1532 The Zoologist — Ficbruary, 1809. 



T select this from a multitude of parallel passages, because it so dis- 

 tinctly asserts that all living forms of life are descended from ante- 

 Silurian progenitors : now as the Silurian fossils are pentacrinites, 

 trilobites and sea-shells, and as man is a living form of life, this 

 passage could not be rendered more explicit if it positively stated that 

 Newton, Shakespeare and Darwin were lineal descendants of a pen- 

 tacrinite, a trilobite and a wholk ; nor do I suppose Mr. Darwin would 

 for a moment shrink from this somewhat syllogistic mode of stating his 

 own hypothesis. He evidently regards the principle of evolution as 

 acting quite independently of all external conditions whatever, and 

 even as though such external conditions had no existence. Other 

 authors, thoroughly imbued with these views of progress, seem to differ 

 as to their applicability to bolh "corporeal and mental endowments." 

 Herbert Spencer, one of the most profound thinkers and most lucid 

 writers of our day, thinks that the principle of Natural Selection 

 ensures "a constant progress towards a higher degree of skill, intelli- 

 gence and self-regulation — a better co-ordination of actions, a more 

 complete life." 



Mr. Wallace seems to believe only in this mental progress, this 

 spiritual ascent towards a state we are wont to regard as angelic, for 

 he expresses a most decided opinion that " the body of man has become 

 stationary, and that his future improvement is to be confined to the 

 mind;" and Sir John Lubbock says that "the future ha])piness of our 

 race, which poets hardly ventured to hope for, Science boldly predicts. 

 Utopia, which we have long looked for as an evident impossibility, 

 which we have ungratefully regarded as too good to be true, turns out, 

 on the contrary, to be the necessary consequence of natural laws, and 

 once more we find that the simple truth exceeds the most brilliant 

 flights of the imagination." — 'Prehistoric Times,' p. 492. 



This reads at first as rather too enthusiastic, but the well-considered 

 paragraph, which I shall next cite from the same accomplished author, 

 may serve as ballast to the very sanguine anticipations here expressed, 

 for we find it sets forth, with the utmost candour, that no progress has 

 been made during the historic period, a period certainly exceeding four 

 thousand years. 



"We find on the earliest Egyptian monuments, some of which are 

 certainly as ancient as 2400 b. c, two great distinct types, the Arab 

 on the east and west of Egypt, and the Negro on the south ; and the 

 pjgyplian type occupying a middle place between the two. The repre- 

 sentations on the monuments, although conventional, arc so extremely 



