96 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



ventured to suggest that, thus considered, the 

 present age of the race, as compared with the age 

 to which it may well attain, is as the age of an 

 infant one year old to that of a more than cen- 

 tenarian. " The best is yet to be." 



CHAPTER XII 



SOME COMMON ERRORS CONSIDERED 



In the last chapter we have already considered one 

 of the commonest errors in the popular conception 

 of the theory of organic evolution — the belief that 

 biologists teach the descent of man from the chim- 

 panzee or the orang-outang ; and we have seen that 

 this — like every other error— tends to beget more 

 errors still, since it has led to the notion that the 

 simian origin of man must be regarded as unproven 

 in the absence of definite evidence as to the exist- 

 ence, in the past if not to-day, of a " missing-link." 



But there remain several other erroneous notions 

 which I must endeavour duly to stigmatise, and 

 which deserve such prominence as a separate 

 chapter-heading can afford them, since — though 

 they have been exploded time and again — they are 

 still constantly to be met with, error being tenacious 

 of life though always doomed to die at last ; which 

 consummation may this chapter hasten. 



The second common error, then, which we may 

 proceed to brand, consists in the identification of 

 the theory of organic evolution with Darwin's 

 theory as to a certain factor in the process. In 



