The Zoologist — June, 1871. 2619 



To return to Mr. Darwin's volumes, I am not prepared to dispute 

 his statements as to the structure of the human body : many of 

 them I know to be correct, others I believe to be so ; and I am 

 perfectly willing to admit that organs in constant use by man occur 

 also, in a more or less modified state, in apes, dogs, seals, and even 

 in animals supposed to be much lower in the scale. But, in the 

 first place, I contend that this is no new discovery : this homologous 

 character of the bones and muscles of mammals is the very founda- 

 tion of the science of Comparative Anatomy. The same obtains in 

 the insect world. What is a specific character, nomen specijicu7n, 

 but the admission of this truth. In my younger days I described 

 some five hundred, perhaps a thousand, beetles : I gave them names, 

 lamentable ambition ! and I endeavoured to differentiate them 

 by pointing out peculiarities in the structure of their maxillae, 

 mandibles, legs or elytra: this very circumstance is a tacit ad- 

 mission of that truth on which Mr. Darwin lays so much stress, 

 that the same general plan of structure pervades large groups of 

 animals. How can I deny the constant presence of an elytron, or 

 a maxilla, when I have taken so much pains to describe their 

 differences ? And having admitted this fact into the science of 

 Entomology, how can I resist it in other provinces of the animal 

 kingdom ? I neither dispute nor doubt that the bones and muscles 

 in my arms and face have their exact homologues in the arms or 

 legs or faces of apes, or dogs, or seals : it is manifest that on this 

 truth the entire range of descriptive Zoology is founded. But if I 

 am told that because I possess bones and muscles similar to those 

 of an ape, a dog, or a seal, or even if I am subject to the same 

 diseases, or am attacked by the same parasites, — for these facts 

 are also adduced by Mr. Darwin, — or even if I have instincts or 

 psychical characters analogous to those of an ape, a dog, or a 

 seal, — for this is also adduced in evidence, — therefore I am 

 descended from an ape, a dog, or a seal, I cannot acquiesce in 

 the assertion; it seems to me a most evident non sequitur. It 

 were quite as easy, indeed more in accordance with familiar 

 phenomena, to reverse the series, and to insist that the seal, 

 dog, and ape are lineally descended from some primaeval man. 

 The one speculation would be as good, or as bad, as the other : 

 indeed the very facts adduced by Mr. Darwin, that the de- 

 scendants of reasoning man occasionally lack reason, and exhibit 

 ape-like propensities and actions, in climbing trees and walls, 



