82 HOMO V. DARWIN. 



progenitors when they were losing their brute-like powers 

 and advancing in intellect, but it cannot be allowed now that 

 the human and scientific era has unquestionably arrived. 

 I have already, my Lord, mentioned one way in which, on 

 Mr. Darwin's principles, the loss of the tail by man's pro- 

 genitors might be accounted for. Allow me now to mention 

 another. As they became unable to climb and live on 

 trees, this appendage would become increasingly incon- 

 venient to them. Sometimes they might be caught by it in 

 the very act of escaping. Being thus a useless and even a 

 dangerous article, it would gradually get into a rudimentary 

 condition, and might eventually drop away. Or, it might 

 have been got rid of " through the Natural Selection of 

 those individuals who were least encumbered with a super- 

 fluous part." 



Darwin. " From these causes alone," my Lord, which 

 I have just mentioned, " it would have been an advantage 

 to man to become a biped." 



Lord C. Do you think, Mr. Darwin, that man was ever 

 anything else than a biped ? You would surely not 

 maintain that our supposed ape-like progenitors were men ? 



Homo. Mr. Darwin, my Lord, often gets a little into the 

 fog on this point. At page 235 he says, "Whether primeval 

 man, when he possessed very few arts of the rudest kind, 

 and when his power of language was extremely imperfect, 

 would have deserved to be called man, must depend on the 

 definition which we employ." He was doubtful, when 

 writing this passage, whether man should be called '' man," 

 even when he had become somewhat endowed with speech ; 

 now, he unhesitatingly calls our progenitors " man " before 

 they had become bipeds, and were as yet progressing on all- 

 fours ! 



Bar-win. I was going to add, when your Lordship inter- 



