CONCERNING THE HIGHER MAMMALIA. 161 



quoted is an hypothetical one. It all depends upon an "if." The 

 plain and bare argument, so far carried, appears to be something like 

 the following : — " I regard man as an animal only. The anatomical 

 differences between him and the higher Apes are not greater than 

 between these and certain other animals, some of a rodent, and some 

 of an insectivore character, which I include in the same Order : ergo, 

 the Apes, Monkeys, and Lemurs, must be placed in the same Order as 

 man ; and iflAx. Darwin's hypothesis of development be correct, there 

 is no rational ground for doubting that Man was, originally, an Anthro- 

 poid Ape." This is the real argument as far as I can extract it, after 

 patient examination. But strange to say, in his subsequent remarks. 

 Prof. Huxley seems to throw aside that important " if," and speaks 

 of mankind as though our origin was unquestionably identical with 

 that of the brutes. He asks, for example, (p. 30), " Could not a 

 sensible child confute by obvious arguments the shallow rhetoricians 

 who would force this conclusion upon us ? " And what is the con- 

 clusion to which he refers ? " That the belief in the unity of the 

 origin of Man and the brutes involves the brutalization and degradation 

 of the former." Again, he says (p. 131), "Thoughtful men once es- 

 caped from the blinding influences of traditional prejudices, will find 

 in the lowly stock whence Man has sprung, the best evidence of the 

 splendour of his capacities, and will discern in his long' progress 

 through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in the attainment of 

 a noble Future." And in the concluding paragraph of his essay, he 

 goes so far as to state of Man that upon it, (namely, an accumulated 

 experience), he stands as upon a mountain-top, far above the level of 

 his humble fellows. 



From such language as this it is impossible to avoid the conclusion 

 that the writer of it would willingly accept all the consequences of 

 the development hypothesis as regards our race, if the difficulties 

 connected with it, and which he appears to consider by no means 

 formidable, were taken out af the way. 



But, to proceed with the tangible portions of Prof. Huxley's argu- 

 ment, supposing that he had established his preliminary position 

 that Man differs less in structure from the higher Apes than these 

 differ from the lower ones, does it necessarily follow that Man must 

 be arranged in the same Order with these, and they styled his " fel- 

 lows?" The question resolves itself into this, — Are we to classify 

 all animals merely according to their anatomical phenomena, with no 



