]52 mr. darwin's work and 



and I believe this feature of the " Origin of Species" 

 explains why so many persons have ventured to pass 

 judgment and criticisms upon it which are by no means 

 worth the paper they are written on. 



Before concluding these lectures there is one point 

 to which I must advert, — though, as Mr. Darwin has 

 said nothing about man in his book, it concerns myself 

 rather than him ; — for I have strongly maintained on 

 sundry occasions that if Mr. Darwin's views are sound, 

 they apply as much to man as to the lower mammals, 

 seeing that it is perfectly demonstrable that the struc- 

 tural differences which separate man from the apes are 

 not greater than those which separate some apes from 

 others. There cannot be the slightest doubt in the 

 world that the argument which applies to the improve- 

 ment of the horse from an earlier stock, or of ape from 

 ape, applies to the improvement of man from some 

 simpler and lower stock than man. There is not a 

 single faculty — functional or structural, moral, intel- 

 lectual, or instinctive, — there is no faculty whatever 

 that is not capable of improvement ; there is no faculty 

 whatsoever which does not depend upon structure, 

 and as structure tends to vary, it is capable of being 

 improved. 



Well, I have taken a good deal of pains at various 

 times to prove this, and I have endeavoured to meet 

 the objections of those who maintain, that the structural 

 differences between man and the lower animals are of 

 so vast a character and enormous extent, that even if 

 Mr. Darwin's views are correct, you cannot imagine 

 this particular modification to take place. It is, in fact, 

 easy matter to prove that, so far as structure is con- 



