1876.] Biological Controversy and its Laws. 215 
that of man. Now, when an army retreats from the open 
country into quagmires, forests, and deserts, both enemies 
and neutral on-lookers regard the movement as a confession 
of weakness. In the very same manner, when a dodtrine 
or a theory changes its ground and recedes, opponents know 
what this implies. The dodtrine of abiogenesis has thus 
receded. Time was when the world believed that insedts of 
highly complicated organisation could thus be produced. 
Now it is held, if at all, only with regard to badteria, invi- 
sible to the naked eye. In like manner the dodtrine of the 
“great gulf ” was once maintained on points of strudture, 
visible and tangible marks. Now all these supposed cha- 
racteristics are given up, and the alleged distinction is based 
on matters invisible— points to be inferred or guessed at. 
The signification of such a retreat is immense. Mr. Mivart 
rests his case on a triple assertion : — - 
Man has language ; brutes have none. 
Man has reason ; brutes have merely instinct or quasi - 
intelligence. 
Man has an innate perception of right and wrong; brutes 
are devoid of moral life. 
The three distinctions here brought forward are by no 
means novel. They have all been previously adopted, and 
have all in turn been explicitly or tacitly rejected by thinkers 
who still admit a difference of kind between man and beast. 
Mivart combines them all, doubtless in the hope that if two 
wrongs do not make one right, three may possibly be found 
adequate. We do not find that he is able to bring forward, 
on any of these points, any argument which may not fairly 
be considered as already refuted. 
The claims of language as a decisive criterion have been 
urged by Prof. Max M filler— a high authority, doubtless, on 
human tongues, but, we submit, scarcely so well acquainted 
with the languages of brutes as to warrant him in pro- 
nouncing on the question. Popular opinion, embodied in 
the phrase “ dumb animals,” takes a similar view ; but dumb 
means, after all, little more than speaking a language which 
we cannot understand. The ancient Greek and the modern 
Pole both pronounced their neighbours, of different races, 
“ tongueless,” or “ mute.” On the other hand, Quatrefages, 
a believer in the “ great gull,” and a most decided unbeliever 
in Mr. Darwin, is of opinion that language does not consti- 
tute the boundary line. The late Archbishop Whateley was, 
we believe, of the same opinion. 
But turning from authorities, how eminent soever, let us 
