80 HOMO V. DARWDf. 



his hands, which are so admirably adapted to act in obedi- 

 ence to his will. . . . But the hands and arms could hardly 

 have become perfect enough to have manufactured weapons, 

 or to have hurled stones and spears with a true aim, so 

 long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for 

 supporting the whole weight of the body, or as long as they 

 were especially well adapted .... for climbing trees." 

 (Vol. i. p. 141.) 



Eomo. Mr. Darwin, my Lord, cannot rise above the 

 idea of man having been originally a savage, perpetually 

 manufacturing weapons, and hurling stones and spears 

 against his enemies. If this was the condition of his pro- 

 genitors, and they had enemies against whom they required 

 defence, one would suppose that Natural Selection would 

 have led them to seek it in the trees on which they had been 

 wont to make their habitation, and that so they would not 

 have lost their power of climbing. Mr. Darwin's hypothesis 

 is thus inconsistent and self-contradictory. Listen to it, 

 my Lord. Man's progenitors were apes, and lived on trees. 

 They found sustenance in their fruits, and security on their 

 lofty branches, moving easily from one to another as they 

 were inclined. In process of time, however, they gradually 

 lost their power of climbing, and had to " live less on trees 

 and more on the ground." They thus became exposed to 

 the attacks of beasts of prey, yet, strange to say, the suc- 

 cessive generations of them were preserved through many 

 long eras of our earth's history, as they "gradually and 

 insensibly " advanced in form towards man. Natural Selec- 

 tion thus put the heads of these poor beasts into the lion's 

 mouth, and yet was able, somehow, to prevent the lion from 

 biting them off ! 



Lord G. There might have been no lions in those 

 imaginary times. 



