130 SPECIES. 



It may be seen, and we are bound to make the remark, that 

 we no more pretend to make man a descendant of the ape, than 

 a white man a descendant of a Negro ; but it is not impossible, 

 in our opinion, that species of men, as well as the great apes 

 whose relationship hurts our vanity so much, may remount 

 infinitely far in the past to an unknown single species, whose 

 descendants, submitted to multiplied influences, might be 

 modified in different ways by reason of these different influ- 

 ences. 



We admit, then, that species is an instant of a constant 

 evolution; that it does not exist by itself; and that it is only an 

 appreciation of our senses, localised by time. In our opinion, 

 if species is fixed, it is fixed after the manner of the sun. 

 That is to say, that we cannot perceive any movement in it 

 beyond the merest trifle. 



It requires thousands of years to discover either solar dis- 

 placement or specific alteration. This is what makes the 

 determination of species so difficult; some of which may be 

 considered as in progress of formation in reference to others. 

 The difficulty is the same with mankind as it is with animals. 

 We would not dare to contradict, for instance, the opinions of 

 those who see in the Hindu, German, and Celtic population 

 three species in course of formation, all three being probably 

 derived from a species anterior to that which history endea- 

 vours at the present day to name ; that Aryan race of which 

 such a noble picture is made, and which we believe to be 

 primitive because it is in the horizon of history, just as the 

 ancients saw in the ocean the limits of the world. In a short 

 time, perhaps, some discovery in a poor Asiatic field will take 

 away from the Aryas the characteristic nobility and intelli- 

 gence which we give to them with so much satisfaction. It 

 belongs to human palaeontology alone to enlighten us upon 

 the origin of the present human types ; it alone can lead us in 

 a sure path towards the great problem of their origin. 



But both geology, and paleontology which depends on it, have 

 the singular destiny of showing at one and the same time both 

 great certainties and insoluble doubts. The stratification of 

 rocks, for example, gives us very clearly the notion of the sue- 



