The people's Darwin, or, Darwin made easy

THE

PEOPLE'S

DARWIN

OR

DARWIN MADE EASY

By

E. B. AVELING, D.S

PRICE ONE SHILLING.

R . FORDER,
28, Stonecutter Street, London, E.G.

THE

PEOPLE'S

DARWIN

OR

DARWIN MADE EASY

By

E. B. AVELING, D.S

R. FORDER,
28, Stonecutter Street, London, E.C.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

This popular exposition of Darwinism has been for
some time out of print, but although the book
has had a large sale, the enquiries for it have
been as numerous as ever, and I have, therefore,
issued the present edition. To those unacquainted
with the writings of Darwin, this work will be of
great assistance, giving as it does in a concise form
an epitome of his views and teachings.

R. FORDER.

THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

By EDWARD B. AVELING, D.Sc.

Chapter I.— ITS MEANING.

We must not confuse the Darwinian theory with Evolution.
It is a part of that larger whole. Evolution is the nam&
for the idea of the unity and continuity of phenomena. The
evolutionist regards all the phaenomena of the universe as
natural, and does not believe in the intervention of the
supernatural. To him there never is, never has been, and
never will be, any break in the series of events. The
evolutionist pure and simple does not recognise any hiatus
between man and other animals, between the animal and
the plant, between the living and the non-living.

In this wide sense I cannot, strange as this may seem, call
Charles Darwin an evolutionist. For in the " Origin of
Species " he uses one phrase, not so far as I know contra-
dicted or modified in more recently published utterances,,
that may fairly be quoted as evidence of his belief in the
supernatural origin of life. It ia the well-known sentence :
" There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator
into a few forms or into one."

Darwin's great work was done in relation to living things.
His two remarkable theories of Natural Selection and
Sexual Selection have bearing only on plants and animals.
Darwin's hypotheses had to do with the evolution of thes4
two highest forms of matter known to us. They hav(
nothing to do with the question of the origin of life, or the
first formation of organic bodies. In dealing with his ideas,
we must start, as he started, with life as existing on the earth*

2 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

Organic matter is given. The question is how, organic or
living matter once in being, the many diverse forms of
plants and animals have arisen.

The understanding of Darwin's theories turns on the
understanding of the word " species." What is a species
of plant or animal ? What is meant when we label a
certain number of animals, Canis familiaris (dog) e.g., and
another set, c. lupus (wolf) ? The old idea, still prevalent
among the uneducated, was that the word " species " should
be applied to all the animals, or to all the plants, that had
taken origin from one original pair of parents, or from one
parent in which the two sexes were united in the same
individual. The question as to the origin of this original
pair of progenitors, or original bi-sexual progenitor, was
answered by the statement that these had been specially
created out of nothing by god.

Clearly this conception of species was wholly based on
the teachings of the Mosaic cosmogony. As long as men
were foolish enough to take as their guide, not only in
matters of daily conduct but on scientific questions, the
Hebrew bible, such a conception of a species was the only
possible conception.

To the naturalist of to-day the word " species " is a con-
venient label to be placed on a certain set of living beings
that have certain points of resemblance, one with another.
It is entirely arbitrary ; as arbitrary as the name you give
your child. Indeed, all our classification terms are thus
arbitrary, artificial. They are very convenient, but they do
not express the fact that any corresponding divisions exist
in nature. We look abroad on the world and see that,
roughly speaking, all things in it are either living or non-
living, but we find it impossible to give a satisfactory defini-
tion of the living as distinct from the non-living, when we
study the lowest forms of organic bodies. Yet for con-
venience' sake we make an artificial »E>a useful division
between the two great realms of objectr

In the same way we speak of the two a. *nal and vege-
table kingdoms. It is impossible to distinguish the lower
animals from the lower plants, but we speak of,, the two
kingdoms^* and find it a great convenience thus to speak.
In like manner we divide the kingdom e. g. of animals into
artificial groups that we call sub-kingdoms. Of theoe one

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 3

is the Yertebrata or backboned animals. The sub-kingdom
is broken up into classes. The Yertebrata are said to consist
of the fishes, amphibia, reptilia, birds, mammals. A class
such as the Mammalia is made up of orders. Thus among
the thirteen orders of the class Mammalia are the Carnivora
(flesh-eaters). In the same arbitrary way our u^ers are
divided into genera — Canis (dog) is a genus of the order
Carnivora — -and each genus into species — familiaris (com-
mon) is a species of the genus Canis.

We carry our artificial classification farther, and often
divide a species into varieties. The specie's Canis familiaris
contains many varieties, as the mastiff, the greyhound, the
bull-dog. These varieties, whether of a plant or animal
species, are admitted by everyone to be due to quite natural
causes. They have originated without any intervention of
the supernatural. The evolutionist holds that all the other
divisions have had an equally natural origin, and that
species have evolved under natural laws in the past, as
varieties are known to evolve under natural laws in the
present ; that all the complex forms of living things that
have lived on the earth have been produced by perfectly
natural processes one from another, and all from the
simplest original forms of living matter. But the special
creationist holds that species have been called into existence
at the will of an almighty being.

Let us now see what light Charles Darwin has thrown
on this question, -bong before his time other thinkers had
grown dissatisfied with the no-explanation " god did it."
In England, in Germany, and in France men had begun to
think that the idea of an almighty god calling into being
species separately was not tenable, and that it was more
probable that a slow process of development had gone on
by which the forms of living things had grown more and
more numerous and different one from another.

In England the grandfather of Charles, Erasmus
Darwin, had written as early as 1794 the following pas-
sage in his " Zoonomia " : — " When we revolve in.
our minds, first, the great changes which we see naturally
produced in animals after their nativity . . . when we
think over the great changes introduced into various ani-
mals by artificial or accidental cultivation . . . when we
eunmerate the great changes produced in the species of

4 TliA> a^WWINIAN THEOBY.

animals before their nativity . . . when we revolve in our
minds the great similarity of structure which obtains in all
the warm-blooded animals . . . one is led to conclude that
they have alike been produced from a similar living fila-
ment. . . . From their first rudiment or primordium to
the termination of iheir lives, all animals undergo per-
petual transformations . . . and many of these organised
forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity.

. . . The three great objects of desire are those of lust,
hunger, and security. A great want of one part of the
animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive
possession of the females ; and these have acquired
weapons to combat each other for this purpose. . . . The
final cause of this contest among the males seems to be
that the strongest and most active animals should propa-
gate the species, which should thence become improved.
. . . Prom thus meditating on the great similarity of the
warm-blooded animals and at the same time of the great
changes they undergo both before and after their nativity ;
and by considering in how minute a portion of time many
of these changes of animals above described have been pro-
duced ; would it be too bold to imagine that in the great
length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps mil-
lions of ages before the commencement of the history of
mankind, would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-
blooded animals have arisen from one living filament,
which The Great First Cause endued with animality, with
the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new
propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions,
and associations ; and thus possessing the faculty of con-
tinuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of
delivering down those improvements by generation to its
posterity, world without end ?" To which one is inclined to
add, Amen ! Here are undoubtedly the germs of the ideas
of Evolution, of natural selection, though tiw^r are confused
by the introduction of " The Great First Cause/' and are
only applied to birds and mammals, not to living things
generally.

In Germany Goethe had a shadowing forth of the
great truth : — " The inward perfection and purpose of the
animal body are built up stage by stage, and the changes
depend on its connexion with the external world. No

THE DABWINIAN THEORY,

part of an animal considered carefully is useless or, as men
have phrased it, produced arbitrarily. One will not in the
future as to organs ask for what do they serve, but whence
do they spring ? One will not assert that a bull has horns
in order to push, but one will inquire how he could have
horns at all in order to push. This plan of nature works
eternally ; there is no rest or stay. But not all that she
bi ings forth can she preserve and maintain ; she cannot
retain all which she produces. We have still a most un-
finished variety of organic forms remaining, which cannot
yet be connected in one great genealogical tree."

In France, Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire (the elder of
the two St. Hilaires) and Lamarck had ideas as to the
production of species from pre-existing species even more
clear than those of either the Englishman or German.
Thus, in the Life of Etienne, written by his son, we have
the following : —

" And in this Memoir written in 1795, published at the
beginning of 1796, is found the germ of the philosophic
anatomy, not merely foreshadowed, not merely indicated,
but formulated, with marvellous clearness. Nature, these
are the author's own words, has formed all living things
on a uniform plan, essentially the same in principle, but
varying in a thousand ways in all details. And in the
same class of animals the diverse forms in which nature
has been pleased to make each species exist, are all divided
^ne from another. It suffices her to change certain propor-
tions in the organs to fit them for new functions, to ex ^d
or restrict their use."

In " Lamarck's Philosophic Zoologique" he gives at the
ond of the first vol. on p. 424 (1809), under the heading
chapter iii., the following remarkable summary of his
views : — c' That it is not true that species are as old as
nature, aud that they have all existed for the same length
of time the one as the other, but that it is true that they
are formed successively, that they have only a relative per-
sistence and remain constant for no great length of time."

Again, in his " Histoire Naturelle des Animaux," Intro-
duction, p. 161 (1815), Lamarck writes : — " That the con-
ditions in which the different races of animals found
themselves placed as they spread oy degrees over different
points of the globe and in the waters have given to each

6 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

special habits, and that these habits, which they were
obliged to contract according to their habitats and manner
of living, may have, for each one of these races, modified
the organisation of the individuals, the form and condition
of their organs, and placed these in relation with the habitual
actions of these individuals, it is now no longer possible to
doubt." And again : " However small the modifications
may be that have taken place under our eyes, and of which
we have convinced ourselves by the observation of those
animals whose habits we have arbitrarily changed, these
same modifications suffice to show us the extent of those
which, with time, animals may have experienced in their
form, their organs, even their organisation, from the
conditions under which they have lived, and which have
modified all the races to an almost infinite extent."

The idea that these great men had put thus vaguely,
Charles Darwin reduced to distinct form. They all held
that species must have evolved under the influence of
external circumstances. He showed that they had evolved,
and demonstrated at least one of the principles on which
evolution took place.

His great work on the " Origin of Species " was pub-
lished in 1869. To those who are wont to speak of the
premature nature of his conclusions the following facts are
commended. From 1832 to 1837 he had been travelling-
round the world in the " Beagle " collecting facts. On
his return he continued collecting facts for five years more
Then, from 1842 to 1844, he made notes. In the latter
year he drew out a sketch of his work, and fifteen years
later published his conclusions.

We must remember that the " Origin of Species " is, to
a large extent, an abstract and a statement of results.
Some of the enormous number of facts on which the con-
clusions given in the " Origin of Species " are based will
be found in the two volumes of the " Animals and Plants
under Domesticiiiion/' published after the " Origin of
Species."

The first part of the " Origin of Species " is occupied
with the discussion of these four points, each of which
must be discussed briefly here. Variation under domesti-
cation. Artificial selection. Variation under nature.
Natural selection.

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 7

(1) Variation under Domestication. — The animals and
plants that have been brought under the dominion of man
vary, t.e., no two individuals of the same species are com-
pletely alike. The rose-trees produced from a given rose-
tree are dissimilar. The puppies of the same litter are not
all alike. Every breeder, every horticulturist knows that the
living things he lias under his care vary.

(2) Artificial Selection. — Man, by noticing the " acci-
dental " variations that occur, has been able, by careful
selection and careful breeding, to aid in the production of
many variations. The word " accidental " is used, as at
present we cannot tell why one seedling of a pansy should
have an arrangement of color different from its com-
panions— why one member of a family should be swifter
than its fellows. Granted the initial variation, artificial
selection may come into play. Man selecting and breeding
from the individuals selected, a form of plant or animal
very different in details from the parent whence it sprang,
and from the unvarying descendants of that parent, may
be obtained.

In the Animals and Plants under Domestication Darwin
gives innumerable cases of the results of this selection by
man. In the little space at my disposal I can only men-
tion one or two. From the plant-kingdom take the follow-
ing. In the year 1596 the hyacinth was first introduced
into this country. In 1597, from the one variety brought in
four varieties were, according to Gerarde, known. In 1629
Parkinson speaks of eight. In 1864 Paul mentions 700.

In Scotland a white rose-tree in the year 1793 produced
a red seedling. From this the gardener bred carefully and
closely. In 20 years 26 varieties were known, and in 50
years 300, all derived from one "accidental" variation.

Amongst the animals, the example most frequently
quoted, and perhaps the most remarkable, is the case of the
pigeon. Every one knows the many different kinds of
pigeon, the runts, barbs, pouters, tumblers, jacobins, carriers,
fantails. All these are known to have originated from one
original form, the blue rock pigeon (Columba livia), during
the time that man has taken an interest in the breeding of
these birds

The thoughtless folk cry out, " Yes, but these are all of
the same species. They are all hyacinths, or roses, or

8 THE DABWINIAN THEOBY.

pigeons. They never become any other i species.' " The
very obvious answer is, that they are all of the same
species still to us, because we know the history of the case.
We name them still as all of the same species, because we
know they are all derived by natural variation and arti-
ficial selection from one parent form. But if e. g. the
varieties of pigeon were placed before an unprejudiced ob-
server, who did not know their history, and he were asked
whether they all belonged to the same species, he would, I
doubt not, reply " No, nor even to the same genus."

(3) Variation under Nature. — Little proof of this is re-
quired. Everyone has set out on the hopeless search for
the two blades of grass exactly alike. In the wild woods
or in the trim garden, in the waters of the ocean as in the
aquaria, endless variation is evident. There is perhaps less
need to insist on this variation than on that occurring
under domestication. But the great question arises,
" What results from this variation of living things in a
state of nature ?" We have seen how the variations of do-
mestic animals or plants may be seized on and utilised to-
wards the production of new varieties. Is anything of
the same nature taking place among the living beings not
directly under the sway of man ?

(4) Natural Selection. — Here is the great suggestion of
Charles Darwin ; the key to so many problems in biology.
He shows (a) that there is a struggle for life among living
things ; (b) that any variation of structure or function
giving to its possessor an advantage in the struggle is
likely to be preserved ; (c) that the possessor of such a
variation is more likely to survive than its fellow not thus
gifted ; (d) that the possessor of such an advantageous
variation is more likely than another destitute of it to have
offspring ; (e) that in the offspring the variation will be
repeated and intensified ; (/) that, transmitted from
generation to generation and becoming more and more
marked, the modification becomes at last permanent, and
a new variety, or a new species results.

The struggle for life. The world is one great battle-
field. Beneath its surface, within the depths of its waters,
in the very air is eternal strife. All living beings are cease-
lessly fighting. The life of our great cities, with its con-
test of class with class, of individual with individual, is the

THE DABWINIAN THEORY. tf

type of all life. In the darkness of the soil of the earth
the roots of the plants are struggling with each other for
food. In the microscopic drop of water the Infusoria
sweep ceaselessly round and round, searching for the
food that is not sufficient for them all. Every living thing
is an Ishmael. Its hand is against all others. The hands of
all others are against it. And as among men, so also among
the more lowly organised creatures, the bitterest struggle
is ever between those who are akin one to another. Vce
vidis, woe to the conquered, is the cry of the world. If
plant or animal does not succeed, 1t perishes. How does
nature, in her silent, imperturbable fashion, take advantage
of these eternal variations in the flowers and in the ani-
mals ? By Natural Selection, or the survival of the fittest.
Who are to be the survivors in this battle ? Who are
doomed to be numbered among the slain ? Those best
fitted for the struggle will survive. Those not adapted to
the circumstances of the unending fight are doomed. The
fittest will hold out the longest. That which possesses
in strength or in any other way an ad van age over its fel-
lows will conquer them in the struggle for existence. If
any variation in an individual plant or animal is of such a
nature that its possessor will be better fitted for life-work,
that possessor will have an advantage over its. fellows —
will stand a better chance than they of surviving, will
transmit its variation to its offspring, possibly in intensi-
fied form. The offspring, even better fitted than their
parents for life, triumph yet more completely over their
fellows. Thus is the original slight variation strengthened
until, after a long time, forms result so differing from the
first individual that presented the variation, that the biolo-
gist is constrained to regard them as belonging to a species
other than that comprising the original plant or animal.
This is the great principle of Natural Selection, or the
survival of the fittest. The variations that are of benefit
to the beings possessing them are naturally selected. The
enunciation of this principle and the elucidation of it have
been in especial the work of Charles Darwin.

At the base of everything there is this variation of the
individual. That the variations are infinite in number and
in kind no one can doubt. But as to the causes of
variation and as to the laws which govern it, we are much

10 THE DARWINIAN THEOBY.

in the dark. On both these points Charles Darwin speaks
with his usual caution ; and although since the publication
of the " Origin of Species " many suggestions have beer*
made aud some light thrown on the subject, we are not yet
in a position to do more than still suggest.

Variation, i.e. the possession of some quality of structure
or of function by one or more individuals of a group whose
other members do not possess the quality, is of two
kinds : that which appears in the individual during the
course of its life, and is due to the conditions of life ; and
that which ap^Oars in the offspring in consequence of the
coming together of two parent forms . Thus a plant may
as it grows up to the adult condition — as it passes
through the stages of budding, flowering, fruiting, show
certain modifications of form, of color, of function that are
probably due to the circumstances in which it is placed.
Or it may show modifications that are due to the fact that
the seed whence it sprang was ripened by pollen from a
plant other than that which produced the seed.

The conditions of life have much to do with variation.
No two individuals of the same species are exposed to
identical conditions. Two amcebse in the stagnant water
receive different quantities of heat and of light and of
food. To all the forces from without that impinge on the
living body, that body, as long as it is alive, responds. And
such response is often in the nature of a change slight
enough at first, but with great potentiality, if it is repeated
and intensified. We may regard many of the variations in
structure and function that distinguish individuals one
from another, as due to the effect of the conditions of life
on different individuals. This response on the part of the
living organism to the forces that environ and play on it,
is called Adaptation.

But without doubt, a second great cause of the initial
variation without which the principle of natural selection
would have nothing on which to work, is cross fertilisation.
The seeds of plants, the ova or eggs of animals, are almost
always the result of the crossing of two individuals. That
this is the case in all the higher animals in which the two
sexes are in distinct individuals is evident. But even in
the'* lower animals, in which the two sexes are present
in the same individual, such as the leech or the snail, there

THE DABWINIAN THEOBY. 11

are in almost every case arrangements that compel or at
least permit of cross fertilisation. Thus if A and B ar two
bisexual individuals of the same species, the ova of _ are
fertilised by B, and those of B by A.

With plants the rule is that both pollen (the fertilising
agent) and ovules (the seeds that are to be) are found in
the same individual. For a long time botanists thought
that the ovule of a given violet e.g. was fertilised by the
pollen from the same violet. But the researches of Darwin
in England, of Gaertner and Kolreuter in Germany have
shown that this is very rarely the case. Generally the
ovule of a given flower is fertilised by the pollen of
another flower of the same kind.

In this cross fertilisation we have the possibility of
endless variation, for the offspring is the product of two
differently circumstanced parents. Like as the two
parents may be, they have lived in slightly different
places, have received different supplies of food, have come
into contact with different external agencies. ' Hence every
new being is the result of the collision of two cells, male
and female, from two parents that have been subject to
different conditions of life. Nor must we expect in such
a case that the offspring will present those qualities only
that are to be found in the parents. There is what I have
called a collision of two cells. The properties of the one
parent will act on those of the other, and new modifications
may result. When we place together our copper with its
properties as a metal, and our nitric acid with its proper-
ties as an acid, we find new bodies formed, with properties
other than those of the two substances used. In like
manner, when two living beings conjoin to form offspring,
that offspring is likely to present not only the characters
<*f its parents, but new and often unexpected characters,
due to the blending and modification within it of the
ancestral characters. The name given to the principle by
which the descendants of certain parent forms present
characters that are due to those of the parents is called
Heredity, whether those characters are like or unlike those
of the parents.

The Darwinian theory, therefore, is that all the species
of animals and plants in existence to-day have been
evolved from pre-existing living forms ; that this evolution

12 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

is explained by natural selection ; that variations occurring in
living beings under certain conditions, may be of advantage to
the possessor ; that the possessor of these has a better chance
than others in the battle for life ; that he survives when
others may perish ; that he has a better chance of pro-
ducing offspring ; that to the offspring the special useful
characteristic is transmitted ; that in them it becomes
intensified and ultimately fixed as a permanent mark of
the group. Two of the causes of variation in individuals
appear to be the varying nature of the conditions of life,
and cross fertilisation.

Chapter II.— ITS DIFFICULTIES.

The antagonists of Darwinism are constantly, with much
emphasis and repetition, reminding us of the difficulties of
the theory. They are not, as a rule, sufficiently generous
to confess that their instructor as to those difficulties was
Darwin himself. Every weapon against his idea has been
placed in the hands of its opponents by Darwin. Since
the publication of the " Origin of Species " in 1859, not a
single scientific objection of any moment has been brought
forward that was not anticipated in that work.

The chief difficulties are the following. The absence of
intermediate forms ; the perfection of certain organs ; the
persistence of certain forms of living things ; instinct,
man, and mind.

(1) The Absence of Intermediate Forms. — This difficulty is
embodied in the frequent question addressed to the
evolutionist by unbelievers in science. " Where are the
connecting links ? ,? It was urged in the years immediately
following the publication of the " Origin of Species," and
urged then with some justice, that the intermediate forms
between the different species, genera, orders, classes of
plants and animals were wanting. But now, after twenty-
four years of further work in biological science, this
objection no longer holds. For the researches of the
botanist, the zoologist, and the palaeontologist, guided to a
large extent by the great principle associated with DarwinV

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 13

name, have shown us that these " connecting links " exist,
or have existed. To-day we can state positively that
hardly a species of plant or animal exists that does not
glide, as it were, into the species most closely allied to it.
Scarcely any species of living thing can now be marked off
by a hard-and-fast line from all other species. The
gradations between the groups that we make in our
artificial way are insensible. And that which is true of
species is also true of larger divisions in our system of
classification. Generally, orders, classes, sub-kingdoms, are
found to pass imperceptibly into their neighbors, and
certain forms of living things are found hovering on the
border line of two groups, and placed by some observers
in one, by some in another division.

The general reader will understand this better if I take
one or two examples from the animal kingdom. The
examples shall be taken from the cases of forms inter-
mediate to classes, as they will be comprehended better
than illustrations of connecting links between species.
These last need for their understanding a special know-
ledge of botany or zoology. The sub-kingdom of
Yertebrata, or back-boned animals, is still divided generally
into five special classes — the Mammalia, or animals that
suckle their young ; Aves, or birds ; Reptilia, or reptiles ;
Amphibia, or the frog-class; Pisces, or fishes. When science,
as well as the general ideas of men, was vitiated in its
thinking by the inaccurate dogma of special creation, it
was thought that these five classes were clearly marked off
one from another. But now-a-days intermediate forms are
known between the different classes. Mammalia and Aves
e.g. are connected by the Ornithorhyncus, opvis (ornis) ===
bird, pvvx<>$ (rhunchos), = snout; that is the duck-
billed platypus of Australia, an animal with a fur covering,
with -the bill of a bird, with webbed feet, and with points
of internal structure that are partly mammalian, partly
avian. The Aves and Reptilia are connected by the
extinct Pterodactyl, Trrtpov (pteron) =. wing, SciktvAos
(daktulos), = finger. This animal has a wing developed
on one finger of the anterior limb, and yet is to a large
extent reptilian in its structure. The Reptilia and Am-
phibia pass so readily into each other that until within
the last few years the members of the two groups were

14 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

placed together under the head of Reptilia. The frog e.g. ia
in its early life a fish, in its adult condition a reptile. In it
%nd its allies we have links not only between Reptilia and
Amphibia, but between both these and the lower vertebrate
class, the Pisces. Another connecting link between the
Reptilia and the Pisces is the Lepidosiren, or mudfish of
the Gambia, an animal as to which there was for a long
time dispute. Some naturalists placed it in the higher,
others in the lower class.

No'- are these linking-on forms only to be found con-
necting classes. The larger divisions or sub-kingdoms
which are divided into classes also pass by insensible
gradations into one another. Thus the Yertebrata are con-
nected with the Mollusca or soft- bodied animals by the
Amphioxus, or lancelet of the Mediterranean. This little
animal, usually classed with the fishes, is about one inch in
length, has no bones or cartilages whatever, no teeth, no
true heart, no gills, no brain, no sense organs. The sole
representative of its backbone is a rod of tissue lying
along the middle line of the back. The backbone of every
vertebrate, even of man himself, begins as just such a rod
in the middle line of back, marking out the position of the
vertebral column that will appear later, first as cartilage,
then as bone. Hence we are entitled to regard Amphioxus
as the lowest vertebrate, though if the history of the
development of the vertebral column in the higher mem-
bers of the sub-kingdom were not known, we should have
no suspicion of its true relations.

But Amphioxus, in many details of its structure, is
closely related to a group of the Mollusca called the
Ascidioida. aovcos (ascos), = bag, tiSos (eidos), = like-
ness. Certain members of tliis group have a line of tissue
identical with the structure met with in Amphioxus, and are
a transitory condition in the rest of the Vertebrata. Further,
in the structure of their breathing apparatus, and in many
other points of their anatomy, they are closely allied to the
lowest of the Yertebrata.

In the same way it could be shown that other groups in
the animal, and groups in the vegetable kingdom, are
connected by intermediate forms, and generally it may be
said that the distinctions between the divisions of living
things are fading away in the light of advancing knowledge,

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 15

or in common phrase, the majority of connecting links are
known. That all are not known is to be ascribed to two
causes, (a) In the battle for life intermediate forms are
often crushed out. This might be expected from the
general principles of natural selection. Suppose some
one member of a group A varies in some particular
direction, and by the transmission, intensification, and
fixing of the variation, a new form B arises. The members
of the group A that have not varied are still fitted for
their life conditions. The members of the group B are
fitted for certain slightly or largely different conditions.
But the intermediate forms are likely to be crushed out of
existence between the living things of group A and
group B.

That this is the case is shown by the fact that the
connecting links are dying off. Ornithorhyncus is becoming
extinct in Australia, as Amphioxus is vanishing from the
Mediterranean Sea. A century hence these witnesses to
the truth of the Darwinian hypothesis will probably be
extinct. But a century hence this will not matter greatly,
as everyone will then be an evolutionist.

(b) The objection may be raised, that even if this sup-
pression of intermediate forms occurs, the remains of these
forms ought to be found in the records of the rocks. But
the reply to this is " the imperfection of the geological
record.' ' For a fossil to be of value to the student in con-
nexion with this study of intermediate forms four things
are necessary. The plant or animal must be preservable.
Thus a fossil jelly-fish is inconceivable. The conditions in
which it is at the time of its death must be favorable to its
preservation. Millions of living things have died under
such circumstances that their remains could not be pre-
served. The sedimentary rocks in which the remains are
preserved, supposing the first two requisites are attained,
must not be subjected to any agency such as fire that will
destroy the organic remains. These rocks, with their
remains, must be observed by man. When we consider
how many living forms are incapable of preservation, and
especially those that are of most interest in this connexion ;
how often the conditions necessary for their preservation
have been wanting ; how frequently other changes have
destroyed or altered the rocks containing fossils that have

16 THE DARWINIAN THEOBY.

been preserved ; how limited is the area of the earth's
surface yet investigated ; and how, in especial, the tropical
regions of the earth where evolution has probably been
most active, have received but little study, there should
not be much wonder that the record of the fossils is very
imperfect. But it should be remembered that every new
discovery among the rocks has been in harmony with
Evolution, and opposed to the idea of special creation.

(2) Tlie perfection of certain organs. — The unbelievers
often point to such organs as the human eye, and ask :
" How is it possible to conceive that this wonderful
structure has been slowly evolved in the course of a long
period of time from simpler conditions, that lead us back
ultimately to mere specks of color ?" The answers are
three. First, that this is much more possible than the
creation of such an organ. Second, that we have every
possible gradation in the animal between the eye of man
and the lowest and simplest eye known. Third, we see in
the development of every individual human bsing every
complex organ pass through stages of development from
the most simple form to the most complex, and these
stages are identical with the permanent conditions in
certain of the lower animals. The eye of man, e.g., is but
a modification of part of the integument, and in its stages
of development passes rapidly through condition after con-
dition that are identical with the eye-structures to be seen
in more simply organised members of the animal kingdom.

(3) The persistence of certain forms of living things. — This
difficulty takes two forms. The follower of Darwin iff
asked how he explains the fact that whilst variation and
natural selection are at work everywhere, yet certain low,,
simple forms persist, so that even to-day the single-celled
organisms that represent some of the very earliest stages
in the evolution of the animal or plant kingdom are yet in
existence. In answer to this the reply is given that
variation is not universal. To take an example. Suppose
100 members of the group A ; 1 only varies ; 99 remain
as their ancestors were. The descendants of the one, i£
the variation is transmitted, intensified, and fixtxi, give
rise in turn to a new form, B, so distinct from A as to be
' killed a new species. But the descendants of the 99
unvarying ones are still as their ancestors, and are still

THE DARWINIAN *HEORY. 17

members of the species A. Of a hundred men, e.g., one
may vary in the direction of some new higher order of
thought, whilst the ninety and nine continue in the same
old errors and superstitions.

Again it is known that in certain parts of the world, as
e.g. Egypt, the living forms are to-day not different from
those that by pictorial and other representations we know
to have existed there hundreds of years ago. But in the first
place the few hundred, or even thousand years of history
are only a heart-beat in the vast ages that this earth has
been in existence. A thousand years in thy sight, oh
Evolution, are but as a watch in the night ! And further in
the cases usually quoted, as Egypt, e.g. the conditions of
life during the historical period have been uniform, and
therefore variation to any great extent would not be
expected.

In this connexion it may be well to deal with one
special case that the average Christian Evidence man
is always bringing forward — that of the Trilobite. Of
course he knows nothing, as a rule, of the structure of
the Trilobite and its relations to other animals. But he
has read that it occurs very low down in the sedimentary
rocks, that it is of fairly complex organisation, and that other
animals lower than it in the scale of structure are not pre-
served as fossils in the rocks below. The answers are that
the rocks below the Silurian, in which the Trilobite first
appears, are rocks that have been changed by the action
of heat to such an extent that all organic remains have
disappeared from them ; that we are wholly unable to tell
what ages have thus had their records destroyed — ages during
which living things probably existed before the time of
which the Silurian strata are the memorial ; and that the
predecessors of the Trilobite in the gradual evolution of the
animal kingdom were for the most part of such a nature
that their remains did not allow of preservation.

(4) Instinct. — The difficulty as to the evolution of instinct
is not nearly so great now as in 1859. The old idea that
reason was the prerogative of man, instinct the gift of god
to the animals below man is exploded. The lower animals
reason, and much that has been ascribed to instinct is the
result of education. That certain animals learn very
rapidly to perform certain acts that have hence been called

c

15 THE DARWINIAN THEOBT.

instinctive may be explained, partly at least, by the fact
of heredity. For the details on this interesting question
*lie reader is referred to Dr. L. Biichner's " Mind in
mimals " (Mrs. Besant's translation). Here I can only
ay that the difficulty of instinct is by no means insur-
mountable, and that as instincts are generally useful to
the animal possessing them, they oome within the range of
the operation of natural selection. And the difficulty that
is supposed to meet the follower of Darwin in the case of
societies such as those of the bees and the ants, vanishes, I
think, if we bear in mind that the principle of natural selec-
tion tells in regard to societies as well as individuals, and
that a variation such as that of differentiation of labor, as in
the bee-state, that is useful to the community, would give
that community an advantage over other communities and
would be likely to be transmitted, intensified, and become
fixed.

(5) Hybridism, — When members of two closely allied
species cross one with another the offspring is either
sterile, or produces offspring that is sterile. Sooner or
later the descendants of such a union are infertile. This
fact is often considered as strong evidence against tht
Darwinian theory. The stress laid on it is due to the
emphasis with which Darwin himself dwelt on it. I
cannot but think that he over-estimated the force of this
fact. For no evolutionist believes that a new species
arises by so cataclysmic a process as the crossing of two
previously existing species. The process of evolution is
far more gradual ,than this. If it were contended that
only by the crossing of two widely different forms a new
form originates, the result of the sterility of hybrids, (the
eross between two species) would be of great moment.
But as nothing of the kind is the contention, I fail to see
how this sterility is to be regarded as an argument of any
great strength. Moreover, the believers in special creation
seem to me to reason in a circle. They first tell us that
the distinguishing mark of a species is that its members
cannot interbreed with the members of another species.
Then when we ask how are we to distinguish one species
from another, we are told " by the fact that the
members of each species can only interbreed one with
another." It is, on the theory of Darwin, quite con

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 19

ceivable that two forms, B and 0, might evolve along
different lines from a common parent A, nntil at length
they were so differentiated one from another, and even
from the common parent, and were living in such different
conditions of life, that the reproductive cells of A or B
and C, cannot act on one or the other so as to produce
fertile offspring.

One or two of the chief points urged by Darwin as
evidence that the facts connected with hybridism do not
tell irresistibly against his theory are the following.
Sterility is visible in individuals of the same species.
Crosses between different pairs of animals that all belong
to the same species have varying degrees of fertility. If it
were a law, fixed as that of the Medes and Persians, that
between members of the same species crossing, with as
result a fertile progeny, were impossible, we should expect
to find that the crossing of two individuals of the same
species would always produce fertile offspring. But find-
ing, as we do, that there are varying stages of sterility
between individuals said to be of the same species, we are
led to think that the excessive condition of complete sterility
is only an extreme case, and is dependent on causes as
purely natural as are the different degrees of fertility or
of sterility between individuals of the same species. There
is every gradation, again, between the most perfect fertility
Ind the most complete sterility, and it is difficult to con-
ceive of the special creation of groups of animals or plants
between which crossing is impossible, without conceiving of
the special creation of groups between which the results of
crossing would be representative of every one of these
intermediate stages.

Again, so-called true species exposed to conditions of
life that are different from those to which they have been
subject, often become infertile. Animals that breed perfectly
well in certain places and climates are found, on removal
to other places and climates, to be quite incapable of pro-
ducing offspring. Here it seems clear that infertility is
due to changed conditions. Nobody invokes the aid of the
creator in these cases, and it appears to be a Tational
explanation of the infertility of hybrids, or the crosses
between different species, that the conditions of life. are a?
altered as to bring about sterility.

20 THE DARWINIAN THEOBY.

The great cause of the sterility between animals and
plants sufficiently different one from another to be placed
in different species, is probably difference in their sexual
elements, a difference not the result of interposition from
without, but of the modification these elements have under-
gone as the living beings in which they are produced have
been exposed to different external conditions.

In this discussion Darwin makes a fair use of analogy.
He points out that certain trees can be grafted one upon
another, whilst others are incapable of being thus grafted.
Thus, the pear can be grafted upon the quince, and, with
greater difficulty, upon the apple, a plant, by the way,
more nearly allied to the pear than is the quince. But the
pear cannot be grafted upon an elm. This difficulty of
grafting is not referred to any special creative act. Indeed,
the distinctions between plants that would be founded on
the ease or difficulty of grafting would not coincide at all
with the classification-divisions, and distinctions at present
recognised — i.e., if we based our species on the possibility
•or impossibility of grafting, the species thus mapped out
would not be identical with those recognised to-day. Yet
generally it may be said that plants closely allied can thus
be blended, and that if they are not closely allied, grafting
jB impossible. As Darwin puts it : " There is no more
reason to think that species have been specially endowed
with various degrees of sterility to prevent their crossing
and blending in nature, than to think that trees have been
specially endowed with various and somewhat analogous
degrees of difficulty in being grafted together in order to
prevent their inarching in our forests."

Again, to take an illustration from the highest living
thing, certain races of man cannot interbreed. Thus the
Egyptian women and the whites are almost universally
infertile. If the believer in special creation holds that
species, as originally created, were doomed to infertility one
with another, he must at least believe that more than one
species of man were created, and that the Adam and Eve
story is open to suspicion.

When we consider that the amount of sterility between
individuals of the same species varies, that with changed
conditions the sterility of individuals is affected, that the
study of the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals

THE DABWINIAN THEORY. 21

«hows that the chief cause of sterility is difference in the
elements of the beings crossed, and when we take into
account the phenomena of grafting, the difficulties of
hybridism are certainly not overwhelming.

(6) Man. — Many who are with Darwin in all that he
©ays as to the lower animals and as to plants, part company
with him when he applies his theory to the human race.
This is but another example of man's false pride. He
was wont, some years back, to classify himself in an order,
and even at one time in a sub-class by himself. But all
this is over now, and the order Primates or Quadrumanat
now includes man, ape, and monkey. In the same waj
the old fancy that the principle of natural selection wa*
net to be applied to man, is passing away. Even the
clergy sre admitting that man's bodily structure may have
been derived from one of the lower animals. For furthei
details on this point the reader is referred to my pamphlet
on the " Origin of Man," and to my translation of Haeckel's
" Populare Vortrage" (" Pedigree of Man ").

Not a single point in the anatomy or physiology of man
separates him from his allies, the lower animals. It must be
understood that when I speak of man I mean the human
race as a whole. In this inquiry into the origin of species,
and especially of the highest form of living things, ma^
*iimself, we must not fix our attention on any one race,
*md least of all on the highest race. The ordinary person,
when he discusses the origin of man, has in his mind the
civilised and cultured European. It is this product of the
evolution of man himself that he compares, most un-
scientifically, with the anthropoid or man-like apes. But
the true comparison is between the lowest types of men
and the man-like apes. If this comparison is made, if we
study the various races of men from the highest to the
lowest, and at the same time study the nearest allies of
man, we find that there are greater differences in every
point of anatomy and physiology between man and man
than between man and ape — that is to say, if we study the
skeleton, the digestive apparatus, the absorbent system,
the circulatory system, the respiratory organs, the secreting
organs, the nervous system, the sense organs, the muscles,
the voice apparatus, the method of reproduction, and the
history of the development of men generally and of the

22 THE DARWINIAN THEOBY.

apes- -if we study the working of all these various organs
we find that in every case the gap is not between man and
ape, but between man and man. To take but one crucial
case. It is usual to state that in his brain- weight man is
immeasurably the superior of the ape. But the heaviest
human brain yet investigated weighed 67 oz.., the lightest
8 oz., whilst the anthropoid apes have been found to have
a brain- weight of 16 oz.

(7) Mind. — Even those who admit the probability of the
truth of the Darwinian hypothesis in relation to man's body,
deny in many cases the possibility of its truth in relation
to man's mind. But mind is only a function of the
nervous system ; and just as the nervous system of man is
separated by no line of demarcation from that of the lower
animals, so his mental powers are separated by no line of
demarcation from those of the lower animals. In my
" Origin of Man " it is shown that if we consider the mental
powers of the highest and lowest men, there are greater
differences between them than between those of the lowest
man and the highest ape. Nay, more than that, the
mental powers of the lowest men are inferior to those of
the highest apes, just as their brain weights are lower than
the average brain weight of the anthropoid apes.

Chapter III.— ITS EVIDENCE.

Gkeat questions such as this of the origin of species can
only be decided by an appeal to evidence. Evidence is of
two kinds ; direct and indirect or circumstantial. In our
courts of justice both are admitted. A man sees a murder
committed and gives direct evidence as to its committal.
Or the accused is found guilty on purely circumstantial
evidence. He has blood on him, the clothes and money
of the murdered man are in his possession ; he has a
reason for the killing of the victim ; has been seen near
the place of death at the time of death.

In dealing with the origin of species we have to be
contend for the most part with indirect evidence. Of the
direct kind not much can be brought forward «> favor oi

THE D All W INI AN THEORY. 2£

the origin of species by natural selection. In favor o'
their origin as special creations there is no evidence what
ever. In fact, this view of the special creation of certaii
distinct kinds of plants or animals by an almighty powei
is entirely unsupported. There is not a single witness of
repute on its side. The solitary argument that is some-
times urged by the ignorant on its behalf is the acdount
in the first chapter of Genesis. But this is worthless as
evidence in a scientific question. The Bible cannot for a
moment be admitted as witness in this great controversy.
It has, on questions such as this, no more authority than
the Koran or Yedas. And the class of persons called clergy,
who claim the right to speak as to the origin of species,
have no voice in the matter. As clergymen, their opinion
is as valueless as that of the butcher, the baker, and the
candlestick maker. If they have studied science, then as
scientific students they are entitled to a hearing ; bui the
fatal profession, as a profession, is not in a position te
give a verdict on a question that can only be decided by
skilled biologists and geologists.

Of direct evidence in favor of special creation there is
none. Of direct evidence in favor of the origin of species by
natural selection there is something. The whole of the two
large volumes on animals and plants under domestication is,
it seems to me, evidence of this order, evidence that tells for
Darwin. But when we turn to the indirect, whilst again
there is none on the side of the old belief, that on the side
of the new is consistent, illimitable, overwhelming. It is
consistent, for every fact, of science, every discovery of the
past twenty-four years, is in harmony with the views of
Darwin. It is illimitable because the number of these facta
and discoveries is beyond all computation. It is over-
whelming because only minds blind or bitter are now un-
convinced.

I, following in the main our master, range the evidence
under six heads. General principles, classification, dis-
tribution, morphology, embryology, prophecy.

(1) General Principles. — The hypothesis is in harmony
with the general principles of the eternity of matter, the
eternity of motion, and the conservation of energy These
three great principles, summed up, perhaps, in the last of
the three, are the enunciation of the majestic law that matter

24 THE DARWINIAN THEOBY.

has never been created or destroyed, that motion has never
been created or destroyed, th&t the forms of matter, and
the forms of motion are convertible one into the other,
without any loss. The doctrine of special creation is in
direct contradiction to this great truth. The Darwinian
hypothesis is in harmony with it.

We use the word " matter " asa convenient name for all
that which can affect the senses. This is no definition.
But it is a useful convention. No one has ever seen
matter created or destroyed. All experiments show that
matter is readily transformable from one of its conditions
to another, but that with the transformation there is never
any loss or gain. The candle burns in the closed glass
flask until it goes out or is burnt away. At the end of
the experiment the weight of the closed glass flask and its
contents is exactly what it was at the beginning. A
change has taken place, that is all. A piece of gun-
cotton is set on fire. Poof ! It has vanished in smoke.
The ignorant man thinks it is destroyed. But the chemist,
weighing the gun-cotton first, and the air in which it is
placed, and then after the burning weighing the gases
that are formed, finds that the weights before and after
the experiment are the same. Ceaseless transformations of
matter, but never any creation, never any destruction.
And this we are led to believe has been always the case.

Motion is change of place. Sometimes it is what we
call molar motion, or that of evident masses. Moles = a
mass. All that which is commonly called motion is of this
kind. The movement of our own bodies, that of a falling
stone, or of a cricket-ball thrown across the field, are
molar motions. But there are forms of motion that affect
the minute particles of bodies, forms out of the reach of
our ordinary perception as cases of motion. Only of late
years has it been shown that chemical action, heat, and
light and electricity and magnetism, and life, are modes
of motion. In these cases the motion appears to be of minute
particles, the little masses of bodies. Moles = a mass,
"icula" is a diminutive ending. Hence molecule is a

Ittle mass, and the motion of these small ultimate particles
jf substances is molecular motion. It has been shown
as to these various forms of molecular motion that all are

' ^nsformable one into the other without any loss or anv

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 4*

creation. The copper and zinc placed in the battery set
np chemical action. The wires carried from the copper and
zinc are found to be electric. The wire becomes hot.
Broken across, a spark with light and sound leaps across the
interval. Wind the wire round a piece of soft iron, and this
attracts a magnet. Bring the two ends of the connecting
wire into contact with a muscle that has been recently
removed from the body of an animal, and the muscle
contracts. Finally dip the wire ends into acidulated water,
and the water is decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen.
Chemical action is set up. Not only our experiments, but
our observations, show that there is ever going on this
transformation of a definite quantity of one form of motion
into a definite quantity of another. Ceaseless transforma-
tion of motion, but never any creation, never any destruc-
tion. And this we are led to believe has been always the
case.

Work is done when matter is set in motion. A man
lifting a cannon-ball from the ground to the table does
work. A stone falling from a cliff to the shore does work.
Energy is the capacity to do work. The man who lifts the
cannon-ball puts forth energy. This energy in motion is
balled kinetic energy. Ktvrjo-is (kinesis) — motion. The
stone on the cliff is in a position to do work. Remove the
cliff and it falls. But it is, as long as it remains on the
riiff, only in a position to do work, and is not doing work.
ft possesses energy, or has the capacity to do work, but is
not exercising that capacity. Its energy is that of position
or potential energy. Potentia = power. There are therefore
two kinds of energy ; kinetic, that is energy in action ;
potential, that is energy in reserve.

The principle of the conservation of energy states con-
cisely all the facts that I have now enumerated. It says
that the various forms of energy, whether they be kinetic
or potential, are transformable without any loss or any
gain, without any destruction or any creation, one into
the other ; that the matter which is set in motion by energy
and the amount of motion (molar and molecular) in tha
universe is, always has been, and ever will be, a constant
quantity. This law is of general, of widest, application.
It has to do with the living as well as the non-living.
But the creation of a species means the creation of so

£6 THE DARWINIAN THEOBY.

much matter and of so much motion. As long, therefore,
as the principle of the conservation of energy is received
as true, the special creation of a species of animal or plant
is not thinkable.

(2) Classification. — In the first chapter attention was
called to the impossibility of clearly defining the limits of
the various groups in our artificial systems of classification.
Every species, genus, order, class, runs into the neighbor-
ing species, genus, order, class. On the hypothesis of
special creation this fact is meaningless. If every species
is the result of a direct act of the almighty, it might be
expected to be with ease distinguishable from every other
species. But if all species have arisen by the gradual
modification of pre-existing forms, we should expect to find
them overlapping and dovetailing. I do not say that
this difficulty of definition of groups of living things
is irreconcilable with the theory of special creation.
Once admit a creator, and there is no knowing what form
his vagaries may take. But the theory gives no explana-
tion of the fact, a rational explanation of which is afforded
by Darwinism.

In truth, our systems of classification on the hypothesis
of special creation are only so many records of meaning-
less caprice on the part of a creator. But on the hypo-
thesis of the origin of species Dy natural selection or
descent with variation, our systems of classification are a
historical record. They are veritable genealogical trees. The
placing of a number of animals or plants together in one
group is equivalent to stating that they have had a common
ancestor from whom they have all descended within a
comparatively recent period, that is, within a few thousands
or millions of years. The very difficulty of defining a
genus or species becomes no longer a source of trouble. It
is a delight to us, as it affords us a continual reminder
that all the different genera and species have arisen by
modification of pre-existing forms, and graduate imper-
ceptibly one into the other. Our classification of animals
and plants is at once a proof and a record of the evolution
of living things.

(3) Distribution of Living Things. — The facts of the dis-
tribution of plants and animals both in space and in time
are explained by the one theory, and not explained by the

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 27

other. On the subject of their distribution in space to-day,
or geographical distribution, Mr. A. R. Wallace is our great
authority. He is an evolutionist, and has shown in his
beautiful works upon the Malay Archipelago and upon
islands how the manner in which plants and animals are dis-
tributed is fully explained by the hypothesis of the origin
of species by natural selection. As to the facts of palaeon-
tology, or the arrangement of the remains of past living
things in the rocks, these are also on the side of Darwin-
ism. The slow, gradual rise in complexity of structure
in the organisms as we study the older rocks first, and the
more recent after ; the appearance of the simpler forms in
the early strata, and the more highly organised in the later,
are explicable and full of meaning in the light of the evolu-
tion theory.

I can only take one example from the distribution of
living things in space, and one of their distribution in time.
In the case of the great sub-kingdom Yertebrata, the
forms that are first encountered in the rocks are not
the Mammalia or members of the highest class, but the
Pisces or fishes, members of the lowest ; and if of these
fishes the earliest instances are not the lowest, such as the
lancelet, the lamprey, the hag of our seas to-day, the
reason is that these lowest forms are not of such a nature
as to admit of preservation. As we ascend the seiies of
sedimentary strata, Amphibia appear next, then Reptilia
and Aves, and lastly Mammalia. Of the Mammalia the
forms first appearing are of the lowest type. Remains of
the higher Mammalia, of the Primates or the order to
which man belongs, are not forthcoming until com-
paratively recent strata are reached.

With the plants as with the animals, the simpler forma
that are capable of preservation appear first, the more
complex later. The Cryptogamia or flowerless plants,
such as sea-weeds and ferns, appear lower down in the
rocks than the Phaanogamia or flowering plants. When
these last make their appearance, the first forms that we
meet with are the Monocotyledons, the clas3 of plant*
with parallel veined leaves, such as the grasses and lilies,
These are succeeded by the Dicotyledons, plants with
net-veined leaves, and among these the first forms that
appear are the Gymnosperms or naked seeded plants, such as

28 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

the cone-bearing trees, in which, despite the size to which
the trees often attain, the complexity of structure is much
less than in the plants that have their seeds enclosed in
seed-cases.

The only case I can take ont of the many instances
furnished by the geographical distribution of living things
is the case of island insects. These are, as a rule, of the
same nature as the insects of the adjacent mainland, but
their wings are rudimentary. On the theory of special
creation this is without meaning. Why should a creator
have given these beings rudimentary wings, and their
fellows on the continent well-developed wings ? If the
reply is, in order that they might not be blown out to sea,
the question arises, " Why, then, does he give them
rudimentary wings ?," The wings ought to have been
removed altogether if the creator had been at work. But
if these island insects and the insects of the mainland had
a common parent at a time when the island and mainland
were connected, and if after the severance of the former
from the latter, the insects less developed stood a better
chance of not being blown out to sea, and therefore of
surviving, than their fellows with fully developed wings
then natural selection comes into play, and in time, by
its agency, insects with rudimentary wings are alone to be
fourx^ ^e rudiments of the wings tell us of the origin
of these insect forms, and of the stages through which
their ancestors have passed.

' *) Morphology. — Using that word in its widest sense as
the science of structure, the facts of morphology are all so
much indirect evidence for the modern view. All the old
and new discoveries as to the comparative anatomy of
plants and animals are in harmony with it. Studied with
the aid of this luminous suggestion, a new and beautiful sig-
nificance is given to every fact in connexion with the
Anatomy of living things. Here I can only mention two
cases out of many ; those of homology and rudimentary
organs.

(a) Homology. — Likeness in structure. Thus the arm
and leg of man are homologous. Diverse as are their
functions, the arm and leg are built on the same general
plan. Why should this be on the theory of special
creation ? Or, to take a yet more remarkable case. The

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 29

twenty appendages of the twenty rings that make up the
body of the lobster are all built on one fundamental com-
mon plan. The eyes, the small and large antennao, the
gnawing jaws, the two pairs of delicate jaws, the three
pairs of feet jaws, the forceps limbs, the four pairs of walk-
ing legs that follow these, the six pairs of swimmerets, are
all homologous. And again, the three feet jaws of the lob-
ster are the homologues of the three active legs of the
insect.

Taking an example from the plant kingdom, we find
that all parts of the ordinary flower are metamorphosed
leaves. A flower is, in fact, a condensed branch. The
green outer leaves or sepas ; the generally colored inner
leaves or petals ; the thread-like stamens or male organs
with their fertilising dust or pollen ; and most internal of
all, the carpels, with their contained unripe seeds, dependent
for their fertilisation on the contact with the pollen — all
these four parts are only modified leaves. In like manner
the white underground scales of the bulb of the lily or
hyacinth, the leafy structures met with at the bases of the
flower-stalks of most plants, are modifications of the leaf.
These facts are shown by the structure of the organs con-
cerned, by the history of their development, by the way in
which at times they revert to the simple leaf condition,
so that a flower-bud will be replaced by a tuft of ordinary
green leaves.

Again, still studying the plants, we find that the most
aberrant forms of the vegetable kingdom are yet connected
by a number of intermediate forms with the normal
plants. And further, we find that even the most remark-
able and out-of-the-way structures are but modifications of
the customary organs of other plants. Thus the strange-
looking flower of the orchid, with its long spur, its oddly-
shaped and colored labellum or lower lip, its one stamen,
its remarkable rostellum, are found to be built up on the
model of the normal form of flowers met with in its class.
Fundamental^, the orchid and the lily, with its regularity
and simplicity of parts, are modelled on the same type.
"Every one of the six stamens of the lily, those six stamens
so characteristic of the class Monocotyledons, to which
the orchid and lily both belong, are reproduced in the
orchid. Ouly one r**men acting as a stamen, carrying the

30 THE DABWINIAN THEOBY.

fertilising pollen, is present in the orchid. But all the
other five are represented by certain structures, and the
two side lobes of the labellum, the two parts of the clin-
andrum, or "bed" in which the one true anther lies,
together with a thread of simple vessels running up one
part of the flower, are homologues of the iive missing
stamens. On the theory of special creation this modifica-
tion of the same fundamental parts in different regions of
the same plant, or in different plants, is unintelligible.
On the theory of descent with modification, it is under-
standable.

Here once more nobody will say that such arrange-
ments are impossible on the theory of special creation. But
everyone must admit that they are far more understandable
on the theory of descent with modification.

(b) Rudimentary Organs. — In most plants and animals
occur structures that are apparently of no use to the pos-
sessor. These rudimentary organs are explained very
satisfactorily by the Darwinian theory. The hairs on our
body generally are full of meaning when we reflect that
probably they are the remnant of the hair covering of an
ancestral form. When once the little red fold in the inner
angle of the eye of man is shown to be connected by
innumerable gradations with the third eyelid of birds, it
acquires a deep interest. To the special creationist these
organs and their thousand fellows are a difficulty that is, I
think, insurmountable. They are a mute appeal to the
common sense of mankind.

Scarcely a plant or animal exists of any complexity of
structure that does not present rudimentary organs, that
is organs so aborted and reduced that they can be of
no functional value. The presence of such organs is wholly
inexplicable on any other theory that has yet been enun-
ciated, save that of Darwin. For a special creator to
specially create organs that are of no use whatever in a
living being is a waste of time and of material. But when
animals or plants have evolved by gradual modification
from other forms, we should expect to find them present-
ing traces of organs that were better developed and useful
in their ancestors, but that have died out more or less
completely in the course of modification.

The illustration given above, in the case of the orchid,

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 31

is a case in point. Here also the little thread of spiral
vessels that runs up the front of the column in the orchid
flower that is formed by the union of the stamen and
carpel parts of the flower, is the rudiment of one of the
six stamens of the ordinary Monocotyledon. Or, again,
consider the case of the fox-glove and its allies. These
plants have four stamens. But the members of the orders
most nearly allied to the fox-glove order have five stamens.
Now, the rudiment of the fifth stamen is always to be
found in the fox-glove and its fellows.

In the alimentary canal of man is a part called the
caecum. After the stomach follows, in the human being,
the intestine. This is at first narrow, and is called the small
intestine ; it is afterwards of greater diameter, when it is
called the large. When the small joins the large intestine
it does not join it end on. The former runs into the side
of the latter, so as to leave on one side a small blind part,
a cul de sac, whilst on the other the main tube of the
alimentary canal continues. This blind part is the caecum
(ccecus = blind). A small organ in man, it presents a
small extension of itself called the appendix vermiformis,
or worm-shaped appendage. The caecum has length
2\ inches, and its breadth is about the same as its length.
The appendix vermiformis varies in length from 3 to 6
inches, whilst its diameter is about that of a quill. This
rudimentary caecum in the higher animals represents a
very large organ in the lower. Thus, in many of the
lower Mammalia, as e.g. the rabbit, the caecum is of great
length, and probably has a function of great extent and
importance. Its presence in the higher animals is evidence
of their origin from ancestral forms in which the caecum
was well developed and of significance.

(5) Embryology. — The development of the living thing
from the first and simplest condition until the complete
adult condition is reached. Every animal and every plant
that is not of the very simplest organisation in its com-
plete state, begins life as the simplest of organisms, and
passes through stage after stage of ever increasing com-
plexity until the final form is reached. Why should this
be, on the theory of special creation ? But on the theory
of the origin of species by variation, natural selection,
descent with modification, this is exactly what we should

32 THE DABWINIAN THEORY.

expect to find. The human being is at first but a piece of
protoplasm, later a cell, a pair of cells, 4, 8, 16, 32, a mass
of cells, a bag containing a liquid, and so on through a
long series of gradations, every one of which has its
parallel in one of the lower forms of animals. For some
time there is no indication that a vertebrate animal is
evolving. Even when that is clear the kind of vertebrate
is uncertain ; and when at last we know that a mammal
is developing, unless we knew within what parent the de-
velopment is going on, we could not affirm whether it
was man or ape until much later. At one time in the
life of the human being there are structures in no wise
differing from the gill arches of the fish. Nay, we carry
in our necks as grown men and women a bone, the hyoidr
supporter of the tongue, that is the homologue of the fishes'
branchial apparatus. What a beautiful meaning has this
progressive development of the individual to the evolu-
tionist ! It is an epitome of the history of the race. The
higher animal, the highest animal, passes rapidly in a few
years* through stages that represent those traversed by
ancestral forms in the unthinkable ages of the past.

With t le plant the same set of phenomena is to be seen.
Every one of the more highly organised plants begins life
as a piece of protoplasm. This becomes a cell, and this cell
passes through stages of development that are representa-
tive of the complete condition of the lower members of the
vegetable kingdom. The oak or the rose is at first but a
unicellular plant, differing in no essential of structure from
the simplest alga.

In this place it will be well to explain the two terms
ontogeny and phylogeny. <ov, ovtos (on, ontos) = a being ;
ycwaw (gennao) = I produce. Ontogeny is the develop-
ment of the individual. It is the synonym for embry-
ology, and is the name for the series of changes tra-
versed by the living being in passing from the simple
condition of its first appearance up to the complete adult
condition. <j>fi\ov (phulon) = a stem. Phylogeny is the
development of the race, that is, the series of changes
through which the ancestors of the plant or animal of to-
day have passed in the course of the ages. If the theory of
special creation held sway among scientific men, there
could be no science of phylogeny. Ontogeny would be a

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 33

conceivable study. But it is the facts of ontogeny very
largely that have forced men of science to the conclusion
that evolution is the truth. The study of the development
of the individual living thing adds daily evidence in favoi
of the theory cf descent. Every fact that the embryologist
adds to our sum of knowledge is in harmony with that
theory.

So clearly is this recognised by biologists, that they have
eunciated at the present time a generalisation at which I
hinted above. That is, that the ontogeny of any living
thing is an epitome of its phylogeny. Every stage in the
history of the development of a plant or animal to-day
represents a stage in the development of its ancestral forms
in the past.

(6) Prophecy. — An hypothesis has passed into the region
of fact when a prophecy based on it is found fco be accurate.
This is, with the multitude, a final proof that they accept
even when any number of such proofs as those mentioned
above are rejected. The theory of gravitation received its
crowning piece of evidence when, reasoning on that theory,
astronomers directed their telescopes to a part of the
heavens were as yet no planet had been observed, in the
expectation that there a planet should be, and found Neptune.
And when Professor Huxley, reasoning on Evolution, as
he studied the teeth of the horse and its allies, stated that
a particular kind of tooth had probably existed in some
dead animal, and that very kind of tooth was afterwards
found among the rocks, the theory of descent with modifi-
cation rested on a more secure basis than ever.

Reasoning on the theory of gravitation, Adams and
Leverrier calculated that certain erratic movements of
Uranus must be due to a planet in a particular place
in the heavens. The very night (September 23, 1846)
that Galle, of Berlin, heard the result of the calculation
from Leverrier, he turned the telescope of the Berlin
observatory to the part of the heavens indicated by the
calculation based on the theory, and found the planet
Neptune, farthest away from the sun of all known planets ;
its distance, 2,750 millions of miles ; its diameter, 37,000
milorf.

The theory of the evolution of species by variation and
natural section has also been applied deductively. Le/

34 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

us take once again the instance already more than once
mentioned, the case of the orchid flower. Darwin, believ-
ing that the orchid was no special creation, but that it had
arisen from a parent common to it and other Monocotyle-
dons, was encountered by the fact that only one stamen
was present in this flower, although most Monocotyledons
had six. Reasoning deductively on his own great induc-
tion, he began to look for the other stamens. By a series
of delicate dissections and observations of the development
of the plant, he succeeded in finding the representatives of
the five vanished stamens. And this is but one case of the
many in which a biologist or zoologist, basing his calcula-
tions on the hypothesis of Darwin, has looked for certain
structures that had not yet been observed, and has found
them. The theory of the origin of species by natural selec-
tion is in truth a lamp to the feet of the naturalist, a guide
to him in all his ways.

Reasoning on the theory of Evolution, a typical tooth
was pictured that probably belonged to some extinct
animal, ancestor of the horse and its allies of to-day. The
facsimile of this theoretically-constructed tooth was after-
wards found as a fossil in the Pliocene and older Miocene
rocks, and the animal to which it belonged was named
Hipparion.

Every contest between two rival hypotheses can only
be decided by an appeal to fact. Sentiment does not enter
into the question. Here, then, are two hypotheses ; the
one of special creation, the other of the origin of species
by variation, natural selection, descent with modification.
They are not only antagonistic. They are mutually
exclusive. Difficulties attend both, but the difficulties
attendant on the old theory are overwhelming, whilst those
that environ the new are in no case insurmountable.

When we turn to the question of fact, we find that of
evidence for special creation there is not a particle. Not a
single piece of evidence, direct or indirect, is forthcoming
on behalf of the doctrine of intervention from without. On
the other hand, direct evidence of the origin of species by
natural selection is not wholly wanting, whilst the indirect
is incredible in its amount and in its importance.

As to direct evidence, I think we may fairly argue that
the observed variations in plants and animals under man's

THE DABWINIAN THEORY. 35

frisdiction, and the production of varieties so many iv
number and so different in nature one from the other, are
of this order. And the facts of embryology also appear to
me to be of the direct order. For when we desire to see a
<\xse of special creation none is forthcoming. But when
we desire to see a case of the evolution of a complex organic
form, we have only to turn to the development of a highly-
organised plant or animal. In some twenty or more years
we actually see a human being evolve from the condition
of a single cell to that of a thoughtful, active man 01
woman.

Of indirect facts in favor of the hypotheses of Darwib
there is no end. Some attempt has been made by him ai»i
by those that follow him to group the facts. Whilst, there*
fore, we begin by saying that every fact that has beea
observed has been on the side of the modern view, we may
remind ourselves that the great principle of i'ne conserva-
tion of energy, now so firmly established, w violated by an
~ot of special creation, is in harmony with the idea of the
cTolution of species ; that our systems of classification, with
vheir over-lapping and dovetailing cj individual groups^
are upon the one theory only the expression of an arbitrary
and uimless act of will, are on the other a genealogical
tree of all living ; that the special-creation theory affords
no satisfactory explanation of ihe appearance of the simple*
forms of living things in the earlier and in the older rocks,
Allowed by the appearanoe of more complex ones as the
nore recent rocks arc studied, whilst this progressive
advance in organisation is to be expected by the evolution-
ist ; that the distribution of living things on the surface of
the earth at tb* present day is explicable only on the
scientific view , that the facts of the anatomy of plants and
animals are »n harmony with, and are full of significance
uo, the theory of Darwin ; that such facts as the presence
of rudirr^ntary organs, and the cases of homology or like-
ness of structure without necessarily analogy or likeness of
function are meaningless on any other theory than this;
that the development of a living being from the simplest
conditions through more and more complex ones until the
final condition for the particular plant or animal is attained
appears to be an epitome of the ancestraj history of the
\iving being and is in direcc contradiction to the special

36 THE DAKWINIAN THEORY.

creation hypothesis ; that this great induction as .to the
origin of species, an induction from innumerable facts, is-
found not to fail whenever it is applied deductively; that,
in short, reasoning on it, certain phenomena are expected,
and these phenomena are actually found. When we
reflect on all this, it is impossible for anyone who deals-
with these questions in the true scientific spirit, to hesi-
tate for a moment as to which of the two theories is more
likely to be true.

Chapter IV.— ITS HISTOEY.

The Darwinian theory, received at first with a storm of
disapprobation and railing, is now. accepted by the scien-
tific world at large. In this, the closing chapter of a
pamphlet, I can only indicate very briefly the way in
which the ideas of Darwin were and are met.

Originally the most frequent weapon employed was ridi-
cule. In ordinary society his claims as a thinker were
dismissed with such phrases as, " Oh, yes, says we come
from apes"; and several publications, such as " Our
Blood Eelations " and " The Loves of the Gorillas," in-
dicate by their title the methods adopted by their writers.
in dealing with the new generalisation.

Even at the present time there are some speakers and
writers who think that they can slay a great idea by jests
that only recoil on themselves. A few men, grossly ig-
norant of science generally and of Darwin's conceptions
especially, still derive satisfaction and pecuniary profit
from sneers and mockings addressed to Sunday-school
children, or to the tea-meetings of the credulous. Men
on the very verge of the grave are yet not unwilling to
spend the last hours of their lives in sorry and unseemly
jesting about those great matters ; and ministers of
religion are still to be found who will permit their
churches to be used for the purpose of treating with
buffoonery a question to which all men of culture are
giving thoughtful attention, and on which the men of
science have decided in favour of the man whose teaching
is ridiculed.

THE DARWINIAN THEORY 3?

So embittered and unfair are many of the opponents of
Darwin in the early time, that his own care is actually
used as an argument against him. The Quarterly Review
of July, 1860, complains quite pathetically of his want of
dogmatism, and appears to think that because Darwin
only says, " I think " that species are the result of natural
causes, he is less credible than a clergyman who says, " I
know " that the writer of Genesis knew accurately the mind
of the infallible god ; and a Rev. F. O. Morris, perhaps
the most amusing, and certainly the most ignorant assail-
ant of Darwinism, devotes two or three pages of his " All
the Articles of the Darwinian Faith " to a list of phrases
such as — 4t I believe," " I think," " It is possible," taken
from the " Origin of Species."

Some of the attacks are anonymous, and the writers of
these must now congratulate themselves on their superior
acuteness as compared with the want of wisdom on the
part of others who were foolish enough to put their names
to their lucubrations. I must rescue one of these anony-
mous beings from oblivion. He is too funny to be left
alone, and his words are an apt motto for Christian Evidence
persons, who without any scientific qualification attempt
to deal with this subject. They should be written on the
forehead of every one of these, and of every priest who as
a priest, and not as a scientific man, presumes to give an
opinion on Darwinism.

'•" It certainly has seemed to me the height of presump-
tion for one, without scientific or literary acquirements, to
attempt to refute the theory of so distinguished and
universally admired an author as Mr. Darwin — a theory
which has met with so much support from clever and en-
lightened men, and which men, far cleverer and more
experienced than myself, though disapproving and dis-
agreeing with it, have not attempted to refute." Never-
theless our tyro, as he calls himself, moans over Darwin's
misfortune in espousing an " untenable theory," and
placidly reminds the great philosopher that " God has
hidden many things from the wise and prudent, and has
revealed them unto babes/'

A few scientific men of repute opposed the teaching of
Darwin at first. A yet smaller number still oppose. As
%nstances of permanent opposition on the part of men of

88 THK PA1WINIAN THEORY.

distinction *n biological science, I mention the names ot
Ara* siz, Beale, St. George Mivart. There are other names
«.hat could be given, of men such as Lyell and Owen, who
opposed at first but gave in their allegiance afterwards,
and of scientific men such as Houghton, who, unskilled in
biological science gave adverse verdicts on a matter on
which they were not qualified to speak. As to Agassiz, a
sentence from the Rev. Dr. Peabody's funeral sermon on
this great zoologist settles the whole question in his case.
" His repugnance to Darwinism grew in great part from
his apprehension of its atheistical tendency." Dr. Beale is
known as a religious man and a reader of papers at the
Victoria Institute, whose object is the reconciliation of
science with the holy scripture. St. George Mivart is a
Roman Catholic.

It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that, in each of
* ho three cases mentioned, opposition to the views of Darwin
has been due to the warping of the mind of the individual
person by the influence of religion. Agassiz could not
have brought to bear on the great questions at issue a
clear and unprejudiced reason if he dreaded that his
adhesion to one side in the argument would tell against the
religious belief that he held so dear. Dr. Beale, again, is
one of the school rapidly passing away, that is godly first
and natural afterwards. He makes his science subordinate
to his theology. St George Mivart is a devout member of
the faith that to-day, as in the days of Bruno, Galileo,
Copernicus, Kepler, sets its face against all new truth, the
faith that would, were it possible, to-day imprison and burn
a Darwin as readily as it imprisoned a Galileo and burnt a
Bruno.

On the other hand, not a single biologist whose views on
religion have not been of a pronounced nature has opposed
the ideas of Darwin.

The name of Asa Gray, botanist of America, must be
noted as that of a Darwinian who believes the truth of
Natural Selection to be reconcilable with the theories of
theo? >£/. He believes in Evolution. But he believes ip

as part of the plan of god. His ideas are in the ma
those of Mr. G. St. Clair as given in his " Darwinism and
Design/' But with few exceptions, the scientific thought
of every country to-day is with Darwinism. In scientific

THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

39

papers, magazines, reviews and at the meetings of soientific
societies — the matter is no longer one of discussion. The
Darwinian hypothesis is regarded as a fact equally assured
with that of gravitation, and the reasonings and induc-
tions of all biologists are based on and guided by this
great truth, still rejected by the really religious people.
I use the phrase " really religious people " because, as 1
shall show presently, the churches are now changing
front on this question. But the real believers, the
Booths, Moodys, Sankeys, Spurgeons, are as virulent
against the truth as ever.

The way in which the papers regarded the suggestions of
Darwin may be gathered from one or two extracts. I will
only refer to the Times, the Saturday Review, and the
Quarterly, of secular papers. The Times, in reviewing the
" Origin of Species " at the end ot 1859 was cautious and
critical in the true scientific spirit. But the appearance
of the " Descent of Man " in 1871 quite threw the " leading
journal " off its balance. I should imagine that the two
reviews were written by two different men. I quote three
or four delicious sentences : fct We wish we could tbink
that these speculations were as innocuous as they are un-
practical and unscientific, but it is too probable that if
unchecked they might exert a very mischievous influence.
... A man incurs a great responsibility who, with the
authority of a well-earned reputation, advances at such a
time the disintegrating speculations of such a book. He
ought to be capable of supporting them by the most con-
clusive evidence of facts. To put them forward on such
incomplete evidence, such cursory investigation, such hypo-
thetical arguments as we have exposed, is more than un-
scientific, it is reckless."

The Saturday Review is interesting as putting very clearly
the recognition twenty-five years ago of the assault made
by Darwinism on religion. " It tends to trench upon the
territory of established religious belief " And the closing
words of this article may be quoted as showing how com-
pletely the writer, a representative of a large school, was
a partisan rather than a judge. " No conceivable amount
of evidence derived from the growth and structure of
animals and plants would have the slightest bearing upon
our convictions in regard to the origin of conscience or

40 THE DABWINIAN THEORY.

man's belief in the supreme being and the immortality of
his own- soul."

The words are strong, even for a Saturday Reviewer.
" No conceivable amount of evidence," " the slightest bear*
ing," " our convictions." This is the spirit in which th€
reviewer deals with a scientific question. It is true that
the writer would urge probably that the rejection of the
evidence is rejection on his part because it is evidence
derived from animals and plants, and not from man. But
surely man is an animal, and if he is only " a little lower
than the angels," he is also only a little higher than the
beasts. Any evidence derived from his nearest allies must
have a very direct bearing on every function of his body,
even if the function be that of the nervous system, and
even if it have to do with such intricate questions as the
origin of conscience and man's belief in god. But the
Saturday Reviewer has convictions, and therefore is not
open to conviction, and on his convictions, as on those of so
many people, " no conceivable amount of evidence " will
have the " slightest bearing."

The Quarterly Review is very interesting. First it falls
foul of Darwin for his " loose statements and unbounded
speculation." "On what, then, is the new theory based?
We say it with unfeigned regret in dealing with such a
man as Mr. Darwin, on the merest hypothesis, supported
by the most unbounded assumptions." Then, in a passage
of great moment to us, it puts the antagonism between
Darwinism and religion very clearly. " Now we must say
at once, and openly, that such a notion is absolutely in-
compatible, not only with single expressions in the word
of god on that subject of natural science with which it is
not immediately concerned, but .... with the whole
representation of that moral and spiritual condition of
man which is its proper subject matter. Man's derived
supremacy over the earth ; man's power of articulate^
speech ; man's gift of reason ; man's free will and respon-
sibility ; man's fall and man's redemption ; the incarnation
of the eternal son ; the indwelling of the eternal spirit —
all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading
notion of the brute origin of him who was created in the
image of god and redeemed by the eternal son." Finally
the Quarterly indulges in a most unfortunate hope as to

THE DABWINIAN THEORY 41

the fate of the theory. " We trust that Sir (Jharles Lyell
abides still by these truly philosophical principles; and
that with his help, and with that of his brethren, this
flimsy speculation may be as completely put down as was . . .
the "Vestiges of Creation.' " The words I quote were written
<n 1860. The 9th edition of Lyell's " Principles of Geology"
was issued in 1853. In this the great geologist gave his
opinion against the theory of Darwin. But in his 10th
edition, 1868, Lyell subscribes to the Darwinian hypothesis.
Nothing is more beautiful or more pathetic in the whole
range of science to my thinking than this confession of an
old man, after fifteen years deliberation, that he was
wrong in the past, and that he had altered his views on a
point of such magnitude as the question of the " Origin of
Species." I quote from the 9th edition two sentences:
" Let us now proceed to consider what is defective in
evidence and what fallacious in reasoning in the grounds of
these strange conclusions. . . . From the above considera-
tions it appears that species have a real existence in nature ;
and that each was endowed at the time of its creation with
the attributes and organisations by which it is now
distinguished." Both these sentences are omitted in the
10th edition, and in this edition, amidst a large quantity
of details and of reasoning that is added to what had
appeared in its predecessors, the following sentences
occur : " We feel disposed at once to declare a theory
which is in harmony with so many facts must be true.
, . . Such a relationship accords well with the theory of
Variation and Natural Selection, but with no other
hypothesis yet suggested for explaining the origin of
species."

I cannot do better for myself, for my readers, and for
the fame of the great geologist, than quote in full the
beautiful passage in the 10th edition of his Principles, in
which he speaks of the reception of this new truth and of
all new truth by the unbelievers who call themselves
religious. The words are very solemn. "We are some*
times tempted to ask whether the time will ever arriv€
when science shall have obtained such an ascendency in
the education of the millions that it will be possible to
welcome new truths instead of always looking upon them
with fear and disgust, and to hail every important victory

42 THE DABWINIAH THEORY,

gained over error instead of resisting the new discovery
long after the evidence in its favor is conclusive. The
motion of our planet round the sun, the shape of the earth,
the existence of the antipodes, the vast antiquity of our
globe, the distinct assemblages of species of animals and
plants by which it was successively inhabited, and, lastly,
the antiquity and barbarism of primeval man — all these
generalisations, when first announced, have been a source
of anxiety and unhappineg3. The future now opening
before us begins already to reveal new doctrines, if possible
more than ever out of harmony with cherished associations
of thought. It is therefore desirable, when we contrast
ourselves with the rude and superstitious savages whc
preceded us, to remember, as cultivators of science, that
the high comparative place which we have reached in the
scale of being has been gained step by step by a conscien-
tious study of natural phenomena, and by fearlessly teach-
ing the doctrines to which they point. It is by faithfully
weighing evidence with regard to preconceived notions, by
earnestly and patiently searching for what is true — not
what we wish to be true — that we have attained that dig-
nity, which we may in vain hope to claim through the
ranks of an idoal parentage."

Turning now to the religious papers I can only make
reference to one or two. The Evangelical Magazine in
reviewing a book against Darwinism by an obscure
clergyman named Lyon, writes: " The writer of this
little volume brings logic, scientific knowledge, and wit to
bear in the exposition of Mr. Darwin's fallacies, and sup-
plies an admirable refutation of his theories."

The Christian World, dealing with the same work, tells
us that " From some previous acquaintance with the sub-
ject, I hesitate not to pronounce ' Homo versus Darwin ' a
complete refutation of the assumptions and mischievous
speculations of Darwin."

Good Words published an article that I grieve to say
bore the honored name of Sir David Brewster. It is a sad
instance of how the physicist is not competent to deal with
these biological questions, and least of all when his mind
is warped by religion. Brewster calls the speculations of
Darwin t; speculations which trench on sacred ground,
which run counter to the universal convictions of mankind

THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 43

poisoning the fountains of science, and disturbing the
serenity of the Christian world." He names them "dan-
gerous and degraded." He states that Darwin's " reasonings
are almost always loose and inconclusive. His generalisa-
tions seem to have been reached before he had obtained
the materials upon which he rests them." And in a pas-
sage for which all Freethinkers will be for ever grateful, he
writes : " We cannot suppose that he intended to under-
mine the foundations of natural and revealed religion ; but,
we cannot conceal our conviction that the hypothesis,
which he makes it the object of his life to support, has a
tendency to expel the Almighty from the universe, to
degrade the god-like race to which he has committed the
development and appreciation of his power, and to render
the revelation of his will an incredible superstition."

But the most comic of all these comic papers is, as we
might expect — the War Cry not being at the time in
existence — the Catholic World. This paper does not hesitate
to call Darwiu the Devil. This it does by implication in
the following passage : 4t Like Satan, who was cast from
heaven in a moment, when desirous of elevating his throne
to a level with that of god, so man falls and degrades him-
self when he becomes too proud to listen to god's word,
making reason the supreme and sole criterion of truth and
certitude ;" and actually in this : " Like the Devil, he some-
times assumes the garment of light, and puts on an appear-
ance of virtue." Anon, the Catholic World declares for the
antagonism of the Bible to Darwin : t; He sets aside all
revealed truth. He knows nothing about the simple and
sublime narrative in the first chapter of Genesis ;" and com-
forts itself and its readers by a prophecy : " We think
there is little to fear that its frivolous arguments will ex-
cite anything but laughter and ridicule among men of
solid erudition."

I now pass to the consideration of the position of the
clergy on the question. A& first that position was wholly
and virulently antagonistic. Later, as those robbers of
men's birth-rights, those poisoners of life at its very source,
saw that the truth was once again too strong for their
falsehoods, they repeated the shifting of ground that they
have had to execute so many times. To-day the astute
amtng them agree with Darwinism, in everything save

44 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

its complete application to man. This they resvjt and will
resist, for they know that when once ail people understand
that every structure and function of the human race, even
the structure of the nervous system, and that function of
the nervous system called mind, are of entirely natural
origin, the days for the picking of the people's pockets by
the priests will be at an end.

I can only quote one or two choice extracts from clerical
utterances given forth early in the history of the contro-
versy. First, let me pay tribute to the courage of the three
clergymen, who at the British Association meeting of 1869
actually dared to oppose the Darwinian hypothesis. They
were the Venerable Archdeacon Freeman, the Rev. Dr.
McCann, and the irrepressible F. O. Morris. The nature
and effect of their efforts may be gathered from the
comments of the President of the Biological section,
Professor Busk, a man never identified in any way with
attacks on religion. Said he : " It was easy to set up a
kind of idol and knock it down, calling it Darwinism. But
really it had nothing to do with a theory of Darwinism."
At the end of the discussion he remarked : " Not any one
of the three authors had shown any knowledge of what
the Darwinian theory really was." It was at the same
meeting of the British Association that the late Bishop of
Oxford maintained the traditions of his order by sneering
at the new truth. He met with a rebuke from Professor
Huxley that even a clergyman and a bishop must have
felt : " If I had to choose my father from an ape or a man
capable of employing his great knowledge and easy
eloquence in railing at those who consecrate their lives to
the proving of the truth, I should prefer to be the son of
the humble ape."

These are published utterances. But every reader who
had arrived at years of reason and understanding by 1859
remembers how the clergy, as a body, railed and raved. I
call to mind a sermon against Darwin that I heard as a boy,
and the closing sentence rings in my ears now. It was
typical of so much of the blatant, priestly outcry against
the man and his works. " Believe in Darwin/' cried the
excited orator. " Not I. I never read a word of him."
I take an extract from %i Homo versus Darwin," by the
Mr Lyon mentioned above, as it puts unmistakably the

THE DARWINIAN THEOttY.

45

ideas of the religious world as late even as 1871 : " Practi-
cally Darwinism, as it has been called in the latest
exposition of it, is Atheism."

The Eev. J. H. Laing in the same year publisher
"Darwinism Refuted." The Rev. W. Mitchell, Vice.
President of the Victoria Institute, writes : " Any theory
which comes in with an attempt to ignore design as
manifested in god's creation, is a theory, I say, which
attempts to dethrone god. This the theory of Darwin does
endeavor to do. ... So far as I can understand the
arguments of Mr. Darwin, they have simply been an
endeavor to eject out of the idea of evolution the personal
work of the deity." The Rev. P. 0. Morris says : " Does the
good man think we are simpletons to be befooled by such
trifling as this ? And it is with it and such as it, a
scientific book forsooth ! that our professors and men of
science would, if they could, beguile believers and over-
turn religion. This is the book that has been the Will-o'-
the-wisp that has led away the weak-minded into the
Slough of Despond of a shallow and contemptible
Infidelity." And in a volume of Essays, published under
the direction of Cardinal Manning, the Roman Catholic
Church spits its venom at the great thicker and his
followers. The theory is " degrading " of Darwin and
those that think with him." Mr. Laing writes in this
essay : " Whether this fallacious process of the pleading
proceeds from knavish design, or, as I think it does
in this case, from mere imbecility of mind, it renders
equally untrustworthy the pretended guides who make use
of it." More coarsely, Mr. Laing sums us all up as a
u shallow multitude, strangers to mental discipline," and in
an indignant outburst as " buzzards." He has, however,
one true idea of Darwinism : " This is the doctrine for
the sake of which, and its like, we are asked by its ad-
mirers to banish religion as an incubus from the hearts of
children, and treat the name of the creator as an intruder."
And he also prophecies : " (This) sketch may perhaps
enable any one with his wits about him, to see his way
clearly enough through the pretensions of this ridiculous
book."

Let us never forget that this is the same Church
a prelate of which, the Bishop of Salford, told his hearers

46 TUB darwinian theory.

in the year 1882, that Charles Darwin, then dead but a
few days, was burning in hell.

I have referred to the disingenuous change of position on
the part of the Church, and the dishonesty involved in this
change, unaccompanied as it is by any renunciation of the
jlaims that the Church yet makes on men. Nothing I can
write could speak more plainly than the words of Canon
Liddon. I quote from the introduction of his sermon
entitled " The recovery of St. Thomas." In this introduc-
tion he speaks of Darwin and his theory thus : " The pre-
sent writer cannot, of course, express any opinion whatever
as to the scientific value of Mr. Darwin's application of his
general theory to the ' Descent ' of man. ... If the
Church should hereafter teach that this ' formation ' was
not a momentary act, but a process of development con-
tinued through a long series of ages, she would not vary
the traditional interpretation so seriously as was done in
the case of passages which appeared to condemn in terms
the teaching of Galileo. Nor would the earlier description
of the creation of man in the sacred record present any
greater difficulty. It is very far from clear that the Dar-
winian hypothesis has so established itself as to make such
a modified interpretation necessary ; only let it be con-
sidered that here, as elsewhere, the language of the Bible is
wider than to be necessarily tied down to the terms of a
particular account of man's natural history."

1 repeat that no words of mine could bring before the
mind of the reader more clearly than do those of Canon
Liddon the depths of infamy into which the Church has
Bunk. The gross, the unblushing dishonesty of a body
that pretending either to infallibility in itself, or in its
head, or in its book, or in its god, can after it, or its head,
or its book, or its god, have taught for centuries certain
falsehoods, calmly turn round and say that the refutation
of these falsehoods does not affect its position ; such iniquity
it is difficult to qualify in words. Nor is any member of
that body free ftom the charge of dishonesty who does not
repudiate with disdain the conduct of its representatives.
Least of all is the priest, be he Canon Liddon or some
lesser man (I mean lesser in position, not in honesty), free
from this charge who deliberately writes and issues a
passage such as that I have just quoted.

THE DARWINIAM rHEORY. 41

The honest men are those like the irrepressible Mr.
Morris, whom I find even in this year of grace, 1 884, writing
in country newspapers against the Darwinian craze. These
are at least honest. They see that Darwinism and the
supernatural are incompatible, just as the principle of the
conservation ,of energy and the supernatural are incom-
patible.

To all religious persons who think that the theory of
Darwin is in harmony with revealed religion, I commend,
in addition to the passages already given, these concluding
extracts, from a sermon by the Rev. B. Gr. Johns. I re-
mind them that his words are those that the religious of
twenty years ago would have endorsed almost to a man,
** They are far more curiously anxious to prove man's
nearness to the beasts that die than to accept his birth from
the breath of a living god, as meant, and made to be im-
mortal. So monstrous, so incredible does this seem, that it
^unds like a jest; yet this, brethren, is neither time nor
place for jesting, least of all with such things as eternal life
and eterr-.al death, the birth, the destiny of the whole race
of man. It "s no jest, brethren, but the grave and shame-
ful teaching of a book, now put forth by one of the men
of science of this very age ; calmly put forth as the inevit-
able and incomparable result of long, careful, and ex-
haustive study And if it be so, if the incredible

boast of science be true, our text is a lie. And if the
text be false, the whole book in which the words are
shrined is unworthy of belief ; the whole framework of the
Book of Life falls to pieces, and the revelation of god to
man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and a snare.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Johns is chaplain to the
school for the blind.

I have, I think, shown that the early reception of the
theory of Darwin by the majority of people was a very
hostile one ; that the religious world was antagonistic
to it ; that the clergy were especially bitter against it ;
that everyone saw at first that there was no reconciliation
between the theory and the bible, while most heldthere was
no reconciliation between it and religion generally. I have
shown also something of the dishonest change of front of
the clergy, and as I end, have but to remind my readers that
i every country hut England the Darwinian hypothesis ha«

48 THE DARWINIAN THEORY.

passed into the region of accepted truths ; that by the scien
tific men of England it is regarded as in that fortunate
position ; that nations sorrowed at his death as at that of
their own citizens ; that Du Bois Raymond could call him
when dead " the Copernicus of the organic world "; that
Huxley wrote of him, " He found a great * truth trodden
under foot, reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the world ;
he lived long enough to see it, chiefly by his own efforts,
irrefragably established in science, inseparably incorporated
with the common thoughts of men, and only hated and
feared by those who would revile, but dare not." What a
gap is made in the world by the death of this man ! Every
nation has lost a citizen — a citizen that has done true work
and has deserved well of the Republic.

He leaves behind him a vast and ever -increasing army of
scientific children. All the young thought of the day is
with him. The duty, the joy of these, and of us who are
of them, will be to work out yet further the noble ideas-
received by us from him, and in some measure to endeavor
by our numbers, our devotion to truth, our enthusiasm, to
atone for the irreparable loss the world has sustained ia his-
death-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

By EDWARD A VELIJSTG, D.Sc.

Chapter I.— GENEEAL INTEODUOTION.

The three chapters that follow this one are a sequel to the
four already published under the title "The Darwinian
Theory." In discussing the meaning of that theory, the
difficulties that encounter its students, the evidence on which
it rests and the history of the hypothesis of Darwin, the
attempt was made to give in language at once popular and
accurate some idea of the scientific belief of to-day as to the
origin of the many species of plants and animals that lived in
the past or are living now.

As the greater includes the less, the Darwinian hypothesil
of the origin of species covers the particular case of the
origin of man. But man has only quite of late learned to
regard himself as amenable to the same general laws, no
more and no less, as the rest of Nature. Hence, even when
the first outburst of ignorance against the principles taught
by Darwin had in part died away, there were many who,
vhilst accepting with a tardy grace and with something of
reserve those principles as affecting plants and the lower
animals, regarded them as having no bearing on the question
of the origin of the human race. Darwinism was all very
well in respect to the lower forms of living things, but as
regarded Man (with a very large M) — Oh, no !

The great naturalist, no more afraid of the conclusions to
which his generalisations led than in love with them, applied
the principle of Natural Selection and that of Sexual Selection
+jO man. Sexual Selection, briefly, works thus. In the ani-
mal kingdom males predominate in number over the females

B

2 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

of particular species. The females have the opportunity of
selecting certain favored males, to the exclusion of others.
Hence there is a struggle among the males for the possession
of the females. The arbiter is often brute force. Very often
the decision of the female is determined by other considera-
tions. More beautiful coloring or sweeter song or more
artistic skill, e.g., may render certain males more acceptable
than others less gifted and less happy. The sexual selection
of the males that vary in some special direction as to hue,
shape, voice-ability or even bodily strength results in these
males having offspring, by whom the variation that has led to
the selection of their fathers will be inherited, in whom it may
be intensified and, in their after generations, fixed.

I have no intention in the following chapters of applying
in detail the principles of Natural and Sexual Selection to
man. Their application by our master led to the conclusion
upon his part that man had evolved from the lower animals.
My purpose is rather to give some of the evidence, direct and
indirect, that points in this direction.

Of the magnitude of the question as to whence man has
come there is no need to speak. That solved, the questions
what man is to-day and whither he moves become possible of
solution. Until we are quite clear as to the origin of man,
we cannot hope to deal satisfactorily with his present con-
ditions, or to anticipate at all definitely his destiny.

To the question, " Whence comes man ?" only two answers
are forthcoming. We have to choose between the reply of
religion and of the Bible, and the reply of science and of
Darwin. Either man is a special creation, and that in the
image of God (Gen. i., 27), or he is the result of evolution
or development from some lower form. Between these two
alternatives there is no mean, and there is no peace. One if
true, the other false.

A question of this kind can only be solved by an appeal to
evidence, and the best judges of that evidence are scientific
men. One word as to the judges ere we turn to the evidence
that is to be laid before them. Every man and woman of
common sense has the right to an opinion, ai>J *n the expres-
sion of it. , But the expression is only wortt, of respect at
the hands of others inasmuch as it is that of an individual,
unless it comes from one who, by his scientific knowledge,
gives that which he says a generic value. The only class

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 3

tnax can speak in any sense ex cathedra on this question is
the class of men and women to whom biological questions
are familiar. Nevertheless we have the clergy, with their
usual presumption, not only giving, but declaiming their
opinions on the scientific question of man's origin. Once
more let it be repeated that the clergyman as a clergyman
has no voice in this matter whatever. You might as well
ask a smuggler his opinion on the Excise Acts.

For the evidence bearing on the question in discussion. It
must be either direct or indirect. On this point the reader
is referred to pp. 22, 23 of the "Darwinian Theory." All
that is there said in respect to the want of all evidence,
direct or indirect, for the creation of species holds in respect
to the special creation of man in th* image of god. Of this
there is literally no evidence whatevev. On the other hand,
just as there is an immense, an increasing, a conclusive body
of evidence, mainlv indirect, in favor of the evolution of
species, a like body of evidence exists in favor of the evolu-
tion of man.

Some of this evidence is now to be given. In weighing it
let us keep in mind two things : (1) that on the opposite
side no evidence at all is forthcoming ; (2) that we are
studying man as a whole, not merely the highest kinds of
men.

In all this inquiry we have to take into account not the
highest and most civilised races only, but the lowest and
most degraded. It is by constantly considering only the
European peoples and the contrast between them and the
anthropoid or manlike apes that thoughtless people arrive at
the astounding conclusion that man is infinitely superior to
the lower animals. To this false conclusion the false state-
ments of religion and of the priests have also conduced. The
fact is that if we study all races of man, in no single point of
his anatomy, his physiology, or his psychology is man clearly
marked off from the brute. Including as human all from the
loftiest men and women down to the savages, to the idiots,
and to those ape men and women who, the children of normal
human beings are themselves no more, and in many cases
much less than apes, it may be asserted, without fear of con-
tradiction that in every point of structure and function there
is a greater difference between man and man than between
man and ape — i.e., the interval between the highest man and

4 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

the lowest man in regard to any anatomical or physiological
point is greater than it is between the lowest man and the
highest ape.

The evidence to be given will be arranged under three
heads. Anatomical facts, or those having to do with the
structure of organs ; physiological facts, or those having to
do with the function of organs ; then psychological facts, or
(using the word psychology in its widest sense) those having
to do with mental phenomena. These divisions are like all
the rest, artificial but useful. Especially is this artificiality
noticeable in the marking off the brain functions from the
rest of the body functions, and the making a distinction
between psychology and the rest of physiology. The facts
now to be noted are taken largely from Darwin's " Descent of
Man." But other authors have been laid under contribution.
I ought especially to mention Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, whose
work on " Mind in the Lower Animals," and essays on diseases
in the animal kingdom, terribly wordy as they are, contain
many most useful facts.

Chapter II.— ANATOMICAL PACTS.

Anatomy is derived from ava (ana) = up, to/jlyj (tome) = a
cutting. It is the account of the structure of the body.
Out of all the innumerable facts that might be given in this
connexion, all pointing to man's relationship, not only to the
animals nearest to him in the scale of being, but to his
relationship to others far below, some will be taken that bear
*>n the following subjects. The hair covering of the body, the
skeleton, the teeth, the blood, the brain, the ear, the eye, the
muscles, the voice, the reproductive organs. In all cases let
us bear in mind that the question is whether man has been
created in the image of god, or whether he has risen by
variation, and natural and sexual selection from some lower
form of animal.

1. The hair covering. — A common objection is that the
mammals below man have a covering of fur or hair that
invests their bodies generally, whilst man has only the hair
covering on certain parts of his body. To this objection
there are many answers.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 0

(a) We have hairs nearly all over our body. It is true
that they are rudimentary. But they are present. Hold the
hand up so thab the light shines across the back of it, and the
minute hairs are visible. Everywhere with the exception of
the back of the extreme joints of the digits these rudimentary
structures are to be seen. This is meaningless if we are
made in god's own image, as we have no evidence as to the
distribution of hair on the body of deity. But if we have
risen from a lower form of animal these hairs are rudiments
of the coating that in our progenitors invested the body
completely. [See p. 30 "Darwinian Theory."]

(b) In many cases the amount of hair on the body is in
proportion to the animal nature of the individual. Of course
this ratio cannot be said to be invariable, as certain low
savage races are without hair on the body. But in most of
the civilised peoples the more hairy the skin is, the lower is
the type of man. The huge powerful " navvy," whose
muscular system is strongly developed, and in whom the
intellectual faculties are not highly developed, has shaggy
arms, legs, and chest.

(c) Physiologists tell us that the human embryo or foetus
before birth is covered with a soft down called the lanugo
(woolliness) that disappears after a time. This temporary
covering of hair-like material is intelligible on the hypothesis
of the evolution of man from a hair-covered animal.

(d) The cases of ape-men, or microcephali. These are, as
I have already said, children of normal human parents, thai
revert to the simian type. These monsters, with their
receding foreheads, their difficulty in walking, or inability
to walk, upright, their habit of swinging from piece to
piece of furniture, their ape-like grimaces, are covered
as to their bodies either completely, or to a great extent,
with hair.

2. The skeleton. — Just as the exoskeleton (outer protective
organs) or hair covering of man does not differ essentially from
that of his allies, so the endoskeleton (inner protective and
supporting organs of man) differs in no essential from that of
his allies. Every bone, every prominence on every bone,
every marking for the attachment of muscles is the same in
man as in the anthropoid apes. Of course there is not much
difficulty, even to the non-anatomical mind, in distinguishing
the skeleton of a European from that of a gorilla. But the

6 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

lifference in little details between the two would certainly
not be so great as the difference between the skeletons of a
European and an Andaman Islander. A somewhat apocryphal,
but suggestive, story was wont to be told at Cambridge,
which, so far as I know, has never seen the fierce light that
beats on a published book. Two undergraduates visiting the
anatomical museum came to the skeleton of a man and of a
gorilla placed side by side for the purposes of student com-
parison. One of the students was an anti-Darwinian, and
rather short sighted. He glided off into a sweet flow of
running words upon the absurdity, not to say impropriety of
dreaming for a moment that " this, the man, could have come
from that, the gorilla.' ' He dilated upon the enormous
superiority of this to that. From these simple premisses he
arrived at the conclusion that Darwin was either a fool or a
rogue. Thus, for some few minutes. Then his companies
tailed his attention to the fact that the labels had been
changed, and he was praising the gorilla.

To understand the thoroughness of the similarity between
■vaan's skeleton and that of his allies is only possible to a skilled
anatomist. To the ordinary reader the details would be as
uninteresting as unintelligible. Yet a few special facts may
be given that will be understood by everyone. Let us take
the cases of the tail, the hyoid bone and the visceral arches.

(a) The tail. — The objection as to the tail is nearly at an
end. But there are still some ignorant people who think that
they have disproved Evolution by asking how is it that man
has no tail. In the first place man's nearest neighbors, the
anthropoid apes, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the ourang-
outang, the gibbon, have no tail ; or, more accurately, they
have such an appendage exactly as man has. For, in the
second place, man has a tail. Truly it is rudimentary. At
the lower end of the vertebral column is the coccyx or os
coccygis = kokkv£ (kokkux) = a cuckoo's bill. Os = a bone.
This coccyx, or os coccygis, is the remnant of the caudal
appendage (canda = a tail), of the tailed animals. It is a
small bone made up of three or four reduced vertebrae of no
anatomical value at all. No muscles are inserted into the
coccyx. Its value is genealogical. It tells us that the com-,
mon ancestry of man and the man-like apes, was a tailed
mammal.

(b) The hyoid bone. — This is a bone found in th* neck o*

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. '

the human being. It is not connected with any other bon*
directly. Muscles pass from it to the bones of the head and
of the chest, and the tongue is attached to it. The hyoid
takes its name from a letter of the Greek alphabet (the
hupsilon or u) and from ciSos (eidos) = likeness. The bone
has a central solid body, with two pairs of projecting horns.
The horns are the greater and lesser cornua. Oornu = a horn.
Tou can feel the larger pair of horns projecting right and left
vithin the throat if you grasp your throat rather far back
with the finger and thumb, so that the two digits are beneath
and below the two angles of the lower jaw. That your finger
and thumb are pressing the hyoid bone may be known by
moving the tongue. The bony points will be found to slip
away from your grasp. This little bone is the remnant of the
gill-supporting apparatus of the fish. Here we have one of
the cases in which bone structure in man carries us back
millions on millions of years and reminds us of descent from
animals that now seem too remote and too lowly to be recog-
nised as part of the family to which he belongs in the ages.
The gills of the fish are supported on a series of bony arches
called branchial arches. These are in pairs. No compara-
tive anatomist has the least doubt that the hyoid bone, with
its two pairs of cornua, is the homologue {i.e., representative in
structure), of two of those pairs of branchial arches. This
leads me to my third point, in this connexion.

(c) The visceral arches. — Let us try to carry our minds back
to the early hours of the life of the human embryo — to that
strange time before its birth. Early in that life-history which
begins within the organism of the mother-parent the
embryo body has the front region of the side of the body
quite closed, as indeed it is in the adult, whose neck of course
presents no openings or clefts. But at a certain period in the
embryonic life this anterior region of the lateral wall of the
body shows on each side of the body certain vertical thicken
ings or ridges. These become more and more marked, ana
the integument between then thins gradually away. At last
the ridges are arches, and the thin regions between them
are clefts. If I may use the rough comparison, the front
parts of the side of the body have the appearance of a grid-
iron, the bars of which are the thick arches. These arches are
the visceral or branchial arches. Viscera are internal organs
Xta (branchia) = gills. The clefts between them Jeading

8 THE OEIGIN OF MAN.

into the interior of the human being's body are the visceral or
branchial clefts.

In this stage of development the embryo of man is there-
fore, as far as this region of his body is concerned, identical
in structure with that of a fish. The visceral arches are the
same as those that support in the fish the gills of the fish.
These arches become in one or two cases part of the adult
skeleton ; in others they never enter into that skeleton. Thus
the first visceral arch becomes on each side half of the lower
jaw, and at the end of it, nearer to the skull, forms one of
the bones of the inner ear. The second and third visceral
arches make up the cornua and body of the hyoid bone. The
rest become obliterated as arch-structures. As to the clefts,
through which in the fish passes water that has been taken
into the mouth for breathing purposes, they are in man all
closed up completely at a comparatively early time. It is im-
possitle to avoid the conclusion that this remarkable series of
arches and the intervening clefts represent in their transitory
appearance in the human animal the more permanent condi-
tion in a piscine ancestor of man.

3. The teeth. — The whole of the history of the teeth of
the Primates (the mammalian order to which man, the
anthropoid apes, the baboons, the spider monkey, the lemurs,
etc., belong) is so much evidence in favor of the origin of man
from some lower form. We can only take the case of the wisdom
teeth. These are the four last teeth in position and in date of
appearance. They are at the back of the upper and lower jaws
on each side. As to their time of appearance, they may
appear between the age of seventeen and that of twenty-
five, or they may not appear at all. Coming comparatively
late in life they generally, like Charles Lamb, make up for
this by leaving early. They are really useless, placed so far
back in the mouth, and very soon become lost in certain
cases. In many people they are either not all four cut, or
even not one of them appears. Thus the present writer has
only cut 1-5 of his wisdom teeth, and he is assured by dentist
friends that it is not an unusual thing for none of the four
wisdom teeth to emerge. What is the significance of these
wisdom teeth ? If man is made in the image of god, are we
to believe that — does not the whole wickedness and absurdity
of the doctrine come out at the supposition ? But if we look
at the shape of the jaws of man and of the Simian Primates

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 9

we efia understand what has happened. The lower jaw of
man bits an angle that is nearly right — i.e., the ascending
posterior portion is nearly vertical, and the lower part that
runs forward runs nearly horizontally. In the lower jaw of
the ape that angle is an obtuse angle — z.e., the ascending part
slants somewhat backwards. With such an obtuse angled
lower jaw there would be room for the last or wisdom teeth
to act and work on the food. But as with advancing develop-
ment the shape of the jaw altered, and the obtuse became a
right angle, the wisdom teeth would be pressed upon, and
would have less and less possibility of grinding the food.
From disuse they are dying out. On the special creation
hypothesis the wisdom teeth are a gross blunder on the part
of the almighty. On the hypothesis of Evolution they are
disappearing organs that were once of use to our ancestors,
and their very disappearance is an argument in favor of the
scientific creed.

4. The blood. — Anatomically the blood of man is not
distinct from that of the higher Mammalia. Everyone is
familiar with the customary reply of the medical witness in
courts of justice when murder cases are the centre of
interest. "Are these marks those of blood?" — "Yes."
" Of the blood of a mammal ?"— " Yes." " Of the blood of
a human being ?" — " I cannot tell." Few facts are more
important witnesses as to the community of our origin with
that of the " lower " animals than this impossibility of dis-
tinguishing between our blood and theirs. By anatomical,
microscopical, chemical, or physiological investigation it ia
not within our power to say more than that the blood under
study is that of some animal other than of the mammal
tribe, other than the musk deer, other than one or two special
animals, the shape or size of whose blood corpuscles betray
them at once. The murderer who says that the stains found
on his or her garments are those of a bird or of a reptile lays
himself open to conviction. But whoever says it is due to
a rabbit, or a dog, or any ordinary mammal, can, as far as
forensic medicine is concerned, be safe. This is one of the
dangers that lead to the opposition of our highly-cultivated
upper classes to the further advance of education among
their inferiors. Whether this educational alarm will be
well or ill-founded, the fact remains that no amount of
microscopic or spectroscopic investigation reveals any re?.l

10 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

difference between our blood and that of the majority of
Mammalia.

5. The brain. — This is the organ around which the battle
of ignorance and prejudice against knowledge has raged most
furiously. Other organs in man may be similar to those met
with in the rest of the animal kingdom. But this organ of
reason and of imagination, of the poetry of a Shakespere, and
the power of generalisation of a Newton must be in the
human race widely separated from the organs in the non*
human animals that are dignified with the same name.
Precisely the same blunder that is made in comparing man
generally with other animals is met with in an intensified
form when the comparison is between the human brain and
that of other animals. Thus the popular idea is that the
brain of man in structure, volume and weight is separated from
that of his fellows as by an impassable gulf. The idea is
false. But it must be admitted with the deepest regret that
this false idea has been originated and fostered not only by
the clergy, who are not expected to know or to do better, but
even by the scientific men. Again and again it is stated in
works supposed to be scientific that this great gulf is fixed
between our brains and those of other Mammalia. It is
therefore necessary to give my authorities for the direct con-
tradiction that I am obliged to give to this statement.

(a) As to brain structure. — There is not a single convolu-
tion or depression in the brain of man that is peculiar to
him. Even the convolution to which Gratiolet clung as dis-
tinctive, the supra-marginal has been found in the orang-outang,
has been found to be absent in man. On this point see Bastian,
"Brain as an Organ of Mind.,,

(b) As to brain volume. — The volume of the human
brain has been found to be as much as 1,900 cubic centi-
metres (a. c. c. is about -^ of a cubic inch). It has been found
to be as low as 1,20© c. c. in ordinary adult Europeans.
Now the cubical capacity of the highest anthropoid apes may
be taken as 600 c. c. Here then is a difference, 1,900 —
12,00 = 700 between man and man, and a difference
1,200 — 600 = 600 only between man and ape. More than
this. If we note the volume of the brains of some of the
ape-men we find that they have a cranial capacity far less
than that of the ordinary anthropoid ape. Thus we know
of at least ten casp* of beings born of human parents in

THE OtIGIN OF MAN. li

arhom the brain volume was less than the 600 c. c. of the
apes.

Name. Age. Brain Capacity.

1. Gottfried Msebre 44 555

2. Michel Sohn 20 370

3. Frederic Sohn 18 .... 460

4. Conrad Shuttelndreyer ... 31 370

5. Microcephalia of Jena ... 26 350

6. Ludwig Racke 20 622

7. Margueiite Mgehler ... 33 296

8. Jean Moegle 15 395

9. Jacques Mcegle 10 272

10. Jean Georges Mcegle ... 5 480

(c) As to brain weight. — This is, in one way, a better test
than volume, just as the amount of matter in a book or a
lecture or a life is of more importance than the length of
either book, lecture, or life. We may take the average
weight of the brain in a European man as 49 ounces. ■_ That
of an anthropoid ape is 15 ounces. A great interval truly
between 49 and 15. But every one of the numbers between
these Is to be found in the list of human brain weights.
Human * eings have been encountered the weights of whose
brain have 7>een 48, 47, 46 ounces, and so on down to 17, 16,
15, -and beycnd. It is here only necessary to give two or
three cases of weights less than the average in anthropoid apes.
Processor Owen records a case of a microcephalous idiot,
aged 22, in tfhom the brain weight was only 13*12. Pro-
fessor Theile one aged 26, brain weight 10-6. Professor
Marshall one aged 12, brain weight 8*5. With respect to
this last case we must bear in mind that the brain weight of
the child of 12 is -§- that of the adult. Thus the average
European child's brain weight would be %■ of 49 = 42
ounces. Once more then we find that the difference between
the brain weights of nan and man, 49 and 8-5, is greater than
that between the brain weight of man and anthropoid apes, 49
and 15. For the verification of these numbers the student
may be referred to Bastian's " Brain as an Organ of Man,"
pp. 365.

6. The ear. — The ear is one of the most variable of the

>rgans of the human body. This is pointed out by Professor

f.aeckel in his lecture on the development of the sense-organs

<k* Pedigree of Man," Lecture X.), an\ will be corroborated by

*2 THE OBIUIN OF MAN.

anyone who observes the ears of any considerable collection ol
people, say at a theatre or a church. In some places, at all
events, more instruction may be gained from the study of the
ears of our companions than of the matter for the discussion
of which the assembly is convened. It is not merely that
they vary in length. Every detail of shape is variable. And
this is, in the main, due to the fact that the sense of hearing
is in man undergoing evolution. Perhaps no other function
of our body is at the present time advancing so unmistakably
as that of hearing. The various schools of music are only
one proof of this growing extension of the auditory faculty.

One particular point literally is of interest to us. On the
outmost edge of our ear is a little prominence, of very
variable size in different human beings. It is from a quarter
to halfway down on the irregularly curved line that runs
from the topmost part of the ear to the lobe at the bottom of
the ear. This minute point is without a doubt the remnant
of the point of the ear of the lower animals. There is in the
order Primates amongst its various species and individuals
every gradation between the acutely-pointed ears of some of
the lower monkeys and the ear of man.

7. The eye. — Of all the many structures in this complex
organ we can, as with the ear-, only call attention to one. In
the inner corner of our eye, is a small red fold dignified with
the disproportionate name of the caruncula lachrymalis. A
caruncle or wattle is one of the red folds that occur o^i the
head of the cock. The adjective lachrymalis is given
because through two minute apertures in this caruncle the
tears (lachrymse) pass down into the nose cavity. The
caruncle is not of so much interest to us physiologically
as genealogically. It is the rudiment of the third eye-lid
that at present is well developed in birds and other Verte-
brata. If the eyes of a bird are carefully watched the
observer sees a kind of transverse or side-way winking. This
is due to the drawing across the eye of the membrana
nictitans, or winking membrane, and this membrana nictitans
is the third eyelid. Here again a complete series of grada-
tions from the perfect eyelid of the owl, e.g., to the caruncula
lachrymalis of man is yielded by the study of comparative
anatomy.

8. Muscles. — Not one of the 200 and odd. 'nuscles existing in
the human body is peculiar to that body, £very one of them

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 15

lias been met with in the anthropoid apes, and everyone has
been found to be connected with the same bones, the same
parts of these bones, running in the same direction, having just
the same function as in man. It is true that until recently
there was a belief that a few of the many muscles did occur
in man, and not in his allies, or did occur in certain of the
anthropoid apes and were wanting in man. In general there
are grounds for this belief, but in certain cases in the human
subject, and in certain others in the Simian, these grounds are
wanting. Thus, four muscles occur in all the anthropoid
apes that are not generally present in man. All these four,
however, have been found as varieties in the human body.
Two muscles are usually present in man that are wanting in
the anthropoid apes. But of these two, one is sometimes,
and the other frequently absent in man. The interesting
point here is that the six variable muscles are variable in
man and ape.

The consideration of one or two special muscles is of use.
Take first those of the ear. There are three very rudi-
mentary muscles to each ear. They are so rudimentary that
a skilled dissector alone can demonstrate them. One lies over,
one lies in front of, the third behind the ear. That which
lies over, when it contracts, raises the organ, and is therefore
called the attolens aarem. Attollo = I raise, auris = ear.
That which lies in front, when it contracts draws the ear
forward. This is therefore called the attrahens. Ad = to,
traho = I draw. That which lies behind the ear, when it
contracts draws the ear backwards, and is therefore called
retrahens. Re = backwards. In us not only are these
muscles very rudimentary — they are almost functionless.
Most human beings have no command of these structures,
and even in xhe rare cases when movement of the ear by
these small muscles does take place, the movement is
generally involuntary and not attended with consciousness.
The present writer has devoted a considerable amount of
time and trouble to the acquisition of the power of ear-
movement without success.

In animals lower than man the ear-muscles are well developed
and capable of considerable movement. In the 'non-human
Primates these organs are very mobile. There can be little
doubt that in the Simian ancestor of man, a tree-haunting
animal dwelling in forests where wild beasts roamed, the ears

1 4 THE OEIGIN OF MAN.

were also very readily movable. Safety would depend largely
on the power of perceiving the slightest sound when dan^G*
threatened. But thousands of years of evolution have changed
all that, and now the muscles of the ear are reduced to a very
rudimentary condition, and only in a few cases is there any
remnant of the power once so marked and so valuable to its
possessor. The presence of these muscles, like all rudimentary
organs, is wholly inexplicable on the special creation hypothesis
On this hyp@thesis we are to credit the three persons of the.
Trinity each with two attollentes, two attrahentes, two retre-
hentes aures. On the theory of descent or ascent with modi-
fication the presence of these small muscles is to be ex-
pected.

To take one other case. In the lower mammals there exists
in many instances just beneath the skin a very exten-
sive muscle. It runs all the length of the skin, and by its
contractions moves that organ. The technical name of this
muscle is the panniculus carnosus. Pannus = a garment,
iculus = a diminutive, carnosus = fleshy. This is the muscle
that horses and other members of the hoofed order (Ungulata)
of the class Mammalia use in twitching oh0 flies and other
insects that are out of the reach of the tail. Eemnants of
this skin muscle are to be found in man. Indeed, the three
muscles of the ear already discussed are portions of the pan-
niculus carnosus, left stranded, as it were, after the general
vanishing of the muscle. Other fragments of the same
structure are, however, present. Thus the muscle by which
the movement of the scalp over the skull is performed by certain
gifted beings — a muscle known as the occipito-frontalis, as
it runs from the occipital bone at the back of the skull to
the frontal or forehead bone — this also is a portion of the
panniculus carnosus. And in the neck, just below the skin, is a
wide but very thin sheet of muscular tissue called the platysma
myoides. irXarvs (platus) = broad, fxviov (muon) = a muscle.
ctSos (eidos) = resemblance. The platysma is attached to
the clavicles or collar bones below, spreads over the whole of
the neck up as far as the lower jaw. It is of no use to man.
The three ear muscles and the occipito-frontalis we have seen
to be practically useless to us, and the platysma myoides is, if
possible, of still less utility than these. But it, ""ike the
attolens aurem, attrahens aurem, and retrahens auremf and, like
the occipito-frontalis, is of the deepest interest to every ot?

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 15

but a special creationist, inasmuch as it is a reminder of our
brute origin.

9. Voice organ. — As so much stress is laid on the wholly
inaccurate statement that man, and man only, has the power
of articulate speech, it may be noted that the structure of the
larynx or voice-apparatus in man and in the anthropoid apes
is identical. The same cartilages, great and small ; the same
folds and ligaments ; the same complex set of muscles that,
by moving the cartilages one on another, make the vocal liga-
ments tight or lax, approximate them or take them away one
from another, and thus help to produce the different notes
of the voice — all are present in man and apes.

In the next chapter the discussion of the physiology of
voice in man and other animals will be briefly undertaken.
In this chapter on anatomical facts it is only necessary to
repeat that in all details of structure the larynx of man and
the larynx of the anthropoid apes are the same.

10. The organs of reproduction. — Under this head, also, I
can only make a statement of the same nature as that just
uttered. Not only in general plan, but in the minutest parti-
culars, the organs whose function is the maintenance of the
species are the same in man as in the anthropoid apes.

I cannot end this chapter without again reminding the
reader that only the merest fraction of the immense mass of
available facts has been given. Literally their name is legion.
But if their number is practically beyond reckoning, their
nature is one. Not one of these facts of anatomy tells against
the hypothesis of the evolution of man from some lower
form. With t'hat hypothesis every one of them is is harmony.

Chapter III.— PHYSIOLOGY

We turn now to the consideration of the functions of man
and of other animals. In the study of these we shall again
find reason to believe that there is nothing in common between
man and god (as to whose physiology we are lamentably
ignorant), and that there is everything in common between
man and the lower animals.

I may begin with a very broad assertion ; but it is as incon-
trovertible as it is sweeping. Not one of the functions of the

16 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

human body is performed by man in any other way than it is
performed by other members of the animal kingdom. From
the first moment of the life of the human being, through all
the stages of development up to the adult condition, in every
detail of that adult life, the higher Primates, from the gibbon
up to man, are one as to their general and special physiology.

With one part of the subject — viz., the physiology of the
nervous system — the next chapter deals in detail. In this
chapter my task is akin to that attempted in its predecessor.
Out of the many thousands of facts that go to establish the
identity of man's physiological nature with that of the
anthropoid apes, I shall choose a few of those most striking
and most easily comprehended by the student who is not
necessarily a physiologist* The facts to be given will be
grouped under the following heads. The sexes, parasites,
wounds, diseases, drugs, periodicity, development. It will at
once be seen that I am not taking up the various functions in
the order in which they are considered in the ordinary books
on physiology. The uniformity of the processes of digestion,
of absorption, of circulation, of respiration, of secretion, and
so forth in all the Primates, noticeable as it is, may not detain
us. That monkeys, apes, men, feed, take up the digested foo<3f
into their blood, circulate that blood, purify it by breathing,
and by the secretions of different organs all in exactly tho
same fashion is a familiar fact. Let us turn to other fact*
not quite so familiar and equally significant.

1. The sexes. — Two points call for notice here. In the pre-
ceding chapter it was laid down that the structure of the
organs concerned in the reproduction of the individual and in
the perpetuation of the species were the same in man and his
allies. It is now needful to mention that whilst this is the
case those differences of structure that obtain between the
male and the female of the human race are paralleled by, or
better, are identical with the difference between the male and
female in the anthropoid apes. -

At regularly recurring lunar periods the female of the
anthropoid apes is subject to the same physiological phaenomena
as the human. . All the symptoms and concomitants are, with .
slight differences in detail, of the same essential nature.

Again, the whole of the process of reproduction in all its
.many details is in no essential different in man and his
neighbors, Every act, jrom the commencement of courtship

xxlE uEIGiN OF MAW. 17

to the end of the nurturing of the young that we see in the
lower races of mankind, and every detail of it have been
observed in the study of the sex relations of man's allies.

(2) Parasites, — Most animals are infested by other animals.
The bodies of most members of the animal kingdom within and
without are the happy hunting ground for one or more lower
kinds of animal. It is found that man has no monopoly of
parasitism. Not one of the creatures that is apt to infest him
is peculiar to him. Everyone of them is found in or upon
other animals. It is not only that these parasitic animals are
of the same class or order. They are of the same genus, and
in many cases of the same species. Thus the skin disease
known as scabies, or less euphemistically " itch," is due to a
little animal, a member of the same class, the Arachnida, to
which the spider and scorpion belong. The generic name of
this creature is acarus. Its specific name is scabiei, and
exactly the same name must be and is given to the animal
that causes scabies in the anthropoid apes, for it is identical
with that which infests man.

Nor is this similarity of parasitism confined to those para-
sites that belong to the animal kingdom. Many of the
organisms that affect man are of a vegetable nature — i.e.,
if we admit the vegetable character of the group Fungi.
This group comprises among others yeast, the mould that
occurs on old leather and in wine-cellars, the puff-balls, and
the mushrooms. The food of it's members generally is
organic matter that is passing into the condition of inorganic.
Hence their name of saprophytes. <ra7rpos (sapros) = putrid,
<t>vrov (phuton) = plant. Some of them find their food of
this transition kind' in other living organisms, and theb
habitat is within or upon those organisms. Thus some of tht
skin diseases of animals are due to the growth within the
tissues of the skin of Fungi. Bingworm, that affects the skin
of the scalp, is due to the growth of the mycelium of a fungus
in the skin. The mycelium is the mass of threads that
develop within the decaying matter on which the fungus
feeds, ijlvkos (mukos) = fungus. Now this disease is, as
people know only too well, readily transferable from one
human being to another. But this disease is also found to bf
with equal readiness transferable from man to the anthropoid
a*pes. The fungus whose ring of mycelium growing in the
skin gives rise to the appearance whence the disorder take*

8 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

its name, finds an equally favorable nidus or nest for growtli
and development in the scalp of man and in the scalp of his
allies.

As an instance of the general community of the animal
nature, of how far down in the animal kingdom our kinship
reaches, the following well authenticated case may serve.
Certain mice in a house were observed to be affected with favus,
a skin disease whose effects appear as yeliow patches. Favus
= honeycomb. A cat, by whom some of these favus-suffering
mice were eaten, became affected with the same complaint.
Here, we may take it, the transmission from the one to the
other was from within, as it were. But a little later on the
children of the family with whom the cat was in the habit of
playing had favus patches appearing on their skin, and in this
case the transmission must have been from the exterior of one
animal's body to the exterior of that of the others.

These facts, and innumerable others of the same kind,
bear witness to a remarkable oneness of nature between the
integument and the interior of man and of animals less com-
plex than man. Identically the same parasites could not
infest different animals, and be so easily communicable from
one animal to the others, were there not much that is
common, if not actually identical in the nature of these
animals.

(3) Wounds. — The whole of the question of the regenera-
tion of destroyed, or recuperation of impaired tissues is of
deep interest in this comparison of man with lower forms.
The lower the animal, and the lower the tissue, the greater
is the amount of restoration possible. Thus injury to an
animal that belongs to one of the less highly-developed
classes of the animal kingdom is, even if it be very extensive,
likely to be completely atoned for by the reparative power of
the animal. But the removal of any considerable portion of
a more highly-developed animal is not likely to be followed
by restoration of the part removed. In like manner, if even
in man some lowly form of tissue, such as the fibrous or
cartilaginous, is in part destro}red, it can be again made good.
But if the tissue is a complex and excessively active one,
as the muscular or nervous, there is little likelihood of its
reparation.

There is then a close connexion between the lowness
and simplicity of the organism or the part injured and the

THE OBIOIN OF MAN. 19

power of restoration. One or two special cases taken from
the inferior members of the animal kingdom (I always use
the rather unfortunate word " inferior " in the sense of
simpler) may serve to make this general proposition more
clear.

In the great sub-kingdom of the ringed animals all the
members have this power of restoration to a greater or less
degree. Even the highest member, the lobster, of the highest
class, the Crustacea, is able to reform its very large forceps-
bearing limb with greater or less completeness if it is
removed. In the Insecta. a class that is perhaps, on the
whole, less complex than the Crustacea, the power of repara-
tion is something more marked. But within the limits of
this class itself, the general principle comes out. For there
are three stages in the life of the insect, the larva or cater-
pillar, pupa or chrysalis, the imago or perfect insect, and it is
in the larval or simplest stage that the power of restoration is
at its best.

Parallel to this is the case of the Myriapoda, fivpios (murios)
= many, novs (pous) = a foot, a class including the centipede
and the millipede. In the members of this class the restorative
power, always greater than in the more complex insects, is
much more noticeable up to the last moult of the skin than
after that moult has taken place, and the final fixed condition
of the animal has been attained.

Similar phenomena are met with in the study of the highest
sub-kingdom, that of the Vertebrata. In the lowest class, the
Pisces, the power of reparation is most marked. The whole of
the fin or limb of certain fishes has been restored after
accidental removal. In the class above the Pisces, that of
the Amphibia, to which the frog, th9 newt, the salamander
belong, this capacity for reforming parts that have been taken
away, is still well marked. Thus a salamander had its tail
removed eight times in succession, and restored as many times.
The same experiment with the leg of this amphibian was
attended with similar results. The frog is clearly higher in
the scale of being than the salamander. In the frog the
reparative power is not nearly so evident. But in the tadpole,
or lower condition of the frog, the power is possessed as
completely as by the salamander, or even as by the fish. And
this is in keeping with the fact that the tadpole is really a
fish, whilst the adult frog is really a reptile. The power e*

20 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

restoration of parts that the tadpole has, is almost wanting in
the adult frog.

Finally we turn to man. It is well known that after
operations the stumps occasionally give indications of partial
regeneration. Eudimentary outgrowths are formed on them
that take at times the appearance of very abortive digits.
The case of supernumary fingers or toes is of the same kind.
When an extra digit appears on the hand or on the foot of a
human being, when a child is born with six fingers or six
toes, removal of the extra digit is often followed by its
reformation. This tendency to have extra fingers or toes is
hereditary. It runs in families, as the phrase goes. To
illustrate at once this fact, and the restorative power resident
in the supernumerary digits, I take the cases quoted by Charles
Darwin in his " Descent of Man." Four members of one
family are recorded as having an extra finger on each hand
and an extra toe on each foot. In another case one man had
an extra toe. This was removed while its owner was a child.
It had again to be removed at the age of 33. This man had
a family of fourteen children. Three of them presented the
paternal peculiarity. In one case the extra digit was
removed three times.

The most interesting point about these cases is in that
which I may call the double reversion. The increase in the
number of digits is a case of reversion, for it is a generalisa-
tion in biology that repetition of similar parts implies lowness
of organisation. In the plants and in the animals alike, if a
series of similar parts occurs, as the uniform succession of
cells in an Alga, or the uniform succession of rings in the
body of a centipede or of an earthworm, the plant or animal
is sure to be of a simpler nature than a living thing, such as
a rose-tree or a vertebrate, in which a number of differentiated
parts are combined into the one organism. Or, to look at the
generalisation in another way yet more germane to the cases
we are studying ; in the lower Vertebrata the number of digits
in the limbs is greater, as a rule, than in the higher. The
digits that enter into the fin of a fish are very many. Those
that enter into the arm or leg of a mammal are much fewer
in number. When, therefore, an increase in number of the
fingers or of the toes takes place in man, we have a case of
reversion. For a repetition of similar parts implies lowness
of organisation.

THE 01UGIN OF MAN. 2l

But the abnormal part, as we have seen, has the restorative
power much better developed than the normal parts. In this
also is a reversion. For the lower the animal and the lower
the tissue, the greater its capacity for reparation. Why I
said that in these instances of the appearance and reappear-
ance of extra digits we have cases of double reversion will
now be understood. There is reversion in the increase of
number of parts. There is reversion in the fact that the
abnormal part has the power of reparation much more marked
than it is in the normal.

The cases known to every obstetric physician of intra-
uterine amputation and restoration of the limbs thus ampu-
tated have a very direct bearing on this discussion. Certain
membranous growths are sometimes formed within the uterus
that may literally cut off a limb of the foetus. The human
-embryo has at this early stage the power of restoring with
greater or less completeness the organ thus removed, and at
birth a leg or arm is found to have grown again in place of
the one that had been amputated.

3. Diseases. — Just as man has no parasites that are
special to himself, so he has no diseases that are not to be
met with in other members of the animal kingdom. From
the time of Boccaccio men have known that diseases are
not only common to man and his fellows in the animal king-
dom, but are communicable from him to them, or from them
to him. The Italian novelist narrates the throwing of the
clothes of a person just dead from the plague into the street,
and how two hogs that laid down to rest on them rose plague-
stricken.

Pericarditis, inflammation of the pericardium or serous
membrane that surrounds the heart, occurs in birds. Goitre
or Derbyshire neck, the enlargement of one of the vascular or
ductless glands (the thyroid of the throat) affects mules, horses,
goats, pigs, sheep, oxen.

Many of the diseases of domestic animals are identical with
diseases in the human species that are known by other names.
Thus the cattle plague or rinderpest, that causes so much
trouble to all European nations, is the typhus of man, and
what is known as malignant pustule in the latter is joint-
murrain in oxen and sheep.

All the so-called zymotic diseases are common to the Mam-
malia generally. They are named zymotic because they are

22 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

supposed to be due to a ferment, ^v/ultj (zume) = ferment,
that is their concomitant, whether cause or effect is in most
cases not yet known. These various diseases are, therefore,
attended by the appearance of certain bodies within the blood
of the animal affected. Identity of disease in different
animals, and the possibility of the transmission of one of
these zymotic diseases from one animal to another, argue a
great physical similarity, if not a physiological identity, in the
blood of these animals. Glanders in the horse may, r ider
certain circumstances, be communicated to man. Small-pox
attacks other Mammalia as well as the human race. The
epidemic of this disease in England, in 1862, attacked sheep-
Hocks throughout the country. The history of its origin and
transmission from farm to farm was as definite as the history
of it in regard to men and women. The disease broke out.
first at the farm of Joseph Parry, at Allington, in Wiltshire.
Cholera, again, is not only a human disease. Cats and dogs
suffer from it, and, as it would appear, they may catch it as
the result of cutaneous exhalations. Lower animals than the
Mammalia are also affected. In 1846, when cholera attacked
the British soldiers at Kurrachee, in India, the birds of prey
fled from the infected district, and the fish were cast up in
shoals on the sea-shore, dead. Yellow fever and typhoid are
no exceptions to this general rule. The epidemic air has its
effect on man and the lower animals alike. Diseases are
transmitted from lower animals to man, and then from man
to man. An ape may give typhoid fever to his keeper, and
his keeper may give it to other men. And it is to be observed
xhat this transference of any form of disease from man to
some other animal, or vice versd, is attended with exactly
those slight modifications in symptoms and in the course of
the malady that we should expect when it affected species
allied, but not identical.

Naturalists who have had opportunity of studying the
habits of anthropoid apes in their native countries, and under
the normal conditions of their life, are among the best wit-
nesses in this controversy as to the origin of man. Their
testimony is unanimous. Whether it be Brehm, who observes
the Primates of Paraguay, or Eengger, who observes the
primates of Africa, or anyone of the men, less able or less
fortunate than these two indefatigable Germans, who follow
'in their footsteps, the evidence i in all cases the same. Thus

THE OEIGIN OP MAN. 23

the statements of Brehm as to the Cebus Azarae of Paraguay
are corroborated in regard to other monkeys and apes both of
the Old and of the New World. The young suffer from fevei
when they are cutting their milk teeth. At that time they
are a source of both trouble and anxiety to their parents. All
the diseases of the digestive organs to which human flesh is
heir attack the Simian alimentary canal — from the slight pang
of indigestion up to a severe inflammation of the bowels or a
gastric fever. The eye, identical in its structure and in its
functions in man and in his allies, is in him and them subject
to the same infirmities. Apes and monkeys are known tc
suffer from cataract or opacity of the crystalline lens of the.
eye. The respiratory organs tell the same tale. Slight colds,
coughs, a genuine catarrh, inflammation of the lungs, and
even phthisis or consumption, with all its attendant train of
symptoms — hectic flush, high temperature, and the rest — all
these have been noticed again and again in the zoological
kinsmen of man.

The diseases that have to do with the nervous system or
even with that most complex organ of that system, the bra\n,
are no exception to the general rule. Apoplexy is a not infre-
quent cause of death among the Primates generally. Every
phase of mental weakness, from mere inferior capacity up to
the wildest forms of madness, are known not only in monkeys
and apes, but far down through the animal kingdom. Indeed
the uniformity of mental disorders throughout this great
kingdom is strong evidence in favor of the oneness of the
nervous system of animals in all essentials, and of the truth
that the highest mind is but the result of evolution from the
lower and the lowest. Vice in horses is nothing other than
incipient madness, a more or less marked form of lunacy.
An extreme case of the same kind of mental disorder, only
differing, therefore, from vice in the horse in degree is the
" must " of the elephant. And to lead us on to the last
set of illustrations as to disease that my space permits me to
give, I may mention the fact that puerperal fever mania is
not confined to the human female. This terrible form of
brain disorder that occasionally seizes on women after child-
birth with the most disastrous effects, as a rule, is met with in
the lower animals, at least as far down as certain of the
Ungulata or hoofed Mammalia. The sow has been known to
suffer from puerperal mania.

24 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

In fact every disease of the reproductive system is common
to all the higher Primates. To name but one other, perhaps
the most striking example ; the fearful scourge syphilif
works its disastrous will on the anthropoid apes as well as oft
the human species.

4. Drugs. — The uniformity in relation to the attacks of
diseases ^tween man and the lower animals would lead us to
expect a like t»-*?rormity in relation to the effects of different
drugs on txie organism of man and of other members 01 the
same kingdom The expectation is fulfilled. Generally it
may be stated that eveiy drug has practically the same effect
on the human being and on other Mammalia. Indeed this is
at once the result and the cause of most of the experiments
as to the effect of drugs on animals other than man. As
early investigation showed the identity of results whether he
or his fellows were the subject of the experiments, later
experiments have been tried on the inferior animals with a
view" to determining if newly-discovered remedies are of real
value or not to the world of sentient things as a whole. For
no one but an anti-vivisectionist holds for a single moment
that these experiments are made for the benefit of the human
race alone. The desire is to ascertain by carefully- conducted
empirical attempts whether this or that substance is likely to
oe of use in the treatment of the diseases of animals generally,
and likely to take its place among that list of pain-lesseners in
which are written the names of opium and chloroform.

Passing over the multitudinous pharmaceutical remedies,
*rom simple water up to ergot of rye, that have been shown
by demonstration to have the same effect on the higher
animals generally, I will only consider one or two substances
that are of special interest, inasmuch as their action is
admittedly on the nervous system. It will be evident that I
select these because the last straw to which the opponents of
Evolution cling, drowning in the sea of knowledge, is the
strange fiction that man differs as to his nervous system from
his allies.

Tea and coffee and tobacco have the same effect on the
anthropoid apes as on man himself. Tea contains a certair
vegetable alkaloid called theine, coffee a certain vegetable
alkaloid called caffeine. An alkaloid is a complex organic
substance, made up generally of four chemical elements,
*arbon.- hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, usuallv combined to-

THE ORiaiN OP MAN. 25

gether in large numbers of atoms. It is called an alkaloid
because of its similarity to the alkalis, potash, soda, ammonia.
The active principles of the plants, those bodies which give
to the plants their value to man as medicines, e.g., are the
alkaloids. One of the most interesting points for us at
present is that theine, the alkaloid of tea, and caffeine the
alkaloid of coffee have been shown by chemical analysis to be
identical in chemical composition and in properties. It is a
very significant fact that the principle of the tea of China, the
coffee of Arabia, the mate or Paraguay tea of America are one
and the same. Its chemical formula, by whatsoever name
you may choose to call it, is C8 H10 N4 O2 — i.e., the alkaloid
of these three plants consists of eight atoms of carbon, ten of
hydrogen, four of nitrogen, two of oxygen.

It would seem from the generality of the habit of tea or of
coffee-drinking that some want is supplied to the race of man
by this principle. But this want is not the prerogative of
man. for his neighbors are found to enjoy the non-alcoholic
stimulants even as he enjoys them, and the effect produced
on him by the drinking of tea or of coffee is repeated in the
anthropoid apes when they take these beverages.

Tobacco has an alkaloid called nicotine. Its formula is
O10 H14 N2. It contains no oxygen. The properties of this
alkaloid are familiar to every schoolboy. Its effect on the higher
Primates is uniform. Apes at first suffer from the ' use of
tobacco. They are nauseated by it. But, like man, they
will in many cases persevere in its employment, and very
rapidly appear to derive the same sedative comfort from smoking
that is one of the happiest possessions of the human race.

The drug alcohol will furnish us with a, concluding illus-
tration. This is of greater importance than any other,
because its action is so clearly on the nervous system, and
on the higher centres of that system. The effect of alcohol
on apes and monkeys, and, in fact, on the Mammalia
generally, is the same as on man. And, if I may use the
phrase, it is the same in its very diversity. By this I mean
that, whilst the total effect of this drug is intoxication,
whether it be man or another form of animal that is
affected, the manner of the intoxication-differs considerably
in the different individuals. It is a familiar fact that this
holds also with respect to man.

Thus, whilst the negroes of the north-east of Africa catch

26 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

baboons oy setting out vessels containing beer and thus
making the baboons drunk and incapable, yet experiments
of Eengger in the same part of the world establish the
fact that there is a "diversity of gifts " (I use the word in
the English, not the German, sense) in the apes under the
influence of alcohol. Some are rendered excessively morose,
and want to fight everyone they come across. Others are
reduced to a maudlin state, and weep on or without the
least provocation. A few are "real good fellows," and with
them the result of a stimulant is a diffusive bonhomie.
These are the sort of apes that would ask everybody to
dinner. Variable as are the individual effects, the next
morning (that terrible next morning !) exhibits its human
sameness. They sit melancholy, with their heads on their
hands, and refuse everything but soda-water. This is the
account of Eengger. But the present writer is distantly
acquainted with an anthropoid ape, the property of a music-
hall exhibitor, who has " evolved " further than his African
compeers. He is said to get intoxicated (with his proprietor)
every night, after the performance, and in the morning to
enjoy a brandy and soda as well as a club man.

All this is very laughable and very tearful. But, half
amusing, half painful as it is, the facts just given show
very conclusively that the drug alcohol has similar effects, in
their very dissimilarity, on the brains of man and of anthro-
poid apes, and show that the kinship in brain-nature goes
low down into the animal kingdom. I may mention that a
member of the lowest mammalian order but one, the Marsu-
pialia, has been known to take rum and tobacco like a
Christian. This order is confined naturally to Australia, and
comprises such pouched animals (marsupium = a pouch) as
the kangaroo, the oppossum, wombat. The creature of which
I am speaking is an inhabitant of Queensland. Its technical
name is Phascolarctus cinerens.

5. Periodicity. — Few phaenomena are more mysterious
than those connected with periodicity. It is a familiar fact
to all men that certain functions, normal or abnormal, of the
human body are, either in their recurrence or their duration,
or their times of intensity, related to the periods of the moon.
The relation of the reproductive function to lunar periods is
well known. One form of that relation is the exceedingly
definite gestation time in the human animal. Tt* m in our pre*

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 27

Bent investigation as to whether man is a special creation in
the image of god, or is the result of development from lower
animal forms, the most important fact is- that this lunar
periodicity is not confined to man. It is a general phseno*
menon throughout the animal kingdQm. For such of the
proofs of this momentous question as I am now able to give,
I am indebted to a remarkable paper by Mr. Laycock, con-
tributed to the British Association as long ago as the yeai
1842.

The paper contains a resume of a very large number o\
observations made by Mr. Laycock on a very large numbei
of animals. His conclusion is that a law of seven daya
periodicity is very general in the animal kingdom. It affects
many members of that kingdom in regard to gestation meta-
morphosis (as in insects), acute diseases, such as fevers, and
chronic disorders. I give one or two of his results. The time
that elapses in the case of the glow-worm, from the impregna-
tion to the hatching of the eggs, is exactly six weeks. Of the
class Pisces (fishes) the gestation time is twenty weeks. As
to the class Aves, or birds, the period of gestation in the fly-
catcher species is two weeks ; in the members of the order
Grallidae three weeks ; in the duck four weeks ; in the swan
six weeks precisely. These are but a few chosen from Mr.
Lay cock's illustrations.

The result of observation on this point in 129 different
species of Aves and Mammalia was that in sixty-seven cases
the number of days between impregnation and birth was an
exact multiple of seven, i.e, of one thirty-sixth of the human
period. In twenty-four cases this was the fact within one
day, and in every one of the other thirty-eight cases there was
some uncertainty in the conduct of the observation and
experiment that made the results of no value one way or the
other.

This should be taken in conjunction with the fact that
intermittent diseases attack the lower animals according to
the same law of periodicity that holds in man. The dog
suffers from tertian ague. Further, every physician knows
that there are critical days, and what I may call sub-critical
days, in acute diseases. On the critical days there is an
intensity of the attack more marked than at any other time,
and on the sub-critical there is also an attack, not so
excessive as on the critical days. Now, these critical days are

28 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

the 7th, 14-tli and 21st, and the sub-critical are the 4th and
11th, midway between the critical.

The fact that this remarkable, and hitherto inexplicable
law connecting certain functions, normal or abnormal, in man
with lunar periods holds also in so many of the lower animals,
seems to the evolutionist strong indirect evidence of the com-
munity of man's origin with that of the lower animals.

6. Development — The las' set of facts that I give under
the head of general physiology i.e„ the study of the functions
of the body other than those oj the nervous system, are facts
of embryology. To my mind, these are the most con-
vincing evidence in favor of the teaching of Evolution.
Speaking broadly, man in his development goes through a
series of transition stages that are identical with the persistent
conditions of the lower animals. In his development from the
egg or ovum, up to the state in which he is unmistakably
a human being, he presents anatomical and physiological
phaenomena that are precisely those to be seen in lower
animals than man in their adult state.

On the theory of special creation, the whole of this wonder-
ful series of changes is without meaning. It is worse than
meaningless. It is misleading. If it be true that man is the
image of god, we are compelled to believe that god has gone
through these stages of development. On the antagonistic
theory the whole of the embryonic changes in the human
being are quite intelligible. They correspond with the stages
of man's evolution in the practically infinite past. They
lead us up to the beautiful generalisation that man's ontogeny
is an epitome of his phylogeny ; that the history of the
individual is a picture in little of the history of the race
cov, ovtos (on, ontos) = a being, yewaa) (gennao) = I grow
Phylum = a stem. According to the teaching of Evolution,
every human being in a few years traverses thr same ground
as that traversed by his ancestors in the course of millions of
millions of ages, and this is so in keeping with general truths
that the idea seems a priori likely. For in our knowledge
of things to-day the same principle obtains. The child who
learns a language, or the man who acquires a knowledge of
some advanced science, gains in a few days possession of the
heritage of ages. The result of the laborious efforts, the trials,
the successes, the failures of generations of men and womeo
is ours to-day within the space of one or two heart-beats.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 29

It is impossible to give all, or many, of the details in
support of this general proposition, that the man in his
development passes through stages representative of the
complete conditions of lower animals, that are probably
identical with certain of his ancestral forms. The full, or
even the partial comprehension of these details is only
within the power of the practical student of embryology.
But once again a few facts comprehensible by the non-
scientific reader may be given.

The human being is, at the commencement, an ovum or
egg. That ovum is 1-1 25th of an inch in diameter. It is a
single cell, with wall, with protoplasmic contents, with a
nucleus or endoplast (the germinal vesicle) with a nucleolus,
or little nucleus (the germinal spot). This first appearance on
the stage of being is, in all respects, identical with the single
cell that constitutes the whole of the lowest animals, and makes
the whole of the lowest plants. It is to-day a scientific
truism to. say that no one could distinguish this cell that is
to become a human being or not to become a human being,
according as impregnation takes places or does not take
place, from one of the microscopic organisms that hover on
the border line, not only between the plant and animal
kingdom, but between the kingdoms of the living and the
non-living.

This single cell after impregnation divides into two, four,
eight, sixteen, thirty-two and so forth, until a mass of similar
cells is formed. This stage of the human animal is called
the morula stage. Morus = a mulberry, and the appearance
of the collection of many cells is not unlike that of a mul-
berry fruit. Just such an appearance is presented by certain
low forms both of animals and of plants. A little later the
inner cells have liquefied, and the outer condensed into two
membranes, and now our embryo is a double bag, holding
the liquid contents, as are some of the Coelenterata, members
of the sub-kingdom that contains the hydra (the fresh- water
polyp) and the sea anemone.

Passing, of necessity, over a very large number of suc-
cessive stages of development, let me only mention some half
a dozen other casual points that bear on the contention of
the evolutionist. How does the backbone of man make its
first appearance? As a little rod of indifferent tissue
running along the middle line of what is to be the back, and

30 THE ORIGIN OT MAN.

marking where the bodies of the vertebrae will in good time
be fashioned and placed. Now, in the Mediterranean sea, we
find to-day Amphioxus, or the lowest of the Vertebrata, and
in the middle line of the dorsal region of this rudimentary fish
dissection reveals a line of indifferent tissue the notochord.
vuTos (notos) = back. The Amphioxus is dying out rapidly.
A century hence, possibly no such* animal will exist. But a
century hence the conclusive evidence yielded by this lowest
vertebrate or highest invertebrate will not be needed. Every
one will have accepted Evolution by that time.

The tail turns up again here. Early in the development
of the skeleton of man the os coccygis (or tail) is relatively
much larger than in the adult state. It extends at first con-
siderably beyond the legs. And as to the legs and arms, the
limbs generally, it should be noted that they in their incipient
development, and in their first stages of development are
exactly as they are in other Vertebrata — that in fact, the arms
and legs of man begin to develop, and continue for some
time to develop on the same plan as the fins of fish. One
special fact may be noted in connexion with the develop-
ment of the limbs. The great toe is a stumbling block to
many who are studying Evolution. This and the thumb are
n man supposed to be so essentially different in their
arrangement with regard to the other digits as to make out
man as a distinct creation. To what extremities are^the
opponents of this great theory driven I Now, in the very
foxmg embryo, long before birth, the great toe is much
shorter than the rest of the digits, and instead of being
parallel with the axis of the foot, is, as in so many of the
Primates, at an angle with that axis.

The alimentary canal of man is in the zoology books
usually distinguished from that of Aves, Eeptilia, Amphibia,
and Pisces on this ground. In man, and in the Mammalia
generally, the alimentary canal is quite shut off (in the normal
adult stage) from the renal and from the reproductive
system. In the lower Vertebrata, on the other hand, the
ducts from tb;* kidneys, and in most cases the ducts that
cany off the eggs in the female, or the impregnating secretion
in the male, open into the lower or posterior end of the
alimentary canal. Then that terminal portion of the
intestine is knowrj as a cloaca. Cloaca = a sewer. But there is
a stage in the development of the human embryo when such

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 31

n cloaca exists, and the digestive system is not shut off from
the renal or from the reproductive.

The kidney, or renal organ itself, is another illustration of
the general thesis. Without going into anatomical detail, I
may state that in the group Amphibia, and in other Verte-
brata lower than the highest class, Mammalia, the structure of
the kidneys is essentially different from that which is presented
in the Mammalia. These more lowly-organised kidneys are
•called corpora Wolfhana. In the development of the Mam-
malia the first kidneys that appear are corpora Wolffiana, and
these are replaced later on by structures of a more complex
order. The transitory appearance of these bodies, and their
replacement by their successors, are, I think, only under-
standable on the theory of Evolution.

With every other set of organs the same idea obtains.
Thus the heart of the human being is at ftist only a pul-
sating undivided vessel. So is that of Amphioxus. From the
heart of adult man passes off the great aorta, the vessel that
carries the good blood for distribution to the body generally.
In man this large artery makes a curve to the left-hand side
of the body ere it reaches the inner aspect of the vertebral
column, and runs down the front face of that column as the
descending aorta. In the Mammalia generally this arrange-
ment holds. In the Aves the curve is to the right, not to
the left. In the Reptilia there are two aortic arches, one
over-running to the right, the other to the left, that join
together on the anterior aspect of the backbone. In the
Amphibia the same plan as under the Reptilia obtains in the
adult condition. But in the larval state (the tadpole, e.g., of
the frog) there are six aortic arches, three pairs, three to the
right, three to the left, and this which is the state of affairs
in the larva of the Amphibia is the persistent condition in
the adult members of the lowest vertebrate class, the Pisces.
Now in the development of man there are at first six aortic
arches arranged just as in fishes. By a series of changes we
have at last only the one on the left-hand side. But as surely
as we reason that the arrangement of the aortic arches in the
adult Amphibian is the result of evolution from the fish-like
tadpole form, so we may reason that the present arrangement
of the one aortic arch in man is the result of development
from pre-existing conditions identical with those now persis-
tent in fish. If this be not the truth are we not entitled to

82 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

cry out to the holders of the antique belief, " To what pur-
pose is this waste ?" Why are there to begin with six pairs
of arches when only one is ultimately to remain ?

The helpless condition of the human embryo at birth, and
its remarkable difference from the adult, are exactly paralleled
by the condition of the anthropoid apes. The orang-outang,
e.g., does not attain its adult state until between the age of
ten and fifteen, an age strictly comparable with that at which
the human being in tropical latitudes ceases to be a child.

Chapter IV.— MIND AND MORALS.

We have considered some of the points in the anatomy and
general physiology of man on which, with their innumerable
fellows, are based the conclusion of the evolutionist. For
this last chapter on the Origin of Man is reserved the con-
sideration of one special branch of animal physiology — that
which is usually known as mental philosophy.

At the beginning let me once more enter my protest against
our artificial divisions. Physiology is the study of the func-
tions of the body, and, therefore, to my mind, includes the
study of that function of the nervous system that many call
" mind/' Morals again are but a division of the study of
mind. The moral nature of an animal is that part of its
mental functions that is not self-regarding, but has to do
witL other sentient beings. Since then, mind is but one of the
functions of the body, and the moral nature is but a branch
of mind, to separate the study of these from physiology gene-
rally is to make a distinction without a difference. The
truth is that we are not yet free from the superstition that
man is threefold, like a kind of miniature Trinity. Man's
physical, mental and moral nature, man's body, mind and
soul, have been so long regarded as really distinct states of
phenomena that in a popular work it is convenient to follow
the old divisions.

As, therefore, so much stress is laid on this branch of
inquiry, having entered the necessary protest, I may now pass
to the consideration of the evidence as to the origin of man
that would be placed under the heading that is the title of
this chapter.

Mind is a function of the nervous system. It is usual to

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 33

divide mind into three parts ; a division as unreal, but as
convenient as most of our methods of classification. Feeling,
intellect, volition are the three customary branches.

Feeling includes the various forms of sensation associated
with the ordinary sense-organs of touch, taste, smell, hearing,
sight; includes also a number of what are called organic
sensations that are not necessarily associated with aye of the
sense-organs, such as those of hunger, thirst, nausea ; in-
cludes all the emotions, such as pride, anger, love, hope.

Intellect is the outcome of feeling. None of the intel-
lectual functions is possible without as predecessor certain
sensations. An old-fashioned classification of the intellectual
functions may even to-day be used without much detriment.
Judgment, abstraction, memory, reason, imagination, accord-
ing to this system, are the branches of intellect. More philo-
sophical, but less easy of comprehension, is the three-fold
division of intellect into (1) perception of similarity, when a
given phenomenon is recognised as of the same nature as
some previously observed phenomenon ; (2) perception el
difference, when a given phenomenon is recognised as of a
nature other than that of some previously observed pheno-
menon; (3) memory.

Volition or will is again the outcome of sensation, and at
least that branch of intellect which we name as memory.

Nor can we with profit enter upon the discussion before us
without noticing three kinds of movement that take place in
the human body, inasmuch as they have a distinct relation
to the mental functions. Movements are either reflex, auto-
matic or voluntary. A reflex movement is one not attended
by consciousness or volition. An instance of this kind of
action is the peristaltic movement of the intestine that is
going on within every living person, and is altogether without
the range of that person's consciousness or will. An auto-
matic movement — or better, a sensori-motor movement — is
not attended by will, but is attended by sensation. The con-
traction of the circular fibres of the iris, or colored part of
the eye, when a light that falls on the eyes is too strong, is an
example. A voluntary act is one attended both by conscious-
ness and will. The majority of the acts best known to the
ordinary person, such as the writing or the reading of these
words, are of this order.

Of course these three branches of action graduate into ea/b

D

34 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

other, as indeed the three divisions of mind mentioned above
graduate into each other. Anyone who will observe with
care the stages of the swallowing of a morsel of food will see
a case of this gradation. The first stage, in which the food
is passed to the back of the mouth, is a voluntary stage.
The third, in which the food is carried from the top of the
gullet into the stomach, is a reflex-action stage. But between
these two is a brief, but clearly-marked, stage, of which we
are conscious but over which we have no control. It is a
stage of automatic, conscious, but involuntary action.

So much for preliminaries. As we turn to the considera-
)ion of details, the first thing that meets us is what I am
obliged to call the unnecessary despair of Charles Darwin.
Take this phrase from his "Descent of Man," p. 66: "In
what manner the mental powers were first developed in the
lowest organisms is as hopeless an inquiry as how life itself
first originated. These are problems for the distant future
if they are ever to be solved by man."

The inquiry is far from hopeless, I venture to think. The
problems of the origin of life and of the origin of mind seem
to-day as likely to be solved as the problem of the origin of
man seemed to be, say at the beginning of this century.

Leslie Stephen speaks for the younger school, whose more
hopeful utterances are the result of the teaching of Darwin,
himself so hopeless on this point. He, speaking of the dis-
tinction that our ignorance has drawn between the mental
powers of man and of the lower animals, writes thus : " The
distinctions, indeed, which have been drawn seem to us to
rest upon no better foundation than a great many other meta-
physical distinctions — that is, the assumption that because
you can give two things different names— they must therefore
have different natures. It is difficult to understand how any-
body who has ever kept a dog or seen an elephant can have
any doubts as to the animal's power of performing the essential
processes of reasoning."

Haeckel, as usual, is more outspoken than anyone else.
He puts it distinctly, that the human mind differs only in
degree, and not in kind, from the mind of other animals, and
that in many individuals of the highest races of man the
mental capacity is inferior to that of certain individuals of
lower races.

In^comparing the minds and morals of man with the

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 85

minds and morals of the lower animals two methods present
themselves, by the use of one or the other, or by the use of
both of which we can establish the great generalisation that
there is no function of the human mind that is not met
with in the lower animals. Either the particular function is
not met with in certain beings that are, by common consent,
men, or it is met with in other beings that are, by common
consent, not men. No boldness is necessary to challenge any
one to name a single mental function that is special to the
human race. All that is necessary is a slight knowledge of
the subject.

In this part of our study, more than in any other, is it
necessary to guard against the common blunder of thinking
only of the highest men. The comparison must be made
between the lowest men and the most intelligent of the lower
animals ; we must bear in mind the numberless gradations
between the mental and moral nature of a Darwin and of a
criminal ; we must bear in mind the similar series of grada-
tions met with in the minds and morals of animals other than
man; we must not forget either our savage individuals or
our savage races, or the ape-men (microcephali) or the stages
through which the foetus and the child pass as man's mental
nature evolves. And here also the law of the relation between
ontogeny and phylogeny comes out. If the development of
the individual (ontogeny) is an epitome of the development
of the race (phylogeny), the study of the relatively rapid
development of the child-mind reveals to us the line along
which the far more slow development of the race-mind has
taken place.

Every function of the human mind is met with in the
minds of the lower animals. The basis of all mental functions
is feeling. The fundamental perceptions here are of pleasure
and pain. We may safely assume that no one will deny to
animals very far down in the scale the power of perceiving
pleasure and pain. Terror, an extreme form of emotional
pain, has the same effects on the lower animals as on man.
The contraction of some muscles, the relaxation of others, the
erection of the hair, the bursting out of perspiration, the
change in the character of the secretions, all are identical in
man and in other Mammalia.

In the Eoyal Academy, a few years back, there was a
remarkable picture, greatly noticed by the critics. Th4

3fi THE OEIGIN OF MAN.

subject a mounted knight about to enter a glen that is clearly
enchanted. His horse and his hounds have caught the in-
fection of the supernatural. Their faces, their bodies, their
limbs, are all stricken with terror. Nothing in the picture
was finer, nothing in it so fine, as the suggestion that the
poses and the muscular contortions of the lower animals
were but the development of the arrested tendency of the
rider and master to show his terror. Yet in the picture of
every living being in the painting there was further the
suggestion that one word from the man, and horse and
hounds alike would be themselves again, and for terror,
courage would be to the fore. " Bad temper "is as character-
istic of certain individuals among the lower animals as of
certain human individuals, and this ill condition of mind,
with its attendant train of ill deeds, is, as in us, generally
iue to ill-treatment. The baboon that showed its temper by
throwing mud on the clothes of an officer had been insulted
by its ^victim first, and showed a thoughtful appreciation
of all the circumstances when it chose as the day of its mud
attack, a Sunday, and the hour, the time when fashionable
crowds were by,

Deceitfulness is a mental phsenomenon, not by any means
confined to man. We may place on one side the cases in which
the beetles, crabs, snakes, turkeys, opposums, elephants,
foxes, polecats, jackals, rats, figure death. Whether this
figuring is voluntary, or the result of a cataplectic state is
still a moot point. But in class after class, even of animals
not near to man in organisation or in mind-powers, deliberate
and purposeful deception is practised, involving a high
condition of mental evolution. The trap-door spider of New
Zealand plans out and makes nests of the most deceptive
nature. One trap-door spider, e.g., made its nest in a piece
of ground in which holes had been made by rain drops, and
in such a fashion that the nest was not distinguishable from
one of the rain-drop holes. In this member of the class
Arachnida of the sub-kingdom Annulosa that highest form
of art, ars celare artem, is to be seen, for very often the
arrangement that it makes of earth or vegetable matter is
N apparently careless."

the # sticklebat among fishes diverts the attention of
dangerous foes by pretending to pursue an imaginary prey,
%ni thus lures its foe from the neighborhood of the nest

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 37

of the sticklebat. Many small birds in England, as the
chaffinch, and larger ones in England, or other countries, as oui
own partridge, the great rock partridge of Tibet, the ruffled
grouse of North America will figure lameness in order ta
draw attention away from their young, or from their nests.
The fox is proverbial for ite powers of deception. In pursuit
of ducks a fox will immerse himself in water all but his head,
which he conceals in a bough of a tree. Thus ho swims
towards his prey.

Less dubious attributes of mind are equally evident in our
study of the animal kingdom. Excitement, boredom, wonder
And curiosity are illustrations. Nor do such qualities as emu-
lation, magnanimity, require much comment. No one who
has ever seen the cruel and brutal sport of coursing, no ono
who has watched horses racing, can for a moment doubt.
Eager as the jockeys are, in the rare event of all being fair
and above board, to get the better of the start and of the
finish, the horses they ride are no less eager. Anyone who
has ever held a bone just out of the reach of a dog will vouch
for it that the emotion of hope is present in the minds of the
lower animals, whilst the same quadruped furnishes, in the
behavior of large dogs to annoying little curs, the stock
example of magnanimity in the animals below man.

The faculty of imitation, on which depends so much of the
growth mentally of the individual, is the possession of
animals lower than man, and indeed we may say that most
of the actions usually spoken of as instinctive are to a large
•extent learned of their parents by the young animals. Hawks,
t.g., are known to teach their offspring how to attack other
birds, first by using dead, and then by using living specimens
for the purposes of instruction. Occasionally this imitative
faculty leads to the performance of acts not habitual to the
animal. Thus dogs that have been brought up by cats will
wash their faces with their paws — a most undoglike habit.
A good example not only of the possession of this power at
its best amongst non-human animals, but of that variation in
its nature of such importance to the theory of Natural
Selection is shown by the monkeys that men train to act.
Charles Darwin, in his " Descent of Man," tells the tale of the
monkey trainer who was in the habit of purchasing monkeys
from the authorities of the Zoological Gardens in London.
The usual price he gave was five pounds for each specimen.

38 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

But if this man were allowed to take a monkey away with him
for a few days " on approval " he was willing to give twice as
much. Questioned as to the reason, he replied that in a very
short time he could tell if a monkey was likely or not likely
to be of use to him. A monkey that was not attentive and
persevering was of little value. If it was easily disturbed and
its attention distracted by any slight motion or sound, as of a
fly on the wall, or a noise without, the pupil was not likely to
be a profitable one.

To give proofs of the possession of the faculty of memory
in the lower animals would be absurd. But how far superior
this faculty is in some of these inferiors of man to the memory
possessed by man himself in certain cases, may be recalled to
mind. The old Greek poets in their unconscious way knew
this. On the return of Ulysses, the much- wandering, to Ithaca,
the men that were once his friends do not recognise him.
As he stands in his rags at the door, the suitors of Penelope
within make jest and butt of him, not knowing that the only
man that could draw the great bow hanging up so long dis-
used is with them again. But after the old nurse has come
out and known him for Ulysses and has been hushed into
silence by his warning figure on his shut lips, the dog Argus,
old and blind, recognises his master, and falls dead of joy.

Charles Darwin tells a sufficiently characteristic tale of his
dog. It is a type of any number of the like stories that could
be told by anyone who has kept dogs. The dog was a morose,
uncompanionable animal, who would only take for companion
his master. The master was away from home five years and
two months. On his return a familiar word spoken in
familiar voice to the dog was answered by no demonstration
of affection or even of recognition. The animal simply rose
and went out for a walk, as if it had gone through the same
routine every day for five years past.

Much further down in the animal kingdom we find very
distinct evidences of memory. The experiments of Sir John
Lubbock prove conclusively that memory exists at least as
low down in the animal scale as the class Insecta. The ants
that the z®ologist, botanist, politician, banker has made his
special study certainly have memories that extend over a
period of four months.

Turning to the man side of memory, in lower types of the
Vuman race, we find that among the individuals who are of

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 39

a mental organisation inferior to that of the average of thei
race, and among the races who are of a mental organisatio
inferior to the average of the genus Homo, memory is ver
deficient. Of this fact, in regard to individuals, everyone cai
furnish examples from his own experience, either taken from
those diseased congenitally, i.e., as the result of heredity,
or from those suffering from acute or chronic nervous
disorders. As to the weakness of memory in races,
the testimony of travellers is again our help. In many of
the savage peoples this mental function is not so well
developed as in the horse or the dog.

The cases of the microcephali belong to the former,
rather than to the latter category. In none of them was
memory well developed. In the cases that had the greatest
notoriety in this country, those of the Aztecs, the boy Maximo
and the girl Bartola, the proofs of deficiency of memory are
familiar. These ape-human beings would remember anyone
who came to them two days running, or even with the lapse of
only one day between the two successive visits. But if two or
more days were allowed to intervene, all remembrance of the
face and form that had been seen was lost.

Nowadays there is much talk about altruism. This
philosophy teaches the difficult lesson that the standard of a
man's acts, words and thoughts should be the welfare of
others rather than of himself, the good of the world not
that of any particular individual. The sacrifice of self, and
the working for others that are implied in altruism are supposed
to be men's prerogative alone. The lower animals are not
regarded as possessing the social virtues by the ordinary
people. How unjust all this is, the observer of the lower
animals knows well. Instances of the possession of the
mental, or if you will, the moral faculties implied in the
word " altruism " are frequent, not only in individuals but in
species and in orders of the lower animals, and not alone in
those highest in the scale.

The virtue of mutual love is not only human. In many of
the non-human animals it is shown far more powerfully than
in man himself. Turning to the converse side of the picture,
among the Bosjesmans and Australian blacks, the father
is as likely as not to murder his child as soon as it is born.
Even the mother treats her child no better than a cow treats
her calf, leaving it to shift for itself at a very early age. * Od

40 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

the other hand, the love and respect of children to their
parents is almost, or quite, unknown in savage races.

The naturalist, Wood, writing of the Bosjesmans of South
Africa, and of the aborigines of Australia, says, " I very much
doubt whether they have ever possesed the least idea that any
duty is owing to a parent, from a child. It is said to be the
glory of a North American Indian boy at as early an age as
possible to be able to despise his mother acd defy his father.'*

The love and kindness of parents towards their young is
shown among the anthropoid apes in very human fashion.
Thus the Cebus Azarse of Paraguay was observed by Brehm
not only to watch over its infant when asleep, but to drive
away flies from the face of the sleeping -child. The Hylobates,
or gibbon, washes the face of its offspring. So close is the
attachment between parents and young that in many cases
the death of the latter was followed by that of the former.
The elders could not survive the loss of their little ones.

Often, as with the children of the human race, orphans are
adopted by those animals that are without offspring of their
own. Generally the adopted young is of the same species as
the benevolent adopter. But this is not always the case.
Kittens have ere now been the foster children of anthropoid,
or even of cynomorphic apes, kvojv, kvvos (kuon, kunos) =
a dog. popcf>r] (morphe) = form. A baboon, one of the
dog-like apes, adopted a kitten. The little orphan one day
happened to scratch the foster mother, whereupon the baboon
promptly bit off the claws of the kitten. In connexion with
this anecdote, an interesting instance of the nature of anti-
Darwinian criticism, and of the care of Darwin himself may
be given. The Quarterly Review of July, 1871, cast doubt on
the truth of the story of the kitten and baboon, inasmuch
as it considered the biting off a kitten's claws by a Primate
would be impossible. Patent, indefatigable, experimenting
Darwin proceeds to try the experiment himself. In his simple
way he narrates how he made the ' attempt to bite off the
claws of a young kitten with perfect success.

Before turning to some cases that are supposed to be of
special difficulty to the evolutionist, I take two other mental
functions that are by common consent among the highest
intellectual processes — viz., reason and imagination. Eeason
and instinct — what nonsense has been written and talked in
thy names 1 Eeason was human, instinct was not. All the

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. '

mental processes of man were due to reason ; all those o\
other animals to instinct. Even at the present time there are
many who still cling to this entirely untenable position, and
many who consider that reason is very rare in the animals
other than man, that it is not met with except in. the higher
classes. The whole question of instinct is very complex and
interesting. The reader who is anxious to understand the
exact position of modern thought on it is referred to the
eighth chapter of Darwin's " Origin of Species," to G. J.
Romanes' " Animal Intelligence," and especially his " Mental
Evolution in Animals," and to Dr. W. L. Lindsay's " Mind in
the Lower Animals." As I am here concerned with showing
that reason exists in the lower animals rather than with
considering the nature of instinct, I quote only one or two
striking facts that, with others, establish that conclusion.
These should be taken side by side with the deficiency or
want of reasoning power in certain races and in certain in-
dividuals.

We may go very low down into the classes of the inverte-
brate sub-kingdoms without losing sight of reason. The
Arachnida, Insecta, Crustacea, and generally the ringed
classes are well to do in respect to their mental faculty. The
spider that I saw not so long ago at Portsmouth who had
built his weo on the under side of a plank that reached from
shore to a ship, and finding that the wind swayed the web to
and fro, had steadied the web by means of a small pebble
slung from the end of a little rope of threads, had certainly
reasoned on unusual circumstances, and arrived at a very
sensible conclusion.

Darwin's anecdote showing the reasoning powers of a crab
is worth remembering. A naturalist observes a crab pass into
his hole. Having nothing to do, the proverbial work is
found for the man, and small stones are thrown at the mouth
of the hole of the crustacean. Two or three miss the actual
mark, and lodge on the edge of the hole. At last one falls in
and disturbs the crab. This is with much labor removed and
carried away to a distance from his dwelling-place. But
returning from this excursion the crab sees the other stones
lying near the mouth of his hole, and threatening to fall in.
He pauses, he reflects, he reasons, and carries off all the
other pebbles as he had carried off the first.

If we study the Vertebrata. the evidence of reasoning en

42 THE OEIGIN OF MAN.

the part of animals becomes very much more strong. A few
cases less familiar than the ones generally given may be
quoted. My friend Captain Charles Bingham, who does not
by any means hold the elephant in the same high estimation
as the ordinary natural history books, tells in his paper on
" Elephants/ ' in the November number of the magazine
Progress for the year 1883, of an elephant working under the
direction of a Karen driver in a tributary to the Thoungyeen
river. The task was the clearing of a block of logs that were
all jammed together in a swollen stream. " For a full half-
hour did the man, who was a Karen, work the elephant back-
wards and forwards, across and across the stream, now pushing
at one log and now at another, but all in vain. The block
would not clear away. During the whole time I observed
that the elephant worked most unwillingly, evidently himself
wanting to push at logs other than those pointed out to him
by his driver. After watching for awhile his fruitless en-
deavors to disentangle the mass of logs, I asked the owner of
the elephant, also a Karen, who stood by me on the bank,
whether the elephant was accustomed to this sort of work.
' Oh, yes/ he said, 'he has worked timber for many years/
1 Tell the driver/ I said, ' to let the elephant push at what-
ever logs he likes/ The man smiled, as if doubting whether
any good would come of that, but gave the required directions
in Karen to the elephant driver, who immediately left off
guiding or directing the beast. For a few minutes the
elephant stood cogitating, filling his trunk with water, and
squirting it over his back and sides. But on being spoken to
gently by his driver, he left off this recreation, and went off
himself to a particular log sticking up at an angle from the
mass of logs, half below, and half above the water. He
pressed his tusks to it, and pushed with all his might. The
log moved, slid, was loosened, and the whole block of en-
tangled logs floated down the stream/'

In this case the elephant had reasoned out, or exercised a
knowledge gained from long experience, and applied it with
better effect than the human animal, his Karen driver.

Another interesting proof of the reasoning of an elephant
going to the length of solving a simple problem in physics, is
furnished by the fact that an elephant, wishing to bring an
object within reach, blew through its trunk a blast of air that
was reflected from the wall, and impinging on the desired

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 43

object, accomplished the animal's purpose. The result was
obtained as a consequence of the law of reflexion so well
known to man, that the angles of incidence and reflexion are
equal. But it was hardly to be expected that an elephant
should be acquainted with this generalisation.

A bear has been known to put into effect reasoning some-
thing similar to the Proboscidian in the story just given. In
order to obtain a piece of wood floating on water, and out
of reach, this animal set up a small current with its paw that
slowly swept the desired object within range.

The cases of dogs exercising reasoning powers are endless.
One that is of interest, as the reasoning brings about concerted
action, is the instance of the Eskimo dogs, who in the polar
regions divide the pack in which they are running when the
ice becomes thin, and instead of continuing in a compact mass,
by diluting, as it were, the band passes safely over the thin
ice.

The most striking proofs of the possession of reasoning
powers are furnished, as might be expected, by the animals
that are in other respects the closest to man, i.e, by the
anthropoid apes. For these proofs in extenso the reader must
turn to Brehm's "Die Saugethiere von Paraguay' ' and to
Bengger's books on South Africa. These writers give an
immense number of facts, all of such an order as the three
that follow.

Monkeys or apes to whom eggs had been given, by smash-
ing the egg when first presented to them, and deluging their
hands with the yolk, learnt at once a lesson. On the next
occasion they with great care chipped off one end of the shell
and sucked the egg, and this was done without any human
instruction.

Tools that were given to them, handled somewhat clumsily
at first, and causing injury, were ever after taken up, and
handled with the utmost care, and with perfect safety.

Finally, I quote from Dr. Lauder Lindsay's " Mind in the
Lower Animals," a passage bearing upon the general mental
powers of the chimpanzee, whilst the concluding part has
special reference to this animal's reasoning powers : " The
chimpanzee shows im various ways a human like or civilised
behavior. ** For instance, he sometimes takes his food like a
man, making use of both men's foods and beverages, as man
uses them. He helps himself to wine, drinks hot tea. "

44 THE 0K1O1N 0*1 MAN.

sugaring it, pouring it into a saucer, and waiting till it cools.
He has been trained also to the domestic service of man.
as he has been to man's companionship. He has been taught
to attend a baker's oven fire on board ship, to act as galley
fireman, regulating the temperature.' '

Imagination is a mind-faculty arrogantly claimed by man
as his alone, and unjustly denied to his fellows. One might
ask fairly how much imaginative power is in the possession of
a microcephalous idiot or even of one of our slum inhabitants,
or of an average middle-class business-man. But we may
certainly assume that animals have imagination. The un-
necessary fear that certain animals show in certain cir-
cumstances, as when a nervous horse shies at quite harmless
objects, and even at shadows, is evidence of imagination on
the part of these animals. The baying of dogs, not at the
moon, as we generally think, but at a point near the horizon,
is another instance of an act that appears to be due to
imagination. The moonlight and the shadows have evidently
an effect on the animals that can only be understood by
supposing that their fancy is set in play. Moreover, dogs
dream. We know that they will dream of the events of the
day, and how can an animal dream without imagination ?

There are however some points that have to do with
mind functions and with morals also, on which doubt is
felt, and even by those who are in the main evolutionists.

1. The power of progressive improvements used to be sup-
posed to be an exclusively human power.

The Australian aborigines are incapable of mental cultiva-
tion, and the missionaries, even with the promise of rum in
this world and heaven in the next, find that all attempts to
civilise them are failures. The negro of East Africa, in con-
tact with civilised peoples for centuries, has made no pro*
gress. Sir Samuel Baker speaks of the hopelessness of
improving the mental state of such " abject animals " as the
Bari of tropical Africa. The evidence of Livingstone is to
the effect that the Johanna men are an unimprovable race.
Monteiro, after quoting and agreemg with a number of autho-
rities on the impossibility of bettering the mental condition of
the negro, says : " I can see no hope of the negro ever attain-
ing to any considerable degree of civilisation, owing to his
incapacity for spontaneously developing to a higher or more
perfect condition."

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. ' 4h

The trappers of America find that the animals they seek
grow more and more wary, and that the traps by which they
are caught, and the persons by whom they are slain at first,
are after a time of no avail. Birds in wild regions of the
earth into which the telegraph is introduced, at first fly
against the wires, and " dash themselves dead." But ere
long they learn, and the race as well as the individual learns,
the lesson to avoid these sources of danger. The whole
history of the dog species contradicts the insolent dictum of
man. The establishment of regular training schools for the
tuition of the home-flying pigeons in Belgium and in Ger-
many, at Metz, Strasburg, Ooblentz, Mayence, Berlin, is
further evidence of the fact of the improvability of the lower
animals.

2. The use of tools. — The ancient Caribs have no tools, nor
even weapons. The Mincopies of the Andaman Islands in the
Bay of Bengal, and the Dokos of Abyssinia are without tools
or weapons. The aborigines of Tasmania and of Australia
had no tools, and their only weapon was the boomerang.
The lower animals use the tools made by man, and in not a
few cases make and use implements as deserving of the name
of tool as are some of the first efforts of man in this
direction.

Non-human animals will draw carriages or guns, pile
timber, fit drain-pipes, turn kitchen spits, work bellows.
Thus a chimpanzee, already noticed in these pages, would
lock and unlock a door or drawer, thread a needle, use knife,
fork, spoon and cup, and even a napkin as decorously as a
human being. It is important to notice that in this par-
ticular case, the usage of civilised implements was not com-
pulsory. The animal actually preferred employing them to
eating and drinking in the usual ape fashion. Animals
lower than man, even in the wild state, will break off branches
of trees from which they may or may not remove the leaves
and use them as walking-sticks, fans, clothes. An Onapoor
monkey learnt to brush its own clothes and shoes.

The history of the human race itself is a history of gradual
evolution in tool-making and using. If man is the special
creation for which so many contend, we should expect to find
that from the outset his tools were of some degree of com-
plexity. But, as a matter of fact, we find the most beautiful
irradation from the wonderful and intricate machinery used by

46 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

men to-day down to stocks and stones. The iron age 8Uv~
oeeded that of bronze, as the bronze succeeded that of stone.
And the age of the stone implements shows evolution within
itself, so that the geologist and anthropologist mark oh0 the neo-
lithic from the palaeolithic, veos (neos) = ; 7raA<uos (palaios)
= ancient; \l6os (lithos) = stone. The neolithic stone
implements are of a better fashion than the palaeolithic. The
simplest forms of the palaeolithic tools are the merest modifica-
tion of natural objects, requiring not a whit more intelligence
and skill than that shown by numbers of animals that are
regarded as man's inferiors.

3. The use ofjire.— Of human beings that are without the
use of fire we mention the dwellers in the Marianne, Ladrone,
or Thieves Islands of the South Seas, the Dokos of Abyssinia,
the Mincopies, and the dwellers in Teneriffe. The Australian
aborigines never used warm water, and if the fire-stick they
used went out they had to go to another tribe for a light.
The Tasmanians also are unable to relight their fire-sticks if
they once go out.

We have seen already that the anthropoid ape, at least, has
the capacity for using fire and for understanding the niceties
of furnaces and ovens. Thus De Grandpre, quoted by
Blichner, tells us of a chimpanzee that heated the oven, let
no coals fall, and summoned the baker when the temperature
was as high as it ought to be.

4. Dress. — Some of the brute-men peoples never use clothes.
The Tasmanian and Australian aborigines, the cave-dwellers,
whom Dr. Mitchell, of Edinburgh, studied in Wick Bay,
Caithness, and described in the Daily Review, Edinburgh,
February 10, 1877 ; the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands
wear no clothing, and the Egyptian fellahs, working for the
iniquitous bond-holders, might, if they knew Shakspere and
the Bible, quote Lancelot Gobbo and Genesis, "with a diffe-
rence." "The old text is very well parted between our
masters and us ; we are naked and they are not ashamed."
A baboon has been known to use a straw mat as covering
for the head. Another animal of the same kind was wont to
wrap himself in a sheepskin like a Kaffir. According to the
Graphic of March 6, 1873, a female orang who lived at the
jardin des Plantes, in Paris, used to weara^surtout, which she

<ould prudishly draw down over her feet when strangerf
■* -*ae near. To the student, whose delight is to see our

THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 47

human habits making their first appearance low down in the
animal kingdom, the fact will be of interest that the larva of
a species of fly will dress itself with the cast-off skins of plant
lice and, if these fail, with pieces of silk or of paper.

.5. Houses. — Of human beings who have no buildings in
which they dwell, the following may be taken. The Caribs
use only natural shelter afforded by rocks, caves and trees.
The bushmen of South Africa have neither huts nor sheds.
They live in holes dug by hand in the ground. The Dokos
have no dwellings ; the Veddas of Ceylon and the jungle
dwarfs of the Western Ghats, in certain districts of India,
are in the same condition. The Australians make a daily
dwelling of boughs, and abandon it the next day. The
Tasmanians have not even this temporary dwelling-place.
The orang in the Eastern world and the chimpanzee in
Africa build platforms on which they sleep. The gorilla
builds huts. The probability that the immediate ancestor of
man was a tree-haunting animal has already been mentioned.
The fact that many of the lower human races live in or on
trees is in keeping with this. The ape-men of India and the
Veddas of Ceylon live in hollow trees. The Bukones roost
in trees on platforms made of sticks, exactly after the manner
of the orang and the chimpanzee.

6. Property. — Even in comparatively lowly organised
animals the notion of property and the recognition of
another's property is to be seen. The monkey mentioned by
Darwin, who having used a stone for breaking open his nuts
secreted it in a corner of his cage, and allowed no other
monkey to use it, and the dog with his bone, or a cat with
her own basket, are cases in animals recognised as highly
intelligent. But among the Insecta we find an idea of
property in common. The best known instance is that of
the ants who keep aphides or plant-lice as cows. Beetles
are kept as domestic animals by ants for the sake of the
sugar they yield, and in some ant-nests are found small blind
beetles and wood-lice that live with the wiser or stronger ants
as cats and dogs with men.

7. Language. — The advocates of the sad idea of man's
special creation, speak of the language of man as articulate
and that of other animals as inarticulate. I cannot find any
satisfactory meaning for this worrl " articulate," except
" intelligible to man." an(T this is a purely artificial dis-

48 THE ORIGIN OF MAN.

tinction. But besides making this distinction without a
difference, the special creationists fail to notice the following
facts. First, man is born without the power of speech.
Second, in many cases he never acquires that power. Third,,
several animals are known to use even that which is crudely
labelled articulate language and to use it with intention, and
with a clear sense of the meaning of the words used and of
their bearing on events of people. Fourth, in many other
animals who would not be granted in human phraseology the
power of articulate speech, there are none the less the germs
of that power. There have been dumb people in all ages
and nations. In the cases of the microcephali, or ape-men,
articulate language is wanting almost completely. Of the
forty-two examples of this reversion to the ancestral type that
are recorded in Vogt's " Memoires des Microcophales," not one
was ever known to string together words in such a way as to
make a definite sentence. Not more than four out of the
forty-two were ever known to speak even single words.

The dog has at least five distinct notes in his voice. The
Cebus Azarae, on whom so many of the observations of
Brehm were made, has six notes. The fowl is said to have
twelve. The Hylobates, or Gibbon, to whom reference has
already been made in other connexions, has a whole octave of
notes within the compass of his voice.

8. The God-idea. — The best disproof of this, the last of the
human prerogatives, is given in Sir John Lubbocks "Pre-
historic Times " (ed. 1872). Not only have we in these
examples evidence that whole tribes have no belief in, no
idea of a god, but in many cases there is no such thing as
anything that could by any stretch of courteous imagination
be called a religion. The conclusion to which Lubbock
comes is that of all who have really studied the subject :
" There does not appear to be any sufficient reason for
supposing that these miserable beings are at all inferior to>
the ancestors from whom they are descended."

MONKEYS, APES, MEN

By EDWARD AVELING, I>.8c.

♦

Chapter I.— INTRODUCTION and CLASSIFICATION.

This chapter, and its three successors, form the continuation
of two other series: "The Darwinian Theory," and "The
Origin of Man," and they form at the same time the con-
clusion of a work I had planned. The design was to give
an account, at once popular and accurate (1) of the principal
generalisations bearing upon the theories of Darwin in
general and upon their application to the human race in parti-
cular ; (2) of the chief facts upon which the generalisations
are based.

In " The Darwinian Theory " the general conclusions upon
the origin of organic species were considered. In "The Origin of
Man " some of the evidence upon which is based the certainty
that the human race has evolved from some lower form
was given. The work which now lies^ before us is of
a more general nature. The design is to give a series of
facts as to the anatomical structure of man ^nd his allies
that bear upon the question of their origin and point to the
conclusion that their origin is common.

All the facts as yet observed and recorded lead, upon
reflection, to the conclusion that the man-like apes and man
have sprung from a form that was the parent of both ay a

2 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

and man. In a word, the details now to be given will cor-
roborate that which was stated in " The Origin of Man "
(p. 3) : " That in every point of structure .... there is a
greater difference between man and man than between man
and ape, i.e., the interval between the highest man and the
lowest man in regard to any anatomical .... point is
greater than it is between the lowest man and the highest
ape." Nor, in studying these details, must we lose sight of
the fact also recorded on p. 3, that we have to do not with
the highest only, but with the lowliest also of men.

Upon one point let me again utter a word of warning. It
is against the dangerous phrase " connecting links." There
is danger in using this phrase in relation to man and his
allies. Low types of the human race, high types of the
Simian, monsters like the ape-men, are not connecting links
between the genus Homo (Man) and the genera, Gorilla,
Troglodytes (Chimpanzee), Pithecus (Orang), Hylobates
(Gibbon). Homo is probably not a result of evolution from
any of the existing forms. Homo and these have probably
had a common ancestry and ancestor.

The plan of these chapters is as follows. In the rest of
this first chapter so much of zoological classification as is
necessary to the understanding of the facts to be noted will
be given. The facts themselves will then be ranged under
certain heads corresponding with those that enter into the
plan of work in my General Biology. The order pursued
here will not be exactly the same as that followed in the
more technical work, and generally in my biological teach-
ing. In the second chapter the erect posture, the hair
covering, the height, teeth, blood vessels, muscles and re-
productive organs will be considered. The third chapter will
be wholly devoted to the skeleton, and the fourth to the
brain,

A. — Classification.

The Kingdom Animalia is divided artificially into certain
groups known as Sub-kingdoms. Of these the only one with
which we are concerned at present is the highest, or the Verte-
brata. This group, commonly known as that of the back-
boned animals, is marked off from other sub-kingdoms by
characteristics that, as a rule, distinguish its members from

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 3

those of other and lower groups. It will be understood that
in giving these characteristics the zoologist is quite conscious
of the arbitrary way in which he proceeds, and is aware thai
in the lower Vertebrata, as in the higher members of the sub-
kingdoms grouped heterogeneously under the name In-
vertebrata, characters are found that demonstrate the im-
possibility of drawing impassable lines of demarcation and
therefore of rigid, hard and fast definition.

The characteristics of the sub-kingdom Vertebrata ore as
follows : — (1) The possession of a skeleton that runs along
the length of the body in the middle line. (2) The separation
of the body by this longitudinal, axial skeleton into a smaller
dorsal and a larger ventral region. Dorsum = back, venter =
belly. (3) The occupation of the smaller, dorsal region by
the central part of the nervous system, and the occupation of
the larger, ventral region by the digestive canal, the respira-
tory and circulatory apparatus and other organs. The upper
region of the vertebrate body is the neural (yevpov, neuron =
a nerve) ; the lower is the enteric (tvrepov, enteron ^= intes-
tine).- (4) Certain thickenings or arches, at the anterior and
lateral region of the embryonic body, with clefts between
them. These are the gill-arches and gill-clefts of fishes, and
are represented in man by the lower jaw and hyoid bone
["Origin of Man/' pp. 7, 8], (5) The possession of not
more than four limbs. (6) Jaws that are part of the walls
of the head, and teeth that are hardenings of the mucous
membrane of the digestive canal. (7) A complete blood-
system, with a heart that is provided with valves and a hepa-
tic portal system, i.e., a set of vessels carrying the venous or
used-up blood from the digestive canal, not at once to the
heart, after the fashion of venous blood generally, but round
by way of the liver. Hepar = liver, porta = gate. The
origin of the name " hepatic " is evident. The word "portal"
comes from a mistaken notion, natural enough before the
discovery of the lacteals or absorbents of the digestive canal
by Asellius in 1622 and of their function by Pequet in 1649
Until these vessels were recognised as the way and means by
which the fluid chyle — result of food digestion — was carried
from the digestive canal into the blood system, the belief was
held that the chyle went by way of the hepatic portal vein,
which thus acted as a gate for the entrance of digested food

4 MONtfBYS, APES, MEN.

into the blood. A passage from Bacon's " Essay of Empires **
(Essay xix.), written in 1625, runs thus: "For their mer-
chants, they are vena porta ; and if they flourish not, a king-
dom may have good limbs, but will have empty veins, and
nourish little."

The sub-kingdom Vertebrata is divided into groups that
lead us at length to Classes. Of these last, the highest is the
class Mammalia, commonly known as those that suckle their
young (mamma = breast), or yet more roughly as quadrupeds.
The chief marks of the Mammalia are as follows : — (1) Hair-
covering. (2) Heart with four cavities. (3) Some of the
blood-corpuscles red and without a nucleus or more solid
internal part. (4) The aorta or large vessel that carries the-
good, arterial blood from the heart to be distributed to the
body generally, makes a single arch towards the left side of
the body. In Eeptiles two aortic arches, one on each side,.
in Birds one aortic arch, towards the right side of the body,
occur. (5) Breathing by lungs. (6) Mammary glands.

The class Mammalia is again artificially broken up inta
Orders, fourteen in number. The highest of these is the order
Primates or Quadrumana. Primus = first or highest. Quatuor
= four ; manus = hand. This order is marked off from its
fellows among the Mammalia by characteristics, some of
which have to do with the skeleton, others with the repro-
ductive organs and processes. For our present purpose, it will
be enough to say that the Primates present the following
marks : — (1) One pair of clavicles or collar-bones ; not two, as
in Birds and the lowest Mammalia. (2) A placenta or vascular
organ connecting the mother and the child before birth. (3)
Incisor, canine and molar teeth present. (4) The placenta
deciduate (deciduus = falling off), i.e., coming away entirely
after birth. (5) The placenta discoidal, or applied only at
one definite region of the embryo, so as to be disk-like in
shape. (6) Mammae pectoral (pectus = breast) in position. (7)
Hallux (big toe) with a flat nail and capable of some movement.

So far, then, our monkeys, apes and men are all members
of the Kingdom Animalia, the sub-kingdom Vertebrata, the
class Mammalia, the order Primates. The further working
out ; of their classification will be better understood if the
table now given is first studied and then referred to ** tb«r
text is read.

■ ■-

PRIMATES.

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6 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

The order Primates is divided into three sub-orders. (1)
Lemuridae, thus named as it includes the Lemur of Madagascar.
This sub-order is identical with the Mammalian order of
Haeckel and Gegenbauer, known as Prosinriae (pro = before,
simia = ape) or half-apes. In my translation of Haeckel
("Pedigree of Man/' pp. 77, 86, etc.) the Prosinriae are often
mentioned as an order representing in its members the per-
sistent forms of the ancestors of all monkeys, apes and men.
That this last truth still holds to the full, although here for
convenience' sake the Lemur group is regarded as a sub-order,
shows at once the artificiality of all classification, the reality
of Evolution. (2) Simiadae (monkeys and apes), (3) Anthro-
pidae ; av6pu)7ros (anthropos) = man.

The suls -order Lemuridae or Prosimiae has two divisions.
(a) Oheiromyini, represented by the Cheiromys of Madagascar
woods, (b) Lemurini, represented by the Maki or true
Lemur.

The sub-order Simiadae has three divisions, (a) Arcto-
pithecini : ap/cros (arktos) = a bear ; ttlOtjkos (pithecos)
= an ape. This family is represented by the marmo-
set, more squirrel-like than bear-like. (b) Platyrrhini :
7r\arvs (platus) = broad ; pis, pivos (rhis, rhinos) = nose.
The technical name comes from the breadth of the
partition between the two nostrils. Unlike the Oatarrhines
and man, the members of this group have their nostrils
widely separated, and the nose in consequence wide and flat.
To ease the mind of the anxious reader, I may here state
that the asterisks in the table have no deeper significance
than this : they are affixed to such generic names as are only
illustrative, not exhaustive. For example, the families Arcto-
pithecini and Platyrrhini contain many more genera respec-
tively than the exemplar ones, Arctopithecus, Ateles and
Mycetes. Where the asterisk is not used the genera given
are illustrative and exhaustive. For example, the four names
given in lines 6-9 of the table exhaust the list of the man-
like apes, (e) Catarrhini ; #cara (kata) = (in composition) down*
wards. The technical name comes from the fact that, whilst
the partition between the two nostrils is narrow in all the
members of this group, the nose-openings look downwards
towards the ground, like those of man. In the Platyrrhini
the nose-openings look either outwar4* or upwards.

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 7

This third family, Catarrhini, of the second sub-order,
Simiadae, of the order Primates, has two tribes. (1) Cyno-
morpha : kvo>v, kwos (kuon, kunos) = a dog ; fiop<j>r) (morphe)
= form. Quadrupedal, dog-like apes, of the baboon type.
(2) Anthropomorpha, i.e., man-like or anthropoid apes ; «Sos
(eidos) = resemblance. Here, for the first time, all the genera
are given ; and here it is necessary. For now we are hard-by
man and we must have a clear conception of the names of his
nearest allies. They are the Gibbon, the Chimpanzee, the
Orang, the Gorilla. They are placed as near by as is possible
in ascending order. There is no doubt as to the position at
the bottom of the list of Hylobates, and little as to the position
of Gorilla at the top. The other two are, however, uncertain.
In some respects the Orang, in others the Chimpanzee is the
higher. It will be noted that the Gorilla is here separated a&
a distinct genus from the Chimpanzee. Some zoologists place
these two man-like apes in the same genus.

The importance of a clear understanding of these anthro-
pomorphic apes will be understood when the following quota-
tion from Darwin's " Descent of Man " is read : " There can
consequently hardly be a doubt that man is an offshoot from
the Old World Simian stem ; and that, under a genealogical
point of view, he must be classed with the Catarrhine divi-
sion " (edition 2, p. 153).

Finally, the sub-order Anthropidae contains, according to
the views at present held, only one genus, Homo. In classi*
fying the members of this genus, I follow the plan of Haeckel
(" Pedigree of Man," p. 86), to whose interesting essay the
reader is referred for details. Thus, the species of this very
heterogeneous genus are arranged in two groups. The Ulo-
trichi take their name from vXos (ulos) == wool and 6pi£y
TPLX0<> (thrix, trichos) = hair. The ha'r is crisp and woolly,
the skin dark in color, the skulls dolichocephalic (long-headed).
The Leiotrichi or Lissofcrichi take their name from Xetos (leios)
=flat, or \iacros (lissos) = smooth. The hair is smooth, the
skin paler of hue and the skulls generally brachy cephalic
(short-headed).

Under the former head, Ulotrichi, range four species,
whose nature and habitat will be easily gathered from the
table. Under the latter head, Leotrichi, range six species-
All the comment necessary in regard to them affects the last

8 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

three. In H. arcticus we see the extreme modification of
man under the extreme conditions of arctic environment,
H. americanus is held by Haeckel to be a variation from
H. mongolus, whilst H. mediterraneus, or the Caucasian, is
believed to hold a like relation to H. polynesius. The last of
the ten species is divided again into xanthochroic and melano-
chroic groups : £av6os (xanthos) = yellow ; \Poa (chroa) =
color of the skin ; fieXas, /jlcXolvos (melas, melanos) = black.
The former are more " inland bred " ; the latter haunt the
chores of the Mediterranean.

When * 3 reflect in what an exceedingly striking way
^bese various divisions of the group Homo differ, and what
distinct varieties are arranged even under each of these so-
called species, we are led to consider whether this regarding
Man as a single genus is accurate, even when the genus is
only looked upon as an artificial group. We cannot but think
that here the ancient myth has not been without its effect on
those who are most unconscious of the influence. Possibly
as work goes on and as the idea that the human race sprang
from one original pair of progenitors vanishes wholly, the
idea thai the initial variation whence Man arose from anthro-
poid occurred only at one time or place may also vanish, and
Homo be looked upon as not a single genus.

In giving the facts now to be given as to monkeys, apes
and men. for the most part the last-named will be considered
as a whole, and the fact given will be true of man generally.
But in some special cases measurements of different human
peoples help, and will be given. At present the area of
anthropometric observations is limited. But such results
as have been obtained lead us to believe that if that area were
*,o-extenslve with that of human beings, and if, within it,
ill details were thoroughly worked out, the conclusion to
which we are led would be yet more assured.

The acknowledgments I ought to make for the facts now
to b'3 noted would really cover the whole series of writers on
comparative anatomy during the last few years. Three
names, however, demand especial mention — Gegenbauer,
Huxley, Flower.

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 9

OH A P TEE II.

B. — General Facts.

Before directing attention to the special evidence afforded
"by the skeleton and by the brain, a number of general pieces
of evidence will be considered here. They are placed under
"the following heads. Posture, hair-covering, height, teeth,
blood-vessels, muscles, reproductive organs. The student is
-asked, in reading the succeeding pages, to make constant
reference to the table of the Primates on page 5.

1. Posture. — The erect posture of the human being was,
-Bud still is by the ignorant, instanced in evidence of man's
special creation. In the first place, a more thoughtful study
of man himself helps to dispel this idea. For the child,
whose life is always an epitome of the evolution of the race,
does not at first walk erect. It crawls, lower-animal fashion,
on all-fours. And again, in the microcephali, or ape-men,
we find reversion here as in all other points. The ape-
children do not learn to walk erect until some years after
•the usual human time. The ape-men and women often make
use of, and in some cases seem to prefer, a partially quadru-
pedal mode of progression.

Following out, however, the plan that is to be special to
i;hese chapters, let us look at the habitual and at the oc-
casional postures of the body in the order Primates. All the
Lemuridse are quadrupedal all through their lives. They
never walk erect. In the Simiadse, considered as a sub-order,
-the longitudinal axis of the body is in the lower forms
horizontal. In those a little higher in the scale it assumes an
inclined direction, the angle it makes with the ground
increasing gradually, until in the highest forms the angle
.approaches habitually to 90Q, and is often quite 90°, i.e., the
axis approaches and, on occasion, actually attains a vertical
position.

This general statement as to the Simiadae may be sup-
plemented by a note or two on individual monkeys and apes
ihat belong to this groap. The marmoset is habitually
quadrupedal. The platyrrhine monkeys also are habitually
on all-fours, but one of them at least, the Spider Monkey,
occasionally rises to an erect posture. The Cynomorpha, or
baboon division, are, as all readers of travels know, very

10 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

frequently on their hind-legs, and the Anthropomorpha are-
semi-erect when they pass from place to place. Nor must
we forget that the favorite resting-pose of some of the apes,,
notably the Chimpanzee, leaning forward and resting on the
knuckles of the hand, is the position assumed by the ape-men
when in repose. It is the position represented in the photo-
graph of Marguerite Maehler, ape-woman, of Eieneck in
Germany. And if the reader will try the experiment, as I
have just tried it, of crouching to the ground and throwing
the weight of the body to some extent on to the hand placed
on the ground in front, I expect he will find as I did, that the
fingers are unconsciously flexed, and he rests on the knuckles
rather than on the tips of the fingers. Of course the experi-
ment is best tried with some one ignorant of its purpose.

In this first inquiry^ notice the succession of adjective*
and adverbs. Always quadruped (Lemur), habitually (spider
monkey), generally (baboon), frequently (chimpanzee),
abnormally (man).

2. Hair Covering. — Upon this topic generally something-
was said on pages 4 and 5 of the " Origin of Man." In this-
connection we need only say a word or two on the transition
changes. The Lemurs have a covering that cannot be called
hair. It is fur rather than hair. This is true also of the-
marmoset and the platyrrhine, or New World monkeys. In
the Oynomorpha and Anthropomorpha fur is replaced by
hair, which in its turn begins to disappear, even in these
groups, and in man is, in anything like noticeable quantity,
restricted to particular regions of the body. Thus in the*
Oynomorpha we meet for the first time with those bare-
portions of the body known as callosities (callosus = with a
hard skin). It is true that by their prominent position and
by the brightness of their color these callosities present a
remarkable appearance, and actually play, by their attractive-
ness to the opposite sex, a part in sexual selection. But for
our present purpose their chief interest lies in the fact that
they are parts of the body from which the hair covering is-
vanishing. The general principle of hair-vanishing has set
in. The Gibbon, lowest of anthropoid apes, has this general
principle carried out in the same special way as in the*
Oynomorpha. The Gibbon has callosities. But in the rest
of the manlike Simiadse the principle affects other regions oi

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 11

the body. Thus in the Chimpanzee, Orang and Gorilla, the
hands, feet and face are bare. And in man the process of
hair- vanishing has extended more or less completely from the
hands to the arms, from the feet to the legs, from the face to
the neck, and from all these to the trunk of the animal.

3. Height — Pace by pace with the assumption of the erect
posture, advances the increase in the length or height of the
Primates. The Lemuridae, the marmoset, the spider-monkey, are
not longer than 3 feet. The Cynomorpha have a length, that is
very generally a height, of about 4 feet. In the lowest of
the anthropoids a reversion seems to occur. The Gibbon is
usually some 3 feet in height. But after this genus the
transition in height is interesting. The average stature of
the Orang is some 4 feet 6 inches ; of the Chimpanzee 5 feet ;
of the Gorilla from 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches ; of the higher
races of man from 5£ feet to 6 feet.

4. The Teeth. — Once again, for generals, the reference m
pp. 8 and 9 of "The Origin of Man." The particular facts
as to the teeth will now be given and will have to do, for the
most part, with their number. To understand them, it is
necessary to remind the student of the nature and the number
of teeth in the human skull.

Consider one jaw only — say the upper. Its fellow — say
the lower — is almost its identical counterpart. Starting from
the middle line just under the partition between the two
nostrils and working to one side — say the right — we find
(1) two chisel-like teeth, useful for cutting into the food, and
hence called incisors (incido = I cut into) ; (2) one sharp-
pointed tooth, very useless to civilised n%an, but of a type
much more frequent in purely flesh-eating animals called
canine (canis = a dog) ; (3) two more massive teeth (I am
always speaking of the adult jaw), whose free parts or crowns
have two eminences or cusps, and thus give the teeth the
name of bicuspids ; (4) three yet more massive teeth, each
with four or five cusps, the molars (molea = a mill) thai
crush the food as millstones crush grain. The two teeth on
each side mentioned under (3) are known by another name
than that of bicuspids. As they are in front of the molars,
and as they, like these, crush or "mill " the food, the com-
parative anatomist calls them pre-molar.

Hence there are in each half of each jaw 8 teeth — in all

12 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

32. Time will be saved if the reader masters the very simple
dental formula of man. Then he will be able, on reading
those of other Primates, to compare easily the facts repre-
sented by the formulae. Here is that of adult man :—

2—2 1—1 2—2 3—3

i. c. p.m. m.

2—2 1—1 ' 2—2 3—3

In this the initials indicate the kind of teeth, the numbers
above the horizontal line tell of the teeth in the upper jaw,
the numbers below of the teeth in the under jaw, whilst
the dashes mark as it were the median vertical line of the
face, and guide us to the knowledge of the distribution of the
teeth in the right and left half of the jaw respectively.

In the Lemuridae the dental formula differs, in the two
divisions. In the Oheiromyini, the lower of the two, it runs
thus :—

1—1 0 4—4

I. c —■ p.m. and m.

1—1 0 r 4-4

There is only one incisor on each side of each jaw ; there are
no canines at all ; and there are four grinding teeth on each
side above and below. Now this arrangement of the teeth is
unlike that in all other members of the order Primates, and
is very much like that seen in the Eodentia or gnawing
mammals. Moreover, the incisors continue to grow after they
are once formed, and are only kept at a normal length by the
wearing of the upper ones against the lower. And this is
•exactly what occurs in the Eodentia.

In the higher division Lemurini of the sub-order Lemuridae,
the normal formula

2—2 1—1 3—3 2—2 3—3

t. c. p.m. m.

2—2 1—1 3—3 2—2 3—3

But the evolutionist will not be surprised to hear that in two

# 2 2

genera of this group the incisors are j— r, and in one of these

the outer incisors, right and left, in the upper jaw very soon

fall out, leaving the formula ^^. Here is a beautiful

example of gradation : Cheiromys has r—r, Tarsius (of the

MONKEYS, APES, BfEN. 13

Lemurini), later on ^— -=» ; at first r-—=- ; Lichanotus (of the

o 9 2—2

Lemuridae) always — — ^ ; the rest of the division ^~ .

Turning to the Simiadae, the marmoset has —

2—2 1—1 3—3 2—2

C. ' JD.TO. m.

2—2 1—1 3-3 2—2

Here, whilst the number of teeth is the same as in man, a_
slight difference of arrangement obtains. The Arctopitheeini
hare a pre-molar more and a molar less than the Anthropidae.
The New World platyrrhine members of the order have 36
teeth in all, or 4 more than we have. The difference is in
the pre-molars, always the most variable teeth. The formula
shows this.

2—2 1—1 3—3 3—3

2—2 ' 1—1 3—3 3—3

But the Oatarrhini, dog-like and man-like, have a teeth-
arrangement identical, as far as numbers go, with ours.
Their formula runs : —

2—2 1—1 2—2 3—3

t. c. p.m. m.

2—2 1—1 2—2 3-3

This is but one of the very many reasons that compelled
Darwin to write the passage quoted on page 7.

Two other points have to be considered in respect to the
teeth. One is the presence or absence of diastemata ; StacrTrj/ma
(diastema) = an interval. In the Lemurini a diastema occurs
between the two incisors on the right and the two on the left
in the upper jaw, i.e., occurs in the middle line. The Cyno-
morpha present a diastema in each jaw ; in the upper jaw
between the outer molar and the canine, in the lower between
the canine and the first pre-molar. Such a gap also occurs in
the Anthropomorpha, but in the female Chimpanzee it is
nearly closed up— quite as nearly as in many human beings,
although it is usual to say that in man there is no diastema.

The last note under this head is as to the relative sizes of
the incisor teeth. In us the two incisors of the upper jaw
that are nearer the median line are larger than the two outer
ones that lie to their right and left. In the lower jaw the

14 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

converse obtains, and the inner incisors are smaller than the
outer. Exactly the same peculiarity of arrangement is to be
seen in the incisor teeth of the upper and lower jaws of the
anthropoid apes.

5. Blood-vessels. — A whole history might be written upon
the distribution of the chief vessels of the blood-system in
Man and his allies, and its details would exhibit innumerable
interesting gradations from the lowest of the Primates to the
highest. Only one point, more as an example than as a type,
will be given.

The great blood-vessel that carries the good blood from the
left side of the heart for distribution to the body generally is
known as the aorta. It makes in all mammals normally a
ourve to the left hand before reaching the middle line
and posterior part of the body cavity. From this curved por-
tion, the aortic arch, the arteries arise that convey the blood
to the upper limbs and to the head and neck. In all, these
arteries are four in number. (1 ) Two sub-clavians carrying
the, blood to the right and left limbs. (2) Two carotids
going to the neck and head. In man these four vessels take
origin from the arch of the aorta as three, one of which
almost at once divides into two. As the aorta curves towards
the left it gives off first, that is, most to the right of the man
to whom it belongs, the right sub-clavian (sub = under,
clavicle = the collar-bone), second, the right carotid, third,
the innominate (nameless) artery, ?vhich almost at once divides
into the left carotid and the left sub-clavian.

In the Oynomorpha and in Hylobates or Gibbon, the lowest
anthrapomorph, a different arrangement is seen. In these
SimiaJae the aortic arch only gives rise to two vessels, one of
which almost directly divides into three. The single vessel is
most to the left and is the left sub-clavian artery. The innomi-
nate divides in these animals into (from left to right) the left
carotid, the right carotid, the right sub-clavian.

Ascending through the anthropoid apes we find that whilst,
as already mentioned, the Gibbon has the arrangement of one
sub-clavian and one innominate, the genus Pithecus (Orang^
has in some species the same grouping, but in others an aortic
arch with its vessels placed as in man, i.e., with three arising
from the arch. The Chimpanzee and Gorilla groups have
\roughout all their members the human arrangement. Once

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 15

tnore the difference is between ape and ape and >iot between
ape and man.

6. Muscles. — Some genera? facts under this head were
given under anatomical facts (" Origin of Man," pp. 12-14). As
the present work is altogether more special, one or two more
•details may be added.

First, as to the tail muscles. All the Primates up to the
Oynomorpha have tails and are well-provided with tail-muscles.
In the Oynomorpha there is one genus, Inuus, which is without
a tail. But the muscles are present. In the man-like apes
not only is the tail wanting. In many cases the tail-muscles
are as absent as they are in man. But, as jf no chance of
«rror should be allowed, in some of the tailless apes the tail-
muscles are present in a very rudimentary condition.

Next, a word or two upon the half-dozen doubtful or
variable muscles. I said that three or four muscles are met
with in Hylobates, Pithecus, Troglodytes and Gorilla that
are not usually seen in man. These are (1) the levator
■clavicular (raiser of the little clavicle), a muscle belonging to
the shoulder region ; (2) dorso-epi-trochlearis, or accessorius
tricipitis, a narrow muscle running down from the latissimus
dorsi. (broadest of the back) to the triceps (three-headed)
muscle at the back of the upper arm ; (8) the scansorius
{climbing muscle) ; (4) the abductor ossis metacarpi quinti
digiti (drawer outwards of the metacarpal or palm-bone of the
little finger). Of these the third has not been described in
the Gorilla and is also absent in some Chimpanzees, whilst all
four of the muscles are occasionally found in human subjects.

Further, man has two muscles not as yet seen in the
Anthropomorpha : (1) Extensor primi internodii pollicis
{straightener of the first division of the thumb) ; (2) peronams
tertius (third muscle of the fibula or outer bone of the leg).
But (1) is by many anatomists said to exist in the Chimpan-
zee, and is sometimes wanting in man, whilst (2) is frequently
absent in Homo.

As throwing some light upon the variable character of the
muscular arrangements, even in very closely allied animals, I
may mention that Hylobates has a muscle all to itself. The
abductor tertii internodii secundi digiti (drawer outwards of
the third division of the second digit or forefinger) has been
encountered as yet in no other mammal. The Orang alsr. if

16 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

the sole possessor of an opponens hallucis or muscle for
opposing the big toe to the other toes, as the thumb iv
opposed to the finger-tips.

As a last contribution to this brief study of Primate
muscles, it may be noted that in the spider-monkey, whose
thumb is rudimentary and does not perform any movements,
four are present out of the five muscles that in other mem
bers of the order serve to move the thumb.

7. Reproductive Organs. — It will be readily understood that
in a short popular work no complete details are likely to be
given under this head. If the work is popular the anato-
mical details necessary to the understanding of the facts-
would have to be given. For myself I think they ought
to be given, and I should not hesitate to give them
any more than I hesitate to describe the skeleton or the
bones. But the details necessary would take up far more
space than can be afforded, and the comparative results
obtained would hardly repay us. For it may at once be
stated that in all anatomical points the structure of the re-
productive organs of man and that of his allies are practi-
cally identical.

Two notes only, therefore, to end this chapter. The
position of the milk-yieMms" glands. In man, ana in almost
all the rest of the Primates, the mammary glands are two in
number, and are situated on the breast. They are pectoral
in position, as comparative anatomists say. But in the
lowest members of the order, i.e., in the Lemuridse, there are
in some cases, in addition to the two pectoral, two or morr
pairs of mammary glands on the abdomen, as they are in the
dog.

Lastly, from the Oynomorpha upwards, the female Primates
experience at regular intervals that in the anthroprrv««s
certainly approximate very closely to, if they are not identical
with, the lunar periods, a condition of the sexual organs in no
essential removed from the periodical visitations of the
auman female adult when unimpregnated.

MONKEYS, APES. MEN. J 7

0 H A P T E E III.

0. — The Skeleton.

By the skeleton, comparative anatomists mean the hard pro-
tective or supporting part of the animal organism. Thus,
the hard, outer part of the body of a lobster, or the two
parts of the shell of an oyster, or the single shell of a snail,
are all, strictly speaking, skeletons. All the ordinary Verte-
brate classes have hard parts without and within. Thus,
in the Mammalia there is an outer or exoskeleton [e£o> (exo) =
on the outside] of fur or hair, and an endoskeleton [tvSov
(endon) = within] of bones. Upon the former of these I
dwelt in the preceding chapter. In the present chapter facts
will be given as to the bony skeletons of the various mem-
bers of the order Primates that will serve once again to show
interesting transitions in anatomical structure from monkey
to ape and from ape to man. All that is to be said will
necessarily be more easily intelligible to one who knowf
something of human anatomy. But I proceed on the assump
tion that the reader is wholly unacquainted with that brand
of knowledge. A picture of the human skeleton or, stili
better, an actual skeleton for reference, will make the text
more comprehendable.

Following the plan of my Physiological Tables, pp. 4 and 5<
we shall study the skeleton under the three divisions of th*
trunk, the extremities, the skull. Considering the trunk,
we shall deal first with the vertebral column or backbone,
second with the ribs. The extremities, upper and lower;
will present us with the arch that supports and the lint**
that is supported. The skull consists of head and face.

1. The Trunk.— {a) Vertebral column. The backbone,
characteristic of all Vertebrata, consists of a number of
separate bones called vertebrae. In Mammalia, and therefore
in the Primates, these vertebrae are divided by anatomists
into groups. From above downwards the groups are : (1)
Cervical vertebrae {cervix = the neck) ; (2) Dorsal (dorsum
= back), carrying the ribs ; (3) Lumbar {lumbi = loins) ;
(4) Sacral ; (5) Caudal, or coccygeal. In this preliminary
explanation only the last two sete call for comment. The
sacral vertebrae are thus named because the bone they form
was offered as a specially sacred part of the body to the gods.

B

18 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

This bona, the sacrum, made up of consolidated vertebrae, is
wedged in between the two hip-bones, and makes with them
the strong basin or pelvis that rests upon the legs. Cauda
=~ a tail, and the caudal vertebrae are those of the tail.
In human anatomy these 1 educed rudimentary tail- verte-
bra* make a little bone at the lower end of the vertebral
column. This bone is the os coccygis, so-named from a
fancied resemblance to a cuckoo's bill (u Origin of Man,"
page 6).

Let us look first at the backbone as a whole, and then at
the individual groups of vertebrae. Our backbone shows
three very remarkable curves, upon which depends, in a
measure, the power of resistance to shock. One is in the
dorsal region, and the convex side of the curve is backwards ;
another in the lumbar, and tho convex side forwards ; the
third in the sacral and coccygeal, with convex side backwards.
Not any of the Primates exhibit these curves except the anthro-
poid apes and man. Up to the Oynomorpha, they are want-
ing. Even in the Anthropomorpha their appearance is
graduated in an interesting way. The vertebral column of
the Gibbon is nearly straight ; only the sacral curve, the
lowest of the three, appearing. In the Orang, the curves of
the adult anthropoid are like those present in the human
being at birth. In the Chimpanzee, the curves as they are in
the backbone of the adult man begin to appear, and in the
Gorilla they are much better marked.

1. Cervical vertebrae. In all the Primates, and indeed in
til Mammalia, the number of these is seven. This is the
more remarkable when we reflect that the fact is true equally
Df the neck of the giraffe, and of the elephant. In our present
atudy only one point is of moment. Every budding anatomist,
and therefore every first-year " medical,' ' knows that in man
the cervical vertebrae are distinguished from the other kinds
by certain marks, of which one is the bifurcation of the
spinous process, i.e., of the process, which running backwards
from the body of the vertebra, forms, with its thirty odd
fellows, the ridge on the middle line of the back. None of
the lower Primates exhibits this bifurcation, and only one of
the anthropoids, the Chimpanzee. Even in the Chimpanzee,
inly one of the cervical vertebrae, the second of the seven,
has this characteristic. It is significant that the bifurcation

MONKEYS, APES. MEN. 10

does appear, even in this not very noticeable form, below
man.

2 and 3. The dorsal and lumbar vertebrae may be taken
together. Their interest lies in their number. Eepetition
of similar forms always implies comparative lowness of
organisation. A comparison of the many similar segments of
•an earthworm with the fewer, more differentiated segments
of a lobster, will furnish an illustration of this truth. Hen*o
we should expect to find, as we ascend in our investigation of
the Primates, a decrease in the number of dorso-lumbai
vertebrae. In some of the Lemuridae the number is over
20, the 12 or 13 dorsal being followed by as many as U
lumbar. In the marmoset the dorso-lumbar are 19. In the
Platyrrhini the number varies from as many as 22 (15 or 14
dorsal, 7 or 8 lumbar), to as few as 17 (12 dorsal, 5 lumbar,
as in man). In the Cynomorpha the number is 19 (12 or
13, and 7 or 6). In the Gibbon of the Anthropomorpha the
number is 18 (13 and 5). In the other three forms, the
Orang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla, 17. In Man also there are 17.
"Whilst, however, the actual number of dorso-lumbar verte •
brae is the same in the three highest anthropoids and in man,
the distribution of the 17 between dorsal and lumbar verte«
brae is very instructive. Thus the 17 of the Chimpanzee and
the Gorilla are made up of 13 dorsal and 4 lumbar. The 17
of the Orang, however, are made up of 12 dorsal and 5
lumbar. And this is also the human arrangement. There
are normally in man 12 dorsal and 5 lumbar vertebrae, and
occasionally cases occur of 13 or 14 dorsal (the Gorilla
type).

One or two other facts in relation to the lumbar vertebrae,
or rather to one of them, may be given. The one is the fifth
or last lumbar, as existent in us and in our nearest allies.
Two of the four man-like apes present peculiarities in the
fifth lumbar. Both the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla have
the transverse processes of this bone, that jut out right and
left, joined to the crests of the two hip-bones, right and left.
And further, in the Gorilla the body of the last lumbar
vertebra i% fixed on to that of the first sacral, just as that ia
to the second and the second to the third. In fact the fifth
lumbar becomes, so to say, a part of the sacrum. Now, both
these peculiarities are occasionally seen in Man.

20 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

4. Sacrum. In the Cynomorpha there are only three;
sacral vertebrae. But in the Anthropoids, the number is the-
same as in us, five. This increase in number at first sight
appears in contradiction to the principle given on p. 19. But
it is related, in the highest Primates, to the erect posture,,
the greater strain on the legs, and the heavier work to be,
done by the sacrum.

5. Caudal vertebrae. From the Lemuridae up to the
Cynomorpha the caudal vertebrae are many in number, as the-
animals in these groups are "tailed." Thus, even in the
highest group, the Cynomorpha, there are genera whose
individuals have as many as 31 vertebrae. Yet even within-
the limits of this sub-division of the Catarrhini occurs the-
genus Inuus, already mentioned as a tailless dog-ape. Inuus-
has only 3 caudal vertebrae. None of the Anthropomorpha
has more than 5, and often as few as 4 or 3, the human-
numbers, occur. Nor is it only numerically that the tail-region of
the vertebral column is identical in Anthropomorpha and
Anthropidae. In the exceedingly reduced condition of the
vertebrae the lower end of the column is identical in us and;
in the man-like apes.

(b) Ribs. — As the pairs of ribs correspond in number with
the dorsal vertebrae, there is little to say in this connection,
and what is said is rather supplementary than actually new*.
Of course, here again the principle thav repetition of similar
parts means comparative lowness of organisation, comes into
notice. In the snake, e.g., of the class Eeptilia, we have an
immense number of almost precisely similar pairs of ribs*
Turning to our Primates, the Lemuridae and Arctopithecini.
(Aye-aye, Maki, marmoset) have always more than 14 pairs,
and in some cases very many more. The Cynomorpha have
13 or 12, as a reference to p. 19, where the number of
dorsal vertebrae (always the same as that of the pairs of ribs)-
is given, shows. The Gibbon has rarely 14, generally 13. The
Chimpamzee and Gorilla have 18 pairs. The Orang 12. Man
has 12 pairs. As usual, the break is betaken ape and ape,
not between ape and man.

II. The Extremities. — We shall take the upper limb first,
and then the lower.

1. The arch of the upper limb. In man, and indeed, in,
#11 the Primates, this arch consists of the scapula, or blade-

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 21

$>one, and the clavicle, or collar-bone. Of these two the
scapula alone need detain us. This is an oddly-shaped bone,
whose main part is large and flat, overlying several of the
ribs. At the upper outer corner is the glenoid cavity, into
-which fits the head of the arm-bone, or humerus. A strong
^process (the spine) rises from the back of the scapula much
nearer the top than the bottom of the bone, and joins at its
free end with the clavicle. This last therefore runs from the
top of the breast-bone to the end of the spine of the scapula.
The scapula has three edges ; an outer, running from the
■glenoid cavity down to the lower point of the bone, and
called the glenoid border; an upper, running in Man nearly
horizontally, and a long curved inner edge or border. In the
lower Primates right up to the Cynomorpha, the shape of
this complex bone is very different from that seen in man.
The glenoid and upper borders are nearly of the same length,
and the inner border is short and straight. Even in the
•Chimpanzee the shape is not yet human. The bone in this
anthropoid is very long, owing to the elongation of the inner
and reduction of the upper border. In the Orang and the
•Oorilla, however, the bone has acquired all the human
-characteristics in the main.

2. The arm. In studying the arm of the Primates a
number of points present themselves. They will be arranged
•under the heads ; length, humerus, the fore-arm, carpus (or
•wrist), manus (or hand).

(a) The length of the arm. Every schoolboy knows the
school way of measuring height. You stand with your back
to a wall, and stretch out your arms to their full length and
horizontally against it. Then some interested companion
marks the place to which the tips of the middle fingers of the
hands reach. The length from the tip of the one middle
finger to that of the other is as nearly as possible equal to
'the height of the body.

Let us see the results of the like measurement made on
members of the highest mammalian order, other than man.
if the experiment is made on any of the Lemuridse, Arctopi-
thecini, Platyrrhini or Cynomorpha, the arm-length, as
defined above, is always more than twice the body height.
This is also true of the lowest anthropoid ape. The Gibbon's
^trm-length is more than twice the body-height. In the

22 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

Orang the arms are shortening, relatively, and the arm-lengfcB
is nearly twice the body-height. The Chimpanzee and Gorilla
have an arm-length one and a half times the height, and in.
man, as we have seen, the two are approximately equal.

Here for the first time we can take a measurement within
the limits of the human race itself. And the measurement
hall be one of precision, the result of a series of careJfcd
observations and recordals made in America. All of us know
generally that certain low types of individuals have greater
length of arm than higher types. But the numbers now to>
be given have to do with classes rather than individuals, and
fire of an especial interest as showing the effect of changed
conditions ("Darwinian Theory," p. 10) in the production of
variation.

If we stand erect and place the arms close against the
Bides, with the palms pressing against the thighs, the tip of
the middle finger of each hand is found to be at some dis-
tance from the upper edge of the knee-cap, or patella,
fllearly, the longer the &,rm of a Primate, the less will be this
distance, and, as% is well known, in all of the order except
Man, the distance is nothing, or less than nothing, i.e., the
fingers reach beyond the upper edge of the knee-cap. That
the arms are shortening relatively as the human race evolves-
eeems to be shown by the numbers now to be given. The
men upon whom the measurement was made were of three
types : Americans ; free negroes, whose parents had been free
for some generations ; pure negroes. The average of a great
many measurements made upon a large number of individuals
of each of these three classes was as follows : —

Distance from middle-linger tip to patella —

Pure Negroes ... ... ... 2*88 inches.

Free Negroes 3-293 „

Americans ... ... ... 5*036 „

The numbers, as the descriptive reporters say, speak for them-
selves.

(/?) The humerus is the long bone that runs from the shouldet
to the elbow. Like all long bones, it presents three regions :
a head above that articulates with the cavity in the scapula,.
a long shaft in the middle, and at the lower end, where the-
humerus is jointed on with one of the arm bones, the condyles/-

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 23

kovSvXos (kondulos) =• a knuckle. The head of the
humerus in man has a direction upwards and inwards, but
does not run backwards at all. On the other haud, the head
of the humerus has a backward direction in the Lemuridae,
Arctopithecini, Platyrrhini and Cynomorpha. But in the
Anthropomorpha the direction of the humerus-head is as it ia
in Man, not as it is in tlio lower Primates.

Again, the longitudinal axis of the humerus is in Man
much twisted upon itself. It does not run straight, as in the
lower Primates. But the three highest apes have the
humerus-axis also twisted, and to an extent closely approxi-
mating to that seen in the human arm.

(y) Two notes may be made on the fore-arm. In this there
are two bones, the ulna on the little finger side, the radius on
the thumb side. Only the former of these enters into the
elhow'jcmt. The upper end of the ulna presents a cavity,
the sigmoid, into which the inner condyle of the humerus
fits ; o-iy/xa (sigma) is the Greek S and aSos (eidos) = like-
ness. Behind, and overhanging this cavity is the olecranon »
oiXrjvrjs-Kpavov (olenes-kranon) = elbow's point.

This process, when the elbow is straightened, fits into t
depression in the back and lower part of the humerus. la
all the lower animals, even up to the Cynomorpha, this
olecranon process extends further up than, and beyond, the
sigmoid cavity. In the Anthropomorpha and in Man th<*
olecranon process is not extended upwards beyond the cavity.

We are able to turn the hand over so that the back lies
upwards. This movement is that of pronation, as the hand
then lies prone. The converse movement is that of supina-
tion, when the hand is made to lie palm upwards — supine.
All the Primates have this power of turning the radius
round the ulna. In the lower members of the order the
power is greatly reduced, whilst in the higher forms it
"almost equals that enjoyed by Man " (Flowers' "Osteology
of the Mammalia," p. 245.)

(8) The carpus, or wrist. This part of the limb in us consists
of eight bones, in two rows of four each. The lower mem-
bers of our order Primates have nine bones in the carpus ; an
additional one, the os centrale (central bone) is present. The
Lemur has nine ; so have the marmoset, the Platyrrhini, the
Cynomorpha, the Gibbon and the Orang. But in the Chim-

Sk MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

pannee and Gorilla the os centrale is wanting, the number of
wrist bones is eight, and the human arrangement obtains.

In the majority of the Primates both the bones of the
fore-arm, the radius and ulna, are in direct articulation with
the wrist-bones. Now, in Man, this is not the case. Our
carpus articulates with the radius only ; the ulna does not
joint on to any of the wrist-bones. This human arrange-
ment is met with in two of the anthropoid apes. The Gorilla
and Orang have their carpus connected directly with the
radius alone.

(c) The last thing to be considered in connection with the
upper extremity is tke hand, or manus. In this the two
main points are the nails, or claws, on the digits and the
nature of the pollex or thumb. In most Mammalia the
digits are provided with claws rather than nails. This is
also the case in the lower Primates. Thus the Cheiromyini
have claws on every digit of the hand, although that on the
pollex is modified in the direction of a nail. The Lemuridae
and the marmoset present the same arrangement. The
pollex-claw becomes in the Cynomorpha yet more flattened
and nail-like, but it is not until the anthropoids are reached
that a clear and distinct nail is encountered. In the Gibbon
this nail is confined to the pollex ; all the other four digits
have claws. But in the three higher Anthropomorpha naila
are seen on each of the hand digits, as in Man.

As to the pollex itself. This digit is not capable of
opposition to the other digits in many of the Lemuridse nor
in the marmoset. In this last also the power of moving the
thumb is not well marked. Nor is the pollex truly opposable
in the Platyrrhini, though its power of movement is very
notable. In this group the thumb is not nearly so dis-
tinctly different from the rest of the digits as it is in the
rest of the Catarrhini. Indeed the pollex of Ateles is quite
rudimentary and functionless, although all the muscles
necessary for its movement are present.

I pass to the consideration of the lower extremity. Here,
as with the upper, the arch and the limb will be studied.

1. The arch. In this case there is only one large and
complex bone on each side, the hip-bone. It is so oddly
shaped that even the ingenuity of anatomists failed to find
a likeness for it. Hence its name os innominatum (nameleai

MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

25

^one). The two ossa innominata make with the sacrum the
pelvis or basin. The length and breadth of the pelvis in
different Primates give some interesting transitions. If we
look at. the skeleton of any quadruped, such as the dog, or
-even at the living animal, we see that the pelvis is long and
narrow. But that of a human being is relatively much
shorter and broader. A convenient phrase is used in the
study of pelves. Pelvic index. Suppose that the length of
the pelvis of any particular animal is multiplied by the
number 100 and divided by the breadth of the same pelvis,
the result will be a number greater than 100, or 100, or a num-
ber less than 100 according as the pelvis is longer than
broad, as long as it is broad or shorter than it is broad. The
inumber resulting from dividing the length X 100 by the
breadth is called the pelvic index for the particular animal.
This number will be less the higher the position of the animal
in the scale of Mammalia.

The following list is that of the pelvic indices of some of
~ihe higher Primates. In every case the female pelvis is
-taken :—

Chimpanzee

» • • • • • •

141

Gorilla ...

• • • • • • .

128

Australian

• • • • • • •

116

Bushwoman

• • . • • • •

103

Eskimo ...

• . ... • •

100

Hindu ...

■ . • • . • • <

93

Peruvian

• ... • • <

91

European

..

78

From this list we see that the pelvis of the Chimpanzee is

3i little less than half as long again as it is broad ; that the

-pelvis of the Gorilla is rather more than one-fourth as long

again as it is broad ; that two of the low human races have

■pelves longer than they are broad ; that the pelvis of the

Eskimo woman is as broad as it is long ; tbat in the higher

-human races the pelvis is broader than long. In our present

-study the most important thing to be noted is that there is

a much greater difference of pelvic index between man and

man than between ape and man. 116 (Australian) — 78

>(European)=38. But 128 (Gorilla)- 116 (Australian) —

•only 12. The difference is even greater between two cul-

26 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

tured human races than between the Gorilla and the Aus-
tralian and than between two anthropoid apes. 93 (Hindu) —
78 (European) = 15. 128-116 = only 12. 141 (Chim-
panzee)—128 (Gorilla) = 13.

2. The hallux, or great toe, is the only other part of the lower
limb we need notice. Its length, in relation to the length of
the foot, shortens as we ascend in the order Primates. The
hallux is more than -£% the length of the foot in Hylobates
and Troglodytes (the Gibbon and the Orang) — is in fact
nearly half as long as the whole foot. In the Gorilla, the
fraction is less than T^- ; in the Orang about -^ or £ ; in Man
it is about £ or ^ (T2^).

The hallux follows much the same line as the pollex as to
its power of movement and the nature of its claw or nail. In
the Oheiromys, e.g., the hallux is» the only one of the foot-digits
that has a nail ; all the rest are furnished with claws. In
this genus, as in the Lemurini, the great toe is large and op-
posable to the others. But in all the Simiadse this part is
smaller than the second digit, though it is capable of con-
siderable movement. In the Gibbon the nail is only to be
seen on the hallux ; all the other four digits have claws. But
in the three higher Anthropomorpha, nails are seen on each,
of the foot-digits, as in Man.

III. The Skull. — I have said that in considering this part
of the skeleton it is customary to take the head and the face
as two regions of the skull (p. 17).

(1) The head. — First let us look at the relative lengths of
the bony base of the cranium, and of the cavity in which the
brain is lodged. If the skull of any Primate is examined from
below, we see that its base presents a large hole, the foramen
magnum, through which the spinal cord runs up into the brain.
In front of this hole lies a bony mass, entering into the floor-
of the brain cavity. This is called the basi-cranial axis. If,
as in man, the foramen magnum is large, and situate in the*
base of the skull, and not quite at the most posterior part of
that, it is evident that the length of the brain cavity will be
more than that of this basi-cranial axis. But if the foramen
is not large, and if it is situated at the very back of the base
of the skull, or even, as in some cases, in the back rather
than the base of that organ, it is evident that the length of
the basi-cranial axis will be more nearly equal or even quite>

MONKEYS, APES, MEK. 27

equal to that of the brain cavity. Boughly speaking, the
relations between these two lengths in different animals give
some indication of the cerebral capacities of the different
animals. I shall represent the length of the bony basi-cranial
axis in each case by 100. In that case we have the following:
table : —

Basi-cranial axis ... ... = 100

Brain cavity in some Lemuridse,

Arctopithecini, Platyrrhini

(Squirrel Monkey) ... = less than 100

Other Platyrrhini ... ... =100

Cynomorpha (howling monkey) = 150 (not more than}
Anthropomorpha ... ... =170

Man ... =230—270

Up to the Platyrrhini, therefore, the basi-cranial axis is longer
than, or as long as, the brain cavity. In all of the Simiadse
it is more than half as long. In Man it is less than half as
long. Here we must bear in mind that these measurements-
have not been made, as far as I am able to ascertain, on any
of the microcephalous skulls. Even without taking these
into account, however, there is more difference between the
100 of the platyrrhine monkeys and the 170 of the anthropoid
apes than between the 170 of the latter and the 230 of the
low human races.

Into the base of the skull, forming part of that bony basi-
cranial axis just considered, enters part of a very complex
bone known as the sphenoid ; <r<f>r]v (sphen) = a wedge. The
sphenoid is wedged in between the frontal in front, the
occipital behind, the parietals and temporals at the sides.
This apparently single bone in the adult human skull is
really made up of several bones conjoined (8 in all). We,
however, are only concerned with so much of the sphenoid as
enters into the floor of the skull. Even this portion consists
of two parts. These, from behind forwards, are the basi-
sphenoid and the pre-sphenoid. In the human skull these
two parts are from a very early age so completely united thai
no trace of the suture or seam or line of jointure is visible.
When we turn to the skulls of the lower Primates we find
that in all of them up to the Cynomorpha this suture between
the basi-sphenoid behind and the pre-sphenoid in front is quite*

28 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

distinct until the animal is nearly full grown. On the other
hand, the skulls of the Anthropomorpha show no trace of the
line of junction, and the basi-sphenoid and pre-sphenoid are in
these animals quite united, *o as io form one bone, ere the
milk-teeth are shed. That is, once again, the characteristic
of the human skull appears in the apes first.

The relation of the frontal bone to the ethmoid may be
taken next. In all the Primates the frontal or forehead bone
is originally two bones, a right and a left. Each of these
bones forms not only one half of that which is generally known
as the forehead but also the roof of the orbit or eye-cavity.
Between the two orbital roofs is a considerable cleft. In this
cleft lies the ethmoid or sieve-bone ; tjOjxos (ethmos) = a
sieve. This bone might be also called the nose-bone. For it
is, as we might gather from its position, in intimate relation
to the nose. The upper part of it on each side forms the
Toof of the nasal cavity, and is pierced with holes, through
which run the branches of the olfactory nerve. Hence its
name of sieve-like^ In us the orbital plates of the right and
left frontal bones join on to the ethmoid that lies between
ihem at the side of the ethmoid. They do not extend at all
behind that bone. But in all the rest of the Primates, save
one, these two roofs of the two orbits not only join the
-ethmoid at its sides ; they extend behind it and join one
anoth er. There is a post-ethmoidal union of the two frontals.
This anatomical distinction holds between the skull of Man
and the majority of the Primates. But even this is not an
absolute distinction. For in one of the anthropoid apes, viz.,
the Orang, the two orbit roofs do not run posteriorly to the
ethmoidal and conjoin. There is in the Orang, as in Man,
oo post-ethmoidal union of the two frontals.

Still dealing with the interior of the skull, we have to do
with an interesting marking on one of the bones of the
Primate skull that corresponds with a certain part of the
brain. That part is the flocculus (a little lock of wool) of the
cerebellum. The cerebellum, or little or hind-brain, has in
the Primates a central lobe, the vermis (or worm) cerebelli,
and two side lobes. From each of these side lobes projects
in some Mammalia and in most of the Primates an irregularly-
shaped extension of brain substance called the flocculus: This
seats on the bone in which the ear is lodged, part of the

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 29*

temporal of human, the periotic of comparative anatomy ;
v€pi (peri) = around ; ovs, oros (ous, otos) = the ear. A a
a consequence, the surface of the periotic that enters into
the internal wall of the skull has a depression or fossa
(a ditch), corresponding with the flocculus. This fossa is-
well marked in the Lemuridse, Arctopithecini and Platyr-
rhini, in all of whom the flocculus is large. The fossa is but
faintly marked in the skull of the Oynomorpha, and in that of
the Anthropomorpha it is nearly obliterated. Certainly in
these the depression on the periotic bone is no more notice-
able than it is in the skull of Man. And this goes hand in
hand with the fact that neither the human nor the higher
Simian brain has any flocculi attached to the cerebellum,
whilst the presence in the human and higher Simian skull
of traces of the depression is evidence that the anthropoids and
Man are alike the offspring through evolution of common
progenitors in whose brain the flocculi were present.

The complex temporal bone of the human skull furnishes
ns with one more instance of transition. This bone, like the
sphenoid, in reality consists of many bones. Of these we need
only discuss one — the tympanic. Tympanum = the drum
(of the ear). The temporal bone has in Man a passage some
1^- inch long, leading in from the external ear and closed at
its inner end by the drum of the ear. This passage, the
external auditory meatus, is formed by the elongation of the
bone known as the tympanic. This is, at first, a simple ring
of osseous matter, that is to be filled up, as it were, by the
membrana tympani, or drum. In this primal arrangement
there is no meatus, and the drum of the ear is, as in the Frog,
practically flush with the surface of the skull. Now, this
primal arrangement in the human being remains permanent
in all the Primates up to the Platyrrhini. In these the tym-
panic bone is ring-like, and the meatus is very short or non-
existent. But in all the Oatarrhini, the change to the human
condition has occurred. The ring-like tympanic bone elongates
outwards, and becomes a lengthy, bony tube, whose canal is
the external auditory meatus. And this is what takes place
in Man.

(2) The Face. — The chief interest in connexion with the
bones of the face and their relative arrangement centres in
the facial angle. This is a measurement that we owe to tbt*

MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

Dutch ethnologist, Peter Camper (born at Ley den, 1722, died
at the Hague, 1799). His idea was, by means of this angle,
to indicate the degree of projection of the face in different
races of men, and the relative development of tAe face as
compared with that of the head. In the lower Mammalia,
as the Dog, e.g., the face projects greatly from the head-
there is, in short, a muzzle. In the lower Primates also the
face is developed in relation to the head to a greater extent
than in the higher.

For the purpose of comparison, Camper suggested the
drawing of two lines on the skull. One was to descend from
the most prominent part of the frontal or forehead bone until
it reached the margin of the upper jaw, where the incisors
are inserted. The other was to run approximately in a hori-
zontal direction through the middle of the opening of the
external auditory canal to the point of junction of the nasal
bone of the side observed with the frontal. These two lines
will include an angle, and the angle will evidently be the
greater, the smaller the face is relatively to the head and the
higher the type of Primate intellectually. The following is
a table of certain facial angles as measured on the skulls of
•certain Primates : —

Facial Angles.

Gibbon ...

...

a a

• • ••

20°

Chimpanzee

•• •

• •

i • • .

30°

Orang
Gorilla ...

...

. ...
» • • .

30° - 35°
35° -47°

Young Anthropomorpha
Namakas ...'

» • • •

56° -60°
64°

Callithrix sciurea

• • .

. .

» (M

65°

Negroes ...
Low Europeans )
" Australians j

•••
*••

• •

• • 1

• • ••
» •••

67°
70°

Kalmuks

•••

• •«

• •••

75°

European (average)
Antique statues

• • •
•••

• •«

• ••

• ••

80*
90°

This list is worth studying. Notice first that the young
Anthropomorpha have a facial angle larger than that
possessed by the adult apes. The moral of this is obvious.
The old law of phylogeny and ontogeny comes in again. Tht

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 31

life-history of the individual is an epitome of ti. >t of the race.
The ontogeny is a brief phylogeny. The anthropoids in their
development reach a certain phase of evolution. The
same phase is reached by the developing man. But having
reached this phase, represented, as far as concerns the facia1
angle, by 56° — 60° in the above table, the anthropoids recede.
Man, having reached the same phase, advances. These are
two ontogenetical facts. Their phylogenetic equivalent is,
probably, that the Simian ancestor of the Anthropomorpha
and of the Anthropidae varied in two directions. Having
xeached the phase represented, as far as concerns the facial
angle, by 56° — 60° the ancestor varied in two directions, that
of the anthropoids with their adult facial angle from 20° to
47°, and that of Man with the adult facial angle from 70° to
90°.

Another point. Take the difference - numbers. 47°
(Gorilla) - 20° (Gibbon) = 27°. 64° (Namakas) - 47° (Go-
rilla) = 17°. A greater difference between ape and ape than
between ape and man. This result we obtain without taking
into consideration the young Anthropomorpha, and without
taking into consideration the curious case of Callithrix sciurea.
This last is one of the squirrel-monkey species of Brazil. Its
facial angle is actually at least as great as that of the Nama-
kas or Hottentot inhabitants of Great Namakaland in South
Africa. The country of the Namakas as the Europeans call
these people, is limited by the Walvisch Bay northwards
(23° S. lat.), the mouth of the Orange Eiver southwards
(28° 30' S. lat.), the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Kalahari
desert to the east. In view of the similarity of facial angle
in the platyrrhine Oallithrix and this Homo hottentotus, it is
interesting to note that the former is inoffensive, intelligent
and easily and thoroughly tamed, whilst the latter " possess
every vice of savages and none of their nobler qualities "
.(Anderson). The Kalmuks are a Mongol race {Homo mon-
golus), partly Chinese, partly Eussian subjects, ranging from
the steppes of the Don and Volga to the deserts and mountain
ranges of Upper Asia. They are a nomadic, warlike, Buddhist
race.

Observe also, in the table, the steady gradation from 64° in
the low men up to 90° in the statues. These last are of
moment. They— representations of the gods or of demi-

32 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

gods, or, at lowest, of very lofty men and women — have •&>
facial angle 10° greater than that of the European of to-day..
And this is at least in part due to the fact that the ideal is*
always higher than the real.

This part of our subject will be concluded by a study of
two tables in which are incorporated the results of certain
measurements on the skulls of certain microcephali or ape-
men. As this chapter closes, and the next will be in part
occupied, with notes on these, let us begin by understanding
what the microcephali are. In different countries, probably
in different centuries, human parents, in many cases quite
normal, have produced as offspring beings of an abnormal
type. Often covered as to a large part of their bodies with
hair ; unable to walk erect until long after the usual time
when the human child has ceased to crawl on all-fours ; in-
capable of speech ; unteachable ; with receding foreheads
that cover brains whose capacity and weight are inferior to
the capacity and weight of the brains of the anthropoid apes-
— these animals, born of human parents, are of the ape
structure. Their technical name is microcephali : /u/cpor
(mikros) = small, KeOaXrj (kephale) = head. I shall follow
Carl Vogt, and call them ape-men.

Of the many cases on record, and even of the smaller
number of these that have received careful scientific investi-
gation, I shall only deal with ten observed and described in.
Germany. Here is a list of them :

Country.

Name.

Age.

1.

Germany

... Gottfried Moehre •••

•••

44

2.

99

... Michel Sohn... ...

•••

20

3.

99

••. Frederic Sohn

•••

18

4.

99

••• Conrad Schuttelndreyer

•••

31

5.

H

••• \Jl «j ena ... •••

•••

26

6.

W

... Ludwig Eacke ...

•••

20

7.

99

•.. Margaret Msehler

•••

33

8.

99

... Jean Moegle ... •••

•••

15

9.

M

••• Jacques Moegle •••

•••

10

10.

n

••• Jean Georges Moegle

•••

5

The results of Wo sets of measurements made upon the
kulls of the ape-man and a comparison with the results of

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 33

similar measurements made on the Chimpanzee and the Negro
and the average European skull follow :

Skull Measurements.

Schuttelndreyer
Maehler ...
Of Jena ...
Moehre

Frederic Sohn
Eacke

Michel Sohn
Chimpanzee
Negro

?ront of mouth to

Base of

foramen magnum.

skull.

18-5

20

20

21.4

21-5

23

25-2

29

25-8

.27-7

29-5

30-1

30-9

32-6

32-5

371

45-4

49

The foramen magnum is the large hole in the base of the
skuII through which the spinal cord passes to enter the brain
that lies within the cranium. This foramen lies far back in
the skull. The first series of numbers gives the proportional
distances in the various skulls from the very front of the
mouth, -from the most prominent part of the upper jaw, to the
front edge of the foramen magnum. The second series gives
the proportional numbers that represent the whole length, of
the base of the skull from the most prominent part of the
upper jaw to the hinder border of the foramen. The difference
between each pair of numbers on the same line will give the
proportional length of the foramen in the skull considered.
As the foramen is generally about the same length in the
different microcephalous skulls, the first seven pairs of
numbers run approximately parallel. But in the chimpanzee
and negro the length of the foramen from front to back is
considerably greater than in the ape-men.

Notice that the length of the skull in the anthropoid ape
is intermediate between its length in the negro and in the
microcephali. Also that in the latter the foramen is placed
farther back in the skull than in the chimpanzee. The ape-
men, in a word, are farther from the human type in this
respect than is the chimpanzee.

O

*K MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

Auditory opening to ?iaso-
suture = 100.

Of Jena

-frontal

...

•••

Occipital Curve
to Auditory Opening,

631

Chimpanzee
Msehler

• • •

• • •

• • •

• • •

•••
• • •

63-3
65-9

Frederic Sohn

. • •

• • •

• • •

72-3

Schuttelndreyer

Pongo

Msehre

• • •

• • •

• • •

• • •

• • •

• • •

•• •
• • •

74-7
80-0
81-4

Eacke

• • •

• • .

. • «

82-6

Case of Sandifort

. • •

• • •

• L 1

85-5

Michel Sohn

• • •

•• •

• • •

88-9

Average Skull

• • •

• • •

• • •

93-103

The auditory opening is the aperture of the ear. The
naso-frontal suture is the line of junction between the nasal
bone of one side and the frontal. This suture, or seam, is
just above the place on which a pince-nez rests, and is
between the upper parts of the two orbits. In the table
just given the length from this suture to the middle of the
auditory opening is taken as 100. The occipital curve is the
strongly-marked ridge on the back part of the posterior bone of
the head, the middle point of which is the prominence at the
back of the head, which, like the darkness in Egypt, may be
felt, if it is not covered by artificial hair or by head-gear. The
numbers given express the relations of the distances from the
middle of the auditory opening to this prominence of the
occipital ridge.

Clearly, the higher the number in this list the greater the
length of the posterior region of the skull. The interesting
point, however, is in the s accession of the skulls. The
micro cephalus of Jena comes lowest in the list. His num-
ber, 63-1, is nearly identical with that of the chimpanzee.
Then follow three more ape-men, and then a pongo or gorilla
from the Berlin museum. Four more ape-men's names inter-
vene between the case of the anthropoid ape and the men of
average brain-power. Thus we have, as far as this measure-
ment is concerned, two anthropoid apes interpolated amongst
the ape-men.

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 85

CHAPTER IV.

D.— The Brain.

This last chapter will be devoted to the consideration of the
organ that presents most difficulty to the anti- evolutionist.
In spite of. the fact that brain-evolution has been the line
along which especially, Man has evolved from the brute-
ancestor common to him and the anthropoids, nevertheless
our general thesis can be maintained in respoct to this organ
as to all others. The evidence now to be given will once
more show that there is more difference betwen ape and ape
and between man and man than between ape and man.

First, certain terms will be explained. Then the brain-
characteristics of the Primates generally will be given, and the
brains of those members of the order lower than the man-like
^pes will be briefly considered. After that the brains of the
Anthropomorpha and Man will be studied.

I. Terms. — With the brain as with the skeleton, he that
has already mastered the requisite anatomical details, or even
he that can follow that which is to come, on the actual brain
or even on a picture, will be better-off than the average reader
of these lines. None the less, I believe a person of ordinary
intelligence will be able to understand all the facts to be pre-
sently given, if he reads carefully the next few paragraphs.

The spinal cord of the Primates, passing through thf
foramen magnum in the base of the skull, expands into the
brain or encephalon. This organ presents three chief regions
with which alone we are concerned. They are the brain proper
or cerebrum, covering over in Man all the rest of the ence*
phalon ; the ganglia or swellings at the base of the cerebrum ;
the cerebellum, little or after-brain, lying under the posterior
part of the cerebrum.

(a) Cerebrum. — This, by far the largest part of the ence-
phalon, has two hemispheres, lying right and left. Each of
these presents fissures, lobes, convolutions, all on the exterior,
and within cavities.

1. TheFissures. — In addition to the one longitudinal, median,
•deep fissure separating the right half of the brain from the
left, the following fissures are to be seen in each hemisphere.
{a) The fissure of Sylvius. — This runs from a point in the
base of the brain about £ of the length from the anterior end-

56 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

upwards and backwards. Thus it marks off a part of the
brain that lies behind and below it (the temporal lobe)^
from a larger part lying in front of and above it. (/?) The
fissure of Rolando. This divides the larger part lying in front
of and above the fissure of Sylvius into two parts. Running
nearly vertically from above downwards, this fissure marks off
the frontal lobe before the fissure from the parietal lobe
behind it. (y) Internal perpendicular fissure.— -This can
only be seen on the inner face of each hemisphere. If the
hemispheres are forcibly separated, and the inner face of one
of them is observed, a fissure is seen towards the posterior
part of that face that runs vertically and marks off a small
posterior lobe, the occipital, from the parietal in front. There
is another fissure, but the three just described are all that
enter into our present calculations. .

2. Lobes. — These have just been described in the main.
Named after the bones of the head for the most part, they
are on each side : a. the frontal, bounded posteriorly by the
fissure of Rolando ; /3. the parietal, bounded anteriorly by
the fissure of Rolando, inferiorly and posteriorly to some
extent by that of Sylvius, whilst at its upper posterior portion
it glides on the outer aspect of the brain into the occipital
lobe, without any very clear line of demarcation ; y. the tem-
poral, bounded in front and above by the fissure of Sylvius,
find also gliding posteriorly into the occipital as far as the
outer aspect of the brain is concerned ; 8. the occipital, at
the back of the cerebral hemisphere, marked off on the
internal face from the parietal by the internal perpendicular
fissure ; c. the central lobe or island of Reil, which lies deeply
placed at the bottom of the fissure of Sylvius.

3. Convolutions. — The external surface of each cerebral
hemisphere exhibits certain convolutions or folds, separated
by sulci or furrows. Most of the convolutions V7.;th which we
shall have to do need only be designated by the name' of the
particular lobe to which they belong. But one or two that
are of importance in evolution must be mentioned. The two
convolutions that bound the fissure of Rolando are called the
ascending frontal (in front of the fissure) and the ascending-
parietal (behind the fissure). The supra-marginal convolu-
tion is also of much moment. It is the convolution whose
presence so eminent a man as Gratiolet held as peculiar to

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 37

rtne human brain. This convolution or lobule lies above the
upper and posterior end of the Sylvian fissure, and belongs
therefore to the parietal lobe. In man and in some of his
allies the main convolutions are connected by small pieces of
nervous tissue at certain parts of the brain. These connecting
pieces are called the bridging-over or annectent convolutions :
■annecto = I tie on.

4. Cavities. — Within the cerebri hemispheres are two
•cavities, one on each side, called the lateral ventricles. Latus,
later is = side. Ventricle is a name used in anatomy for a
cavity. These two ventricles, with other cavities within the
Drain, are the remains of the primitive groove that first
appears in the embryo mammal at what will be the dorsal
region. Each lateral ventricle extends forwards, downwards
and backwards. The forward extension (anterior cornu or
horn) runs into the frontal lobe. The downward extension
(middle cornu) runs into the temporal lobe. The backward
extension (posterior cornu) runs into the occipital. The
central part or " body " of the cavity corresponds with the
parietal lobe.

(b) Brain-ganglia. — These are certain masses of nerve
tissue distinct from, and covered over by, the cerebral hemi-
spheres. The only ones with which the reader need b<»
troubled are the hippocampi, the corpora striata., optie thalamx,
corpora albican tia, olfactory lobes.

In the middle or descending cornu is a swelling of the
-nerve tissue, known, from its peculiar shape, as the hippo-
campus major ; in the posterior cornu is a similar swelling,
the hippocampus minor. Finally, within the " body " of the
ventricle are two swellings of nerve-matter known as the
corpus striatum (striped body), the anterior, and the optic
thalamus (bed), the posterior.

The corpora albican tia (whitish bodies) are two round,
white nervous masses, visible, without any dissection, about
the middle of the base of the brain ; whilst the olfactory
lobes are two ganglia connected with the sense of smell,
lying below the frontal lobes and above the nose -cavities.

(c) The cerebellum is the little hind brain already men-
tioned (p. 35).

II. The brain of Primates generally. — The distinctive cha*
sracters of the Primate brain by which it is marked off

88 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

anatomically from that of other mammalian orders are as*
follows : — a. Transverse pattern of convolutions. The arrange-
ment of the convolutions of the cerebrum is not of the-
oblique, slanting order, as in the horse. Nor are they arranged
lengthwise, as in the dog. Their main direction is transverse
to the longitudinal axis of the brain, b. No corpora tra-
pezoidea, or trapezium-shaped nerve-masses, in connection
with the medulla oblongata or swollen top of the spinal cord
as that part joins the encephalon. c. Two corpora albicantia
(p. 37) in place of the single central body that represents-
these in the lower mammals, d. An occipital lobe (p. 36).
<. Without additional external nervous-tissue growths from.
the under surface of the temporal lobe. f. Olfactory lobes-
never reaching sufficiently far back to run across the fissure-
of Sylvius, g. A central lobe or island of Eeil. h. The
lateral ventricle not extending into the olfactory lobe, but
extending into the occipital and presenting in the posterior -
cornu that passes into the occipital lobe a swelling, the hippo-
campus minor.

in. Lemuridae to Cynomorpha. — The eight characters just-
given are those that serve to distinguish the Primate brain
from that of other Mammalia. A note or two on the brains.
of the members of the order below the Gibbon follow.

Lemuridae. — Whilst these lowest Primates exhibit all the-
marks just given, the low nature of their brain is shown by
(a) the projection of the olfactory lobes in front of, and the-
cerebellum behind, the cerebral hemispheres ; these last are-
not sufficiently developed to cover completely, as they do in.
man, the olfactory lobes and the cerebellum ; (b) the occipital
lobe with its contained posterior cornu and hippocampus-
minor is rudimentary ; (c) the cerebral hemispheres are quite
smooth, or with the merest trace of incipient convolutions ;.
(d) the fissure of Sylvius, between the parietal and temporaL
lobes, is the only one ever present, and if this appears, it*
is only a mere trace.

Marmoset. — Here the cerebellum is covered by the cerebral
hemispheres, although the olfactory lobes are still exposed ;.
the occipital lobe has, in fact grown larger ; the cerebellum is-
nearly smooth, but not quite without convolutions ; the-
Sylvian fissure is larger than in the Lemuridae, and a trace of
the fissure of Eolando, between the frontal and parietal lobes,*

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 39

is now visible. The central lobe, or island of Eeil, is
wanting.

In the Platyrrhini there is a further advance. The cere-
bellum and olfactory lobes are generally both covered, and
although in the Howler monkey the cerebral hemispheres are
nearly smooth and the occipital lobe is small, yet many of
the convolutions that are seen in the human cerebrum are
now present as well as the third of the chief fissures, the
perpendicular, marking off the occipital lobe. The Cyno-
morpha have all the chief sulci and folds of the frontal and
parietal lobes and the commencement of the occipital con-
volutions. The frontal lobes are also rounder and less pointed
than in the Platyrrhini.

IV. We pass to the last and the most important part
of this discussion. That is the comparison of the brains of
the anthropoid apes and Man. This subject will be dealt
with under the following heads : the size and weight of the
brain, its shape, the number and arrangement of its fissures
and the nature of the convolutions.

(a) Size and weight. — These have been already discussed
at some length in "The Origin of Man," pp. 10, 11. But a
few more facts supplementary to those given there may be
noted. Upon the weight question little need be added to
that which has already been said. But as to volume much
must be said. And fir&t, concerning the weight of the brain.
Its ratio to the weight of the body should be mentioned.
Amongst the anthropoid apes this ratio is least in the lowest
of them, the Gibbon. But I cannot find any numbers
expressing that ratio exactly in either the Gibbon or the
Gorilla. We have, however, the numbers for the Orang, the
Chimpanzee and Man. In the Orang examined by the late
Professor Rolleston the body was about 22*3 times as heavy as
the brain. In the Chimpanzee examined by Professor
Marshall the body was about 19 times as heavy as the brain.
In Man the average ratio of body weight to brain weight is
36 to 1. All the three numbers are more favorable to the
Primates as regards brain development than those of most other
animals. Thus the average ratios of body to brain weight
are in the class Mammalia 186 to 1, in birds 212 to 1, in
reptiles 1321 to 1, in fishes 5,628 to 1. We must not,
however, lay undue stress upon these numbers, as in some

40 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

rfmall Vertebrata the kindred ratios are higher than even In
the rrimates. Thus in the field-mouse 31 to 1 is the pro- v
portion; in the goldfinch 24 to 1 ; in the blue-headed tit 12
to 1. Nevertheless the fact is interesting that in at least
two of the Anthropomorpha the brain is relatively to the
body of a greater weight than it is in Man.

In the measurements that are now to be given, I again
follow the plan adopted once or twice before, and compare
■ome of the lowest forms of men with the man-like apes. The
two comparisons that are now to be instituted are in respect
to brain-surface and to brain-volume.

Total Brain-surface.

Jacques Moegle ...

...

7,813 sq. m. m.

Msehler ...

• • .

8,014

»>

Child

• • •

9,040

9

Chimpanzee

. ..

9,300

>»

Schuttel ndrey er ...

...

9,399

>

Eacke

14,482

• ♦

Negro

. . .

24,705

»»

White

...

25,155

»t

Chimpanzee

33

Microcephali (average)

44-6

White '

100

This table shows the actual extent of surface of the cerebral
hemispheres. It will be observed that the normal European
brain has a surface of about 25,000 square millimetres
(1 sq. m. m. = about 15-i-5- of a square inch). The surface
of the negro brain is not very much less in extent. There ia
a difference of more than 10,000 sq. m. m. between the negro
and Ludwig Eacek, the ape-man, in this particular measure-
ment, and Eacke is 5,000 sq. m. m. in advance of any other
observed ape-man. This may be partly accounted for by the
fact that Eacke was an epileptic, and in cases of epilepsy, the
brain is often of unusually large size, though its greater
mass is probably due, not to increase in the quantity of true
brain tissue, but to growth of an inferior kind of material.
Another noticeable thing is that the surface of the child's
brain is very much less in extent than that of the adult,
-although, as we know, the volume and mass of the two brains

MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

41

do not greatly differ. The advance is in complexity rather
than in size.

From our present point of view, however, the most inter-
esting number is the 9,300 sq. m. m. of the Chimpanzee. This
number is intercalated amongst those that refer to the brains
of the ape-men. The relative positions of the adult human
being, the anthropoid ape, and the abnormal man, are well
shown by the three numbers given at the end of this table.
Taking 100 as representing the total brain-surface of the white
race, 44-6 represents the average of the total brain-surface in
such microcephali as have been examined, and 33 the brain-
surface of an average anthropoid ape. The difference number
(100 — 44*6 = 55*4) between the two kinds of men is nearly
five times as great as the difference number (44*6 — 33= 11*6)
between the lower man and the ape.

Brain Capacity.

h

P%

a

*

5 rt

*3 »

Brain Capacity.

u

bo

.22 u

CO

0

< be

C3 J

^5

<

n

M CM

rH

1,200 to 1,300 cubic centim.

45-0

7-4

0-0

0-0

0-0

1,300 to 1,500 „

45-0

68-6

54-G

44-8

24-7

1,500 to 1.700 „

10-0

24-0

45-4

50-7

63-6

1,700 to 1,900

0-0

0-0

0-0

4-5

11*7

100 100 100 100 100

Microcephali.

Country.

Name.

1 Germany ...Gottfried Maehre ...

2 „ ...Michel Sohn

3 „ ...Frederic Sohn ...

4 „ ...Conrad Shuttelndreyer

5 „ ...Of Jena ...

6 „ ...Ludwig Racke

7 „ ...Marguerite Maehler

8 „ . . .Jean Moegle

9 „ ...Jacques Moegle ...
10 „ ...Jean Georges Moegle

Age. Brain Capacity.

44 .

.. 555

20 .,

. 370

18 .

... 460

31 .

. 370

26 .,

. 350

20 .

,. 622

33 .

,. 296

15 .

.. 395

10 .

.. 272

5 .,

, 480

42 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

Of all measurements, those given in the last table are of the*
most importance. But I have in this table placed before the
numbers that represent the brain capacity of ten of the micro-
cephali the results of the observations of Paul Broca upon a.
number of skulls of different races. This is for the purpose-
of comparison.

Broca's numbers call for comment in some little detail..
The great French anthropologist had the opportunity of"
examining a large number of skulls that were unearthed from,
cemeteries in Paris, and from beneath a house whose building
certainly dated back to the time of Philip Augustus. These-
are classed in the above table as Parisians of the twelfth cen-
tury. As the type of race advances the cranial capacity
advances. Between 1,200 and 1,300 c. c. are only found skulls*
of the two lowest races — the Australians and Negroes. Between.
1,300 and 1,500 c. c. are nearly one half the Australians and
twelfth-century Parisians, more than one half the Negroes>
and Egyptians, and less than one-fourth of the most recent
type. Between 1,500 and 1,700 c. c. come one-tenth of the-
Australians (and all of these really are below 1,600 c. c.),.
about one-fourth of the Negroes, nearly one half of the Egyp-
tians, about one half of the earlier Parisians, and considerably
more than one half of the Parisians of to-day, Only the-
Parisian skulls exceed in capacity 1,700 c. c, and more than
twice as many per cent, of the modern men pass this limit a&
compared with their ancestors of six centuries ago.

Even in these cases of normal human beings our former
generalisation holds. The Gorilla's cranial capacity is often
as much as 600 c. c. The difference between this number
and 1,200 c. c. = 600 c. c. But the difference between
i,200. c. c. (Australian) and 1,900 c. c. (European) s»
700 c. c.

That the gap is between the different members of the human*
Tace rather than between these and the anthropoid apes, is-
shown yet more clearly in the second part of the table, where-
the cranial capacities of some of the microcephali are recorded.
With the exception of Lud wig Eacke, everyone of these beings,
born of human parents, had a capacity, less than that of the-
ape. age Gorilla ; and in one case, that of the adult woman,.
Marguerite Msehler, less than one half that of the anthropoid
or a.

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 43

The case of Eacke has already been noted as exceptional.
Bat placing him on one side, we have the startling fact that
normal human parents have given birth to offspring whose*
brain capacities are far below those of man's nearest allies.
The difference between the 296 of Marguerite Maehler and
the 1,900 of some modern Parisians is over 1,600 c. c. And
yet both these are members of the human race.

(b) Shape. — The human brain is, to use a common-place
phrase, almost as broad as it is long, becoming in some
cases nearly of a circular outline. On the other hand, the
brains of the ]ower Primates are relatively longer than broad.
Those of the Anthropomorpha, as usual, present characters-
more nearly allied to the human than to those of the
catarrhine brain, for example, and, indeed, in some cases-
actually overlap, as it were, the human brain. The Chim-
panzee has a brain ovoid (or egg-like) in shape but rather
short and broad. The Gorilla's brain is less ovoid than that
of the Chimpanzee, and is relatively broader than that of any
other anthropoid. The Orang, whilst differing in certain
particulars from Man more than its and his allies, approaches
him in others. The beak-like frontal lobes make the outline
of the Orang brain much less human in aspect than are the
outlines of those of the other two apes. The overlapping
mentioned .above is illustrated by the account given by
Marshall [" Philosophical Transactions," 1884] of the brain
of a Bushwoman dissected by him. Its shape was " long,,
narrow, ovoid."

But in one very important point the Orang ranks highest
That is in the want of symmetry of the two halves of its
biain. The convolutions of the right and left hemispheres
respectively do not correspond exactly. This is also the case-
in a yet more marked degree in the brain of Man. Here the
symmetry is more noticeable than in any of the Anthropo-
m>orpha, in all of whom it is to be seen ; even more noticeable
than in the Orang, whose brain exhibits this characteristic
most clearly as far as the anthropoids are concerned.

Is there any reason for this want of correspondence in the
arrangement of the brain-folds in the higher Primates ? The
suggestion of Bastian [" Brain as an Organ of Mind," p. 410j
is that it is connected with a functional inequality between*
the two hemispheres. The suggestion is a luminous one

44 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

Perhaps it may be supplemented- by another, upon 'which a
passnge from Haeckel may throw light. "That the human
pinna (external ear) is a rudimentary organ is demonstrated
1)y the extraordinary variations in its size and shape.1" The
better way, possibly, to put it is that the sense of hearing
is at the present time undergoing much modification.
Variations in its functional activity are very frequent
and diverse. There are contending schoqls of music,
and the general ear is slowly being educated to the
appreciation of finer tones, more complex successions, and
more subtle harmonies. As the function of hearing is under-
going variation and evolution, the organ of hearing (not
alone on the exterior, but internally) is varying, and diversities
of form appear in individuals, and even on the opposite sideg
of the same head.

The application of this to the asymmetry of the brains of
the highest Primates is obvious.. As was said a little further
back, these have evolved along the line of brain development,
and one at least of them, Man, is yet marching on. As the
function is varying the organ ought to be found to be variable.
And this is the case not only on opposite sides of the same
brain, but in different individuals, just as it was with the ear.
I quote Rolles ton's words as to a particular part of the brain
in support of this proposition. The words are true generally.
" In the higher species of the . . . Apes, as in the higher
varities of the species Man, we find variability the rule,
uniformity- the exception; in the lower species, as in the
lower varieties of Man, the reverse conditions obtain.,, Nor
can I. leave this interesting subject without reminding the
reader that not only is there in all the anthropoids this
i symmetry, but that in the lower human races it is little, if
i.t all, better marked than in the Anthropomorpha, and that
it is most marked in the most civilised races and in the most
•cultured individuals.

(c) Fissures. — Let me again remind the reader of the namet
and positions of these. Neglecting the longitudinal that
p >parates the two hemispheres, the brain of all the highest
Primates presents on each side, the fissure of Sylvius running
backwards and upwards between the parietal and temporal
lobes, that of Rolando running nearly vertically between the
frontal and parietal lobe ; that known as the internal per-

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 45-

pendicular, running vertically on the inner aspect of each,
hemisphere, where the hemisphere is in contact with its fellow,
and separating the parietal and occipital lobes. It may be
stated here that, corresponding with this last, an external
fissure is in some cases seen, but its presence would appear to
be indicative of comparative lowness of cerebral organisation.
Thus the Mangabey, one of the Oatarrhini, has an external
perpendicular fissure. It is well marked again in the Gibbon,
in the Chimpanzee and in the Gorilla. In the Orang, how-
ever, it is shorter and less obvious, and in Man it is but very
poorly represented. Even on a single and not very impor-
tant point like this, the reader will notice how the grada-
tions go.

But besides these fissures that we have seen to be present
in Primates lower than the man-like apes, two new fissures
appear. These are the calloso-marginal and the hippocampal.
Both of them are only to be seen on the inner face of the hemi-
sphere. The calloso-marginal is a fissure or furrow that lies
just above the thick transverse band of nerve-tissue that joins
the two hemispheres near their bases, and is known as the
corpus callosum (hard body). Its position^ just above this
body, and just on the margin of the hemisphere, accounts for
its name. The fissure of the hippocampus is hard by that
nervous mass, the hippocampus minor, that lies in the pos-
terior extension of the brain ventricle into the occipital lobe.
It lies behind the middle of the inner face of the hemisphere,
and is just by the junction of that inner face with the under
surface. Both of these new fissures, then, are present in Man.
But both of them appear first in his allies. The Orang,
Chimpanzee and Gorilla have all of them a calloso-marginal
and a hippocampal fissure on each side.

The fissure of Sylvius and that of Rolando remain for con-
sideration. As to the former, the most noticeable thing in
the ascending series is the gradual movement of it towards
the horizontal plane. As the Sylvian fissure lies between the
parietal and temporal lobes, it follows that the more vertical
is its direction the smaller relatively is the anterior part of
the brain. But as the line of the fissure passes from the
nearly vertical position, parallel to that of Rolando, that we
see in the lower Primates, towards the almost horizontal posi-
tion it has taken in the human brain, the frontal and parietal

46 MONKEYS, APES, MEN.

lobes, in which, are probably resident the higher mental func-
tions, increase in relative size.

When we examine this fissure in the anthropoid brains, we
find it least horizontal in the Gibbon, then in the Orang, then
In the Chimpanzee and Gorilla. In these last its direction is
but very slightly different from the direction of the fissure
in Man.

As to the fissure of Rolando, the most important point there
is its position rather than its direction. The higher the
.animal the farther back is this brain-cleft ; the larger is the
proportion of brain-substance before it as compared with that
posterior to it ; the larger, in a word, is the frontal lobe as
compared with the rest of the brain. Now, in the Chimpanzee
and in the Gorilla, this fissure lies well in front of the middle
of the brain. Not more than ^ of the brain-substance lies in
front of it. In Man, on the other hand, the fissure of Rolando
lies either at about the middle of the encephalon or behind
the middle. Not less than } of the brain-substance lies in
front of it. But in the brain of the Orang the position of
the fissure of Rolando is, by measurement, almost exactly mid-
way between that held by it in the brain of the Gorilla and
in Man.

(d) Convolutions. — A word or two as to the folds in the
"brain of the Gibbon alone first. In this lowest of the Anthro-
pomorpha the occipital lobe is nearly destitute of convolutions,
and the ascending frontal and parietal folds are quite rudi-
mentary. It will be remembered that these lie respectively
before and behind the fissure of Rolando. And here it should
be stated that these two convolutions are quite well marked
in some monkeys below the Gibbon. Thus the Mangabey,
already mentioned, has them both very distinctly shown. In
the Gibbon appear the first traces of the annectent or bridging-
over convolutions (p. 37).

It is upon these and the supra-marginal lobule that our
last words may be said. And first, as to the annectent. In
Han there are generally two of these on each side. They run
across the perpendicular fissure, and therefore connect the
occipital and parietal lobes of each side. One of them lies
lower in a vertical line than the other.

In the Chimpanzee, the first, or upper of the two annec-
tent convolutions of Man is wanting, and the second, or lower

MONKEYS, APES, MEN. 47

though present, is deeply placed in the fissure, not super-
ficial and visible on the exterior.

In the Gorilla the first or upper is present, but is deeply
placed, not superficial, and apparently the second is absent.

The Orang has the first, and, unlike all the other anthrop-
oid apes, has this upper annectent convolution superficial
.and visible at once to the eye. The second is, however,
.absent.

Man has generally both the upper and the lower on each
side, and both are superficial. But neither is quite a on-
stant in the human brain, and in the Orang the first or
tapper, resembling, as it does that of man in its superficial
position, resembles it also in its variability. Indeed, it is of
these convolutions Eolleston wrote the words quoted on
p. 44.

Now lastly, as to the supra-marginal lobule. This, as I
liave said above (p. 36), was regarded as the crucial anatomi-
cal point of distinction between Man and his fellows. Man
had the supra-marginal lobule and no other Primate had.
Thus Gratiolet. Let us once more recall the exact position
of this cerebral structure. It lies at the top of the Sylvian
Assure folding over this from before backwards. All the
three highest anthropoids have in their brains this convolu-
tion. It does not really appear until the Chimpanzee. In
the brain of this ape the supra-marginal lobule is, at the best,
only rudimentary. In the Orang it is more fully developed,
and in the Gorilla brains that have been thus far examined,
this convolution, supposed by Gratiolet to be the special
prerogative of Man, is found to be existent in a yet more
notable degree. With these discoveries vanishes the last
\rnaginary distinction between the human and Simian brain.
In its train vanishes the whole dream-series of anatomical
prerogatives of Man and the very idea that he is a special
•creation.

Printed and Published by Barcsey and Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street.

THE TRUE SOURCE

OF

CHRISTIANITY,

OR A

VOICE FROM THE GANGES

By an Indian Officer

In Paper Cover - - lj-

In Cloth - 1/6

THE EVOLUTION

OF

CHRISTIANITY

By Ciias. Gill.
400 Pages. Published at 12/6. Reduced to 3j-

THOS. SCOTT'S

ENGLISH LIFE OF JESUS-

Reduced to 2]6.
■+

Catalogue of Free thought works sent on receipt of Stamp.
R, FORDER, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.