180 MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS v 



for saying that the gibbons, " without having been 

 taught, can walk or run upright with tolerable 

 quickness, though they move awkwardly, and much 

 less securely than man." The Quarterly Reviewer 

 says, " This is a little misleading, inasmuch as it is 

 not stated that this upright progression is effected 

 by placing the enormously long arms behind the 

 head, or holding them out backwards as a balance 

 in progression." 



Now, before carping at a small statement like 

 this, the Quarterly Reviewer should have made 

 sure that he was quite right. But he happens to 

 be quite wrong. I suspect he got his notion of 

 the manner in which a gibbon walks from a citation 

 in " Man's Place in Nature." But at that time I 

 had not seen a gibbon walk. Since then I have, 

 and I can testify that nothing can be more precise 

 than Mr. Darwin's statement. The gibbon I saw 

 walked without either putting his arms behind 

 his head or holding them out backwards. All he 

 did was to touch the ground with the outstretched 

 fingers of his long arms now and then, just as one 

 sees a man who carries a stick, but does not need 

 one, touch the ground with it as he walks along. 



Again, a large number of the objections brought 

 forward by Mr. Mivart and the Quarterly Reviewer 

 apply to evolution in general, quite as much as to 

 the particular form of that doctrine advocated by 

 Mr. Darwin ; or, to their notions of Mr. Darwin's 

 views and not to what they really are. An excel- 



