40 , DARWINISM TESTED BY 



me whence we derive all this knowledge. 

 To draw up a tree, similar to the one 

 here adduced as illustrative of the develop- 

 ment of speech, for such species of animals 

 and plants as are sufficiently investigated, 

 thereby sujDposing that they are descended 

 from primitive forms, and to determine 

 the latter in their principal features, is 

 certainly not anything impracticable. But 

 the question is whether it is admissible to 

 suppose that such primitive forms ever did 

 exist. Who gives you, glossologists, the 

 right, you might ask, to give out that 

 those stock- and primitive languages which 

 you have arrived at through the existing 

 forms of speech, can be safely taken for 

 realities ? Who assures us that your genea- 

 logical trees are anything better than the 

 productions of your imagination? How is 

 it that you are so unanimously convinced 

 of the variation of species, of the rami- 



