PROOFS DEMANDED BUT NEEDLESS. 359 



mammals, and thus continually further back to lower stages 

 of the vertebrata down to their lowest invertebrate roots, 

 nay, even down to a simple plastid — as a general theory. 

 On the other hand, the special tracing of the human 

 pedigree, the closer definition of the animal forms known 

 to us, which either actually belong to the ancestors of man, 

 or at least stand ia very close blood relationship to them, 

 will always remain a more or less approximate hypothesis 

 of descent, all the more in danger of deviating from the real 

 pedigree the nearer it endeavours to approach it by search- 

 ing for the individual ancestral forms. This state of things 

 results from the immense gaps in our palseontological know- 

 ledge, which can, under no circumstances, ever attain to 

 even an approximate completeness. 



A thoughtful consideration of this important circumstance 

 at once furnishes the answer to a question which is 

 commonly raised in discussing this subject, namely, the 

 question of scientific proofs for the animal origin of the 

 human race. Not only the opponents of the Theory of 

 Descent, but even many of its adherents who are wanting 

 in the requisite philosophical culture, look too much for 

 " signs " and for special empirical advances in the science of 

 nature. They await the sudden discovery of a human race 

 with tails, or of a talking species of ape, or of other living 

 or fossil transition forms between man and the ape, which 

 shall fiill the already narrow chasm between the two, and 

 thus empirically " prove " the derivation of man from apes. 

 Such special manifestations, were they ever so convincing 

 and conclusive, would not furnish the proof desired. Un- 

 thinking persons, or those unacquainted with the series of 

 biological phenomena, would still be able to maintain the 



