1 882.] Analyses of Books . 737 
evidence are handled with consummate ability and with a wealth 
of illustration which speaks highly both for the author’s wide and 
profound learning and for the skill with which he can bring his 
knowledge to bear upon the point at issue. Of especial merit 
is the chapter on “ Missing Links.” Dr. Wilson is particularly 
plain and emphatic in correcting an error into which even highly 
educated men — not to speak of gainsayers prone to the suppressio 
Deri — still at times fall. He writes : — “ The knowledge of what 
Evolution really teaches and reasonably demands constitutes the 
first condition for ascertaining what ‘ missing links ’ are required. 
To bridge over the gulf between the gorilla or any other anthro- 
poid ape and the human type may be the life-long worry of 
unscientific minds contorting the demands of Evolution. It is 
certainly no business or labour of Mr. Darwin and his followers, 
or of any other school of Evolutionists. Mr. Darwin, writing in 
his ‘ Descent of Man,’ and after a review of man’s theoretical 
origin, is careful to add — ‘ But we must not fall into the error of 
supposing that the early progenitor of the whole Simian stock 
(including man) was identical with, or even closely resembled, 
any existing ape or monkey.’ We must, in truth, look backwards 
along the files of time to the point whence, from a common ori- 
gin, the human and ape branches diverged each towards its own 
peculiar line of growth and development on the great tree of 
life.” In another passage, protesting against the same error, he 
says — “ Mr. Darwin’s theory does not demand that the gorilla or 
any of his compeers should be direCtly connected with man. 
The gorilla lives, so to speak, at the top of his own branch in 
the great tree of life, whilst man exists at the top of another 
higher and entirely different bough.” 
Is it too much to hope that, after this plain explanation, people 
will no longer affedt to be shocked at their supposed descent from 
the Anthropoids ? 
But Dr. Wilson shows that the absence of “ missing links ” in 
various parts of the animal kingdom is to be expeCted. We 
know that there are at present a number of very well-marked 
forms — commonly called breeds or races — of the domestic pigeon. 
Yet all these varieties are descended from one common stock, — 
the rock pigeon ( Columba livia). But where are the intermediate 
forms connecting the pouter, the fantail, the carrier, and the 
tumbler with the original stock ? They are not to be found, and 
there is no record of their existence. If, then, the absence of 
intermediate forms between (say) birds and reptiles is held to 
prove that they have not sprung from one common stock, but 
have had independent origins, it must follow, on the same prin- 
ciple, that the pouter and the fantail did not spring from the 
rock pigeon, but are primordially distindf, which is absurd. That, 
moreover, such intermediate links have been found between the 
birds and the reptiles, as well as between many other groups not 
respectively isolated, further strengthens the author’s .case. 
