176 
two years ago, tliat Darwinism “ gets rid of the polygenous 
theory, by assigning to us the ape for an ancestor, mediately 
through the negro/' I was answered thus : — 
“ Mr. Bendyshe could not perceive how the transmutation 
theory could get rid of the polygenous theory. Mr. Reddie 
appeared to suppose that, admitting the transmutation theory, 
man must have descended from a single ape ; but that by no 
means followed. Man might have descended from several 
different apes. The question of the origin of man from one or 
from many Adams was not settled at all by the transmutation 
theory."* 
To this it was replied, that “ Mr. Bendyshe's suggestion of 
f more apes than one/ to reconcile transmutation with the 
polygenous theory, is at any rate something new ; but if 
these apes are all to be found in the f equatorial regions/ to 
which Sir Charles Lyell refers us for a search, we are still 
relegated to the ‘ unimprovable 3 negro races for the first 
ancestor of civilized man ! If it could be established that 
low-class savages could raise themselves, one difficulty in this 
theory would be got rid of — that would be all. But if this 
cannot be established, the theory is incredible, as being im- 
possible/^ 
Mr. Bendyshe is Vice-President of the Anthropological 
Society of London ; but I am not aware how far his opinions 
are shared by others, or even if there really exists a class of 
Darwinian Polygenists in this country. On the Continent, 
Professor Carl Vogt is a Darwinian, who derives makind from 
three kinds of apes ; and he denounces, as irreconcilable with 
facts, the Darwinian monogenist theory. But it will be 
observed that this view of more apes than one, to obtain for 
the human race a polygenous origin, only brings us back, 
after all, to the other polygenous theory we have glanced 
at, which gives us “ merely low-caste speechless savages of 
different colours 33 for the ancestors of all the races of 
mankind. If there be any great difference between the two 
theories, so far as anthropological considerations are involved, 
it is only this, that the one gets entirely rid of the special 
creation of man. In that respect Darwinism is completely 
antagonistic both to the religious theory and to ail such 
polygenous theories as recognize the necessity for the interven- 
tion of a Creator, in order to account for the existence of 
“ the paragon of animals ” — man. 
But the two best-known advocates of Darwinism are mono- 
genists. Professor Huxley has become a convert to it as a 
* Anthropological Review, v ol. II. p. cxxxii. t Ibid. p. cxxxiv. 
