188 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



disciple Huxley, on the subject of the 

 Origin of Species. Whereas the former is 

 content with tracing back man's primeval 

 ancestor to the larvae of an ascidian 

 tadpole, technically called tunicarce, or 

 "sea squirt," into which the Supreme 

 Creator originally breathed life ; the latter 

 traces the pedigree, not confining it to 

 animal, or even vegetable life, but far 

 beyond, even to the azoic period, when 

 there was no sign of life in the mineral 

 kingdom when every thing was hidden 

 in the nucleated cell of an atom of pro- 

 toplasm, as he once stated in an after- 

 dinner speech already alluded to, that 

 "the recent progress of biological specula- 

 tion leads to the conclusion that the scale 

 of being may be thus stated minerals, 

 plants, animals, man, which, startling as 

 the announcement may be, must now take 

 rank as a scientific truth." Hence the 

 dogma that the Origin of Life, as well as 

 of Species, must be looked for in the 

 mineral, as preceding the vegetable and 

 the animal in the Geological series. 



