FIRST DAYS SITTING. 19 



Lord C. Do any of these intervening " series of forms," 

 then, survive ? 



Darwin. None of them, my Lord. Indeed, "the great 

 break in the organic chain between man and his nearest 

 allies, v?hich cannot be bridged over by any extinct or 

 living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection 

 to the belief that man is descended from some lower form." 

 CVol. i. p. 200.) 



Lord C. I do not wonder at that, for, as the race of 

 man has proved hardy enough to survive, one would think 

 that some, at least, of his ancestral races would have 

 proved as hardy as himself. But perhaps you suppose that, 

 when the series that has ended in man branched away from 

 the stem of the Old World monkeys, all the members in each 

 successive series were travelling gradually towards the goal 

 of humanity, so that a time at length came, when each 

 surviving mother in the last series found herself strangely 

 producing man. 



Danvin. My Lord, will you kindly observe that I spoke 

 of " a series of forms, graduating insensibhj from some ape- 

 like creature to man." 



Homo. I should say, my Lord, that, if this "graduating" 

 process ever took place, it was a very sensible process, 

 though " insensibly " performed. 



Lord C. Mr. Darwin's meaning is clear enough. He 

 means by "insensibly" that each step in the series of 

 changes by which, at length, ape became man, was trivial 

 in itself, though the whole combined has produced the result 

 which we now see. But I wish to learn from Mr. Darwin, 

 whether he supposes that each step in this series of changes 

 which he thinks resulted in the production of man, was 

 taken by all the mothers belonging to each series of forms. 

 Or, I may put it differently. After the line that produced 



