THE HUMAN KINGDOM. 15 



importation; that the savage is civilised at a given moment 

 by contact with some foreign nation by imitation, a faculty 

 which is possessed, within well marked limits, by the highest 

 order of apes ; and then, that progress has been stopped when 

 these people return to their own homes. How can we explain 

 otherwise, for example, that the Northern Esquimaux, living 

 on the ice by the borders of creeks and bays, can make 

 dresses and arms, and have never been able to construct a 

 machine capable of bearing them upon the waters ?* 



If we break up one continuous series, and compare together 

 the two first terms with two of the fragments of the series, 

 they will in reality appear entirely distinct; in fact, almost 

 impossible to be connected with one common type. But, if 

 we compare the last term of one of these partial series with 

 the first term of the following, then the differences are blended, 

 because the transformations do not happen to hide the parts 

 so much that one cannot recognise their fundamental unity. 

 We discover, for example, that in the animal series, such -a 

 crustacean is almost a mollusk, such a reptile, such a mam- 

 mal, almost a bird.f Differences are extinguished; those 

 beings which were said to be most distant have become almost 

 allied one to the other. We can only perceive one continuous 

 series; so much so, indeed, that even where there are any 

 unfilled spaces, or missing links, we consider ourselves almost 

 justified in declaring the past existence (or the future one ?) of 

 some intermediate animal. 



As for ourselves, the series of beings given by Bonnet and 

 Leibnitz, so far as regards any ulterior phenomenon, resulting 

 from the observation of beings who have not been of necessity 

 created in this order, is true not only of the physical, but also 

 of the intellectual world. Shall we desire to know what man 

 has in common with the ape what distance there is between 

 the one and the other, let us no longer put ourselves on the 

 stage, we who are privileged so to do ; let us descend boldly 



* See the Voyage de I'Isabelle ; also Desmoulins, Histoire Naturelle des Races 

 Humaines, 1826, p. 276. 



f Cirripeds, tortoises, ornithodelphi, and generally speaking, the extreme 

 representatives of the divisions of each natural classification. 



