146 



novel the first time you read it, and think yon know all 

 about it ; the second time you read it you think you 

 know rather less about it ; and the third time, you are 

 amazed to find how little you have really apprehended 

 its vast scope and objects. I can positively say that I 

 never take it up without finding in it some new view, 

 or light, or suggestion that I have not noticed before. 

 That is the best characteristic of a thorough and pro- 

 found book ; and I believe this feature of the " Origin 

 of Species " explains why so many persons have ven- 

 tured to pass judgment and criticisms upon it which 

 are by no means worth the paper they are written on. 



Before concluding these lectures there is one point 

 to which I must advert, — though, as Mr. Darwin has 

 said nothing about man in his book, it concerns myself 

 rather than him ; — for I have strongly maintained on 

 sundry occasions that if Mr. Darwin's views are sound, 

 they apply as much to man as to the lower mammals, 

 seeing that it is perfectly demonstrable that the struc- 

 tural differences which separate man from the apes are 

 not greater than those which separate some apes from 

 others. There cannot be the slightest doubt in the 

 world that the argument which applies to the improve- 

 ment of the horse from an earlier stock, or of ape from 

 ape, applies to the improvement of man from some 

 simpler and lower stock than man. There is not a 

 single faculty — functional or structural, moral, intel- 

 lectual, or instinctive, — there is no faculty whatever 

 that is not capable of improvement ; there is no faculty 

 whatsoever which does not depend upon structure, and 

 as structure tends to vary, it is capable of being im- 

 proved. 



Well, I have taken a good deal of pains at various 



