SECOND day's sitting. 45 



The fact that man now varies shows that he has got an 

 animal nature, but I cannot, for the life of me, see how 

 this circumstance proves him to be connected with the 

 lower animals in descent. On the supposition that man 

 exists as the result of a separate act of creation, it might be 

 expected that, exposed as he is to so many diversified and 

 changing conditions, his bodily structure would exhibit, 

 both internally and externally, quite as numerous variations 

 as are found in it. 



Homo. My Lord, Mr. Darwin, after stating what he calls 

 " the laws of variation," tells us that they apply, " most of 

 them, even to plants." (Vol. i. p. 113). Now, we know that 

 plants of the same kind vary among themselves endlessly. 

 The oak, for example, varies both in its roots below and in its 

 branches above. I suppose that, as in man, " the length 

 of the legs is one of the most variable points," so in the oak 

 is the length of its roots and branches. Will Mr. Darwin 

 maintain, then, that the variations in an oak tree, and among 

 them the different lengths of its roots and branches, prove 

 the oak to be descended from some lower vegetable form ? 



Darwin. My Lord, allow me to remind you that my 

 argument, derived from rudimentary muscles connected 

 with the panniculus, referred to by Professor Turner, has 

 not been answered. 



Lord C. What has Homo to say in reply to it ? 



Homo. I would say first, my Lord, in Mr. Darwin's own 

 words, that " with respect to the causes of variability we 

 are in all cases very ignorant;" and secondly, that as " the 

 muscles are eminently variable," and as " a single body 

 presented the extraordinary number of twenty-five distinct 

 abnormalities," it should hardly surprise us that these 

 "variations" and "abnormalities" sometimes take the 

 direction pointed out by Professor Turner. I may also 



