66 HOMO V. DAEWIN. 



Darwin. " Considering," my Lord, " how few ancient 

 skulls have been examined in comparison with recent 

 skulls, it is an interesting fact that, in at least three cases, 

 the canines project largely, and in the Naulette skull they 

 are spoken of as enormous." (Vol. 1. p. 126.) 



Bomo. I do not see, ray Lord, that these cases help Mr. 

 Darwin in the least. He is now taking it for granted that 

 man was originally a savage. That I do not believe. I 

 regard savages as having originated, if not in all cases, 

 certainly in most, from some portion of our race having 

 drained away, by its own inherent tendencies, from a higher 

 and more genial life, to the low, wretched, death-like level 

 at which we find it. If Mr. Darwin, therefore, could pro- 

 duce three hundred such skulls, instead of three, the larger 

 development of their canines might be referred with far 

 greater probability to degradation than to reversion. 



Darwin. " To believe," my Lord, " that man was abori- 

 ginally civilized, and then suffered utter degradation in so 

 many regions, is to take a pitiably low view of human 

 nature." (Vol. i. pp. 184, 185.) 



Homo. It is, nevertheless, a correct view. We see, un- 

 happily, too much around us to prove its correctness. Are 

 there not many, in all our great cities, that exhibit a 

 tendency to sink into utter barbarism. Let them but be 

 transported to some uninhabited island, or to some 

 desert, and there left to themselves, and, in a very few 

 generations, every trace of what civilization they have 

 would disappear. 



Darwin. " In the Quadrumana," my Lord, " and some 

 other orders of animals, especially in the Carnivora, there is 

 a passage near the lower end of the humerus called the 

 supra-condyloid foramen, through which the great nerve of 

 the fore-limb passes, and often the great artery. Now, in 



