48 



I believe that Sir Charles Lyell was quite wrong when he said 

 that " species have a real existence in Nature," and that each 

 was "endowed at its creation" with its present attributes, 

 because, he says, " we must suppose that when the author of 

 Nature creates an animal or plant, all the possible circumstances 

 in which its decendants are destined to live are foreseen." 



I believe hi the transmutation of species, though Sir Charles 

 Lyell holds that the argument from the brain in the young of 

 animals lends u no support whatever to the notion of a gradual 

 transmutation of one species to another," least of all "from an 

 animal of a more simple to one of a more complex structure." 

 Don't tell me that it is against Nature. I am above all laws of 

 Nature. It is quite infra dig for me to argue from facts. 



I believe that Sir C. Lyell was talking at random when he 

 said, speaking of a philosopher like me, " Henceforth his specu- 

 lations know no definite bounds ; he gives the rein to conjecture, 

 and fancies that the outward form, instinctive faculties, nay that 

 reason itself may have been gradually developed from some of 

 the simplest states of existence, that all animals, that man 

 himself, and that irrational beings, may have had one common 

 ..*' in the land of Puzzledom. 



I believe that male and female apes must have become simia- 

 multaneously endowed with the reason of man ; for, if not, the 

 ; hat had such reason could not have consorted suitably with 

 one that had not, and such pairs to be well-matched, must have 

 arisen contemporaneously for several generations, or there would 

 have been a reversion to the ancestral ape, which never, since 

 the \vrM l>c:raii. could light a lire or cook its food, make a bow 

 and arrow, or even a hoop, much less calculate an eclipse, or 

 discover the law of gravitation. 



I believe all this, although I cannot deny that the dog or the 

 ! -pliant exhibits far more of the human character than the ape, 

 and that \\n-n- Derer has l..M,-n, and never can be, any friendship 

 or communication between man and an ape such as there is with 

 the dog or even the wolf, and that the ape can never be trusted 

 by man, or be made useful to him, as the dog, the horse, and 

 many other animals can. 



