THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 109 



law of hybridism, which being in itself a 

 limited confusion of nature, bears in itself 

 a barrier to the extension of that confusion 

 in the well-known fact that hybrids cease 

 to breed their like. If, therefore, a law 

 could be found whereby Transmutation of 

 Species, either by Natural Selection or 

 protoplastic conjuring, or any other means, 

 could be promoted, there is a law to pre- 

 vent change of kind ; and the one is totally 

 incompatible with the other. 



Hence, one of the greatest authorities of 

 the 19th century, perhaps the most dis- 

 tinguished of the foreign Naturalists of 

 this age, and happily free from that dan- 

 gerous spirit of speculation which caused 

 so much injury to the interest of science 

 at that time, has truly pointed out, that 

 however closely the processes of develop- 

 ment may " approach or cross each other, 

 they never end in making any living being 

 different from the one which gave it birth 

 though reaching in that point it may 

 pass through phases resembling other ani- 

 mals .... So called varieties or breeds, 



