SIXTH day's sitting. 141 



of man and that of the lower animals. It appears to me 

 that his argument, founded on the existence of those 

 resemblances, has been fairly and satisfactorily answered. 

 As man possesses an animal nature, and has to live on this 

 earth, it is not strange that his bodily frame should be 

 constructed after the model of other animals. 



As to Mr. Darwin's argument from the resemblances 

 between the embryos of man and those of the lower animals, 

 it is sufficient to reply to it that, as there are resemblances 

 in their bodily structures when mature, there must neces- 

 sarily be resemblances in them when in process of develop- 

 ment. We have the authority of Professor Owen for 

 affirming that " the embryo " of man " does not pass through 

 the lower forms of animals," and in the drawing which 

 Mr. Darwin produces to show the similarity between the 

 embryos of man and dog, the differences are so apparent as 

 to make one wonder how he could have imagined that such 

 ■an exhibition would help his argument. 



He points us, moreover, to the existence of what he 

 •calls "rudimentary structures" in the human body — 

 .structures which are found fully developed only in some of 

 the lower animals ; and he attributes the occasional 

 existence of such structures in man to a tendency in him 

 to "revert" to the type of some ancient progenitor. The 

 instances which he adduces, however, are so trivial and 

 uncertain that I am amazed they could aid in justifying, 

 even to his own mind, the astounding inference that the 

 ape is father to the man. They are sufficiently accounted 

 for, to my mind, by a reference to the unity of conception 

 and plan traceable among the whole of the mammalia, and 

 to the fact that the variations of structure that occur in the 

 human body are almost innumerable. Mr. Darwin has 

 told us of " 558 muscular variations in thirty-six subjects," 



