THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 127 



tant from the age of the Ehphas primigenius than that is from 

 us." They may, in short, spare themselves the trouble of looking 

 for any such transition from apes to men in any period ; for this 

 great lapse of time renders the species practically permanent ; more 

 especially when we bear in mind that of the numerous species 

 whose remains are found with those of these ancient men, some 

 have continued unchanged up to our time, and the rest have be- 

 come extinct, while not one can be proved to have been transmuted 

 into another species. 



Sir Charles devotes no less than five concluding chapters to this 

 doctrine of transmutation, as held by Darwin and others. He 

 does not commit himself to it, but wishes to give it due conside- 

 ration, as a possible hypothesis, which may at least lead to great 

 truths. We are not disposed to give it quite so high a position. 

 Mr. Darwin's book impressed us with the conviction that his hy- 

 pothesis really explains nothing not otherwise explicable, and re- 

 quires many assumptions difficult of belief; while the whole argu- 

 ment in its favour is essentially of the nature of reasoning in a 

 circle. Thejpoint to be proved is, that variations arising from ex- 

 ternal influences and " natural selection " may produce specific 

 diversity. Now in order to begin our proof of this, we require at 

 least one specie-, with all its powers and properties, to commence 

 with. This being granted, we proceed to show that it may vary 

 into several races, and that these races, if isolated, may be kept 

 distinct and perpetuated. We further proceed to show that these 

 races differ so much, that if wild, and not tampered with, we might 

 suppose them originally distinct. So far all goes well with our 

 demonstration ; but we find that many of the differences of these 

 races are of the nature of mere monstrosities, like the six fingers 

 of some men, which, as far as they go, would exclude the indivi- 

 duals having them, not only from their species, but from their order 

 or class. Further, we find that theMifferences which do resemble 

 those of species, have not, when tried by the severe test of cross- 

 ing, that fixity which appertains to true ^specific differences ; so 

 that with due care all our races can be proved to belong to but 

 one species. Thus our whole argument falls to the ground ; un- 

 less we are content quietly to assume the thing to be proved, and 

 to say, that after showing that some species are very variable, we 

 have established a certain probability that they may overpass 

 the specific limits ; though the fact that with all this variability, 

 no species has been known practically to overpass these limits ; 



