334 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



OBJECTIONS AGAINST, AND PROOFS OF THE TRUTH OF, 

 THE THEORY OF DESCENT. 



Objections to the Doctrine of Filiation. — Objections of Faith and Reason. — 

 Immeasurable Length of the Geological Periods. — Transition Forms 

 between Kindred Species. — Dependence of Stability of Form on 

 Inheritance, and of the Variability of Form on Adaptation. — Origin of 

 very complicated Arrangement of Organisation. — Gradual Development 

 of Instincts and Mental Activities. — Origin of a priori Knowledge from 

 Knowledge a posteriori. — The Knowledge requisite for the Correct 

 Understanding of the Doctrine of Filiation. — Necessary Interaction 

 between Empiricism and Philosophy. — Proofs of the Theory of Descent. 

 Inner Causal-Connection between all the Biological Series of Pheno- 

 mena. — The Direct Proof of the Theory of Selection. — Relation of the 

 Theory of Descent to Anthropology. — Proofs of the Animal Origin of 

 Man. — The Pithecoid Theory as an Inseparable Part of the Theory of 

 Descent. — Induction and Deduction. — -Gradual Development of the 

 Human Mind. — Body and Mind. — Human Soul and Animal Soul. — A 

 Glance at the Future. 



If in these chapters I may hope to have made the Theory of 

 Descent «eem more or less probable, and to have even con- 

 vinced some of my readers of its unassailable truth, yet I 

 am by no means unconscious that, to most of them, during 

 the perusal of my explanations, a number of objections 

 more or less well founded must have occurred. Hence it 

 seems absolutely necessary at the conclusion of our examin- 

 ation to refute at least the most important of these, and- 



