150 CHAPTERS ON EVOLUTION. 



presence of numerous links; the chief question relating to the exact 

 stages or points at which these links are demanded and this question 

 again depending on another, "What is or was the exact sequence and 

 order of development ? " Suppose Mr. Browning to be as correct in 

 his poetic rendering of the " Descent of Man " as he is judged by 

 ordinary theories of evolution absolutely incorrect, when he says 

 in " Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau " 



That mass man sprang from was a jelly lump 

 Once on a time ; he kept an after course 

 Through fish and insect, reptile, bird, and beast, 

 Till he attained to be an ape at last, 

 Or last but one, 



then, according to the poet's rendering of man's evolution, his 

 descent would imply connecting links between the amoeboid or 

 protoplasm stage of his existence and the " after course," and also 

 between the successive stages of which that " after course " is alleged 

 to consist. Fortunately for scientific criticism, poetry possesses an 

 invaluable commodity known as " licence ; " and it may suffice in 

 the present instance to remark that the sequence and succession 

 of life indicated by the most psychological of modern poets, are 

 certainly not those held by Mr. Darwin, or by any other competent 

 biologist. Man's descent from the gorilla the chief element in the 

 evolutionist's creed as propounded by popular notions and by a dog- 

 matic but unlearned theology is, after all, but " the baseless fabric " of 

 a vision, from which a better acquaintance with the facts of nature, and 

 with theories explanatory of these facts, will most effectually awaken the 

 unconvinced. The knowledge of what evolution really teaches and 

 reasonably demands constitutes, therefore, the first condition for ascer- 

 taining what " missing links " are required. To bridge over the gulf be- 

 tween the gorilla or any other anthropoid ape and the human type, may 

 be the mental bane and lifelong worry of unscientific minds contorting 

 the demands of evolution such a task is certainly no business or labour 

 of Mr. Darwin and his followers, or of any other school of evolution. 

 And Mr. Darwin, writing in his " Descent of Man," and after a 

 review of man's theoretical origin, is careful to add, " But we must not 

 fall into the error of supposing that the early progenitor of the whole 

 Simian (or ape-like) stock, including man, was identical with, or even 

 closely resembled, any existing ape or monkey." We must, in truth, 

 look backwards along the " files of time " to the point whence, from a 

 common origin, the human and ape branches diverged each towards its 

 own peculiar line of growth and development on the great tree of life. 

 Thus much by way of caution in alleging how or what " missing 

 links " are to be supplied. The contention that, even on the showing 

 of the evolutionist, the connecting links between distinct groups of 



