304 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



ing to the roots of their language, it might be said that the 

 different races of men had originated, independently of one 

 another, by different branches of primaeval, speechless men 

 directly springing from apes, and forming their own pri- 

 mseval language. Still they would of course be connected 

 further up or lower down at their root, and thus all would 

 finally be derived from a common primasval stock. 



While we hold the latter of these convictions, and while 

 we for many reasons believe that the different species of 

 speechless primseval men were all derived from a common 

 ape-like human form, we do not of course mean to say 

 that all men are descended froim one pair. This latter 

 supposition, which our modern Indo-Germanic culture has 

 taken from the Semitic myth of the Mosaic history of 

 creation, is by no means tenable. The whole of the 

 celebrated dispute, as to whether the human race is descended 

 from a single pair or not, rests upon a completely false way 

 of putting the question. It is just as senseless as the 

 dispute as to whether all sporting dogs or aU race-horses 

 are descended from a single pair. We might with equal 

 justice ask whether aU Germans or aU Englishmen are 

 "descended from a single pair," etc. A "first human pair," 

 or " a first man," has in fact never existed, any more than 

 there ever existed a first pair or a first individual of 

 Englishmen, Germans, race-horses, or sporting dogs. The 

 origin of a new species, of course, always results from an 

 existing species, by a long chain of many different indi- 

 viduals sharing the slow process of transformation. 

 Supposing that we had all the different pairs of Human 

 Apes and Ape-like Men before us — which belong to the true 

 ancestors of the human race — it would even then be quite 



