SEXUAL SELECTION. 357 



geographical distribution in past and present times, and 

 their geological succession. It is incredible that all these 

 facts should speak falsely. He who is not content to 

 look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as dis- 

 connected, can not any longer belicTe that man is the 

 work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to 

 admit that the close resemblance of the embryo of man 

 to that, for instance, of a dog — the construction of his 

 skuU, limbs, and whole frame on the same plan with that 

 of other mammals, independently of the uses to which 

 the parts may be put — the occasional reappearance of 

 various structures, for instance of several muscles, which 

 man does not normally possess, but which are common 

 to the Quadrumana — and a crowd of analogous facts — all 

 point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that man 

 is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common 

 progenitor. 



