330 HABIT AiSfD INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



more remote from it ; for we have experience of the origin of 

 races by descent with modifications, though very small modi- 

 fications, but we have no experience at all of the origin of 

 The arga- a race by special creation. I believe this kind of argument 

 experieuce froiii direct experience, in the narrowest sense of the word 

 is in its experience, is good for very little ; but, such as it is, it is in 



favour of the development theory, and not against it. 

 Difficulties This is the place for referring to those difficulties of the 

 about man. development theory which appear to be keenly felt by 



many, in connexion with the origin of man. 

 Develop- Man is developed, like all other organisms, out of a 

 ^g°* minute structureless germ, which cannot by itself be dis- 

 applicable tinguished from that which will develop into the form of 

 any other species. Man is an air-breathing Vertebrate ; I 

 have brou.s;ht forward what 1 believe to be conclusive 

 proofs that all air-breathing Vertebrates have been de- 

 scended from fishes ; and if these arguments are good for 

 other species, they are good for man also. Man is closely 

 allied in his pliysical structure to the apes ; the best autho- 

 rities appear to be agreed with Professor Hujcley, that 

 Man's there is no difference, either in the brain or in any other 

 essentially P^^'^ ^^ ^^^^ body, between man and the apes that can be 

 unlike the regarded as in any way fundamental. The superiority of 

 man's mental powers to those of the highest animal is no 

 doubt so great that it may be regarded as infinite ; but we 

 have seen that motor and mental characters are so variable 

 in comparison with formative ones, that they are no index 

 whatever to the affinities of a species. As a question of 

 biological science, consequently, I see no reason to doubt 

 that man, like other species, has been developed out of 

 lower forms. 



The repugnance to this belief rests on the notion that 

 where there is gradual change there can be no funda- 

 mental change of nature ; and, consequently, that if man 

 has been developed out of an ape, he is still essentially an 

 ape. Now, without entering on any logical or metaphy- 

 sical discussion, I meet this argument by saying that such 

 is not the fact : I say that a gradual change by develop- 

 ment may be a fundamental change. The logical, or meta- 



