PREFACE xi 



simian descent were regarded as a crime, a jury would without 

 hesitation pronounce his guilt ; but until some observer of the 

 processes followed by Nature can bridge over the gap that divides 

 man from the ape, until indeed he can offer a legitimate illustration 

 of how it is accomplished in similar cases in our own day, the gap 

 remains. Those who have read the recent work of Prof Metchni- 

 koff on the Nature of Man will properly regard his chapter on the 

 simian origin of man as a brilliant argument advanced by a most 

 competent authority. Yet he fails to complete his case by bridging 

 over this gap, and can only appeal to the results of the now 

 famous researches of De Vries concerning the mutations of the 

 evening primrose (CEnothera). It is probable, he says, that man 

 owes his origin to a similar phenomenon (English edition, p. 57). 

 Several objections could be raised against this illustration from 

 the plant-world, the most important of them lying in the circum- 

 stance that these mutations could only be urged as instances of 

 the sudden development of new species of the evening primrose 

 type. They merely illustrate the process of differentiation from 

 a given type, and by no means represent the process of progressive 

 evolution from a simian to a man. 



However, look where we may — and this is the great lesson I 

 have learned from my researches in the Pacific islands — Nature 

 does not present to our observation any process in operation by 

 which a new type of organism is produced. The processes involved 

 lie hidden from our view. The channels by which impressions 

 from the outside world reach us are comparatively few ; and 

 although it seems likely that the future development of man will 

 be mainly concerned with the acquirement of additional sense- 

 channels, no newly acquired sense will enable him to be at once 

 an actor in and a spectator of the great drama presented in the 

 organic world. That a creature should be able to get at the back 

 of its own existence, or, in other words, to penetrate the secret of 

 its own creation, is unthinkable. Outside the limited field of 

 observation that immediately surrounds us extends the region 

 where reason alone can guide us, and beyond lies the realm where 

 reason fails and faith begins. 



H. B. GUPPY. 



November %th, 1905. 



