LECTURE XYI, 463 



monstrosity of the present creation, fills up the gap whicli can- 

 not be* bridged over by normal types in tlie present creation, 

 but may be so by some future discoveries. 



We are told that intermediate forms have not been found, and 

 we admit this. But when it is added that none can be found, 

 the history of the last ten years, with all its discoveries relating 

 to man and the ape, tells a different tale. Twenty years ago 

 fossil monkeys were unknown, now we know nearly a dozen ; 

 who can tell that we may not in a few years know fifty ? A 

 year ago no intermediate form between 8emnopithecus and 

 Macacus was known, now we possess a whole skeleton ; who 

 can assert that in ten, twenty, or fifty years we may not pos- 

 sess intermediate forms between man and ape ? 



But whilst we assume the actual descent of the human race 

 from the apes, and believe that the dijfferences between both, 

 which will become greater by the further development of man, 

 are the result of selection and intermixture, we must, on 

 the other hand, decidedly repudiate an inference we are 

 charged with, and which consists in this, that we must neces- 

 sarily come back to the original unity of mankind, and con- 

 sider Adam as an intermediate form between ape and man. 

 " The changes in the history of science," says Councillor E. 

 Wagner, " have a remarkable, almost comic, aspect, when we 

 look at the fierce contest now raging between mono-genists 

 and poly-genists, as they call in France the advocates for one 

 or many parent stocks of mankind. Three years ago, just 

 before Darwin's book appeared, the theory of the possibility or 

 probability of the different races of mankind having descended 

 from a single pair was considered as perfectly antiquated, and 

 as having lagged behind all scientific progress, whilst now, to 

 judge from the applause with which Darwin's theory is re- 

 ceived, there is nothing more certain than the inference that 

 both ape and man had for their single progenitor a form inter- 

 mediate between ape and man."* 



We crave pardon. Sir Councillor ; never was there a more in- 

 correct inference, and when you advise us " to let this question 

 rest for the present, as it cannot be scientifically solved," you 



* Since the above was written. Prof. Eud. Wagner has departed this life. — Ed. 



