the whole. The act of will which produced plant, fish, bird, beast, and man, bearing germinal principles in them, needed no germ from which to develope a perfect man, though he was, doubtless, as if developed, because perfect development means only the perfection of each part as if it so grew. And it is this idea of growth with which we associate time, but the act of Divine Will is not dependent on time, though to will existence, and to produce it, is to include time as an element in what is caused to exist, for every body or organisation must have relation and proportion to the movements and forces existing around it. Professor Huxley advances what is certainly indisputable, so far as his anatomy teaches. He argues, first, that man, like other animals, is developed from an ovum or germinal cell; secondly, that there is a considerable resemblance between the anatomy of the ape and that of man. So far we agree; but the next step in Professor's Huxley's argument is an immense leap, in which we cannot follow him, for he says the one immediate conclusion' from these premises is, that there are no grounds for placing man in a distinct order from the apes; in short, we do see rational ground for doubting his conclusion, that man might have originated, in the one case, by the gradual modification of a manlike ape, or, in the other case, as a ramification of the same primitive stock as those apes.'* Mr. Huxley acknowledges that, brought face to face with these 6 * Man's Place in Nature, p. 103. blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful of men is conscious of a certain shock.' So far, it appears, we sympathise with each other; but why should apes be called blurred copies of man, rather than man a blurred copy of an ape? We should like to know. If either be the copy of the other, man, who came in last, is entitled to the distinction. But this idea of blurs in nature's work is not very suggestive of the wisdom of the mind that believes in it, though very consistent indeed with the theory that confounds man with monkeys as derived from the same stock. There is nothing new in Professor Huxley's Natural History of the Man-like Apes,* so far as the manlikeness is concerned; for since apes were first seen, their rough outline of resemblance to man was always recognised; and of their general anatomical likeness there has been no question since Galen dissected them. But the actual blood-relationship of man to the ape is a modern discovery, which was needed on the Darwinian or revived Monboddo hypothesis, but which is really of little value for want of the missing link' in the genealogy. There are no intermediate species, no connecting links.'† As reason demands, so it is. There is a continuity in each family; new types do not displace old types; no complete chain can be traced. As Professor Phillips observes, No possible art or arrangement can present plants and animals in one continuous 6 6 * Man's Place in Nature, Essay i. series from a lower to a higher type." * After all, then, the family connection cannot be traced, and no one has a right to look into a man's face and say he sees the relationship in the likeness and expression. The man should smile if he did so, and ask him if he ever saw an ape smile? In fact, if an ape may be said to have a face, it is of too serious a turn to be capable of expressing a thought, and a simial smile is an impossible accomplishment, because it implies a sense either of human folly or of human sentiment, of which apenature betrays no sign. If it plays it never laughs; though it might well grin if it could fancy itself compared to such a poor prying creature as a man claiming to be descended from the apes. The desires of a creature are, as a rule, coincident with its power of gratifying them; and whatever mode of life a creature is adapted to enjoy is naturally that in which it is placed at its birth. The whole world is planned as if to accommodate the greatest possible variety of animal life, and enjoyment is the normal state of every sentient being. Now, if there are forests hard fruit fit for food to of trees in the world bearing such creatures as may be gifted with rude hands and hand-like feet to climb the trees, and with strong teeth and jaws to crush that hard, nutty fruit, then we should expect to find such creatures in such forests to enjoy them. Gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangs are precisely formed for their habitat and habits. But we see not * Address as President of the Geological Society, Feb. 17, 1860. how they could be so without, as vertebrate animals, bearing a rather close anatomical resemblance to man, who also has the power of climbing and clutching, though with difficulty. The apes enjoy their life in their place, and death is a nonentity to them, as to every living creature but man, the dignity of whose nature is evinced by the power of fearing death as an idea, and yet of viewing it as but a step to a higher status. Our dignity is not diminished, nor our logic dimmed, by acknowledging our physical adaptation to a physical world, though indeed, by so doing, we claim for our bodies an outside likeness to certain other vertebrates. We, however, claim all this world and a world beyond as our habitat, and with hands that answer to our reason, and holding all geometry in their grasp, we fashion instruments with which to rule the elements, and penetrate with reasonable insight into the far heavens. Bones and muscles are not man. We are souls deriving ideas from sympathy with sages that lived before us thousands of years gone by rather than from our mere senses. We are persons, and neither things nor mere animals. And when we ask why our bodily limbs are somewhat like an ape's, we safely say because we want them for purposes proper to limbs; but the skeleton does not include our character, for we feel ourselves in some degree aspiring to know more of the Person who made us persons. And how can Huxley or Darwin assert that man might be a ramification of the same primitive stock as apes, if these can never be taught to think and act as personal beings? And how can we suppose that the first man, while worshipping his Creator, accounted for his own existence and his position on either the hypothesis of Oken or of Darwin? 'Man,' says Oken, is a child of the warm and shallow parts of the sea.' This is dogma No. 1. He then adds in the next sentence a qualifying doubt, Possibly on one spot, and that the highest mountain of India.' Was the warm and shallow part of the sea there? Possibly,' he continues, only one favourable moment was granted in which men could arise.'-—'They were littoral inhabitants, and without doubt [dogma No. 2] carniverous, as savages still are.' Whence could they have obtained fruits, cabbage, and turnips? The first men, then, were savages, according to dogma No. 2. But amidst the possibilities, possibly the Creator of man did not need the help of warm water to make a man; and possibly he could provide for him without making him a carniverous savage. Oken wanted the warm shallow sea, because he wanted some unknown sea-mucus as the human germ. He proceeds with his dogmata thus: 'As the human body has been formed by the extreme separation of the mucous mass, so must the human mind be a separation, a memberment of infusorial sensation.'* These words are intended to convey their own meaning, but what that meaning is the reader must discover for himself. But their meaning in relation to man is as plain as that of the words * Oken's Physio-Philosophy, Ray Soc. Trans. |