction of this 

 genealogy for the human races. Not only does he not for 

 a moment countenance the belief that the present races of 

 monkeys and apes can be arranged in a series gradually 

 approximating more and more nearly to man, not only does 

 he reject the belief that man is descended from any present 

 existing anthropoid ape, but he even denies that the pro- 

 genitor of man resembled any known ape. " We must not 

 fall into the error of supposing," he says, " that the early 



* The word hypothesis is too often used as though it were synony- 

 mous with theory, so that Newton's famous saying, "Hypotheses non 

 fingo " has come to be regarded by many as though it expressed an 

 objection on* Newton's part against the formation of theories. This 

 would have been strange indeed in the author of the noblest theory yet 

 propounded by man'in matters scientific. Newton indicates his mean- 

 ing plainly enough, in the very paragraph in which the above expression 

 occurs, defining an hypothesis as an opinion not based on phenomena. 



