10 HOMO V. DAEWIN. 



I have to complain, then, that the Defendant, following' 

 in the track of some recent naturalists, has lately published 

 a work entitled "The Descent of Man," in which he 

 affirms that I am " certainly descended from some ape-like 

 creature." " Man," he says, " is descended from a hairy 

 quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably 

 arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the old world." 

 (Vol. ii. p. 389.) "The early progenitors of man," he says 

 again, " were no doubt well covered with hair, both sexes 

 having beards ; their ears were pointed and capable of 

 movement ; and their bodies were provided with a tail, 

 having the projier muscles. . . . The males were provided 

 with great canine teeth, which served them as formidable 

 weapons." (Vol. i. pp. 206, 207.) 



But this is not all, my Lord. Mr. Darwin further 

 affirms that my most ancient progenitors were creatures 

 resembling the larv«, or young of Ascidians — the Ascidians 

 being scarcely animals at all. They are classed by some 

 naturalists among the worms, while their young resemble 

 tadpoles. Mr. Darwin thus affirms that I am descended 

 from a tadpole, and am, in short, the offspring of a worm ! 



I have to complain, my Lord, that, in maintaining such 

 to be my origin, Mr. Darwin entirely ignores the general 

 sentiment and belief of my race regarding it, and also the 

 historical and philosophical evidence on which it rests, and 

 that he takes occasion, from some points in my bodily 

 structure in which it resembles those of the lower animals, 

 to affirm that I am sprung from the same stock with them, 

 and differ from them merely by virtue of processes which he 

 calls " Natural Selection " and " Sexual Selection." He 

 thus degrades me from being a creature made by the 

 Divine hand and bearing traces of the Divine image, to be 

 merely a more perfectly developed animal, and allied, rather 



